BWW Cooks: Cooking Authentic Asian Flavors at Home

It's no secret that every foodie publicly or secretly wants their own cooking at home to be restaurant-like, even though chefs and restaurateurs will tell you that home cooking is actually superior. But sometimes it's not a matter of plating and other visuals, or of displays of Olympian culinary technique - sometimes it's just a matter of getting a dish to taste "right". One of the worst areas of that is Asian food. Home cooks by the score flock to the internet to discuss the issue; they just can't get what seems to them to be authentic flavor. Is it the wrong ingredients? The wrong spicing? Do they need to find a Chinese or pan-Asian grocery to get better or different culinary items? Do they have the wrong tools? What can they do to get the "right" flavor in their food?

One of my closest friends is a Japanese immigrant. She frequently makes Japanese dishes, including sushi. She runs to a large Asian market an hour or more away every six to eight weeks to buy certain items, including fish and exotic produce. But most of her food purchases come from a local large supermarket. According to her, most of her basic cooking is based on her local purchases. She uses standard American cookware, mostly enameled, and not the most expensive; she uses mostly standard American cooking tools, though she also uses long chopsticks occasionally. People flock to her table, and are happy that she likes to cook for crowds. One of her specialties is a Japanese curry, of which she makes beef, chicken, and vegetarian versions. Her secret? There's a Japanese curry base (an authentic Japanese one) sold at her regular supermarket. She adds fresh produce, not frozen or canned, and adds cooked meat or chicken if it's not vegetarian. More and more authentic Asian products are available in larger supermarkets; don't be afraid to investigate them. Check your produce section, where you'll even find fresh lemongrass and Thai peppers for your Thai recipes in larger supermarkets.

Asian cuisines are based on rice as the main starch. Your best bet is to invest in a rice cooker. You will not get the same results with a pot unless you've worked at it for some time; a rice cooker will produce perfect rice every time. Rice cookers, once the province of Asian grocery stores and high-end specialty cookware stores, are now available at most major chain retailers, and are not particularly expensive. They're also easy to use. Remember that while Western "perfect" rice is grainy and distinct when cooked by itself, Japanese and Chinese rice is stickier. The techniques you've learned for other rice are wrong, as is adding oil or butter while cooking. You can make fried rice from pre-cooked Western rice, but your results will be better if you've used rice made in a rice cooker. Another tip: make sure your rice is cold when you start your fried rice; fresh, hot rice will not work properly. Also make sure all of your vegetables, meat if any, and egg if you're adding it, are prepared in advance. A big secret from my friend, and from a number of other sources: frozen mixed vegetables, or pea-and-carrot mix. That's what your favorite Chinese takeout is using. They're also using salt as well as adding soy sauce.

Another key cooking ingredient is oil. Stir-frying uses less than some cooking, but your oil must have two qualities: neutral taste, and high smoke-point. Soybean oil and peanut oil are the most recommended; my own preference is peanut oil, though any oil with high smoking point will do, as with grapeseed oil. Although you're conditioned to grab the olive oil, don't. The delicious flavor of olive oil is not an Asian flavor, so unless you're making fusion cuisine, leave it on the counter. A recent healthy-cooking recipe for fried rice supposedly tasting "better than restaurant" called for olive oil, as well as omitting any seasoning besides low-sodium soy sauce. While fried rice shouldn't normally be heavily spiced, a dash of sesame oil for flavor at the end (don't be too generous with it unless sesame is your favorite flavor), a little garlic, or a hint of ginger can make all the difference in the world to it.

Your Chinese takeout is using huge woks. You can see them when you look back behind the takeout counter. A wok is a nice thing to have, though a sturdy flat-bottomed skillet will work as well for frying and stir-ftying. What's more important is that you have extremely high heat available. A gas cooktop will do better, in most cases, than an electric one. You can, however, get the heat you need from an electric skillet or an electric wok. Stir-fried dishes require blazing heat to cook with the required speed, which is a primary reason for the failure of many home stir-fries; the high heat on the stove simply isn't high enough, or the pan hasn't been heated long enough prior to cooking. If you have an electric stove, use a skillet rather than a wok to insure sufficient heat. A restaurant wok station is essentially a blast furnace. Do your best to get the most heat you can in contact with your cooking pan, but you don't have to have a restaurant wok station - remember that Asian home cooks are achieving the same flavor on their own stoves, and not always with woks.

If you're trying to get authentic flavor out of a dish, ask yourself if you're looking for authenticity or simply restaurant flavor; a number of popular dishes in restaurants aren't authentic Asian dishes. Trader Vic's originated "Polynesian" food, which is a non-existent cuisine outside of Polynesian-themed restaurants (are there still any around?) and backyard luaus; many popular Chinese restaurant dishes have never been imagined in Asia. You may know that chop suey is an American invention, but so is beef (or chicken) and broccoli - Western broccoli isn't native to China. Sweet and sour dishes? Also not traditional Chinese food. And - gasp - neither is General Tso's chicken. Aim for restaurant flavor when making these at home, sure, but don't worry that you're getting real Chinese flavor. If you've got it down, you've gotten your real American flavor there.

However - surprise, as you won't find them in American Chinese restaurants - potatoes are grown in northern China, and there are some delicious Chinese potato dishes from the northern regions. Street vendors in China sell roasted sweet potatoes. My Japanese friend regularly adds potatoes to her Japanese curry. Potatoes weren't introduced to Japan until the 17th century, nor were they cultivated there until the 19th century, but they are indeed eaten there.

Oh, don't worry about crab-and-cheese wonton success. The Chinese don't eat them; most Asian cuisine isn't dairy-based or even dairy-involved. But if you're interested in Japanese cooking, it isn't just college students and Momofoku who serve ramen - the flavors here may not be the same as in Japan, but ramen is true Japanese food.

Don't be afraid that you need complicated cookware to cook Asian cuisines; you just need heat. Asian home cooks here are using the same cookware you are, with the exception of having rice cookers in their arsenals. The right ingredients can be found in a supermarket. Right heat, right oil, using salt as well as (and occasionally instead of) soy sauce; all of these will help make your food taste more like the food at your favorite Asian restaurant. And remember that traditional Asian foods aren't always served at restaurants, as with potatoes; while you may not want to eat some of the foods for which Asian countries are famous (congealed duck blood cubes in your soup aren't always popular over here), many authentic Asian dishes are made with some ingredients also found here, and suited to even very American palates, so don't be afraid to look for them.

Asian flavors are fun, and are easy to replicate once you have the fundamentals down. And after you've used it a few times, you'll wonder why you never owned a rice cooker before.

Photo credit: Freeimages.com

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