The year 4631, which begins Monday, promises to be a very good one for Chinese cuisine. The world’s oldest recorded culinary catechism is being rediscovered and reinterpreted by health-, cost- and convenience-oriented Americans and the restaurateurs and grocers who feed them.
Elegant Hong Kong-style restaurants featuring light cooking have arrived on both coasts and in Chicago: Ben Pao has opened at 52 W. Illinois St. At the same time, the foods of other Asian cultures are mingling with those of China in bargain-priced noodle shops and stir-fry bars in several U.S. cities, including Chicago.
Traditional Chinese and Asian markets are expanding their offerings of fresh products and condiments, and Frieda’s, a Los Angeles specialty foods company, has begun an ambitious program to supply Asian foods to health-food stores and mainstream supermarkets.
“When we started to promote Hispanic ingredients several years ago, people laughed at us,” says Karen Caplan, president of Frieda’s. “It’s now the second-fastest growing ethnic category (after Italian). The Asian program is being accepted much more quickly.”
The reasons?
Curiosity and the desire for variety, the relative ease in preparing many of these ingredients and the presumption that Asian foods are healthful, Caplan says.
The last factor may be the most important.
The connection between health and diet has become a virtual mania in this country. Lacking the patience for moderation or the gradual, long-term benefits promised by the so-called prudent diet, we seek extremes and quick fixes. One result has been a tidal wave of demand for low-fat and even no-fat foods.
For the past several years, the diet-modification focus has been on the Mediterranean diet: lots of grains, legumes, vegetables and olive oil; little meat or animal fat.
This movement hasn’t faded, but there are signs the natives are restless, or at least chefs are, and many of them are becoming intrigued with Asian ingredients and techniques as they search for new food combinations that are low in fat and high in flavor.
Also evident is an emphasis on vegetarian dishes, a subject of genuine interest to young, health-conscious adults seeking to adjust but probably not radically alter their diets. Chefs are trying to brighten the image of the all-vegetable diet as brown-on-brown, bean-and-starch fare.
The impetus to prepare lighter fare is coming from Western chefs and consultants. (Many traditional Chinese-American restaurateurs see no reason to change menus that have proven to be a successful formula.)
So what’s new? At The Big Bowl Cafe, 159 1/2 W. Erie St., Asian food expert Bruce Cost, recently brought from San Francisco as a partner, is intensifying vegetable stocks, improving the quality of oils and the variety of noodles and emphasizing the “healthful, fresh aspect” of “a value-oriented, mostly noodle kind of place.”
The Big Bowl offers nine all-vegetable items, salads with organic greens, a pizza with Asian pesto and various noodle dishes.
In New York City, consultant Colette Rossant has scored a great success with Buddha Green, a beautiful and pricey all-vegetable restaurant with a menu of notably light and original fare. Rossant has been teaching her young Chinese chef to use Swiss chard, fennel, woodland mushrooms and other ingredients unfamiliar to him.
“He’s young and in love with food,” she says. “He’s eager to understand and use our ingredients. This is the future.”
Cost says such enthusiasm leads to great possibilities for reinterpreting Asian cooking. “I’ve been passionate about Chinese cooking for three decades,” he says. “I have this arcane knowledge and it’s easy to get cooks to work with me. Matt McMillian, the chef at The Big Bowl, is a young Midwesterner who really wants to learn all he can.”
Culinary distinctions blur in the stir-fry restaurants, where ingredients (some Asian, some not) selected by the customer are cooked on a flat grill. Each dish is cooked to the customer’s specifications: No meat products need accidentally end up in a vegetarian’s order.
Richard Melman, chief executive officer of Lettuce Entertain You, which owns Ben Pao and The Big Bowl, says his company’s interest in Chinese and Asian food was sparked by a sense that young people were responding to it.
“It’s flavorful, pretty filling, not too expensive and offers nice, healthful choices,” Melman says. Even so, “as long as we are serving duck (and other fatty meats), I won’t wrap Ben Pao in a blanket of healthy eating.”
The Ben Pao chicken dish reproduced on this page, with 12 ingredients and only 2 teaspoons of oil, represents, in chef Tony Cheung’s words, a dish that is “light with many different textures, flavors and bold ingredients.”
“Ben Pao seems like a traditional, fancy Chinese-American restaurant,” Cost says. “The aim is to use the freshest and best ingredients, to make everything possible from scratch and gradually encourage the customers to eat food that comes with bones and shells, as the Chinese do.”
“In Asia, enlightened health sensitivity depends on who you speak to,” says Nina Simonds, author of “Classic Chinese Cuisine” and other Chinese cookbooks.
Growing prosperity in China has brought more meat into the diet, she says. In Hong Kong, though, a growing concern for diet is evident. There is an accent on ingredient quality, simplicity and lightness, and some innovative chefs are reviving ancient Chinese herbal cooking.
“In this country, a large proportion of Chinese restaurant food is not very good,” Simonds says. “In everyday life (in China), rice or wheat noodles and breads are staples. Meat is a garnish. Vegetables are eaten in profusion.”
“We’ve been eating Chinese fast food in this country,” Rossant says, “most of it stir-fried or deep-fried. Now the American public will begin to discover that Chinese, especially the Cantonese, bake and roast and steam a lot of food.”
Cost, who says diplomatically only that “food tastes very different in Asia,” believes bad frying and the breakdown of cheap cooking oil create the perception of greasiness at some Chinese restaurants in the U.S.
As for cooking Chinese fare at home, the experts think you should.
“All you need is soy sauce and a wok,” Cost says, “and you really don’t even need the wok.”
“You don’t have to cook Chinese in the traditional sense,” Rossant says. “It’s enough to just use the products. Chinese eggplant absorbs far less oil than Italian eggplant. You can toss baby bok choy in a quarter teaspoon oil, then cover and steam it in two or three minutes.
“But you can’t use lemon grass or cilantro or sesame oil in everything. You need to develop a sense of balance, taste, restraint.”
“First, Chinese products have to be convenient and easy to obtain if they are going to be cooked regularly,” Simonds says. “It’s very satisfying to me to see how supermarkets reflect the demands of consumers.
“After that, you have to be convinced the food is somehow worth trying and will be easy and convenient to make. That means information and recipes have to be easy to access.
“In return,” she says, “I ask Americans to not come at this from just a Western point of view.”
PEPPER BEEF
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Yield: 4 servings
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Adapted from “The 15 Minute Chinese Gourmet,” by Elizabeth Chiu King.
3/4 cup chicken broth
2 tablespoons oyster sauce or Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon dry sherry, ginor vodka, optional
1 teaspoon each: Oriental sesame oil, sugar
1/4 teaspoon each: ground blackpepper, baking soda
2 boneless strip steaks (8 ounces each), well-trimmed
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large onion, peeled, quartered
1 large green pepper, seeded, cut into 1-inch-square pieces
1/4 teaspoon salt
1. Mix chicken broth, oyster sauce and cornstarch together in a cup or small bowl. Set aside.
2. Mix soy sauce, sherry, sesame oil, sugar, black pepper and baking soda in a large bowl. Cut steaks into 1-inch-wide strips, then into 1-inch cubes. Add to soy mixture and set aside.
3. Heat a skillet or wok over high heat 30 seconds. Add 1 tablespoon of the oil and swirl to coat the skillet; let heat 30 seconds. Add onion and pepper pieces. Stir-fry 1 minute. Add salt and blend well. Remove to a bowl or platter.
4. Heat and swirl remaining tablespoon of oil in the hot skillet 30 seconds. Add beef cubes and marinade. Stir-fry until meat loses its pink color, 3 to 4 minutes. Add onion and pepper pieces and mix well.
5. Stir chicken broth-cornstarch mixture, then stir it into beef. Stir-fry until liquid thickens, about 1 minute longer. Transfer to a serving platter.
Nutrition information per serving (based on 2):
Calories…………235 Fat…………..10 g Cholesterol…….65 mg
Sodium………1,265 mg Carbohydrates…..9 g Protein…………27 g
TONY’S AMAZING CHICKEN
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Yield: 2 servings
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Adapted from a recipe by chef Tony Cheung of Ben Pao restaurant.
4 teaspoons minced green onion
2 teaspoons each: minced fresh ginger, soy sauce, Oriental sesame oil
1 1/2 teaspoons rice vinegar
1 teaspoon bottled Chinese chili sauce
1/2 teaspoon crushed Szechwan peppercorns, see note
Pinch each: salt, white pepper
2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
5 ounces ( 1/2 package) fresh spinach, trimmed, washed, drained
8 ounces boneless chicken breast, skinned, cut into 1/2-inch slices
1.Mix green onion, ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil, vinegar, chili sauce, peppercorns, salt and pepper in a food processor or blender. Blend thoroughly, pour into a small bowl and set aside.
2.Heat broth in a medium saucepan to a simmer. Cook spinach briefly in broth until wilted. Remove spinach with a slotted spoon to a colander to drain. (Recipe may be done ahead to this point. Reheat broth and spinach before continuing.)
3.Return broth to a simmer, add chicken and poach until cooked through, about 5 minutes.
4.Make a bed of spinach on each of 2 plates. Arrange drained chicken slices a top the spinach and spoon sauce over the chicken.
Note:These reddish peppercorns are sold in Asian food stores and some gourmet chops and supermarkets.
Nutrition information per serving:
Calories…………240 Fat…………….9 g Cholesterol…….75 mg
Sodium………..625 mg Carbohydrates……6 g Protein…………33 g
STIR-FRIED NOODLES WITH SHRIMP AND GREEN ONIONS
Prepartion time: 25 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Yield: 2 main-course or 6 side dish servings
Adapted from “Susanna Foo Chinese Cuisine.”
1/2 pound thin rice stick noodles (rice vermicelli)
1/2 to 1 pound medium shrimp, peeled, deveined
1 to 2 tablespoons vodka
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 shallots, chopped
1 to 3 teaspoons peeled, finely chopped or grated fresh ginger
8 fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, caps thinly sliced
1/2 pound shredded napa or green cabbage
2 to 4 green onions, finely chopped
1 to 2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 cup chicken broth
1 teaspoon coarse (kosher) salt
Freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil or cilantro leaves or a combination
1. Soak noodles in a large bowl of cold water until softened, 15 to 20 minutes. Drain well. Cut noodles in half; set aside.
2. Dry shrimp with paper towels and cut into small pieces. Marinate shrimp in vodka in a small bowl while preparing remaining ingredients.
3. Heat oil over high heat in a heavy skillet or wok. Add shallots and ginger; cook and stir over high heat, until shallots are lightly browned, about 2 minutes. Add shrimp and mushrooms and cook, stirring, until shrimp turn pink and mushrooms are soft.
4. Add cabbage, green onions, drained noodles, soy sauce, broth and salt. Cook until liquid is completely absorbed, about 5 minutes. Season with pepper to taste. Mix in basil or cilantro and serve.
Nurtrition information per serving (based on 2):
Calories………..505 Fat…………….23 g Cholesterol……160 mg
Sodium……..2,020 mg Carbohydrates……52 g Protein…………26 g
VINEGAR FISH
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Yield: 3 servings
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Adapted from “The People’s Republic of China Cookbook,” by Nobuko Sakamoto.
1 1/4 pound fillet of pike, sea bass or lake trout, skin left on
2 tablespoons rice wine
1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon each: fresh minced ginger, salt
3 tablespoons Chinese black vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed with 2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons minced water chestnuts
1/2 cup chopped trimmed watercress
1. Rinse and dry the fish. Mix rice wine, soy sauce, ginger and teaspoon of the salt. Set aside.
2. Heat about 2 inches of water to a gentle boil in a pan just big enough to hold the fish. Carefully add the fish, skin side up, to the pan. Add or remove water so that fish is barely covered.
3. Cover the pan and return the water to a boil. Uncover and cook gently until fillet is firm, about 5 minutes. Skim off the foam.
4. Carefully remove fish to a platter and season with remaining salt. Transfer 1 1/3 of the cooking liquid to a small saucepan and add the reserved wine mixture. Heat to a boil, add vinegar, sugar and cornstarch mixture. Cook and stir until sauce thickens.
5.Pour mixture over the fish, garnish with water chestnuts and watercress and serve.
Nutrition information per serving:
Calories……….275 Fat……………..3 g Cholesterol……205 mg
Sodium………570 mg Carbohydrates……11 g Protein…………47 g
