The purpose of cooking is to make the diet more nutritious and to make the taste more delicious. In cooking, a variety of spices are an indispensable role. Because a variety of ingredients can make a dish very delicious, how should these ingredients be used? The following is a list of several common ingredients used.
1. Ginger
Ginger is deodorant, deodorant, and enhances the flavor of dishes. Ginger should be heated together with the raw materials to effectively remove the fishy and smelly taste.
Ginger as an ingredient into the dish, generally cut into shreds, such as "ginger shredded meat" is taken from new ginger and green red pepper, shredded and shredded with lean pork shredded together, its taste is spicy and delicious, unique. Ginger is processed into pieces or slices, most of which are used in pyro-cooking dishes, such as stewing, stewing, simmering, burning, boiling, grilling and other cooking methods, which have the effect of removing the fishy smell of aquatic products and livestock.
Ginger in addition to seasoning in cooking heating, but also used in dishes before heating, play the role of impregnation seasoning, such as "oil drizzled chicken", "char siu fish", "pork chops", etc., when cooking ginger and raw materials are inconvenient to heat at the same time, but these raw materials are difficult to smell, you must use ginger slices to impregnate for a considerable amount of time before heating to eliminate its peculiar smell. When macerating, you also need to add an appropriate amount of cooking wine and green onions, the effect will be better.
It is worth mentioning that although ginger is very useful and exquisite in cooking, it is not necessarily that any dish should be seasoned with ginger, such as a single vegetable itself contains a natural aroma, and then seasoned with ginger rice, it is bound to be "noisy" and affect the original taste. And: "Ginger is old spicy". Cooking ginger should not use new ginger, the taste of old ginger is more intense.
2. Table salt
The original taste of salt is salty, and it is the basis of the taste. Regardless of any taste, adding salt will produce umami, so it is also called salt as the basis of all tastes. The role of salt is mainly: to produce umami, to remove odor, to preserve food. Its penetration is strong and suitable for pickling food, but it is necessary to pay attention to the time and amount of pickling. Although it is the most basic condiment, it also has a secret to use.
Salt is often used with other spices during the cooking process, and several spices will inevitably interact between them during the use process to form a compound taste. Generally speaking, adding a trace amount of vinegar to the salty taste can enhance the salty taste, and when more vinegar is added, the salty taste can be weakened. On the contrary, adding a small amount of table salt to the vinegar will enhance the sour taste, and adding a large amount of salt will weaken the sour taste. Sugar is added to the salty taste to weaken the salty taste. Adding a slight amount of saltiness to the sweetness can increase the sweetness to a certain extent. Adding MSG to the salty taste can ease the salty taste, and adding a small amount of table salt to the MSG can increase the freshness of the MSG.
Mastering the use of salt in cooking has three general situations:
(1) Add salt before cooking, that is, add salt before the raw materials are heated. The aim is to make the raw material have a basic salty taste and have a shrinkage. Table salt also has the function of anti-stick pan, before frying fish, sprinkle salt in the cooking oil in the hot pot, which can effectively prevent the fish skin from sticking to the pan, but pay attention to the saltiness of the dish.
(2) Adding salt to cooking This is the most important method of adding salt, in the use of stir-frying, burning, boiling, simmering, slippery and other techniques of cooking, salt should be added to cooking. Then, when the dish is about to ripen, salt is added to reduce the osmotic pressure of salt on the dish, keep the dish tender and loose, and the nutrients are not lost.
(3) Add salt after cooking, that is, add salt after heating, and the dishes cooked mainly by frying are such. After frying, sprinkle with pepper salt and other spices.
3. Sugar
Sugar is one of the main condiments, the main spice of sweetness, and can be combined with other spices such as salt and vinegar to create a delicious compound taste. The role of sugar is mainly: to increase the taste; to increase color, so that the food color is bright red, bright and not dark; tonic, sugar taste sweet, has the effect of tonifying qi and strengthening the spleen. When cooking, you should first add salt, then add sugar, and finally vinegar. Sugar should not be left early, so as not to scorch the pot.
Adding a little white sugar to the dish can play a role in freshness, because the white sugar will have a "Maillard" reaction with the amino acids and proteins of the ingredients, producing a series of umami substances.
The use of white sugar and rock sugar can color the ingredients, that is, fried sugar color, and the caramelized white sugar colors the ingredients while the sweetness is greatly reduced.
White sugar can properly neutralize the sour taste of vinegar, such as adding sugar when making vinegar slip cabbage can make the sour taste softer, and with a sweet taste, the sweet and sour taste is very attractive, other such as sweet and sour ribs and so on.
White sugar will produce osmotic pressure principle after contact with the ingredients, the use of osmotic pressure when the concentration is very high, can play a role in sterilizing and disinfecting the effect of preserving food for a long time (than if the procrastin), the concentration is also useful when the concentration is low, such as when soaking fungus, add a little less sugar in the water to stir well, osmotic pressure will make the fungus foam within 15 minutes.
4. Wine
Cooking wine is a common de-fishing artifact in the kitchen, its working principle is to use its 10 to 15 degrees of alcohol to dissolve the fishy substance, and then use heating to volatilize it, while the appropriate amount of large ingredients in the cooking wine also has the effect of covering the fishy smell and flavor.
The most reasonable time to use wine in cooking should be when the temperature in the pot is at its highest during the entire cooking process. Most of the stir-fry, pop-up, and roasting, as soon as the wine is sprayed in, it immediately bursts into a loud sound, and then a vapor of water comes out, which is correct in this usage.
Cooking wine is generally only used as meat and animal offal to remove fishiness, vegetarian dishes are not used, and it is not suitable for making dumpling filling, because cooking wine is surrounded in the skin of dumplings and cannot be volatilized, and it is easy to produce odors. When stewing broth, the cooking wine should be boiled in the broth before cooking, so that it can take away the fishy smell scattered in the soup water.
It is worth noting that the use of wine should be avoided and avoided, and some people who have meat ingredients in the dishes must put wine. So dishes such as "squeezed vegetable meat soup" were also put into the wine, and the result was that the light taste was destroyed by the taste of the wine, which was because the wine placed in the soup did not have time to volatilize. Therefore, chefs generally do "one should avoid overflowing, and the other should avoid too much" when using wine. The use of wine to spoil food is often not heated, so that the wine taste is more intense.
brief summary:
The ingredients used in the kitchen are varied and too numerous to list. However, due to local differences and living habits, the use of each ingredient is not the same as not using, using more or using less. Therefore, the use of ingredients is still governed by personal preferences.
But there is one thing I would like to remind you in particular: the ancients emphasized that the road is simple, and this sentence is also applicable in cooking. Don't add too many spices to the original taste, and try to keep the original taste. When cooking, we should try to taste thin, less thick, and often eat thick taste is not good for health. Where you can put the same seasoning, do not put two things, because many spices have small poisons, and a variety of sauces also have additives, it is best to cook your own dishes less.