#ChineseFoodiesofIG: Chinese Cooking Demystified

Chinese Cooking Demystified on YouTube

This is part of an ongoing series of interviews I’m doing with my favourite Chinese foodies that I follow on Instagram. Come and follow the #ChineseFoodiesofIG hashtag on Instagram and leave a comment showing your support for these talented folk!

Where are you from? Where are you really from?

Steph: Zhaoqing, Guangdong.

Chris: Philadelphia, USA.

What does home taste like?

S: I never lived abroad even though I travel around quite a bit. I never had that deep yearning for certain dishes from childhood or hometown that some people would have. I guess for me home probably tastes like a bowl of freshly cooked white rice with that unique sweet fragrance. And it smells like when ginger and garlic are tossed in a hot wok with peanut oil inside, then an even stronger aroma arising after a splash of Cantonese rice wine, with a hint of Chinese celery in the air.

C: A tough one to answer as a long term expat. Some sort of bizarre combination of Kraft Mac N Cheese and Hong Kong style Cha Chaan Teng? 

Rice or noodles?

C: Noodles, all day every day. Nothing against rice — I like rice, but the best rice is plain rice. Noodles come in all kinds of shapes and sizes in so many broths and sauces. The possibilities are endless. 

H: Noodles

Favourite Chinese vegetable:

S: Watercress.

C: Lily bulb.

Share a food memory:

The first time eating Kusa (苦撒) in Yunnan was an experience for the both of us. It's a Dai people's dish that uses the bitter, bile-like liquid from the cow's intestine as a base for a raw beef dip. It's packed with herbs, seasoned well, but... (predictably) incredibly bitter. To this day, it's one of the few dishes that's defeated us - we can tell it's delicious, we're just not there yet. We hope to travel back to south Yunnan soon to eat more :)

What’s in your fridge?

We have two fridges, lol.

Broccoli, lard, Hunan smoked larou pork belly, Jinhua ham, sea cucumber, dried fig, raisins, dried apricot. peanut, slivered almonds, cashew, pumpkin seeds, all sorts of food coloring, agar2, cream cheese, vanilla extract, red velvet, gelatin powder, shredded coconut, dark chocolate, butter, parmesan cheese, tabasco, fancy oyster sauce, fancy maple syrup, UHT cream, Guizhou fermented sour rice liquid, condensed milk, molasses, dried straw mushroom, dried shiitake, lap cheong, dried octopus, red dates, goji berries, salt cod, dried flounder, dried shrimp, dried scallop, Yangjiang instant douchi fermented black bean, gochujang, Shaoxing wine lees, Fujian red rice wine lees, Japanese rice seasoning mixes, northern style tianmianjiang sweet bean paste, Guizhou style tianmianjiang, kinako powder, Dijon mustard, Kewpie mayo, Italian tomato paste, dried shrimp roe, Laoganma spicy vegetable, a bag of erjingtiao chilies seeds (for planting), sesame paste, Guizhou toasted chili flakes, Guizhou pounded ciba chili, Chinese style bread crumb, homemade salted egg yolks, Sumatran gado2 peanut sauce, homemade hongyou chili oil, Sichuan doubanjiang chili broad bean paste, laozao fermented rice wine (both homemade and bottled), opened can of Cantonse fried dace with black bean, Hainan yellow lantern chili sauce, Hunan chopped chili, salted cheddar, Myanmar lahpet, homemade zaolajiao Guizhou fermented sour chili, Yunnan rice noodle chili sauce, Sichuan xianglajiang spiced chili sauce, slap sugar, tamarind, Hani people and Dai people's fermented soy bean cakes, Brazilian guava paste, homemade salted lemon (Middle Eastern style), Teochow shacha peanut sauce, Cantonese nanru red fermented tofu, Cantonese furu fermented tofu, Sichuanese yacai, Hong Kong style curry paste, leftover crispy chicken and wings, leftover rice, leftover dried beef shin, Oaxaca cheese, Little sheep hot pot base, Yunnan suanyancai pickled mustard green, Guizhou pretty pink pickles, Yunnan Shaoxong sauce fermented wheat paste, rice cakes, dried kumquat, rice koji grains, and eggs.

LGM series: tomato sauce, furu fermented tofu, chili crisps, youlajiao chili oil, chili oil with beef and douchi beans, chili oil with black bean…

The most important Chinese ingredient is:

It's gotta be soy sauce, right? Fermented soybean and Chinese cuisines are forever and inescapably linked. 

Who's your Chinese food legend?

I suppose we could point to this chef or that mandarin... but really, what's driven this cuisine has all of those nameless chefs, artisans, cooks, housewives, and street vendors that've dreamed, invented, and toiled through all these years. At the risk of sounding cliche, it's that tradition that drives the legend.

Dream dinner party guests:

Wang Gang and his uncle, the late Anthony Bourdain, Kaiser Kuo, Tyler Cowen, James C Scott, Carma Hinton, A Xing (a Chinese Youtuber that does food vlog), Master Gao (founder of Master Gao Beer in China).

What would you like to tell the world about Chinese food?

Every single city, every single village, has their own dishes and culinary tradition if you look hard enough. It's spectacularly diverse.