Comprehensive Guide to Cooking Seasonings
Soy Sauce: Enhances flavor and enriches the color of dishes. Ideal for braising and making marinated dishes.
Oyster Sauce: Naturally salty; sugar can slightly balance its saltiness.
Salad Oil: A common cooking oil, also suitable for baking pastries.
Sesame Oil: Drizzle over dishes just before serving to enhance aroma. Also adds flavor when marinating foods.
Rice Wine: A small amount added when cooking fish or meat helps eliminate fishy or gamey odors.
Chili Paste: A paste made from ground red chili peppers, appearing as a bright red, viscous substance, also known as spicy sauce.It adds spiciness and enhances the color of dishes.
Sweet bean sauce: Naturally salty. Stir-frying it over low heat with oil removes its sourness. Diluting it with water and adding a little sugar for seasoning improves its flavor.
Spicy bean paste: When using bean paste to season dishes, avoid adding too much soy sauce to prevent the finished dish from being overly salty.Sautéing it in oil improves both color and flavor.
Sesame Paste: Naturally thick. Dilute with cold water or cold broth.
Tomato Sauce: Commonly used in tomato-based dishes and sweet-and-sour dishes, enhancing color.
Vinegar: Dark vinegar should not be boiled for long; add just before serving to preserve its aroma. White vinegar can be lightly boiled to reduce acidity.
Abalone Sauce: Made from concentrated natural abalone essence. Suitable for: pan-frying, stewing, stir-frying, deep-frying, braising, etc.
XO Sauce: Primarily composed of various dried seafood and spices.
Abalone Sauce: Made from concentrated natural abalone essence. Suitable for pan-frying, boiling, stir-frying, deep-frying, braising, etc.
XO Sauce: Primarily composed of concentrated seafood essences. Ideal for various seafood dishes.
Salt (Low-Sodium Salt): The most crucial seasoning in cooking. Its strong penetrating power makes it ideal for marinating foods, but pay attention to marinating time and quantity.
Sugar: Adding a small amount of sugar to braised or marinated dishes enhances flavor and color.
MSG: Enhances the savory taste of food. Especially suitable when added to soups during cooking.
Baking powder: Added to batter to enhance the finished product's fluffiness.
Flour: Categorized into high, medium, and low gluten types. Medium gluten flour is ideal for making batter. When used for coating fried foods, it also contributes to browning.
Sweet potato starch: Primarily used for coating fried items. Can also serve as a thickening agent.
Cornstarch: A type of thickening agent. Dissolve in water before adding to sauces to thicken them. When used as a coating for fried foods, it enhances crispiness. When used for battering, it keeps food tender and smooth.
Fermented black beans: Dry beans should be soaked in water until softened, then chopped before use. Wet beans only need rinsing before use.
Scallions: Often used for sautéing aromatics and removing fishy odors.
Ginger: Removes fishy odors and unpleasant smells while enhancing dish flavor.
Chili peppers: Add spiciness and vibrant color to dishes.
Garlic: A common sautéing ingredient, used sliced or minced depending on the dish.
Sichuan peppercorns: Also known as Sichuan pepper, commonly used in braising and marinating. Ground into powder after roasting, it becomes Sichuan pepper powder. When mixed with roasted salt, it forms Sichuan pepper salt, often used as a dipping seasoning for fried foods.
Star Anise: Also known as Chinese anise, it is commonly used in braising and marinating. Its aroma is extremely potent, so use sparingly when cooking.
Dried Chili Peppers: They help reduce greasiness and eliminate gamey flavors. Remove the seeds before stir-frying in oil. Pay close attention to the heat level to avoid burning them.
Red Onions: They enhance aroma.When mincing and sautéing for aroma, monitor heat carefully; overcooking will produce bitterness. Five-spice powder: Contains cinnamon, star anise, Sichuan pepper, cloves, fennel, and dried tangerine peel. Its potent flavor warrants careful measurement. Types of Seasonings Salty Seasonings: Saltiness has long been counted among the five fundamental flavors.In culinary applications, saltiness serves as the primary flavor and forms the foundation for most complex tastes. Often called the "master of all flavors," saltiness is indispensable not only in basic dishes but also in flavors like sweet-and-sour or sour-and-spicy, where it enhances richness and palatability.The history of human recognition and utilization of saltiness is remarkably long. Historical records indicate China's earliest use of salt dates back approximately 5,000 years to the era of the Yellow Emperor. Salt-based seasonings include: soy sauce, table salt, and sauces.
Sweet Seasonings: Sweetness, anciently termed "gan," is one of the five fundamental tastes. In cooking, sweetness can be used alone to prepare sweet dishes;or combined with other flavors to create complex taste profiles, enhancing palatability. It also serves to correct flavors, eliminate bitterness and fishiness, and reduce greasiness. Southern Chinese cuisine employs sweetness more frequently, with Wuxi cuisine from Jiangsu Province being the most prominent example, famously described as "sweet at the beginning, salty at the end, rich in oil and sauce."Natural sweeteners like honey have long been consumed by humans. The character for "honey" appears in oracle bone inscriptions unearthed at Yinxu. By the Eastern Han Dynasty, sugar made from sugarcane juice was already in use. Sweet seasonings include honey, granulated sugar, and maltose syrup.Sour flavors have astringent properties that aid digestion; they also eliminate fishy odors, cut through greasiness, enhance flavor and freshness, promote aroma and color development, stimulate the appetite, and are particularly suitable for spring consumption. Sour seasonings include vinegar and tomato sauce.
Pungent seasonings: Pungency is actually a tactile sensation of pain rather than a taste. However, due to convention, it is also treated as a distinct flavor.Its function is to stimulate taste sensitivity and enhance appetite. Spicy seasonings include: Sichuan pepper, chili peppers, ginger, scallions, and garlic.MSG, shrimp roe, fish sauce, oyster sauce, and fresh bamboo shoots also enhance umami. Umami cannot stand alone; it must be paired with other flavors to create a harmonious interplay, hence the saying "No salt, no umami; no sweetness, no umami." Umami seasonings include: fish sauce, MSG, and oyster sauce.