Apply science to break the traditional kitchen myths (Smart mise en place to save time and stir-fry at ease)
By Chef Sarawak@NZ Chef Si
Science is hardly involved in a Chinese kitchen due to most of their chefs ended up there didn’t like to study and most of them hated science even if they had been to school.
Why female chefs are hardly being accepted in a Chinese kitchen run by a Chinese chauvinist male pig? It is mainly because science is not being accepted by both of them, a male chef would criticize that a female chef is physically unfitted to rock a wok or to shake off the excess water from the blanched noodle, and the Chinese female chefs would agree and admit it silently but they never thought of applying science in Chinese kitchen actually could make them cook smarter than most male chefs who only believe in using a buffalo to plough the field rather than using a ploughing machine!
Worst are those young, haughty and ignorant Chinese who thought they knew everything who were trained in western culinary schools but the moment they entered a Chinese kitchen they would deliberately go against any western culinary teaching and skills, they never thought of merging and using the best of western and oriental culinary knowledge, skills and application into their practice although they are now staying in a western country.
Asian chefs would shake off the excess water of blanching noodle by shaking the spider strainer, and when most female chefs couldn’t do it, the male chefs in the kitchen would never figure out an alternative way for their female kitchen hands or female chefs, any dexterity connected with arms never could defeat me as I was a trained concert pianist, the weight from my back through my arms could actually accidentally injure a person severely from my subconscious reaction if I got ambush. But I just loved to follow French chefs ‘method by getting a tong to hit the spider strainer, except I used two giant chop sticks to hit the rim on the spider strainer like a drummer’s tremolo, that was the only sound could break the silence when I got really busy in a kitchen. And my head chef didn’t like it, well neither I like his mouth moved like a drummer's tremolo when I got so busy. He said it’s a Chinese kitchen "they don’t do it in such a way", well is Chinese Malaysian is not a Chinese for the mainland Chinese? So this was how a Chinese chef trained in western culinary school but went against any western practice in his kitchen even if it worked better than shaking their spider strainer in much slower speed and the water being drained in much slower speed.
I started to change the traditional way of Chinese stir-fry rice’s preparation about 8 years ago when the little notorious AGS pigeon boy began to attend primary school in Malaysia. As Malaysian school starts before 7 in the morning, I usually had to get up at 5:30 am prepared his breakfast and lunch box, Chinese fried rice was a good choice for lunch box as long as the mise en place was done properly, thus the time I learned fried rice shouldn’t be prepared step by step in a traditional way. It took me more than a week to convince the Chinese head chef to change his traditional way, and I could only convince him whenever he complaint either the cooked rice was too soft and sticky, or the fried rice took him too long to stir-fry. From my experience, it’s always easier to teach a humble person than a haughty person, eventually, I got so tired about how to convince him to change for anything better.
These are traditional steps how Chinese stir-fry their rice and how I changed it:
Traditionally most Chinese chefs’ only mise en place did to their fried rice is by cooking the rice and let it cooled down, separate the rice grain or stored in a fridge. The busy restaurant chefs would get ready of their cut ham and prawn. When the order came, they would fry their egg, meat/prawn with oil, then scooped the white cooked rice added to the wok, while stir frying, most chefs would spend some time trying to separate the sticky rice in the wok with his scoop, then add seasoning and mixed vegetables. The disadvantage of this traditional stir frying method is a chef’s speed slowed down due to rice was not portioned earlier, there was no consistency of the stir fry rice texture, sometimes it could be marshy and sometimes there was still some grain stuck together. When a chef rushed due to too many orders coming in, he would use the scoop from his wok to scoop out the rice from the rice container and thus contaminated the cooked rice. As portioning was not done earlier on, sometimes the amount of stir-fry rice could be a little less or too much, it all depended on how much such chef added the meat/prawn and frozen mixed vegetables. And worst of all, the frozen vegetable were barely warmed when the stir-fry was done if he added the frozen mixed vegetable too late.
I would mix the cooked rice with oil and frozen mixed vegetable, when the good quality fragrance Thai rice mixed with oil, although it was soft and sticky, it could be mixed easily with oil and cold frozen mixed vegetable to detach each grain of rice. When this was done, portioning began by using a container to measure it, this could be chilled and lasted for three days between 1 to 4 degree Celsius. Make sure you must wear gloves during mixing and portioning.
Stir fry rice could be very healthy if you are not stingy of the ingredients used, Chinese café and restaurant would try to eliminate as much ingredient to cut the cost of a dish in order to earn more money, thus home cook meal can be very clean, healthy and nutritious.
To stir fry the most basic Chinese fried rice, the ingredients and method are as followed:
Ingredients:
4 tbsp vegetable oil and 1 tbsp sesame oil (you can use less oil if you use non-stick wok)
1 handful frozen mixed vegetable
1.5 bowl of cooked cool down rice, mix and separate the grain with 2 tbsp of oil and mixed vegetable
1 tbsp shallot/onion, brunoise
1 clove garlic, chop by using the back of a knife, then minced
2 eggs, beaten
1 handful ham/any kind of cooked meat, Macedoine/dice
5 large size prawns, halved
3 Tbsp Reduced chicken stock, add gradually
TT Salt and black pepper powder
1 stem spring onion, slice diagonally
Method:
1. Heat up oil, sealed the prawns, then the cooked meat, sweat the onion and garlic, leave them aside.
2. Fry the beaten egg, add in rice and mixed vegetable combine, combine everything and stir fry
3. Add the chicken stock gradually while stir frying, you can use two wooden spoons/spatulas to stir fry the rice, incorporate the air into it. Fry until everything is well mixed and appeared pretty dry
4. Add seasoning and check seasoning
5. Finally, add in spring onion, give a last quick stir.
6. Plating, just to let you know that fried rice tasted so good when accompanied with Korean kimji or any kind of salad. If you are a big meat eater, just add the meat like yakitori or even sliced steak at one side of the plate. Bon appetite!
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