Hey guys, a few notes: 1. There’s two points of contention that I’m sure a few of you are already angrily typing up a comment lambasting us for: (1) not using the caramel and (2) thickening with the slurry. We’re often guilty of sharing very intense recipes, so for this one we wanted to keep things simpler, give people options for rounding out a full meal. Frying the caramel first will taste good, no doubt, so if you want to go that route… first fry the caramel, then coat your main ingredient in it, then add in the aromatics & continue the recipe as is. 2. The recipe also does not need a cornstarch slurry. You can also just continue to reduce the sauce until syrupy. Doing it this way leaves you at risk of the sauce burning however, so we prefer to take it not quite that far & finish the job with the slurry. 3. If you don’t have Shaoxing wine on hand, skip the wine & swap the water for beer. Also tasty. 4. Before planning this video, I actually never made red braised potatoes before. Figured it’d be an easy one to sort, because, I mean… how hard can red braised potatoes be? Yet time and time again when trying to figure the dish out… the potatoes ended up breaking down, leaving an over thickened sauce. Tried cooking them for less time, only to have undercooked potatoes. One of those times where it feels like a dish is gaslighting you. 5. The key? With red braised potatoes, *do not under-estimate the importance of that lengthy pre-fry*. You need your potatoes completely cooked through, with the skin obviously blistered. Like… starting with deep fried potato wedges would also be a fine starting point for the dish. 6. Word of warning that the five spice powder will be very mild, really sliding into the background. If you want a more obviously spiced red braise, use the whole spices.
Quick quest in regards to the caramel. I made mine with rock sugar - specifically “yellow rock sugar” (it was translated from Chinese/Mandarin to English, not sure at all if it is actually called that) and it never got to that beautiful reddish colour, it just remained a kind of brown colour. Is there a specific type of rocksugar to use? Thankyou
Unexpected but appreciated shoutout! :D Unlike the song title suggests, my favorite Hong Shaos have always been Ribs and Eggplant. But after watching this I wonder why I had never tried potato! It absorbs flavors so well that it might just become a new fav. Thanks for the great video as always!
When i saw that namedrop i instantly knew you were gonna be here😅 andong i urge you to make a video on Green sauces, salsa verde, salsa verde, frankfurter grie soß, chimichurri etc. Theres a sauce conspiracy.
You are absolutely right about the potato absorbing flavor. My cousin's grandma used to put potato wedges when red braising meat. If you season the braising liquid right and braise for long enough, the flavor penetrates through the potato and I would even say they taste better than the meat itself. I don't know the exact method or the timing but if my memory serves, it is absolutely achievable.
This... literally feels like how we do ANY kind of Indian dish - only without soy sauce, with less water, and more onion. - Why no soy sauce? Because it's an expensive ingredient not native to the area. - Why less water? Because the modern Indian kitchen uses a pressure cooker pretty much daily, adding just salt and then putting it on pressure will result in cooking the meat/veg in it's own juices rather than diluting the flavour with water. The exception is for fresh greens, because that would get overcooked in a pressure cooker. - Why onion? Thinly sliced onions add not only flavour (we don't add caramel, but we add sugar in a smaller quantity and use it to caramelise the onion), but also dramatically changes the texture of the dish. If you make a dry dish, serve with roti or paratha. If you make a saucy/wet dish, serve with white rice. Indian restaurants usually go with something in between so that customers are free to choose either rice or bread as they like - but at home the dry wet spectrum is wider.
While India is a huge country with a large difference between cultures. I find that many recipies follow this basic format 1. Ghee +- mustard oil +spices. 2. Brown Onions. +-ginger garlic paste. 3. Protein+-herbs. 4. Water/dairy/cocomilk/tomato-juice/broth 5. Veg. 6. Perhaps more brown onions/ and something to sponge up the suace like rice or bread. (Numbers not necessarily presenting the order of cooking).
Indian cooking: ALWAYS more onion. lol The first time I learned how the onions are broken down and used to thicken the sauce it was like someone was telling me the sky was purple.
@@Doughy_in_the_Middle hah! I learned to cook Indian food from a Jain family. No onions for me, just more HING!! All of the hing!!! I however am not jain, and the smell of hing in my 600 sqft apartment is horrific, so I stick with the onion method now ;)
@@bethanyday3471 The word "Maggi" is pretty much synonymous with instant noodles in India - and YES Maggi Masala instant noodles is a childhood favourite, single person's go-to weeknight meal, and Sunday morning breakfast treat!! Everyone has their own preferred add-ins, but the one thing in common is the method of cooking instant noodles - heat water, when it's 100% hot add any veggies, noodle cakes, masala packet. Submerge and cook uncovered until the water has evaporated, stirring occasionally. How much water do you add? Depends on your pot + the heat of your stove, so that's something everyone eyeballs and gets wrong the first few times.
Reminds me of "kho" in Viet cooking, which is similar where you braise anything you want(usually pork, fish, chicken, but anything) in a caramelized rich sauce and spices, the process is nearly the same. That's really interesting. For our most famous braised dish, thit kho, it's the equivalent of Chinese red braised pork. Down to the steps, like the blanching, caramelizing, clay pot cooking...Except we use stuff like fish sauce, coconut juice, etc. in addition to the usual, and dont really use cooking wine or five spice, and use less sugar due to the coconut juice. We also add hard boiled eggs and they get delicious soaking up the sauce. Love this video and opened my eyes to how similar dishes can be across the world!
Just an observation. The steps in cooking red braise is pretty much like Filipino adobo, but with different ingredients. Pretty interesting seeing as how there are so many intersections between Filipino and Chinese cuisine.
The channel name is so accurate. As an Australian of Anglo heritage, a lot of Chinese techniques/recipes were mystifying to me... not any more! Thanks Steph and Chris (from another Chris) 😁
Hi, I just want to thank you so much for offering a tofu variant (+ veggie variant) almost every time, I’m a vegan who is so happy to still be able to eat food that feels like home :)
This is one of the best most underrated cooking channels here on you tube. just fantastic. you guys have really added to my culinary knowledge. now i can not only cook some amazing thai, indian, and italien food. i can make some lovely chinese food using their flavor profiles. i think i'm leaning towards the guizhou flavor profiles lol.
As a Spaniard, this channel by itself made me SO into Chinese cooking! It's weird how Spain is full of Chinese restaurants with food so different to everything you guys show here, totally modified to appeal to spanish taste. To the point that I struggle to find authentic Chinese food even in bigger cities.
I'm not sure what it is like in Spain, but in Canada and the US I've always found it useful in places with less Chinese to bring someone who either speaks Mandarin or Cantonese (as appropriate; I've never had the chance to go with someone who speaks any of the other languages) or barring that, someone who can feel comfortable *writing* the order in the common writing. A lot of places seem to either have "undocumented menu items" or can make to order for someone who can make themselves understood.
Oh, and that said, I don't worry about authenticity, I worry about "interesting". After all, authenticity relative to what? Not *that* long ago there would be no potatoes, for example.
@@logiciananimal First of all, thanks for the recommendations! I'm unsure if it's the same anywhere else, but the most common type of Chinese restaurant is considered the lowest quality and cheapest kind of restaurant (they are always said to have rats, cook cat, etc, there is some part of racism there too). There are many of them in every city, basically always with the same decoration and dishes, strongly modified (I think) for spanish people. Non spicy, heavy on sauces and MSG, greasy, and they are never from a region, they are just "chinese"... They resemble nothing I've tried elsewhere. It's just recently and thanks to this channel that I managed to find some more specialised and (I guess) closer to real chinese food places, always by looking for restaurants specialised in specific regions of China.
@@arghail0 I'm glad this channel can teach non-Chinese what actual Chinese food is, & if they can recreate it at home, it can be possible for you to experience what Chinese cuisine actually is. I'm sorry to say, but I don't think you could find a restaurant in Spain that would serve decent Chinese. The closest cities that serve passable Chinese cuisine in Europe would be London or Paris.
@@Jumpoable I've been really happy recently after finding a nice sichuanese(?) restaurant in Madrid where the waiters were very helpful and attentive, and I had an awesome mapo tofu. When afterwards I tried to recreate it at home using this channels recipe, it was pretty close! But I agree, I used to live in London and it was easier there finding authentic cuisine from outside europe.
OMG! STEPH AND CHRIS! You have almost three quarters of a MILLION SUBS! I hadn't checked lately. I started watching when you had (I think) fewer than a thousand. You have grown and flourished as I knew you would. I'm so proud of the both of you. Keep doing these quality, thorough, informative and deeeelicious recipes and keep teaching us plebs about this fascinating cuisine. I'm still watching every video. I really adore the both of you. Be well. Stay safe. You're wonderful! Jenn 🇨🇦 👋 👋 Hello you two! 💖
@@ChineseCookingDemystified The fourth wave is hammering us here in Canada. We're seeing the highest numbers ~ever. Husband and I are double vaxxed. Other than that news, we're good. Feeling a bit of cabin fever though, 😂. Nice to hear from you! 💖
So I had more or less all the ingredients at home (chicken legs instead of pork though) so I decided to give it a try and it was a success. It's really an easy recipe to remember too, for once after seeing a video I didn't had to look on my phone in the middle of the recipe to make sure I don't forget anything. And the result was great (although, I should have reduced my sauce a bit more). It's a great recipe, I can't wait to try it with the potatoes!
I made the hongshao potatoes tonight! I simply reused one of the four, slightly different, red cooking sauces I've got in the freezer (either Charmaine Solomon's red-cooked chicken sauce, two of yours or Sarah Khong's mom's sauce). The frying was a really good step, and my wife was so surprised by the result :-). I also made "Steamed Chicken with Mushrooms, Cantonese Yun'er Steamed Chicken (云耳蒸鸡)" -- without the dates, didn't have them, and that was also incredibly tasty, the recipe worked perfectly -- even though I didn't have bone-in chicken (can't always get that in the Netherlands...). Juicy, lovely contrast between the two kinds of mushrooms, the chicken and the lily buds.
THIS is the style of ribs i've had when I was in the USA!!!!!!! the meat was so intensely red that it was startling for my european sensibilties, and absolutely delicious!!!
Thank you for the video! And for the vegetarian options! I made your hong shao rou for a special person some years ago, and now I'm going to get to cook for them again, but they've switched to a mostly vegetarian diet, so this is perfect!
Very good video. In my language it is also the the term like in chinese to oil cook the sugar to get colour(or caramelize it). But normally we would call it either braise it white, or braise it coloured(which means with a red or brown colour). Now as a basic start it is in this case all about making the "caramel sauce". In most households you use a lot of time to teach your children this, because it is a bit frightening to work with sticky sugar in hot oil. There is also the part that on top of this you also need to keep an eye on it to get the colour you want. There is a point where your caramel can easily get burned. Like most things a tiny bit of it can be good, but too much will make it bitter. This is the basic of making these dishes. The 2nd part which is the actual trick about this kind of braising, wether it be white or coloured braising, is the reduction and re-adding of liquid to the braising "juices"!! There is basically three ways to do it. either reduce liquid first to intensify and then re-add a liquid to it. This is done to make all the caramel and spices liquify and spread around the things you wanna braise. The second way is to pour in everything and the liquid also. This will make everything work itself out and make it all gather up in a much "softer" taste. It is often done to make everything supporting a more dominant salty, sugary, or peppery taste. The third option is to braise it in a fruity or whatelse type of flavoured liquid. Like braising in cocunot water for instance.
For the caramel, I like using kecap manis, a thick, sweet Indonesian soy sauce. It's basically treacle and soy, used in all sorts of things including babi kecap, which is very similar to red braised pork.
Is your dog's name Hayek? My wife and I are totally in love with him, and always hope for an appearance at the end of your videos! Please make a video about him and your other pets sometime! or at the very least a super cut of all of his appearances! ;)
Thanks for explaining that dark soy sauce is soy with caramel coloring. I use coconut aminos instead of soy sauce because I have a family member with an soy allergy and I’ve always been a bit lost if recipes mention dark soy sauce. This really helps me to figure out a way to substitute it.
Turns out I've been doing red braised tofu for a long time and never knew it! (though the inspiration was obvious I guess) If you are making that dish and want some extra veg umami soak a couple of dry shiitake mushrooms a little while in advance and then add them along with the soaking liquid as you would with water. You get to eat the mushrooms too 👌
You just blew my mind about that tofu prep… I had a vegan roommate in college (like…20yrs ago…😳) that taught me how to cook tofu. They said packaged tofu HAD to be pressed for several minutes, or it will fall apart during cooking…. My whole tofu life has *BEEN A LIE!!!* 🤣💖
Just made the tofu for dinner and loved it! I love braised dishes and this one is so easy to make that it will probably become one of my regular weeknight dinners. Thank you so much for sharing this technique!
Red braised chicken and dried shiitake mushrooms. Marinate chicken and rehydrated mushrooms in soya sauce, garlic, rice wine, and, cracked pepper for at least 2 hours. Put in tons of garlic and pepper. When you think you've added way too much, double it. Stir fry to brown, cover with chicken stock and cook at a low simmer for 1.5-2 hours. About an hour in the fragrance will change. Serve over rice. Great prepared ahead of time. Make sure you add lots of mushrooms (cut in half and trim off the stems), people will gooble them up.
I LOVE that you guys did the lazy method, haha! Will definitely try the tofu version, as that seems like a very doable weeknight dish. Some friends who just moved states foisted a bunch of their pantry ingredients on me, including a mostly full bottle of dark soy. In addition to my own stash, which I run through at a pretty slow rate. So in an effort to at least get down to one (1) bottle of dark soy in my pantry, I might be red-braising a lot of stuff in the next couple months. Am I crazy for thinking this would be good with hard-boiled eggs?
I saw in another channel, they deep fried a boiled egg and it got a breaded like texture but was just boiled and then deep fried... try it, then braise it 😉
The "red-braise" or "hong-shao" method of cooking meat, tofu, and vegetables is one of the main-stay in Chinese cuisine, especially in the Shanghai-style. The chefs in this video simplify the entire concept into 2 to 3 easy steps. I find it irresistible! Way to go!
You can also this with another root vegetable that doesn't release starch, like carrots and daikon. I don't tend to fry those, just sautee them in the pan, then add the braising liquid.
Do you know which country it was made in? In Thailand they have a similar sauce called "black soy sauce". It's slightly less salty and thicker than Chinese dark soy sauce, but can be used in the same way.
Thank you for this. Getting the Chinese name got me closer to figuring out what my favorite take-out bun might be, that’s not quite the red bbq filling, but not pork and onion either.
So, is it possible to make a sort of cube of solidified red braise, then red braise that? Pretty sure red braised red braise is some sort of scientific victory if achieved.
I love this kind of formula video! Small thing though - whenever I pan-fry tofu, it seems to send up over-hard and dry by the time its got some decent colour - any suggestions?
You could potentially cut the tofu thicker, or swap for a softer tofu :) In this video Steph opted for firm tofu (老豆腐), but often for this kind of thing I personally like using what's called 'Hakka Tofu' (客家豆腐) in Guangdong... which's closer to a medium tofu.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified thanks! unfortunately most of the time I'm limited to a bog-standard medium-to-firm western supermarket tofu, but I'll definitely try cutting it thicker and see if that helps
@@IAmTheUltimateRuler Asian markets have the tofu you want to use. Unfortunately all the tofu in western supermarkets that comes in all those neat little blister packages is really subpar tofu.
I got excited thinking this was the recipe I was looking for, but perhaps it's just another technique. Memories of culinary school are fading and I remember it thusly: Nearly all the dry herbs and aromatics you mention are added to a 10-12 qt stock pot with a large quantity of soy sauce and brought up to a boil. Then, you insert whatever items you want to braise into the pot and you simmer it. Meats with fat will render, veggies will soak up soy-aromatic love, and then perhaps stick under a broiler to roast veg and crisp any skin. When done with cooking the meal, the ENTIRE pot of liquid is reserved, then cooled, and stored in the fridge. Once completely refrigerated, any and all fats that accumulate are skimmed off. When you need to use it again, you bring it up to a boil, skim anything that floats, and braise as before. And, when done, same storage process. When this was explained to me by a fairly well-traveled chef-instructor, he said there are families that have decades old braising pots such as this and it only improves with age. Is this also red-braising? Is that then the "old way" it was done perhaps? If not, and this sounds familiar, you're welcome to the free content idea (unless it's somewhere in the back-catalog).
There's an entry in wiki: Red cooking. Although the article mentions red braising as a overall umbrella term, this video is more like "Hongshao" in the wiki article. Actually Hong=red, shao=braise, so I won't take the wiki article as very accurate. The other technique mentioned in the wiki article is called "Lu" which is closer to what you described. For Hongshao, you always make cooking liquid on the go. For Lu, you can optionally preserve the cooking liquid for later use.
Hey, I think you're thinking of Lo Shui - i.e. master stock. We made a Cantonese sort a few years back if you're curious: ua-cam.com/video/UaPyrxA4CYQ/v-deo.html
Okay. I did the caramel method, and I have thoughts. The color is better, and it has more staying power. It might just be the cheap dark soy I've been using, but my red braises have always left a lot to be desired. I'd import dark soy directly like I do my spices, but the price is pretty steep, and I suspect the payoff would be lacking. The caramel red braise doesn't have this problem. The beef I did still had a deep, chestnut colored coating that stuck to the meat very nicely. The trade off is that it was almost obnoxiously sweet. Maybe I used too much sugar, maybe it's just my modern western palate, maybe I messed it up some other way. It was delicious, I just found it borderline overwhelming.
OMG I was thinking of red braised tofu ever since the eggs video (not an equivalent food of course, but they both get that delicious fried skin) Glad that the only limit to the braise is your imagination.
I only had ground beef on hand, so I made this as a "Sloppy Cho." Gr8! It was no point. The next time I make Sloppy Cho, I'll cut the water in half, at least. The only purpose of the water is to leach the goodness from the whole spices. Since it came out a little bland, instead of blanching the meat, I might dry fry it -- gambian it -- to retain the flavor of the browned myoglobin.
I know you've covered tofu sheets, but would you consider covering tofu skins? Whenever I see them in grocery stores I want to try them, but am never quite sure what to do with them.
@@Okayletsg0 You are wrong. In China we use tofu skin a lot in our daily cooking and we also have a lot of varieties of tofu skin. because it’s so cheap, we only cook it at home. Not a lot of restaurants will use this cheap but delicious material.
I made this with boneless chicken breast (SO American I know), and lots of the whole spices (I cook Indian food too so had them on hand), and it came out really delicious. Made me proud. But it also made me wonder if there's any tradition of adding more vegetables to it? I'd like to throw in mushrooms and/or summer squash and/or some onions or shallots, and I figure it would make sense to throw them in when reducing the braising liquid to a sauce, since they don't need a long time to cook. Is this dish supposed to be simple with a veggie on the side? I'll probably give it a try anyway, but as an outsider to the tradition, I'm curious.
The dog liking compulsively in that maner means a start of gastrontological problems, if it does that and does the reflex of throwing with his thought you shoud chek it whit a vet, im sorry for my English, aaaand awsome recepies and tips thaks
I hope you guys can talk about 㸆 as a method in Chinese cooking. It's a traditional cooking method around Yangtze river delta but I feel it is pretty much unknown to most westerners or even Chinese from other regions.
No because I've been looking for this type of recipe for ages!!! (I had these types of dishes almost every day while I was living in China but I never asked what they were called😅)
I really appreciate your description of cooking tofu! Patience! Think of them as mushrooms, that's the best way I can describe it, or H²O, it's/ they are a chemical process with very different properties, depending on the heat and time.
Haha yeah Friedrich von Hayek. Not a political statement - I've just always named pets after economists, and figured that Hayek would be a good name for a schnauzer.
![Chinese Salt and Pepper [Anything]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/sO0SXMO4mC8/mqdefault.jpg)
Hey guys, a few notes:
1. There’s two points of contention that I’m sure a few of you are already angrily typing up a comment lambasting us for: (1) not using the caramel and (2) thickening with the slurry. We’re often guilty of sharing very intense recipes, so for this one we wanted to keep things simpler, give people options for rounding out a full meal. Frying the caramel first will taste good, no doubt, so if you want to go that route… first fry the caramel, then coat your main ingredient in it, then add in the aromatics & continue the recipe as is.
2. The recipe also does not need a cornstarch slurry. You can also just continue to reduce the sauce until syrupy. Doing it this way leaves you at risk of the sauce burning however, so we prefer to take it not quite that far & finish the job with the slurry.
3. If you don’t have Shaoxing wine on hand, skip the wine & swap the water for beer. Also tasty.
4. Before planning this video, I actually never made red braised potatoes before. Figured it’d be an easy one to sort, because, I mean… how hard can red braised potatoes be? Yet time and time again when trying to figure the dish out… the potatoes ended up breaking down, leaving an over thickened sauce. Tried cooking them for less time, only to have undercooked potatoes. One of those times where it feels like a dish is gaslighting you.
5. The key? With red braised potatoes, *do not under-estimate the importance of that lengthy pre-fry*. You need your potatoes completely cooked through, with the skin obviously blistered. Like… starting with deep fried potato wedges would also be a fine starting point for the dish.
6. Word of warning that the five spice powder will be very mild, really sliding into the background. If you want a more obviously spiced red braise, use the whole spices.
Quick quest in regards to the caramel. I made mine with rock sugar - specifically “yellow rock sugar” (it was translated from Chinese/Mandarin to English, not sure at all if it is actually called that) and it never got to that beautiful reddish colour, it just remained a kind of brown colour. Is there a specific type of rocksugar to use? Thankyou
I bet some corn could taste really good with the potatos.
Do you have a link on where you got your outdoor burner?
@@mrsocksman It's an Iwatani ZA-3HP. You can find it on Amazon, it's nothing special or anything though.
Hell yes to the red braise with beer idea! Must give it a try. Your dishes are very often amazing with a cold beer anyway.
Unexpected but appreciated shoutout! :D Unlike the song title suggests, my favorite Hong Shaos have always been Ribs and Eggplant. But after watching this I wonder why I had never tried potato! It absorbs flavors so well that it might just become a new fav. Thanks for the great video as always!
Die Legende. I am humbled to be the first comment.
When i saw that namedrop i instantly knew you were gonna be here😅 andong i urge you to make a video on Green sauces, salsa verde, salsa verde, frankfurter grie soß, chimichurri etc. Theres a sauce conspiracy.
I can find Andong anywhere
You are absolutely right about the potato absorbing flavor. My cousin's grandma used to put potato wedges when red braising meat. If you season the braising liquid right and braise for long enough, the flavor penetrates through the potato and I would even say they taste better than the meat itself. I don't know the exact method or the timing but if my memory serves, it is absolutely achievable.
let's gooo Andong! Much Love dood.
Special thanks for the tofu and potato run-throughs.
Oh I agree, I’ve made both as weeknight meals, and they are delicious and uncomplicated.
This... literally feels like how we do ANY kind of Indian dish - only without soy sauce, with less water, and more onion.
- Why no soy sauce? Because it's an expensive ingredient not native to the area.
- Why less water? Because the modern Indian kitchen uses a pressure cooker pretty much daily, adding just salt and then putting it on pressure will result in cooking the meat/veg in it's own juices rather than diluting the flavour with water. The exception is for fresh greens, because that would get overcooked in a pressure cooker.
- Why onion? Thinly sliced onions add not only flavour (we don't add caramel, but we add sugar in a smaller quantity and use it to caramelise the onion), but also dramatically changes the texture of the dish.
If you make a dry dish, serve with roti or paratha. If you make a saucy/wet dish, serve with white rice. Indian restaurants usually go with something in between so that customers are free to choose either rice or bread as they like - but at home the dry wet spectrum is wider.
While India is a huge country with a large difference between cultures.
I find that many recipies follow this basic format
1. Ghee +- mustard oil +spices.
2. Brown Onions. +-ginger garlic paste.
3. Protein+-herbs.
4. Water/dairy/cocomilk/tomato-juice/broth
5. Veg.
6. Perhaps more brown onions/ and something to sponge up the suace like rice or bread.
(Numbers not necessarily presenting the order of cooking).
Indian cooking: ALWAYS more onion. lol
The first time I learned how the onions are broken down and used to thicken the sauce it was like someone was telling me the sky was purple.
@@Doughy_in_the_Middle hah! I learned to cook Indian food from a Jain family. No onions for me, just more HING!! All of the hing!!! I however am not jain, and the smell of hing in my 600 sqft apartment is horrific, so I stick with the onion method now ;)
im curious if you use maggi a lot? i do know that indians love to use pickled things as well. tomatos, cashews and onions make most sauces.
@@bethanyday3471 The word "Maggi" is pretty much synonymous with instant noodles in India - and YES Maggi Masala instant noodles is a childhood favourite, single person's go-to weeknight meal, and Sunday morning breakfast treat!!
Everyone has their own preferred add-ins, but the one thing in common is the method of cooking instant noodles - heat water, when it's 100% hot add any veggies, noodle cakes, masala packet. Submerge and cook uncovered until the water has evaporated, stirring occasionally. How much water do you add? Depends on your pot + the heat of your stove, so that's something everyone eyeballs and gets wrong the first few times.
Reminds me of "kho" in Viet cooking, which is similar where you braise anything you want(usually pork, fish, chicken, but anything) in a caramelized rich sauce and spices, the process is nearly the same. That's really interesting.
For our most famous braised dish, thit kho, it's the equivalent of Chinese red braised pork. Down to the steps, like the blanching, caramelizing, clay pot cooking...Except we use stuff like fish sauce, coconut juice, etc. in addition to the usual, and dont really use cooking wine or five spice, and use less sugar due to the coconut juice. We also add hard boiled eggs and they get delicious soaking up the sauce.
Love this video and opened my eyes to how similar dishes can be across the world!
Just an observation. The steps in cooking red braise is pretty much like Filipino adobo, but with different ingredients. Pretty interesting seeing as how there are so many intersections between Filipino and Chinese cuisine.
we've traded with the Chinese for a long time before the Spaniards conquered
Braising is braising. It's only the seasoning that changes.
That's how the French, Italians or literally any culture "braises" any dish. Just the oil of choice, spices & ingredients change.
The channel name is so accurate. As an Australian of Anglo heritage, a lot of Chinese techniques/recipes were mystifying to me... not any more!
Thanks Steph and Chris (from another Chris) 😁
Po-Tay-Toes: Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a braise!
Nasty Hobbitses
Absolutely loving the high level overviews and more cooking channels ought to do the same
Heartily agree
Hi, I just want to thank you so much for offering a tofu variant (+ veggie variant) almost every time, I’m a vegan who is so happy to still be able to eat food that feels like home :)
When its so good that even the air tastes delicious.
My mom makes this and she uses orange peel and coke soda in her recipe. She uses pork belly and pig trotters with eggs and bamboo shoots.
Yum
This is one of the best most underrated cooking channels here on you tube. just fantastic. you guys have really added to my culinary knowledge. now i can not only cook some amazing thai, indian, and italien food. i can make some lovely chinese food using their flavor profiles. i think i'm leaning towards the guizhou flavor profiles lol.
I don't know why but when I read 'red braised' in english my mind drifts to marinating and braising with red fermented bean curd
Same... I think my family uses that stuff for our red braising
I love when you guys have generic technique/method episodes.
Keep up the good work!
Absolutely incredible way of explaining the logic of a dish!
@Siu Fong cause I was an edgy 15 yo who was into black metal when I made this account
I appreciate you using multiple variations on the recipe idea to also show us different cooking techniques / methods!
I enjoy the bit of history that you wove into your presentation
the only man in the world with a youtube premium subscription
As a Spaniard, this channel by itself made me SO into Chinese cooking!
It's weird how Spain is full of Chinese restaurants with food so different to everything you guys show here, totally modified to appeal to spanish taste. To the point that I struggle to find authentic Chinese food even in bigger cities.
I'm not sure what it is like in Spain, but in Canada and the US I've always found it useful in places with less Chinese to bring someone who either speaks Mandarin or Cantonese (as appropriate; I've never had the chance to go with someone who speaks any of the other languages) or barring that, someone who can feel comfortable *writing* the order in the common writing. A lot of places seem to either have "undocumented menu items" or can make to order for someone who can make themselves understood.
Oh, and that said, I don't worry about authenticity, I worry about "interesting". After all, authenticity relative to what? Not *that* long ago there would be no potatoes, for example.
@@logiciananimal First of all, thanks for the recommendations!
I'm unsure if it's the same anywhere else, but the most common type of Chinese restaurant is considered the lowest quality and cheapest kind of restaurant (they are always said to have rats, cook cat, etc, there is some part of racism there too). There are many of them in every city, basically always with the same decoration and dishes, strongly modified (I think) for spanish people. Non spicy, heavy on sauces and MSG, greasy, and they are never from a region, they are just "chinese"... They resemble nothing I've tried elsewhere.
It's just recently and thanks to this channel that I managed to find some more specialised and (I guess) closer to real chinese food places, always by looking for restaurants specialised in specific regions of China.
@@arghail0 I'm glad this channel can teach non-Chinese what actual Chinese food is, & if they can recreate it at home, it can be possible for you to experience what Chinese cuisine actually is.
I'm sorry to say, but I don't think you could find a restaurant in Spain that would serve decent Chinese. The closest cities that serve passable Chinese cuisine in Europe would be London or Paris.
@@Jumpoable I've been really happy recently after finding a nice sichuanese(?) restaurant in Madrid where the waiters were very helpful and attentive, and I had an awesome mapo tofu. When afterwards I tried to recreate it at home using this channels recipe, it was pretty close! But I agree, I used to live in London and it was easier there finding authentic cuisine from outside europe.
OMG! STEPH AND CHRIS! You have almost three quarters of a MILLION SUBS! I hadn't checked lately.
I started watching when you had (I think) fewer than a thousand. You have grown and flourished as I knew you would. I'm so proud of the both of you. Keep doing these quality, thorough, informative and deeeelicious recipes and keep teaching us plebs about this fascinating cuisine.
I'm still watching every video. I really adore the both of you. Be well. Stay safe.
You're wonderful!
Jenn 🇨🇦 👋 👋 Hello you two! 💖
Cheers, always nice to hear from you Jenn! Hope everything's going well over there :)
@@ChineseCookingDemystified
The fourth wave is hammering us here in Canada. We're seeing the highest numbers ~ever.
Husband and I are double vaxxed.
Other than that news, we're good. Feeling a bit of cabin fever though, 😂.
Nice to hear from you! 💖
Great, now I'm going to have a whole month of "red" braised foods.
Love the do whatever you want attitude! Really makes the cooking a lot more fun!
My favourite channel on authentic Cantonese home-cook meal recipes.
So I had more or less all the ingredients at home (chicken legs instead of pork though) so I decided to give it a try and it was a success. It's really an easy recipe to remember too, for once after seeing a video I didn't had to look on my phone in the middle of the recipe to make sure I don't forget anything. And the result was great (although, I should have reduced my sauce a bit more). It's a great recipe, I can't wait to try it with the potatoes!
I made the hongshao potatoes tonight! I simply reused one of the four, slightly different, red cooking sauces I've got in the freezer (either Charmaine Solomon's red-cooked chicken sauce, two of yours or Sarah Khong's mom's sauce). The frying was a really good step, and my wife was so surprised by the result :-).
I also made "Steamed Chicken with Mushrooms, Cantonese Yun'er Steamed Chicken (云耳蒸鸡)" -- without the dates, didn't have them, and that was also incredibly tasty, the recipe worked perfectly -- even though I didn't have bone-in chicken (can't always get that in the Netherlands...). Juicy, lovely contrast between the two kinds of mushrooms, the chicken and the lily buds.
Oh, and I used the deep-fry method for potatoes last week as well, when I made lamb, chanterelles, potatoe fry with cream.
Where do you get lily bulbs in the netherlands
Edit i misread. Lily buds i can find
THIS is the style of ribs i've had when I was in the USA!!!!!!! the meat was so intensely red that it was startling for my european sensibilties, and absolutely delicious!!!
Sounds like they added food coloring. Indians do that to Tandoori Chicken.
@@robinlillian9471 they add red been curd or rice curd for color
Thank you for the video! And for the vegetarian options! I made your hong shao rou for a special person some years ago, and now I'm going to get to cook for them again, but they've switched to a mostly vegetarian diet, so this is perfect!
I've tried this viral red-braised pork belly and potatoess then cook rice in it with rice cooker. It's pretty amazing.
literally my fave youtube channel keep it up
Chris knocks it out of the park
Love from Melbourne, 236 days into stage 4 lockdown I finally found an Asian grocery that delivers
Very good video. In my language it is also the the term like in chinese to oil cook the sugar to get colour(or caramelize it). But normally we would call it either braise it white, or braise it coloured(which means with a red or brown colour). Now as a basic start it is in this case all about making the "caramel sauce". In most households you use a lot of time to teach your children this, because it is a bit frightening to work with sticky sugar in hot oil. There is also the part that on top of this you also need to keep an eye on it to get the colour you want. There is a point where your caramel can easily get burned. Like most things a tiny bit of it can be good, but too much will make it bitter. This is the basic of making these dishes. The 2nd part which is the actual trick about this kind of braising, wether it be white or coloured braising, is the reduction and re-adding of liquid to the braising "juices"!! There is basically three ways to do it. either reduce liquid first to intensify and then re-add a liquid to it. This is done to make all the caramel and spices liquify and spread around the things you wanna braise. The second way is to pour in everything and the liquid also. This will make everything work itself out and make it all gather up in a much "softer" taste. It is often done to make everything supporting a more dominant salty, sugary, or peppery taste. The third option is to braise it in a fruity or whatelse type of flavoured liquid. Like braising in cocunot water for instance.
For the caramel, I like using kecap manis, a thick, sweet Indonesian soy sauce. It's basically treacle and soy, used in all sorts of things including babi kecap, which is very similar to red braised pork.
You guys are definitely my favourite channel, love the educational side of it :) Thank you!
Is your dog's name Hayek? My wife and I are totally in love with him, and always hope for an appearance at the end of your videos! Please make a video about him and your other pets sometime! or at the very least a super cut of all of his appearances! ;)
Thanks for explaining that dark soy sauce is soy with caramel coloring. I use coconut aminos instead of soy sauce because I have a family member with an soy allergy and I’ve always been a bit lost if recipes mention dark soy sauce. This really helps me to figure out a way to substitute it.
I love red cooked chicken - my mom would use about a half dozen to a dozen leg quarters, or occasionally divide two whole chickens.
OMG I think I'm going to study this video often, I've always wanted to be good at this! Thank you very much for making this!
Turns out I've been doing red braised tofu for a long time and never knew it! (though the inspiration was obvious I guess) If you are making that dish and want some extra veg umami soak a couple of dry shiitake mushrooms a little while in advance and then add them along with the soaking liquid as you would with water. You get to eat the mushrooms too 👌
I love this one. Thanks so much for all of your outstanding work, guys.
You just blew my mind about that tofu prep…
I had a vegan roommate in college (like…20yrs ago…😳) that taught me how to cook tofu. They said packaged tofu HAD to be pressed for several minutes, or it will fall apart during cooking….
My whole tofu life has *BEEN A LIE!!!*
🤣💖
@derek now I gotta test it out!😁👍
First time I actually had all the ingredients to hand! And I made it! It's incredible!
I'm definitely gonna watch this recipe... But I'm going to pause and watch Andong singing first.
I like how this channel gives you lazy options, cause those are the best kind :)
Just made the tofu for dinner and loved it! I love braised dishes and this one is so easy to make that it will probably become one of my regular weeknight dinners. Thank you so much for sharing this technique!
Braised pork belly is so amazing. Especially the sauce on rice. Greasy AF but worth it.
Red braised chicken and dried shiitake mushrooms. Marinate chicken and rehydrated mushrooms in soya sauce, garlic, rice wine, and, cracked pepper for at least 2 hours. Put in tons of garlic and pepper. When you think you've added way too much, double it. Stir fry to brown, cover with chicken stock and cook at a low simmer for 1.5-2 hours. About an hour in the fragrance will change. Serve over rice. Great prepared ahead of time. Make sure you add lots of mushrooms (cut in half and trim off the stems), people will gooble them up.
Thanks for the recipe. I would add the shitake mushroom soaking water plus chicken stock. There's tons of umami in that water. Don't waste it.
I LOVE that you guys did the lazy method, haha! Will definitely try the tofu version, as that seems like a very doable weeknight dish. Some friends who just moved states foisted a bunch of their pantry ingredients on me, including a mostly full bottle of dark soy. In addition to my own stash, which I run through at a pretty slow rate. So in an effort to at least get down to one (1) bottle of dark soy in my pantry, I might be red-braising a lot of stuff in the next couple months. Am I crazy for thinking this would be good with hard-boiled eggs?
Try doing the pork and putting a few hard boiled eggs in it's one of my favorites and something my mom did.
My mom always put hard boiled eggs in our braises
I saw in another channel, they deep fried a boiled egg and it got a breaded like texture but was just boiled and then deep fried... try it, then braise it 😉
@@writteninthesky Tiger skin eggs! Steph and Chris made a video on that some time ago as well. Very good, and delicious when red braised.
@@photonicpizza1466 🤔👌 red braising...good tip. 🙏
Saw this video and immediately made this with potatoes and beer to go with our stir fry. Incredibly good as always
Been watching your channel for a couple of years, love the history and explanation. Love little Hayek! Thankyou
Thank you for these awesome simplified techniques! I can now recreate the flavors that my mom used to make!
The "red-braise" or "hong-shao" method of cooking meat, tofu, and vegetables is one of the main-stay in Chinese cuisine, especially in the Shanghai-style. The chefs in this video simplify the entire concept into 2 to 3 easy steps. I find it irresistible! Way to go!
You can also this with another root vegetable that doesn't release starch, like carrots and daikon. I don't tend to fry those, just sautee them in the pan, then add the braising liquid.
We found something labeled "black soy". It looks as thick as your "dark soy". It certainly was cheaper than regular soy.
Do you know which country it was made in? In Thailand they have a similar sauce called "black soy sauce". It's slightly less salty and thicker than Chinese dark soy sauce, but can be used in the same way.
Thank you for this. Getting the Chinese name got me closer to figuring out what my favorite take-out bun might be, that’s not quite the red bbq filling, but not pork and onion either.
So, is it possible to make a sort of cube of solidified red braise, then red braise that? Pretty sure red braised red braise is some sort of scientific victory if achieved.
Braise-ception
Yes, totally doable. It becomes a sauce. You can add it to anything.
Red braise anything, huh...
I'd imagine red braised shortplate strips would make an amazing Chinese-style beef bowl.
halfway watching this video when i realized it's almost exactly like the dish I made every week called semur/Indonesian stew lmao
As soon as I watched this video, i knew I had to make it for dinner. Thanks for the veg recipe!
I love this kind of formula video!
Small thing though - whenever I pan-fry tofu, it seems to send up over-hard and dry by the time its got some decent colour - any suggestions?
You could potentially cut the tofu thicker, or swap for a softer tofu :) In this video Steph opted for firm tofu (老豆腐), but often for this kind of thing I personally like using what's called 'Hakka Tofu' (客家豆腐) in Guangdong... which's closer to a medium tofu.
Whenever I fry tofu dry, I find it comes back to life cooking with a wet sauce, which braising would count.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified thanks! unfortunately most of the time I'm limited to a bog-standard medium-to-firm western supermarket tofu, but I'll definitely try cutting it thicker and see if that helps
@@IAmTheUltimateRuler Asian markets have the tofu you want to use. Unfortunately all the tofu in western supermarkets that comes in all those neat little blister packages is really subpar tofu.
I got excited thinking this was the recipe I was looking for, but perhaps it's just another technique. Memories of culinary school are fading and I remember it thusly:
Nearly all the dry herbs and aromatics you mention are added to a 10-12 qt stock pot with a large quantity of soy sauce and brought up to a boil. Then, you insert whatever items you want to braise into the pot and you simmer it. Meats with fat will render, veggies will soak up soy-aromatic love, and then perhaps stick under a broiler to roast veg and crisp any skin.
When done with cooking the meal, the ENTIRE pot of liquid is reserved, then cooled, and stored in the fridge. Once completely refrigerated, any and all fats that accumulate are skimmed off. When you need to use it again, you bring it up to a boil, skim anything that floats, and braise as before. And, when done, same storage process.
When this was explained to me by a fairly well-traveled chef-instructor, he said there are families that have decades old braising pots such as this and it only improves with age.
Is this also red-braising? Is that then the "old way" it was done perhaps? If not, and this sounds familiar, you're welcome to the free content idea (unless it's somewhere in the back-catalog).
There's an entry in wiki: Red cooking. Although the article mentions red braising as a overall umbrella term, this video is more like "Hongshao" in the wiki article. Actually Hong=red, shao=braise, so I won't take the wiki article as very accurate. The other technique mentioned in the wiki article is called "Lu" which is closer to what you described. For Hongshao, you always make cooking liquid on the go. For Lu, you can optionally preserve the cooking liquid for later use.
Hey, I think you're thinking of Lo Shui - i.e. master stock. We made a Cantonese sort a few years back if you're curious: ua-cam.com/video/UaPyrxA4CYQ/v-deo.html
Your puppy is so cute. But the food is even better. Thank you for the video.
Okay. I did the caramel method, and I have thoughts. The color is better, and it has more staying power. It might just be the cheap dark soy I've been using, but my red braises have always left a lot to be desired. I'd import dark soy directly like I do my spices, but the price is pretty steep, and I suspect the payoff would be lacking. The caramel red braise doesn't have this problem. The beef I did still had a deep, chestnut colored coating that stuck to the meat very nicely. The trade off is that it was almost obnoxiously sweet. Maybe I used too much sugar, maybe it's just my modern western palate, maybe I messed it up some other way. It was delicious, I just found it borderline overwhelming.
thank you needed more ways to use my five spice
OMG I was thinking of red braised tofu ever since the eggs video (not an equivalent food of course, but they both get that delicious fried skin) Glad that the only limit to the braise is your imagination.
your schnauzer pupper is always a highlight to the videos~
Dog made it worth sticking to the end.
I might try braising carrots!
I only had ground beef on hand, so I made this as a "Sloppy Cho." Gr8! It was no point. The next time I make Sloppy Cho, I'll cut the water in half, at least. The only purpose of the water is to leach the goodness from the whole spices. Since it came out a little bland, instead of blanching the meat, I might dry fry it -- gambian it -- to retain the flavor of the browned myoglobin.
Hmm for ground beef I think I'd make it into a meatball & fry it at first - then braise that with whole spices. A patty would also work
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Yes, but then I couldn't call it Sloppy Cho!
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Please direct me to your favorite meatball prep.
I know you've covered tofu sheets, but would you consider covering tofu skins? Whenever I see them in grocery stores I want to try them, but am never quite sure what to do with them.
Tofu skins are often used in Korean and Japanese food, consider using recipes from those countries :)
@@Okayletsg0 You are wrong. In China we use tofu skin a lot in our daily cooking and we also have a lot of varieties of tofu skin. because it’s so cheap, we only cook it at home. Not a lot of restaurants will use this cheap but delicious material.
amazing video! super educational
I made this with boneless chicken breast (SO American I know), and lots of the whole spices (I cook Indian food too so had them on hand), and it came out really delicious. Made me proud. But it also made me wonder if there's any tradition of adding more vegetables to it? I'd like to throw in mushrooms and/or summer squash and/or some onions or shallots, and I figure it would make sense to throw them in when reducing the braising liquid to a sauce, since they don't need a long time to cook. Is this dish supposed to be simple with a veggie on the side? I'll probably give it a try anyway, but as an outsider to the tradition, I'm curious.
Can you do a soy sauce demystified, like the differences between dif kinds?
I have to try this. It looks really good.
The dog liking compulsively in that maner means a start of gastrontological problems, if it does that and does the reflex of throwing with his thought you shoud chek it whit a vet, im sorry for my English, aaaand awsome recepies and tips thaks
It would be great if you did a video on cooking with those clay pots!
I hope you guys can talk about 㸆 as a method in Chinese cooking. It's a traditional cooking method around Yangtze river delta but I feel it is pretty much unknown to most westerners or even Chinese from other regions.
Great video, I'll be skipping the caramel step from now on since it's optional
I love the cute dog!
2:25 the expired-from-2017 five spice 😭 always gotta have one
lol we've all been there, but we do grind up our own five spice... just keep it in that bottle as it's good for shaking :)
Definitely more weeknight dishes
You can tell how good the recipe is by how much Hayek is leaking the air
This reminds me of the salsa verde or roja in México with which you can also make anything with them and has many varieties too, pretty cool
It's the same process--long cooking in moisture to soften foods.
Mr Shapiro you're a great chef
Everytime I just feel like im listening to the lockpicking lawyer XD
i'd love more chicken recipes
My man Andong!
looks good!
No because I've been looking for this type of recipe for ages!!! (I had these types of dishes almost every day while I was living in China but I never asked what they were called😅)
I really appreciate your description of cooking tofu! Patience! Think of them as mushrooms, that's the best way I can describe it, or H²O, it's/ they are a chemical process with very different properties, depending on the heat and time.
i was making red braised pork today and found out there is this new video lol .. i usually put every spices on description except for licorice root
I’m gonna have to try this sometime soon
Do you braise fish the same way? Very good explanation of cooking principles.
Fish would be panfried on each side first :)
Love when the pets have cameos. How did the dog get the name Hayek? Friedrich August von Hayek, Selma Hayek, or another Hayek? LOL
Haha yeah Friedrich von Hayek. Not a political statement - I've just always named pets after economists, and figured that Hayek would be a good name for a schnauzer.
Weird one, but have you considered using cola, similar to 可乐鸡翅? It has sugar, caramel, and random cola-y flavours after all.
Saw that Andong clip!
I feel like hayek keeps licking because the food smells so good they feel like they can taste it through the air
This is gonna be my dinner tomorrow! I can't wait to try it with tofu. ^__^
I usually add a bit of sichuan peppercorn to my red braise, would recommend