Superior Dark or Superior Light Soy Sauce??

I remember the first time I saw “superior Dark” (also called lao chou 老抽 and “superior light” (also called sheng chou 生抽) soy sauce that I felt very confused. So, I asked my mother: “What’s different between Dark and light soy sauce?? How to use it?”

My mother basically said: superior dark soy sauce is for enhance the colour of food. It will make the colour of our dishes have more caramel kind of colour. We often add some dark soy sauce when we cook stew type of dishes in Chinese cooking.

Normally, just use couple drops of dark soy sauce to enhance your dishes if you put too much dark soy sauce will cause your dishes looks too dark and damage the presentation.

“How about light soy sauce? How we use it for our dishes?” Well, normally we use light sauce for season our dishes, especially stir-fry, making chinese style salad, marinating and dipping. So, you must be careful when you use light soy sauce for your dishes because light soy sauce taste very salty.

Do you feel more confident to choose soy sauce yourself in Chinese supermarket now? I hope this article can help you in somehow.

Hai Lu Fried Rice

Hai Lu Fried Rice

hai lu fried rice

Hai Lu Fried rice is a very popular and common dish in Chinese or Taiwanese cooking. Fried rice’s history has been in China for over a thousand years.

We have so many different kind of fried rice in both Chinese and Taiwanese cooking, but their have two very important ingredients is a essential for fried rice. One is egg and the other is spring onion.

Fried rice was called “Rice with crush gold” when Duke Jingwu of Chu – Yang Su who first invented the fried rice. Because the egg in fried rice have such beautiful golden colour and it’s just look like “gold” been crushed then added into rice so it’s called “Rice with crush gold”. Spring onion can enhance the flavour of fried rice and also give fried rice that special fragrance.

I made this “Hai lu fried rice” is by mixing prawns, chicken breasts and many different kind of vegetables. “Who said Chinese food can’t be healthy?!” The directly meaning of “hai” is Sea, also can be the name short for Seafood on the menu in a restaurant. The directly meaning of “lu” is land, but also can be the name short for meat.

Bellow is the recipe for Hai lu fried rice, Hope you enjoy cooking!!

 

Hai Lu Fried Rice

Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes
Servings 3 people

Ingredients

  • 1/2 red pepper
  • 1/2 yellow pepper
  • 1/2 orange pepper
  • 1 carrot depends on the size of the carrot but half is used for final decoration
  • 15 prawns
  • 1 pc chicken breast
  • 3 spring onions
  • 4 large eggs
  • Pinch salt
  • Drop soy sauce
  • Pinch white pepper powder

Instructions

Procedure for Chicken marinade

  1. Cut chicken breast into small dices.

  2. 3 cloves of garlic, chop really really finely.

  3. Mix chicken breast with chopped garlic, pinch of salt, 1 table spoon light soy sauce, 1/2 table spoon brown sugar, couple pinches of black pepper powder, 1 tea spoon potato starch.

  4. Leave it to marinade for 10 minutes.

Procedure for prawn marinade

  1. Gently slice prawns from the back of it and without cutting through it.

  2. Mix prawns with 1 table spoon rice wine, pinch of salt, 1/2 tea spoon of black pepper powder.

  3. Leave it to marinade for 10 minutes also.

Procedure for cooking Hai Lu fried rice

  1. Cook rice and leave it to cool down and use spatula to loosen it gently. (You can also cook it a night before, it’s even better.)

  2. Marinade prawns and chicken breast by the follow steps above.

  3. 1/2 carrot cut into small dice and cook in the water until it’s soft (but not mash!)

  4. Wash peppers and cut into small dice. (a little bit smaller than one penny.)

  5. Chop 2 spring onions finely.

  6. Chop garlic very finely.

  7. Use a table spoon vegetable oil to saute garlic and then peppers about 30 seconds. Place peppers onto a plate and leave aside.

  8. Use a little bit of oil to saute the chicken and prawn separately and also place onto a plate and leave aside.

  9. Whisk eggs with a little bit of salt, pepper powder and heat the wok up with 1 table spoon oil to cook it until medium rare then add the cold rice into it to mix properly.

  10. Add all the ingredients except chopped spring onion and mix it properly.

  11. Add chopped spring onion into rice when it’s nearly cook and just mix it properly again.

  12. Julienne 1 spring onion and 1/3 carrot as final touch to decorate on top of your fried rice.

 

Chinese Cooking Class in Edinburgh

This is my first blog on blogspot for my Chinese cooking class. I’m an experienced chef who is married to a lovely English man and currently settled in Edinburgh.

I’ve always had a passion for cooking and I’ve learnt so many amazing Chinese foods from my grandmother (she is originally from Guangdong), grandfather (he is originally from Sichuan) and my mother.

I was born and grew up in Taipei, Taiwan and I also lived in Shanghai for one year. I’ve been surrounded by Chinese and Taiwanese food all my life and I studied in one of the top 100 hospitality colleges in the world. My teacher in college was two times cooking Olympics champion.

I will teach you how to cook proper Chinese/Taiwanese food, how to choose the ingredients and different sauces in the chinese supermarket. I can even teach you some Chinese language as I’m completely fluent in both traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese. I ensure you will get more than what you paid for and my class is worth every penny !

Why don’t you join me to explore different Chinese foods?! I will teach you until you can cook a Chinese meal at home for your friends and family. Don’t be afraid if you think you only have a little experience in cooking or none at all. I’ll be very patient to teach you until you fully understand. Please do not hesitate to contact me.

You contact me about fee, class schedules and all kind of information at the following email addresses:

eggwan1013@hotmail.com

livradley1013@yahoo.com