28 Chinese Takeout Recipes You Will Love (2024)

FAQs

Why doesn t my Chinese food taste like takeout? ›

Chinese takeouts use a key ingredient you might not be using at home. Soy sauce alone isn't complex enough to add flavor to most dishes. The majority of Chinese takeouts also use oyster sauce, either as an ingredient in stir-fry sauce or added to dishes during cooking.

Restaurants will have a long list of ingredients prepped, including stocks, sauces, lots of different spices, dark, light, and regular soy sauce, etc. Many home cooks will skimp/compromise on some of these for convenience, unless it's a special occasion.

Dishes like fried rice and steamed dumplings are made for sharing. Most Chinese restaurants sell dishes a la carte in pints or quarts. If you didn't know (I had to look it up), a quart equals two pints, and many restaurants sell the bigger serving at a slight discount. Load up on quarts and you've got yourself a feast.

Chinese food and soups contain monosodium glutamate (MSG) as the main addictive ingredient. A sensitive individual may suffer from headache, giddiness, sweating, abdominal pain, and urticaria within a few hours of consumption of MSG.

Twenty minutes after eating Chinese food, some people would experience tingling, brain fog, numbness, chest pain or headaches, due to the presence of a flavour enhancer called MSG, which was later linked to a process called excitotoxicity that causes the degeneration of synapses (connections between brain cells), being ...

Here's what goes in Fried Rice Sauce: Chinese cooking wine or Mirin (secret ingredient!) – this is the secret to a really great fried rice that truly stacks up to your favourite Chinese restaurant.

Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) is a flavor enhancer that has been widely used for roughly 100 years ( 1 ). In addition to being naturally present in certain foods, it's a common food additive in Chinese recipes, canned vegetables and soups, and other processed goods.

Chinese cooks normally use soybean oil, vegetable oil, or peanut oil, all of which have a high smoke point. Peanut oil usually has a pleasant nutty flavor and is suitable not only for stir-frying but also for deep-frying. Canola oil, which has a high smoke point but a neutral flavor, is also a good choice.

Since the meal is meant to be shared, everyone at the table should get some of each dish placed in the center of the table. Taking a large helping of the food means someone else might not be able to try some of the dish.

Why is so much Chinese food fried? ›

Ethnic Chinese cooking does not involve a lot of deep fried cooking. The reason most of the Chinese restaurants in America have deep-fried dishes such as sweet and sour pork, almond fried Chicken, and deep-fried shrimp is to promote business and to please western tastes.

Yes, they do, and so do many other restaurants and food manufacturers. The purpose is to increase the savoriness of foods, what is often referred to as Umami. MSG is one of the most abundant naturally occurring amino acids and is found in tomatoes, grapes, cheese, mushrooms and other foods.

While the dish isn't exactly authentic Chinese food, its namesake was a very real (and very powerful) general. Zuo Zongtang (General Tso) was a respected Chinese statesman and military leader of the late Qing dynasty, which ruled the country from 1644 until 1912.

Temperature plays an important role in the taste of a dish. “There is a way to prepare Chinese food at home. Get all the ingredients ready, let the pan get super hot and then add one ingredient after the other quickly in the pan. The food prepare this way, I guarantee, will have a restaurant-like taste,” said the chef.

Restaurants will have a long list of ingredients prepped, including stocks, sauces, lots of different spices, dark, light, and regular soy sauce, etc. Many home cooks will skimp/compromise on some of these for convenience, unless it's a special occasion.

A blend of cinnamon, cloves, Sichuan peppercorns, fennel and star anise, these five spices give the sour, bitter, pungent, sweet and salty flavors found in Chinese cooking. This spice works extremely well with meats and in marinades.

The most universal difference is that restaurants tend to use more fat and more salt than a typical home cook. More oil in the pan for frying. More butter in the sauce. Restaurant cooks are more consistent with salting/seasoning than home cooks are.