Hanoi cuisines (p1) There are three basic modes of cooking used throughout Việt Nam: over fire, without fire, and a combination of both. In Thăng Long-Hà Nội cooking, there are strict rules about each mode depending on what dish is being cooked and what ingredients are available. Careful adherence to these rules is what turns cooking Thăng Long-Hà Nội cuisine into an art. A daily meal in Hà Nội – a. Cooking over fire - Boiling: Food is put directly in boiled water or into a bain-marie. Most kinds of meat can be cooked in the first way. Whether a food is boiled until half-done, done to a turn or well-done is conditional upon what the food is. - Stewing: This way of cooking is applied to the meat and bone of livestock (such as buffaloes, cows and pigs) or old poultry with tough flesh. Meat should be well-cooked in boiled water for a duration that is long enough for it to turn tender and fall off the bone but still stay in its original shape. To ensure the ingredients cook quickly and smell good, they are often stewed with wine and unripe papayas. Besides being put directly in boiled water, ingredients can also be stewed in a bain-marie; the latter method is usually applied to pigeons or small chickens. - Steaming: Food is steamed using a chõ - a cooker with two boilers, one of which is placed tightly over the other. The lower boiler contains water while the upper, which has holes in its base, contains the ingredients. During cooking, steam goes up through the holes of the upper boiler and heats the ingredients here. Food always tastes good without being broken or loose when cooked in this way. - Soup cooking: Soup is made by cooking ingredients with water and some fish sauce or salt. The typical feature of soup is that it has a lot of water in it. Some soups, like bindweed or colza, are cooked with tubes and vegetables only and they are called canh suông (clear soup). Some others are cooked with fruits and/or vegetables and meat, for example, crab soup cooked with dishcloth gourds and basella alba or gourd soup cooked with dried shrimp. And some are cooked with sour fruits and vegetables and they are called canh chua (sour soup). There are strict rules on which fruit, vegetable and meat should go together to make a soup. Dishcloth gourds and basella alba, for instance, cannot go with pork or broth but can go with crab or shrimp. - Simmering: This is the method often used to cook seafood, like fish, eels, and loaches. Before cooking, ingredients should be mixed well with spices like ginger, garlic, and especially crocus, which is essential for food cooked in this way. While the food is cooking, unripe bananas or sour star-fruits are often added to eliminate the fishy smell. - Stir-frying: Ingredients are added to boiling fat or oil, fish sauce and/or salt and stirred continuously over an intense fire. Some other spices such as onion, garlic, or ginger are also added to the dish according to its main ingredients. In preparing a dish of stir-fried beef, for example, the meat should be stir-fried first with garlic and then with celery or leek at the end of cooking. Stir-fried food should be slightly salty and moderately cooked. - Roasting: Ingredients are stirred regularly over a long period in a frying-pan over a low fire. This method is used for cereals like maize, beans, peanuts, and sesame and for meats like chicken, pork, and seafood. When roasting meats, some water should be poured into the pan and the final product should be dry and salty. - Braise-roasting: This is similar to roasting but applied to meats only. The final product should be salty and surrounded by a thick sauce. - Braising: Braising is similar to braise-roasting in terms of method and the ingredients to which it is applied. However, more water is used and the food is cooked for longer. The final product should be tender and salty. - Grilling: Ingredients are cooked directly on charcoal and the resulting dishes are called chả (grilled food). Common grilled dishes are chả cá (grilled fish), chả thịt lợn (grilled pork) and chả thịt bò (grilled beef). Each main ingredient is often mixed with a corresponding spice before grilling to give the food a unique taste and aroma. Examples are grilled pork mixed with fish sauce, onion and pepper or grilled fish with salt, crocus, and ferment. - Frying: The food is cooked in boiling oil or fat. This way of cooking is applied mainly to meats and seafood. Ingredients should be well coated with spices before frying. The final product should have a yellow surface and may be slightly charred. Most dishes cooked in this way should be served with sauce and pickles.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Jul 2013 14:36:38 +0000
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