35 step-by-step recipes and counting — tested, photographed, and written for home cooks.
Chinese supermarkets have hundreds of sauces and spices — but you only need 11 to cook 80% of home-style Chinese food. Here's what to buy, what to skip, and why your kitchen already has half of them.
Carbon steel vs cast iron, flat bottom vs round, seasoning without the rituals — everything you need to know about buying and maintaining the only pan that matters in a Chinese kitchen.
Sichuan peppercorn, star anise, cassia, cloves, and more — the eight spices that power Chinese cooking, how to use them, and what you can safely ignore.
A Chinese cleaver isn't a bone axe — it's a thin slicing blade, a bench scraper, a garlic smasher, and the only knife a home kitchen really needs. Carbon steel vs stainless, how to hold it, and what to buy.
Bamboo or metal, stacked or single — the Chinese steamer is the most underrated tool in the kitchen. No oil, no stirring, no burning. Just water, heat, and whatever you put inside comes out tasting more like itself.
Chinkiang black vinegar, Shanxi aged, rice, red — the four Chinese vinegars that do entirely different jobs, and why one bottle handles eighty percent of everything.
Dried shiitake, wood ear, dried shrimp, dried scallops — the four Chinese dried goods that turn water into umami, and why one bag of dried mushrooms earns its shelf space forever.
The authentic Harbin-style double-fried pork that shatters when you bite — crisp potato starch shell, tender loin, and a translucent sweet-sour sauce that takes 30 minutes from fridge to table.
Eight hundred grams of hand-chopped pork, 200ml of ginger-scallion water worked in four goes, and a 90–95°C braise that never boils.
A kilo of skin-on belly, 60g of rock sugar taken to amber, and 90 minutes at 95°C before an overnight rest in the sauce that sets to jelly.
Four hundred grams of thigh, a bowl of sauce mixed before the wok is lit, and 45 seconds of stillness that decide the texture.
Mapo tofu by temperature: 200°C for the beef and doubanjiang, 90°C for the braise, and a three-stage starch slurry that makes the sauce cling.
Sichuan boiled fish: 4mm slices poached at 85°C in a strained doubanjiang broth, then 200°C rapeseed oil poured over chillies at the table.
Cantonese sweet and sour pork: shoulder cut into 2.5cm cubes, a rested starch coat, a 160°C then 190°C double fry, and a sharp glaze in the last 20 seconds.
Twice-cooked pork: belly simmered 25 minutes, chilled, sliced 2mm, then rendered until the edges curl and the doubanjiang turns the oil red.
Biang biang noodles depend on two rests, an oiled bench, and a slap that stretches the belt to 1.5 metres before it hits the water for 90 seconds.
Chicken feet trimmed, blanched, fried at 180°C for twenty seconds, then braised for ninety until the skin wrinkles and the sauce sets to jelly.
Cantonese steamed fish: a 600g sea bass dried, racked above boiling water, steamed eight minutes, then finished with seasoned soy and oil at 200°C.
Cold silken tofu with century egg and a five-part dressing, assembled in five minutes and served before the tofu has time to weep into the sauce.
Chongqing breakfast in a bowl: seasoning laid down first, starchy water for broth, 90 seconds of noodles, and a teaspoon of lard. Always lard.
Dry noodles, a wok heated until it smokes, soy poured down the metal instead of onto the noodles, and two 150g batches that fit the burner you actually own.
Xinjiang da pan ji: bone-in chicken braised with rock sugar caramel and Pixian bean paste, potato wedges in at the end, belt noodles laid underneath.
Sichuan dan dan noodles assembled in order: chilli oil, loosened sesame paste, soy, vinegar and ground pepper under the noodles, crisp pork on top.
Di san xian done properly: potato fried at 160°C, salted eggplant at 175°C, green pepper for ten seconds, and a starch sauce that thickens in twenty.
Whole milk rested until a wrinkled skin forms, poured out from under it, set with egg white, then steamed at 85°C until a second skin closes over the top.
Suan ni bai rou: skin-on belly held at 88°C for 38 minutes, chilled firm, sliced 2mm, and dressed with pounded garlic, chilli oil and black vinegar.
Shanghai red-braised pork belly where rock sugar, not dark soy, makes the colour: 3cm cubes, a 170°C caramel, then 70 minutes at a bare simmer.
Scallion oil noodles from a Shanghai kitchen: 100ml oil to 60g scallions, twenty minutes at low heat, then tossed with a 2:1 soy sauce.
A Shanghai home method for tomato and egg stir-fry: eggs pulled at 70 percent set, tomatoes salted alone for four minutes, one teaspoon of sugar to round it.
Hand-minced pork at 30 percent fat, 150ml of ginger-scallion water worked in three spoons at a time, and a one-sided pleat that keeps the seam thin.
Sichuan kou shui ji: bone-in legs poached at 85 to 90°C, chilled hard, sliced cold, dressed at the last minute in chilli oil loosened with poaching liquid.
Sichuan la zi ji: thigh cubed and marinated, fried at 160°C then 190°C, tossed with 80g of dried chillies and a teaspoon of sugar in the last thirty seconds.
Mango pomelo sago: blended mango with coconut and evaporated milk, sago rinsed cold, and pomelo torn into sacs by hand, chilled for two hours.
The Hunan red-braised pork: no dark soy and no blanching, 50g of rock sugar taken to deep amber, then 40 minutes in a wok and 30 in clay.
Pork, cabbage, shiitake and bamboo cooked until the pan is dry, chilled 30 minutes, rolled tight and fried at 170°C until the seams are the colour of straw.
Shanghai sweet-and-sour ribs on the 1:2:3:4 ratio, with Chinkiang vinegar split in two: half braised in for depth, half added off heat for aroma.
Cantonese white cut chicken: a whole bird held at 90°C for 25 to 30 minutes, rested off heat, iced, chopped through the bone, served with ginger-scallion oil.
Yangzhou fried rice built on two rules: day-old rice broken up by hand, and beaten egg poured over the grains before the wok, not scrambled in it.
A Shaanxi hand-pulled noodle built on two rests and one 200°C pour: chilli, garlic, black vinegar, and oil taken right to the smoke point.
Yu xiang eggplant without a cup of oil: salt or microwave the batons first, shallow-fry at 175°C in three batches, then finish with pickled chilli.
Shredded pork loin velveted for 15 minutes, seared in a loose layer for 30 seconds, then glazed with the fish-fragrant sauce in the last half minute.
Beijing noodles with hand-diced pork belly and two bean pastes, fried low and slow for 20 minutes until the oil separates and the sauce turns dark.
More recipes coming — one for every dish in the 109 collection.