I am now in my third month at New Oriental Cooking School, and we have moved to the kitchen to learn cooking techniques. One Chinese Cooking technique we have learned is sizing, or glazing, food with a starch and water solution. In Chinese, this is called DăQiàn (打芡).
DăQiàn (打芡)
DăQiàn (打芡) means to add a starch-water solution to the dish, just before finishing. 这会使食物中的汁液变稠，从而覆盖食物表面，使其光滑。 如果你添加的不够，食物汁会变成水状的肉汤。 如果添加太多，果汁会变得像粘液一样粘稠。
This takes practice and judgment. The chef has to judge the amount of liquid from the food in the wok, and add enough starch-water to produce a satisfactory glaze. The action of the starch solution in the hot wok will be to thicken the sauce, but this does not happen immediately. It is easy to add too much. But cooking with the wok is done with high heat, so the chef must work quickly.
As with making a gravy, the best approach is to add a small amount, and add more until the desired result is achieved. Unlike making a gravy, however, you are not simmering over a low heat. This is why it important to keep the food moving and turning in the wok. You must act quickly, or the food will be overcooked. Vegetables with a lot of moisture, such as leafy vegetables and potatoes, will quickly cook down into a sludge when exposed to the heat for too long.
Quality inspection
When we finish the dishes that we make in class, we place them on a table for teacher Zhu to inspect. He judges the dish by several factors, including:
- 清洁：成品菜应为食材原色，保持清洁，不得有其他杂质，如铁锅的灰烬（黑点状杂质）。
- 味道：味道要适中，有这道菜应该有的味道。 For example: saltiness and spiciness.
- Texture: the feeling of the food in your mouth, whether soft, chewy, crispy, creamy.
- 形状：成品菜需要保持食材原有的形状。 例如：土豆丝不能炸太久，否则会变成土豆泥。
- Glazing (DăQiàn 打芡): The food will be coated and smooth with an even glaze, with no watery broth, but not so thick as to be sticky like snot.
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