| Chinese cooks attach great importance to the balance
among the ingredients in a dish. This important step should
result in a harmonious blending of textures, colors, aromas,
flavors, shapes and nutritional qualities. To do this
well, you must understand the required cooking methods
of the dishes and the characteristics of different ingredients
and how they fit together.
Balancing amounts
The major ingredient should be the most plentiful one
in a dish. If you are making stir-fried meat shreds,
for example, the total quantity of other ingredients
should not exceed the amount of meat. If there are two
or more main ingredients, you should use about the same
amount of each.
Balancing flavors
All the ingredients in a dish should enhance the flavor
of the main ingredient. This is why asparagus or bamboo
shoots are often cooked with chicken, duck, and fish:
the blandness of these vegetables enhances the light,
delicate character of the meat.
Similarly, the blandness of shark's fins and sea cucumbers
(beche-de-mer, sea slug) can be offset by cooking them
with Chinese ham, chicken, or pork, or in a highly-flavored
stock. You can also cut the heavy, greasy character
of a main ingredient by adding lighter secondary ingredients.
This is why many Chinese recipes call for pork to be
cooked with fresh vegetables.
You must also take seasonal factors and personal preferences
into account. Summer is the season for light, juicy
foods, while heavier dishes, or ones with thick gravies,
are better suited to cold weather. When you plan a menu,
you should balance sweet, salty, sour, and hot dishes
to suit your taste and that of your family and guests.
There is also a Chinese sequence for serving dishes:
salty dishes are served before sweet ones, while heavy-
and light-flavored ones are served alternately.
Balancing textures
Texture refers to the crunchiness, crispness, softness,
or tenderness of a food. In Chinese cooking, ingredients
with similar textures are usually cooked together. However,
crisp and soft foods are sometimes combined in a single
dish. This requires careful attention to cooking temperatures
to retain the differences in textures.
Balancing shapes Chinese cooks usually cut all the
ingredients in a dish into similar shapes. For example,
chunks of meat and chunks of vegetables are usually
cut to about the same size. This makes it easier to
cook all the ingredients evenly and also gives the final
dish a pleasing appearance.
Balancing colors
Chinese cooks tend either to select ingredients of
the same color, or to use many contrasting ingredients
to add color to a dish.
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