Slippery Chicken Image Used Under Creative Commons License From fat-of-the-land.blogspot.com
My Citizens – attend and pay heed to the dulcet notes of my mesmerizing words! Your gastronomically obsessive Leader – the discerning æsthete who ALONE is TFD! – today wishes to share another priceless nugget of culinary wisdom with the proud members of TFD Nation!
Today, I wish to better define a concept rarely discussed in Western culinary circles – texture. We typically gloss over this facet of the culinary experience because we are so laser-focused on taste. However, the Chinese have long known that there is a gestalt to gastronomy – a whole that is greater than the sum of just its parts. Taste may be paramount, but smell, texture, temperature and other more refined criteria also play into the ultimate end-result of a great meal.
The Chinese have long appreciated textures that Westerners either shy away from or flat-out RUN away from. This is a shame, because the refined appreciation of texture is a wonderful part of the gastronomic zeitgeist! Here is one previous example of a Chinese recipe I posted focusing on texture.
As well-stated in an article published by the British newspaper The Telegraph:
“Food might be one of the last barriers to fully immerse oneself in a foreign culture, and for British gourmet and writer Fuchsia Dunlop, that frontier for Westerners when it comes to Chinese food is kou gan (mouthfeel), or texture. She says: “Cross it, and you’re really inside.”
By texture, she particularly refers to that of the food Chinese people are famously interested in, such as goose intestines, ox throat cartilage, chicken feet, sea cucumber or abalone, which Westerners usually consider pointless since they taste like “a bike’s inner tube or plastic bags”.
In one of her popular books, Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper published in 2008, Dunlop devoted an entire chapter, The Rubber Factor, to what kou gan means in Chinese cuisine.
She lists some representatives: cui of fresh crunchy vegetables (a particular quality of crispness); tan xing (springy elasticity like that of a squid ball); nen (tenderness of just-cooked fish or meat); and shuang (that “evokes a refreshing, bright, slippery, cool sensation in the mouth.”)
In a wonderful scholarly paper on texture words in the major cuisines, I found these incredible findings:
The texture descriptive terms were studied in Chinese by a Sino-Japanese collaboration research team (Hayakawa et al. 2004). A total of 317 words were collected from an open-ended questionnaire by laboratory panels in Beijing (capital; north area), Shanxi (north inland area), Shanghai (east coastal area) and Guangdong (south coastal area). From these 317 words, 144 terms were selected as texture descriptive terms through a roundtable discussion by an expert panel.
- Firm and crisp (ying cui)
- Firm (ying)
- Hard and solid (jian ying)
- Dry and hard (gan ying)
- Loose and crisp (song cui)
- Dry, loose and crisp (gan cui)
- Loose and crisp (su cui)
- Detrital (sui xue zhuang)
- Tough (lao)
- Stiff (jiang)
- Stiff (gen)
- Crisp (cui)
- Crunchy (cui beng)
- Crunchy (ceng)
- Clear and brittle (shuang cui)
- Clear and brittle (cui shuang)
- Uncooked and crisp (sheng cui)
- Grain (ke li gan)
- Grain-like (ke li zhuang)
- Granule (li gan)
- Gritty (sha li gan)
- Gritty (sha li zhuang)
- Crisp and loose (su song)
- Rarefaction (shu song)
- Dry and crisp (gan su)
- Crystalline (jie jing zhuang)
- Glassy (bo li zhuang)
- Tightness (jin shi)
- Compact (jin mi)
- Substantial (jie shi)
- Solid and substantial (jian shi)
- Pycnotic (zhi mi)
- Mealy (fen zhi)
- Mealy (fen zhi gan)
- Powdered dregs (fen zha)
- Coarse (cu cao)
- Loose (song)
- Flaccidity (song san)
- Puffed (peng song)
- Fluffy (peng song)
- Dry and loose (gan song)
- Powdery (fen zhuang)
- Powdery (fen zhuang gan)
- Brittle (su)
- Fibrous (xian wei gan)
- Fibrous (xian wei zhuang)
- Fibrous (chai)
- Dregs (zha zhi)
- Dreg-sensed (zha zhi gan)
- Dry-damp (gan hu)
- Dry (gan)
- Tough and firm (jian ren)
- Oily and brittle (you su)
- Multiholed (duo kong zhuang)
- Gritty and daintily (sha shuang)
- Crisp and tender (cui nen)
- Tender and crisp (nen cui)
- Villiform (rong mao zhuang)
- Astringent (se kou)
- Astringent (shou lian gan)
- Loose and soft (song ruan)
- Soft and brittle (su ruan)
- Brittle and soft (ruan su)
- Brittle and mushy (su lan)
- Spongy (hai mian zhuang)
- Cystose (pao mo zhuang)
- Foamed (fa pao zhuang)
- Fine (xi mi)
- Fine (xi ni)
- Mastication (you ju jue xing)
- Tenacious (ren)
- Elasticity (you tan xing)
- Chewy (jin dou)
- Chewy (yao jing)
- Chewy (jin dao)
- Mastication (you jiao tou)
- Tendon (jin)
- Flexible (rou ren)
- Flexible (ruan ren)
- Coagulate floc (ning xu zhuang)
- Melt immediately (ru kou ji hua)
- Tasty and icy (shuang kou)
- Clear and tasty (qing shuang)
- Icy clear (bing shuang)
- Tasty (li kou)
- Clear and smooth (shuang)
- Soft (rou ruan)
- Soft and spongy (mian ruan)
- Sponge-like soft (ruan mian mian)
- Dense (nong hou)
- Dense (hou shi)
- Dense (hou)
- Thoroughly cooked (shu lan)
- Overcooked (gun lan)
- Thoroughly cooked (fen lan)
- Fatness (you ni)
- Greasy (ni)
- Oily (you wang wang)
- Thin (xi)
- Milkiness (ru zhuang)
- Thin and rare (xi bo)
- Flowing juice (liu zhi zhuang)
- Thin and rare (liu zhi gan)
- Soft and tender (rou neng)
- Tender (neng)
- Fine and tender (xi neng)
- Juicy (duo zhi)
- Watery (shui zi zi)
- Wet (shi run)
- Wet (run shi)
- Moist (shi)
- Moist (chao shi)
- Slippery and tasty (hua shuang)
- Slippery (hua)
- Smooth and watery (hua run)
- Watery and smooth (run hua)
- Watery and tasty (run kou)
- Smooth and watery (yuan run)
- Soft (ruan)
- Gelatinous (ning jiao zhuang)
- Gelatinous (ning jiao gan)
- Slippery and tender (hua nen)
- Tender and slippery (nen hua)
- Silkiness (rou hua)
- Silkiness (mian hua)
- Sliminess (hua liu)
- Smooth and slippery (guang hua)
- Smooth and slippery (yuan hua)
- Smooth and bare (guang liu)
- Pasty (hu)
- Thin and pasty (xi hu)
- Glutinous (nuo)
- Jelly (guo dong zhuang)
- Meat jelly (rou dong zhuang)
- Thick (chou)
- Thick (nong chou)
- Mushy and soft (lan ruan)
- Mushy and soft (hu ruan)
- Ointment-like (ruan gao zhuang)
- Viscosity (nian)
- Stick to teeth (nian ya)
- Gumminess (nian chou)
- Sticky (nian hu-hu)
- Gumminess (jiao nian xing)
…whew!…
So, it should be painfully obvious to even the most early-stage gastronomic tyros amongst you that the Chinese REALLY appreciate texture – which leads to today’s recipe, an easy one to enjoy by way of texture (no fish lips or sea cucumber here!).
This dish is all about flavor and texture as one – the ingredients blend into a harmonious whole and the texture is #113 – slippery and tasty as an integrated whole. This texture is achieved by the Chinese culinary technique known as “velveting” – more details are in the recipe.
I have every confidence you will achieve a new appreciation of texture through this delicious dish, my Citizens! I’ve added some additional Sichuan and Cantonese flavor elements to the classic dish, as noted in the recipe.
Battle on – the Generalissimo
Ingredients
- 10 ounces boneless chicken breast, partially-frozen and cut into 1 ½” long julienne pieces
- ½ head spinach, leaves only
- 1 large egg white
- 1 tbsp. cornstarch
- ¼ tsp. salt
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 5 cups and 3 tbsp. chicken stock
- 2 tbsp. Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry
- 2 tbsp. soy sauce
- 2 tbsp. white vinegar
- 2 tbsp. sugar
- pinch of ground white pepper
- 2 scallions, trimmed and minced
- 4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
- 2 tsp. peeled and minced fresh ginger
- 2 tsp. XO sauce (TFD change - original called for hot bean paste)
- 1 tbsp. cornstarch mixed with ⅓ cup cold chicken stock
- ½ tsp. chili oil
- ½ tsp. Sichuan peppercorn oil (TFD change, original called for chili oil only)
Instructions
- Mix chicken, egg white, cornstarch, salt, and 1 tablespoon of the oil, and set aside in a medium bowl.
- Bring 5 cups of stock to the boil, add 1 tablespoon of the oil, then the spinach, and cook for forty-five seconds until the spinach turns bright green, remove, drain, and put on a serving platter and cover with foil.
- Heat wok or pan, add the remaining oil, and add the chicken pieces, a few at a time, stir them for about forty-five seconds, remove and drain; and repeat until all are oil-blanched. This is the technique known as 'velveting in oil' and is a necessity for this dish!
- Discard all but two tablespoons of oil from the wok or pan. In a bowl, mix the three tablespoons of stock, the rice wine, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, and white pepper.
- Heat wok with its oil, add scallions, garlic, and ginger, then add the chicken stock mixture, XO sauce, and the recently stirred cornstarch-stock mixture.
- Bring to the boil, return the chicken to the wok or pan, add the chili and Sichuan peppercorn oils, and stir-fry for 30 seconds until chicken is barely cooked (it will continue to cook until it is served).
- Remove foil from the spinach and put the chicken mixture on top of it and serve.
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