Wok Fusion Flavor

A common phrase you’ll hear among chefs is that “the stock makes the soup.” As it turns out, this is absolutely true – a good stock can invigorate a soup, making a bland, tasteless one into something people will actually enjoy eating. Not using the right stock on the other hand can give your soup a strange flavor that doesn’t mesh well with the rest of your meal. As such, stocks must be carefully balanced in order to add the exact flavors that are needed to your meal.

Before that, however, a stock must contain the flavors you need in the first place. This process requires patience and experimentation, and is extremely important in making great Chinese soup. Use this guide to remind you of some of the other basics of making a good stock for some great Chinese soup:

Carry Lots of Stock
Carrying plenty of stock is absolutely essential when making Chinese soup. After all, you end up using a lot of it whenever you make soup, so it’s important to have lots of it on hand. There’s nothing worse than getting ready to make a nice bowl of Chinese soup and realizing you can’t make it because you don’t have any stock. Carry lots of stock, however, and you’ll never be at a loss for cooking ideas because you can add a few ingredients to a stock to make a complete soup meal.

Chinese stocks generally come in two varieties: a clear kind made of chicken, and a rich kind made from other heavy meats. It’s actually a good idea to have both types on hand; you’ll never know when you’ll need to use both in a recipe.

It’s also important to carry around lots of different kinds of stocks. In Chinese cooking, stocks are seen as the foundation to a great soup, so using one type of stock over another can have a huge impact on the taste. If you use a different type of stock than the one recommended, you can actually make a recipe taste plain out bad!

Whether or not you plan to use a lot of stock, its always a good idea to have some frozen stock around for the time when you need some but don’t have time to make it fresh. For the best taste, it should be homemade, not made from a can, as the flavor in canned stock is usually much worse.

How to make a stock
The traditional way to make a stock is, unfortunately, difficult to explain as different cooks mix varying amounts of ingredients to suit their own tastes. Some cooks only like a heavy, equal mix stock, such as 2 cups of water per 1 pound of meat or poultry. Others like a more watery taste, about 3-4 cups of water per 1 pound of meat and poultry.

The actual meat preparation, similarly, is created in a much different way depending on the cook. Some cooks will bone the meat, slice the meat into small diagonal pieces, then chop the bones into tiny pieces, and finally cook everything. Cooks who use this method suggest that separating the meat from the bone releases the most amount of flavor from the meat. Others simply chop the meat, bone and all, into very small pieces. After all, they figure, the meat will separate from the bones while cooking.

With heavier bones, such as ham’s bones or pig’s bones, chopping meat and bone together is simply the only way to cook them – ham’s and pig’s meat are too thick to be sliced. The meat, bones, and water are all combined together in a heavy duty pot with a tight fitting cover when cooked.

Fat hens are well known in China to be excellent for stocks, but, since they are difficult to find in the US, a chicken makes an excellent substitute for the clear stock. Pork, on the other hand, is great for a nice rich stock. Again, try to make stocks using different meats to figure out exactly what you like – you’d be surprised by what you’ll end up liking in stocks!

Both stocks are cooked in a similar way: the ingredients are placed in cold water, simmered until the meat almost disintegrates, then strained to remove bones splinters, specks of fiber, and fat. Ginger with scallions are sometimes cooked with the ingredients at the beginning to soften the odor, while salt with some other ingredients are added at the very end to bring the flavor to life. For chicken stock, some fat is left behind so that the broth will be silky; for meat stock, all fat is removed so it won’t be heavy.

Like most Chinese cooking, however, experimentation is key. It’s essential that you try different ingredients, different seasonings, different amounts of water, different everything! Figure out what you like in a soup and try to make your stock reflect that. While you may not always make something that tastes good, you’ll learn just how valuable, and just how drastic, stocks in Chinese cooking can be. With this knowledge, you’re one step closer to becoming a Master Chef.