lessons from the hutong: seasonings

While I was in Beijing I attended a cooking class in one of the hutongs (old-school alleys in the city), which are where the traditional courtyard houses can be found.

We entered the school via a large gate, took a couple of turns through paved pathways covered in entanglements of vines with large hanging gourds and lined with huge stacks of coal bricks for the impending winter, and found ourselves in a pretty courtyard.

The class opened with a lesson on soy sauce, vinegar and wine - we learned how to differentiate between good and poor quality soy sauce and the appropriate uses of dark and light soy and vinegar. Very useful stuff. I think it's so important to understand these sorts of principles as it allows you to cook freely rather than being chained to a recipe book (especially if you're like me and struggle to stick to recipes).

~soy sauce~
Light soy sauce is the all-purpose soy sauce and tends to be used for chicken, fish, shrimp and pork dishes. Dark soy sauce is used for colour and where its stronger flavour won't overshadow the other ingredients, for example, in beef, mutton and noodle dishes.

I've dubbed the guide to quality, the 'soy sauce quality meter'. It centres on the amino acid nitrogen level - 0.7g or higher per 100ml means good quality, below this means poorer quality. There are four general grades, the highest is superior grade, followed by first, second and third grade (superior and first have greater than 0.7g and second and third have lower than 0.7g). The recommended brands are Amoy, Lee Kum Kee, Jammy Chai, Haday and Pearl River Bridge.

~vinegar~
The vinegars are mostly dark and provide the 'sour' element in 'sweet and sour' and 'hot and sour' dishes.

Apparently in the north of China they tend to produce dark vinegars, and in the south they tend to be clear (the dark/light rule also applies here - light tends to be used with lighter meats such as crab, seafood and chicken).

The dark vinegars smell great - malty and with  a nice tang that makes my mouth water. The ones we looked at were made from sorghum, a grain I haven't encountered before but after wiki'ing it I now know that it is one of the top five grain crops in the world. Guess I will start seeing it and hearing about it everywhere now.

The 'vinegar quality meter' centres on its acid level - above 5g per 100ml is good and below is not good. The older the vinegar the higher the acid.

The two types of vinegar recommended are Zhenjiang (the brand is Hengshun) and Shanxi (the brand is Donghu).

~wine~
Apparently wine is useful to 'burn the fat away' in fatty meat dishes. It's made from sticky rice, is an amber colour and smells a bit like sherry - I think, though I am not very experienced in sherry.

The recommended wine is a drinking wine called Shaoxing Hua Diao - Pagoda brand is the only one with an English brand name so that's the one I'll be looking for in London.