Great British Chefs Beef Stir Fry
What does someone, better known as a fashion stylist and for trying to make people look good naked, know about cookery? The latest of TV celebrity chefs hit our small screens earlier this week. Gok Wan launched his new six part show Gok Cooks Chinese on Channel 4 on Monday. We asked Hungry Female our new Malaysian Chinese food blogger at Great British Chefs for her thoughts on Gok's cookery skills.
Blog post by Hungry Female for Great British Chefs
Gok had it coming the moment he announced he was strutting that wok. Firstly what does a man who, when is not flouncing around the High Street trying to make frocks for a tenner look 1000% their original price, know about cooking?
Actually, he looked fairly convincing. He had a very natural-looking-one-armed-swooshing of ingredients in a wok. The sign of someone who has actually been paying attention to Poppa Wan whilst growing up. The tips given out were also what my mamma passed down to me. For example, when frying rice itis much better to use rice from the day before – this means each grain will be nicely separated from the next giving you an even spread of rice and fillings.
Lemon and Ginger Sole with Gok's Foolproof Rice
The Holy Trinity of Chinese ingredients, spring onion, ginger and garlic, really is very central to Chinese cooking across the board – use this as your flavour base, build on it and you're onto a winner. And what I really liked was how he regaled quotes from his Dad, which again sounded exactly what any Chinese parent would say, "(the) Chinese will eat anything!", "Fried Rice is the Chinese Treasure Chest" and "Treat the wok like your wife, love it and adore it".
But there were some puzzling bits. On frying rice (can you tell this part made such an impression on me?), I thought it brave to introducelap cheong(Chinese sausage) and dried shrimps as flavour bases. These are indeed very authentic ingredients that appear in the Chinese store cupboard and just few of many goods, testament to the Chinese ability of preserving umami.
Then he opened a tin of very Spanish looking anchovies in olive oil. My guess is he was using this as a substitute to salted fish, another solid Chinese product. Why dip into authenticity and then back out though? He was after all in perfect proximity of a Chinese supermarket and saying how his Dad's kitchen cupboard smelt "like hell".
Again I wanted to applaud him for using real black beans for his beef stir-fry before cooking and not whacking it out from a jar. But I was then baffled to why he sliced off that glorious layer of fat on the meat, and why he didn't coat it in cornflour. Keeping fat on whilst cooking means the meat stays moist and full of yummy-ness and personally I have never seen it become more oily than otherwise. Coating meat with a little cornflour helps to seal it, giving it a silky texture when it does hit the heat. Again it's as if he went halfway in showing off the dish's true mechanics.
I still have more questions and suppose I will only have to watch the rest of the series to make my mind up. I wonder if he'll keep over-styling even the simplest of dishes – fried rice is completely impractical served on a chopping board and I've certainly never eaten it from a lettuce leaf.
Gok's Perfect Fried Rice Recipe
Also, a typical Chinese household (not Hungry Female's mamma's at least!) would never serve a stir-fry in a claypot. Serve what you've made in a claypot, in the claypot. Dear Gok however, is doing what he does best - style.*Whisper* actually I thought fried rice served on a chopping board was gorgeous, dahling!
I'm also curious to know if he plans on mentioning regional Chinese cuisines. He's done more than a decent job introducing the classic Cantonese kitchen – the svelte, delicate nuances of Hong Kong and Southern Chinese cooking are the most widespread in the UK. That is really only the tip of the iceberg. From the spicy and numbing fire of Sichuan, the unique Xinjiang cumin and aniseed notes to the much lesser known tangy-ness of Yunnanese dishes, the variety between flavour and cooking techniques from each Chinese province can be as different as Mexican is to Japanese.
Out of all cuisines non-native to the UK, I feel Chinese is the most misrepresented, by even the Chinese themselves. If there's any ambassador with the sass and popularity to make Chinese food look good, I'd put my bets on Gok. So rock that wok and make Poppa Wan proud. Just please don't use those anchovies again.
Blog post by Hungry Female for Great British Chefs
Do you have tips on cooking Chinese food? Is there a secret to perfect rice? How do you prefer to serve fried rice? Let us know over on Great British Chefs Facebook Page.
Source: https://greatbritishchefs.tumblr.com/post/23604973795/gok-cooks-chinese-tv-review-hungry-female
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