Fried in Chinese cooking
1 min readThere are different variations of deep-frying (ZHA) in Chinese cooking:
(a) Neat Deep-frying: the raw ingredients are not coated with batter or flour – e.g. Crispy ‘Seaweed’.
(b) Dry Deep-frying: the raw ingredients are coated with dry flour or breadcrumbs – e.g. ‘Butterfly’ Prawns.
(c) Soft Deep-frying: the raw ingredients are coated with batter – e.g. Lemon Chicken.
(d) Crisp Deep-frying: the ingredients are boiled or steamed first, then deep- fried for crispness – e.g. Deep-fried Squid.
You will find the conical-shaped wok is an ideal utensil for deep-frying as it requires far less oil than a flat-bottomed deep-fryer, and it has more depth (which means more heat) and more frying surface (which means more foodcan be cooked more quickly at one go). Furthermore, since the wok has a larger capacity at the top than at the base, when the oil level rises as the ingredients are added there is little chance of the oil over-flowing and causing the pan to catch fire as often happens with a conventional deep-fryer.
Heat and timing are the two vital points to watch here. Once you can master these, then the success rate should be no less than 90–100%.
