Rarely is a bite of food so revelatory that it changes the way you think about an entire cuisine. Such was the case, though, when renowned Chinese cookbook author Grace Young offered me, straight from the wok, a spoonful of her fried rice.
“Chinese restaurant food is horrific,” she tells me as I eat spoonful after spoonful of her rice. “They oil-blanch their meat and use MSG to camouflage funky flavors. Chinese home cooking is all about pure flavors.”
And that’s precisely what’s so remarkable about this rice: the flavors are crystal clear. There’s dried scallop, shiitake mushrooms, and Chinese sausage, each like a buried treasure of flavor. And the rice itself is perfectly cooked, the grains firm and not at all gummy or greasy, the whole thing light as air and yet wonderfully filling.
Credit goes to Young, of course, but more important, credit goes to her instrument of choice: the wok.
Young’s wok is not expensive: it costs twelve dollars at K. K. Discount on Mulberry Street in New York. It’s a fourteen-inch carbon-steel flat-bottomed wok, and those are details you should memorize. The last time I bought a wok I accidentally bought one with a nonstick surface: as I scraped the food around with a metal spatula (a tool Young recommends), the nonstick coating got all scratched and came off in the food. With a carbon-steel wok, that won’t happen.
The wok, for Young, is the vehicle through which she channels her food philosophy, one that comes from her parents, Cantonese immigrants whose cooking Young adored from a young age.
“The Cantonese are snobs about food; they think they’re the best cooks in all of China,” she tells me as we slice beef for the next dish. “They have year-round seasonal produce and they honor it by cooking it super fast in a super-hot wok. It intensifies the flavor and aroma. They don’t have to add a lot of seasoning.”
Illustrating this, she peels a few bright red ripe tomatoes that she’s boiled in hot water for just a few seconds to loosen the skins. She cuts them into wedges and then adds oil to her wok, which has been heating on the stove. She adds beef—flank steak that has been marinated with sherry, soy sauce, ginger, and garlic—and leaves it alone for a minute as it develops color. She removes the beef, adds the tomatoes, oyster sauce, chicken stock, a pinch of sugar, and scallions, covers it briefly “to intensify flavor,” then returns the beef for 30 more seconds.
The resulting dish is remarkable, once again, for its purity of flavor. As Young promised, the flavor is intense, concentrated, and robust.
“The technique is so simple,” says Young matter-of-factly.
“Fast food” is a dirty phrase for many people, but there’s no shame in making food fast when the ingredients are this fresh and the technique is so sound. Trust me and the revelation of Grace Young’s kitchen: to eat truly transporting Chinese food, get yourself a wok.
Serves 4
It may take work for me to convince you that this dish is both easier and cheaper than picking up the phone and ordering Chinese food delivered to your house, but once you have your seasoned wok* and all the Chinese cooking staples ready to go—the soy sauce, the oyster sauce, the ginger—you’ll make this and never want to pick up that phone for delivery again. Just make sure to serve it piping hot: as Young will tell you, food straight from the wok has a purity of flavor (the Chinese call it wok hay) that only lasts a few minutes. I have a hunch that devouring this quickly won’t be a problem.
12 ounces flank steak
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon dry sherry
2 teaspoons soy sauce*
1 tablespoon minced peeled ginger
1 tablespoon minced garlic
¼ teaspoon plus ½ teaspoon sugar
A pinch of kosher salt
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil, peanut oil, or canola oil
2 to 3 very ripe tomatoes, blanched, skins removed, cored and cut into bite-size wedges, or 4 whole canned tomatoes cut into quarters
2 tablespoons oyster sauce*
2 tablespoons chicken stock
¼ cup chopped scallions
Begin by cutting the meat into three equal portions. Slice each portion against the grain* into 2-inch-long slices, ½ inch thick. Set aside.
In a bowl, make a marinade by combining the cornstarch, sherry, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, the ¼ teaspoon sugar, and the salt. Stir until the cornstarch is no longer visible and then stir in the meat. (Do this just before you stir-fry; no need to let it sit for long.)
Heat the wok and flick water in to see if it’s ready: the water will evaporate instantly if it’s hot enough. Swirl in the oil and then add the beef, spreading it out so it all gets a sear. Don’t touch it for 1 minute. Give the meat a stir to sear the other side, and when it’s just brown but not fully cooked, remove it to a plate.
Add the tomatoes, oyster sauce, chicken stock, the ½ teaspoon sugar, and the scallions. Cover the pan for 20 seconds to intensify the flavor.
Lift the lid, add the beef, and cook for another 30 seconds to a minute. When the beef is cooked through and the tomatoes are still somewhat firm but have released all their juices, remove to a platter and serve.
Serves 4
Forget everything you thought you knew about fried rice. This version is so ethereal, so otherworldly, it deserves another name. Take note: Young insists that this dish only works if you cook the rice the day before you fry it, so plan accordingly. Also, the three specialty ingredients this dish requires—dried scallops, dried shiitakes, and Chinese sausage—are worth seeking out. However, Young says you can replace the dried scallops with an equal amount of diced ham and, in place of the dried mushrooms, you can use fresh mushrooms and carrots that have been diced to ¼ inch.
2 cups sushi rice (Young recommends Premium Grade Nishiki rice)
2 tablespoons peanut oil (or other oil with a high smoking point, like canola or grapeseed)
1-inch piece of ginger, peeled and cut into very thin matchsticks
1 clove garlic, minced
½ cup dried scallops, soaked in water for an hour or two until very soft, then shredded
½ cup dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked for 25 to 30 minutes, stemmed, and cut into slices
1 or 2 pieces of Chinese sausage (buy in a Chinese butcher shop), cut into small pieces
1 to 2 tablespoons soy sauce
Kosher salt
¼ cup shredded scallions
¼ cup chopped cilantro
White pepper
The day before you plan to make the fried rice, place the 2 cups sushi rice in 2 cups water and soak for 30 minutes. Strain the rice, rinse under cold running water, and place in a small pot with 2 cups fresh water (or chicken broth for a richer rice). Bring to a boil, lower the heat, cover, and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and keep the lid on for another 10 minutes. Fluff with a fork (this is important so the rice will separate easily in the wok the next day), cover, and refrigerate.
Place the wok on the stove and turn the heat to high. After a few moments, begin flicking water into the wok: you’re looking for the moment when the water evaporates immediately. When it does, you’re ready to go.
Swirl the peanut oil into the wok around the perimeter of the interior in one fluid motion. Add the ginger, garlic, scallops, mushrooms, and sausage and let cook for 1 minute, moving it all around with a metal spatula until the sausage looks cooked.
Add the cooked rice and swiftly break it up with the metal spatula, incorporating all the elements into the rice. Attack the clumps with the metal spatula, add the soy sauce, stir well, and, when everything looks to be incorporated, add salt to taste, the scallions, the cilantro, and white pepper to taste. Remove to a serving dish and eat right away.
Serves 4
Chefs and home cooks often make statements about cooking that sound good when you hear them but, secretly, make you question their veracity. I have to confess that’s how I felt, at first, when Young told me that the heat of a wok intensifies a vegetable’s flavor. I mean, sure, cooking something does make it taste better; I especially like my vegetables roasted. But while roasting vegetables fundamentally changes them, wok-cooking just seems to make them softer. How intense could a vegetable taste after being tossed around a hot wok? Well, all my doubts imploded when I tasted this bok choy straight from Young’s wok. In just a few seconds, this firm, grassy vegetable was positively exploding with flavor. It still tasted like itself, only it was infused with ginger and soy sauce—a magical combo that tastes especially good piping hot. I shall never doubt the power of the wok again.
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon sherry
1 tablespoon chicken stock
1 tablespoon peanut oil (or other oil with a high smoking point, like canola or grapeseed)
1 tablespoon shredded peeled ginger
12 ounces baby bok choy, cut into 2-inch pieces and patted very, very dry (any moisture will cause it to steam), stems and leaves separated
¼ teaspoon sugar
A pinch of kosher salt
In a small bowl, mix together the soy sauce, sherry, and chicken stock.
Heat the wok until a flick of water on the surface evaporates right away. Swirl the oil in down the side and add the ginger. When the ginger starts to crackle, add the bok choy stems. Stir with a metal spatula for 10 seconds, then add the bok choy leaves.
Cook, stirring, for 45 seconds to 1 minute, just until the bok choy starts to go limp. Add the sugar and salt and swirl the soy sauce mixture down the side of the wok*.
Toss the bok choy in the sauce and taste for seasoning. Serve immediately.
