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Poultry & meat

Cutting meat technic

The cutting of meat is itself considered an art. There is a proverb that defines the skill of a butcher and surrounds the care he takes of his knife. It is that a good butcher can make a knife last 10 years because he cuts through the bane. A better butcher can make his knife last 20 years because he cuts through the muscle. But the best butcher keeps one knife for his whole lifetime because he cuts between the muscles. The sharpness of the cleaver and the angle at which the meat is cut make a tremendous difference to the taste and texture of the meat, affecting its propensity to take on the flavor of a marinade or the characteristics of the coking medium.

Nothing is wasted in the Chinese kitchen, and indeed tongues, ears, feet and all kinds of offal are highly prized. A pig's trotter would normally be more expensive than a piece of park loin. Blood is also traditionally incorporated in many dishes. While the practice is less common now, exotic parts of exotic animals can still be sourced in certain markets, particularly in the Cantonese city of Guangzhou in Guangdong Province just north of Hong Kong. Such exotica tend to be more popular with men, as they are believed to have a positive influence on virility. In China as a whole, pork is the most popular meat, closely followed by chicken. Beef is less common, partly because it is less versatile.

Peking duck

In Chinese cooking, beef is stir-fried, slow-braised or minced and added to noodles, with very little in between, in order to prevent it toughening up. Pork and chicken, on the other hand, can be cooked in almost any manner, and pork can even be cooked twice. In this selection of recipes, chicken runs the gamut from Salt-roasted Chicken to Stir-fried Shredded Chicken with Celery or Chicken with Winter Chestnuts. Duck is second only to chicken in the Chinese kitchen, and has been almost deified in dishes like Peking Duck The white-feathered ducks traditionally used for Peking Duck are partially force-fed, denied too much exercise, and prized for being almost fat-free.

Goose, quail, pigeon and even the tiny seasonal rice-birds, so called because they live in rice paddies in the south of China, are all very popular too. The Cantonese are probably as famous for their roast goose as they are for their steamed fish, restaurants often making their name with this prized dish. Cattle graze in the grassy northern provinces, where the diet is richer in beef and dairy products Lamb can also be found, a meat particularly prize( by the Muslim communities of Xinjiang. Grilling mutton whole or on kebab sticks are particularly popular cooking methods.