East vs. West

Appears in

Published 2011

About

Like most American cooks, I first learned to cook within a Eurocentric culinary tradition. Moving from a Western fine-dining environment to a Chinese take-out joint, I was struck by the sensible yet “foreign” techniques that could—and should—be assimilated into our common culture as cooks. In particular, I want to argue for the value of reuse, which is standard practice in Chinese cooking, the way salting pasta water is standard in Italian cooking.

I mention “master sauces” in the meat section, but Chinese cuisine also centers around reusing oil. Next to every wok in China (that’s a lot of woks!) stands a metal container topped with a strainer. Most dishes start with oil from the container and are completed with a quick strain that saves excess oil for later. I was never inclined to cook with a lot of oil, because I didn’t want to waste it, but in the reuse paradigm, you’re just fortifying your oil with flavor, like a French cook who builds beef broth from chicken broth. You can reuse that oil indefinitely, and though it may not be a good idea to fry apple beignets in oil that’s had garlic and mushrooms in it, eggplant fried in that oil has more depth and complexity than it would have otherwise. Used intelligently, oil reuse can improve cooking: every sauté or sear could use flavored oil, and could even be reconsidered as a potential oil poach or shallow-fry.