Chinese Techniques: Steaming

Appears in

By Barbara Tropp

Published 1982

  • About
Steaming is surely one of the most-used, straightforward, and energy-saving of Chinese cooking techniques. With a pot of water, a reliable heat source, and a platform by which to raise whatever one is steaming above the crest of boiling water, one has a beautifully simple means by which to cook the most plebeian or grandiose of Chinese dishes. On the more humble side of things edible, steaming is the way to cook one’s daily rice or steam one’s daily bread or buns. At Chinese gastronomy’s more complex extreme, steaming is the means by which to cook a whole, celebratory, pumpkin-size winter melon—hollowed out and filled on the inside with a colorful variety of meats and vegetables, and “embroidered” (as the Chinese would say) on the outside with an intricate knife-carving of a mythological dragon chasing the sun. And in the middle, one finds something like a steamed whole fish, its skin slit deep with score marks and the flesh drizzled with wine and seasonings. Steamed only minutes, it is simple but admirable, understated yet memorable—the easiest and most noble method by which to cook a fresh fish.