American Chinese cooking –”Capital intensive”

American Chinese food can be called American Szechuan food or Chinese food American style. Most Chinese restaurants outside Chinatowns cook this type of Chinese food to meet Americans’s needs. It would be very hard for you to find any Chinese to eat this type of Chinese food.

The standard American Chinese food dishes are: Chicken with broccoli, Beef with broccoli, Pepper steak, General Tso chicken, Sesame Chicken , Orange beef, Mushu chicken, Sweet and sour pork and so on. The Chinese never find these dishes in China and just know them in America. Who invented American Chinese food? Have you ever heard American Japanese food or American Korean food? They are all the same both domestically and internationally. The Chinese are probably too smart to be so foolish.

The Cantonese were first come to the USA and cook Chinese food. They thought they had to cook Chinese food, which was not only loved by Chinese but also loved by Americans. They watched the Americans enjoy the sweet and sour tastes. Then they changed Chinese cooking and basic flavors to re-invent American Chinese food.

The basic points of American Chinese food are as follows:

1. The basic tastes are sweet and sour. The basic sauces are Kung Bao sauce and Garlic sauce. These two sauces originated from Sichuan cooking. However, they made these two sauces less spicy yet sweeter. Many other sauces are made from these two. For example, adding more sugar or vinegar, turns kung bao sauce into General Tso chicken sauce. When adding more sugar and vinegar to garlic sauce, it becomes sweet and sour sauce. This is why when you go to a take out restaurant, often you will find most dishes taste more or less the same. It makes some sense: as long as the sauce is made, any cook can make the same flavored dish. That paved a road for standard and scaled production of Chinese food. The sauce concept is from Canton. Sichuan cooking never makes any sauce in advance in big quantities. Sometime they just make sauce on the spot only for one order right before cooking.

2. American Chinese restaurants always marinate, mix or coat the meats, poultry and seafood one, or two or more days in advance. This practice is also followed in Cantonese cooking. The Cantonese think the meats will be tenderer if marinated. For any real Sichuan cooking never marinates food so early and is just right before the cooking. Marinating the meats one or two days before cooking will cause some chemical changes. The animal protein will be dissolved. As a result, the meat will lose its texture and aroma and no longer be as tasty.

3. Hot oil soaking and parboil (water boiling). All-American Chinese restaurants go through this step for all foods. With this step, the food has been 100 % pre cooked. Real Sichuan cooking may or may not have this step. With hot oil soaking, the food is only 50 % to 80 % cooked. The remaining percentage will be completed through stir-frying. Through this step, American Chinese dishes can be cooked very fast thus saving a lot of time. However, Sichuan cooking is relatively slow. Good cooking takes time!

4. Stir-fry. American Chinese food cooking has changed stir-frying technique fundamentally. According to American Chinese cooking, the food has already been 100 % pre cooked; the so-called stir-fry has nothing to do with the food. The only thing for stir-frying to do is to heat the sauce and add the cooked food and mix them well and finally get them out into the plate. In this way the sauce is only covering the surface of the food, not getting into the food, no natural aroma emanating from the food. This way simplifies Chinese cooking: you don’t need to work 3 years as an apprentice to learn how to cook. Any one who can heat the wok and mix the sauce and food can become a cook. This is why there are so many Chinese people working in Chinese restaurants in America, but in China thing is not so.

We can conclude that if real Sichuan cooking is “labor intensive”, American Chinese cooking is “Capital intensive”. It adapted American advanced equipment and technology to transfer a traditional Chinese restaurant into a food assembly line like Ford or General Motor car assembly lines. It makes Chinese dishes fast, standard and in large quantities.

Do you think American Chinese cooking has made any progress or just produces Chinese junk food?

1. on May 3, 2008 at 2:42 pm Yang wrote:

   I absolutely hate those Americanized stupid “Chinese” food. Americans will think those are our typical everyday menu.

2. on October 28, 2008 at 10:50 pm Andy wrote:

   I must agree, I am among those who thought “Chinese food” was General Tso’s, and sweet and sour pork. I would love to get to know the real tastes of China. Restaurants should put some pride into their menu’s and become more authentic. I for one would love to try some exotic tastes for a change, even if they cost alittle more due to the need for talented chefs.

3. on October 29, 2008 at 10:58 am Ying wrote:

   actually, no Yang. Americans KNOW is is not real everyday Chinese food. Hey, and don’t blame the americans! The Cantonese were the ones who invented it…. think about it and read the passage.

   BTW – Grand Sichuan, AMAZING ARTICLE!

4. on October 31, 2008 at 12:01 am admin wrote:

   Hi, Ying,
   I read your message and try to figure out the whole meaning you say. Talking about Cantonese food, it is one of great cuisines in China and major Sichuan restaurant chains in Beijing serve both Sichuan and Cantonese food. The big four Chinese cuisines, Canton, Sichuan, Shanghai, and Beijing(ShanDong), have long history and root in different areas in China. Since half time every month in Beijing, I can see the trend of mix of these four.

   John

5. on October 31, 2008 at 12:02 am admin wrote:

   Dear Andy,
   Welcome you to our restaurant to try to anthentic Chinese food. On the other hand, we are working hard on many dishes such as General Tso to make them more authentic and tasty. One interesting book written by Jennifer Lee who is from New York Times and called “The Fortune Cookie Chronicles” describes how she searched the root of General Tso around the world. I understand that the Chinese food is developing and evolving and hope we can do something to help eliminating the difference of General Tso and authentic Chinese food.

   John

6. on December 23, 2008 at 1:33 am Christie wrote:

   I loved NY Chinese Food. I have moved to California and it you think Ny was not real, California is disgusting. I would love it if anyone could tell me how to make the sauce in the NY style Chicken and Broccoli. I miss it so much.

7. on December 31, 2008 at 1:55 pm admin wrote:

   Dear Christie,

   Thank you for your appreciation of Chicken with broccoli. The sauce making Chicken with broccoli is called brown sauce or Kung Po sauce, which is used in almost every restaurant in America. There are thousands of recipes about it, and I do believe that most of them are the same, more or less. If you look around, you can find the same tasted chicken dish in your area. If not, the problem is not just sauce but the cooking process or other reasons. I am looking forward to hearing your new finding.

   John

8. on June 4, 2009 at 10:37 pm sumYumGuy wrote:

   What are some traditional foods served in most take out dives? What would a real Chinaman order for example?