Recreating Indian Chinese Street Food
In response to my recent post on recreating Marzorin chicken sandwiches, a few of my friends pinged me on chat and started talking about recreating other idiosyncratic fast food from back home. Two of them separately asked me the same question - do I have any insights on recreating Indian Chinese or Indo-Chinese street food?
Ah yes! The good old "laal gaaDi" or "laal tapri", the red shacks or stalls by the street-side selling India's take on Chinese food. For most of us middle class Indians, street Chinese was the first taste of "foreign" cuisine, before we grew up, got jobs, and experimented with real foreign cuisine. Street Chinese was cheap, so affordable to us students on our meager allowances, yet at that time seemed "exotic" enough to seem more unconventional than the purely desi affordable fare of vadapav and bhelpuri.
Having grown up, traveled abroad, and tasted all sorts of authentic East Asian cuisines, from curry-based Thai to barbecue-based Korean to different varieties of real Chinese cuisine like Guangdong, Lu and (my favorite) Sichuan, it is tempting to dismiss street Indo-Chinese food as some low brow faux-fusion. After all, those authentic cuisines have varying diverse components, sophisticated and subtle flavors, delightfully balances textures, and complexity built over centuries of experimentation. In contrast, street Indo-Chinese is, let's face it, basically an overpowering blast of ginger, garlic, chilies, soy sauce, and usually a whole lot of MSG.
But honestly, I relish good ole Indo-Chinese as much as any of those complex cuisines developed over centuries. Maybe it's the memories from my teen years, all those one-by-two or two-by-three Manchow soups that my friends Aniruddha, Chinmay, and I shared after somehow coming up with 15 rupees between us. Those chicken schezwan rice and chicken lollipops we sneaked out of our houses to share when our moms made something we really hated for dinner (usually, over-cooked cabbage). And the countless hours of conversations and leg-pulling.
So every few weeks, I get a strong craving for Indo-Chinese. On trips to New York, I have found the Indo-Chinese joints in Journal Square (NJ) to be more "authentic" (whatever that means in the context of the cuisine) than the more fancied Chinese Mirch on Lexington Ave in Manhattan. But still, it just doesn't feel the same. So I have found that my attempts at recreating desi Chinese street food at home are more successful. Especially in terms of texture.
So here are some tips on recreating Indo-Chinese street food, based on my experiments over the last 5 years in the US. I'll focus on the most basic stuff - fried rice and hakka noodles.
The Importance of Un-Fresh Rice
During my initial attempts at making fried rice, I always boiled the rice right before it. The rice turned out more like mushy pulao or masalebhaat. Then I read this superb post on making perfect fried rice by my friend Madhu. I learned the importance of using un-fresh rice. So, to recreate the desi-Chinese fried rice, you need to boil the rice a day before and put it in the fridge.
Another tip is, boil the rice as you would when making by-the-book biryani. You boil it in lots and LOTS of water (I use 5 cups of water for every cup of rice), and turn the stove off when the rice is about 75% cooked, not all the way through. Then you drain it using a colander, and wash it under cold water to stop it from continuing to cook from residual heat. Toss it gently when doing this. Don't turn the faucet on at full strength, or it will break the grains of rice. This technique gets rid of a lot of excess starch that might make your rice sticky or mushy.
Once the 75% cooked rice is washed, drained, and tossed under cold water, drain it a bit more by shaking the colander, flipping the rice, gently pressing it against the holes. Basically, get rid of as much water as you can. Then, toss it around gently a little more, and make sure the grains aren't sticking together. Now put it in the fridge. For at least 24 hours for best results, although 8-10 hours will also give you decent fried rice.
Noddles also Un-Fresh!
I usually make noodles fresh before cooking with them. I make sure they are a little al dente, washed under cold water, and tossed in some oil. It works well for making authentic East Asian noddle dishes. They are moist, juicy, and tasty.
BUT! But this is a post about recreating street Indo-Chinese. Those noddles are texturally different from what you get in authentic East Asian cuisine. They are drier, and a bit more al dente, even slightly crunchy. So I decided to apply the un-fresh concept to noodles as well.
I followed pretty much the same process that I have mentioned above for the rice. The only difference being, after the noddles were washed in cold water, I drained them, then tossed them in a bit of oil. Tossed with a gentle hand for a good ten minutes or so, disentagling them all, making sure that if I pulled at one strand of the noodle, no others came with it. Then, into the fridge for 24 hours. And it worked! Just like with rice, this technique of storing them in the fridge gets rid of extra moisture. The noodles turned out just the way they did on the streets of Pune or Bombay.
Looking back, this insight seems fairly duh! Indo-Chinese on the streets is usually cooked in front of our eyes. Have we ever seen them boiling noodles in front of us? They have huge pots full of pre-cooked noodles, obviously prepped hours before.
WOK ONLY, VERY VERY HOT
An unmistakable characteristic of street Chinese food is that smoky almost-burnt flavor that the rice and noodles are infused with. Few people focus on this aspect when trying to cook it at home. I know I didn't. I used the good ole kadhai or even more stupidly, non-stick pans on a couple of occasion.
In street Indo-Chinese, the fried rice or noodles have the sauces and flavoring you add. But the sauces aren't making the rice grains or noodles stick together. The way i used to cook it, I would get greasy, even stewed-like rice or noodles. I was trying to make fried rice, and instead, it seemed more like an Asian-flavored risotto.
I don't know what it is about the kadhai, but you can see why the non-stick wouldn't work. Non-stick, by definition, umm, doesn't stick. It's not like we want food to stick or burn when we're making fried rice or noodles, but surely, the temperature should be pretty darn close to it. So the cooking surface should not have teflon. Why does the kadhai not work? No idea! All I know is that when I eventually decided to buy a proper wok, it worked a lot better.
Of course, the first couple of times I used the wok, I didn't see too much improvement. I didn't get that smoky-burnt-ish flavor. The food was either undercooked or mushy. And the fried rice was still a tad greasy, the noodles still saucy. So what was I doing wrong? Once again, Madhu Menon to the rescue! As he notes here, the temperature of the wok should be quite hot before you pour oil.
Also, when making fried rice, like Madhu suggests, make sure you add the rice and coat it in the oil BEFORE you add the sauces. The same principle works for noodles.
So firstly, get a wok. Secondly, make sure it is hot enough before adding the oil. Thirdly, add the rice or noodles BEFORE you add the sauces, and make sure the wok is hot enough throughout.
The right way of sauteing vegetables
Another problem I used to have with my rice or noodles - the veggies would either get too mushy or stay raw. The problem here arises from our Indian instincts to often overcook the vegetables. The carrots, bell pepper, onions etc in fried rice and noodles is not overcooked like in subji. It isn't raw either. It took me a while to get the level of al dente-ness right.
I have found that the best way of cooking veggies is in a hot wok, after the oil has heated. Make sure you veggies are sliced thin. They don't have to be diced really tiny. I usually julienne them. And then, keep stirring them as you saute them. The idea is to sear the veggies, not cook them through. Also remember that they will continue to cook even after you add the rice and noodles. So leaving them a bit more al dente than you like works well.
These are some basic tips. There are more tips about the combinations of sauces, flavoring, and making the soups that I will cover in the very near future. But for now, try these tips and tell me if your attempts at recreating Indo-Chinese street food don't give better results.
Ah yes! The good old "laal gaaDi" or "laal tapri", the red shacks or stalls by the street-side selling India's take on Chinese food. For most of us middle class Indians, street Chinese was the first taste of "foreign" cuisine, before we grew up, got jobs, and experimented with real foreign cuisine. Street Chinese was cheap, so affordable to us students on our meager allowances, yet at that time seemed "exotic" enough to seem more unconventional than the purely desi affordable fare of vadapav and bhelpuri.
Having grown up, traveled abroad, and tasted all sorts of authentic East Asian cuisines, from curry-based Thai to barbecue-based Korean to different varieties of real Chinese cuisine like Guangdong, Lu and (my favorite) Sichuan, it is tempting to dismiss street Indo-Chinese food as some low brow faux-fusion. After all, those authentic cuisines have varying diverse components, sophisticated and subtle flavors, delightfully balances textures, and complexity built over centuries of experimentation. In contrast, street Indo-Chinese is, let's face it, basically an overpowering blast of ginger, garlic, chilies, soy sauce, and usually a whole lot of MSG.
But honestly, I relish good ole Indo-Chinese as much as any of those complex cuisines developed over centuries. Maybe it's the memories from my teen years, all those one-by-two or two-by-three Manchow soups that my friends Aniruddha, Chinmay, and I shared after somehow coming up with 15 rupees between us. Those chicken schezwan rice and chicken lollipops we sneaked out of our houses to share when our moms made something we really hated for dinner (usually, over-cooked cabbage). And the countless hours of conversations and leg-pulling.
So every few weeks, I get a strong craving for Indo-Chinese. On trips to New York, I have found the Indo-Chinese joints in Journal Square (NJ) to be more "authentic" (whatever that means in the context of the cuisine) than the more fancied Chinese Mirch on Lexington Ave in Manhattan. But still, it just doesn't feel the same. So I have found that my attempts at recreating desi Chinese street food at home are more successful. Especially in terms of texture.
So here are some tips on recreating Indo-Chinese street food, based on my experiments over the last 5 years in the US. I'll focus on the most basic stuff - fried rice and hakka noodles.
The Importance of Un-Fresh Rice
During my initial attempts at making fried rice, I always boiled the rice right before it. The rice turned out more like mushy pulao or masalebhaat. Then I read this superb post on making perfect fried rice by my friend Madhu. I learned the importance of using un-fresh rice. So, to recreate the desi-Chinese fried rice, you need to boil the rice a day before and put it in the fridge.
Another tip is, boil the rice as you would when making by-the-book biryani. You boil it in lots and LOTS of water (I use 5 cups of water for every cup of rice), and turn the stove off when the rice is about 75% cooked, not all the way through. Then you drain it using a colander, and wash it under cold water to stop it from continuing to cook from residual heat. Toss it gently when doing this. Don't turn the faucet on at full strength, or it will break the grains of rice. This technique gets rid of a lot of excess starch that might make your rice sticky or mushy.
Once the 75% cooked rice is washed, drained, and tossed under cold water, drain it a bit more by shaking the colander, flipping the rice, gently pressing it against the holes. Basically, get rid of as much water as you can. Then, toss it around gently a little more, and make sure the grains aren't sticking together. Now put it in the fridge. For at least 24 hours for best results, although 8-10 hours will also give you decent fried rice.
Noddles also Un-Fresh!
I usually make noodles fresh before cooking with them. I make sure they are a little al dente, washed under cold water, and tossed in some oil. It works well for making authentic East Asian noddle dishes. They are moist, juicy, and tasty.
BUT! But this is a post about recreating street Indo-Chinese. Those noddles are texturally different from what you get in authentic East Asian cuisine. They are drier, and a bit more al dente, even slightly crunchy. So I decided to apply the un-fresh concept to noodles as well.
I followed pretty much the same process that I have mentioned above for the rice. The only difference being, after the noddles were washed in cold water, I drained them, then tossed them in a bit of oil. Tossed with a gentle hand for a good ten minutes or so, disentagling them all, making sure that if I pulled at one strand of the noodle, no others came with it. Then, into the fridge for 24 hours. And it worked! Just like with rice, this technique of storing them in the fridge gets rid of extra moisture. The noodles turned out just the way they did on the streets of Pune or Bombay.
Looking back, this insight seems fairly duh! Indo-Chinese on the streets is usually cooked in front of our eyes. Have we ever seen them boiling noodles in front of us? They have huge pots full of pre-cooked noodles, obviously prepped hours before.
WOK ONLY, VERY VERY HOT
An unmistakable characteristic of street Chinese food is that smoky almost-burnt flavor that the rice and noodles are infused with. Few people focus on this aspect when trying to cook it at home. I know I didn't. I used the good ole kadhai or even more stupidly, non-stick pans on a couple of occasion.
In street Indo-Chinese, the fried rice or noodles have the sauces and flavoring you add. But the sauces aren't making the rice grains or noodles stick together. The way i used to cook it, I would get greasy, even stewed-like rice or noodles. I was trying to make fried rice, and instead, it seemed more like an Asian-flavored risotto.
I don't know what it is about the kadhai, but you can see why the non-stick wouldn't work. Non-stick, by definition, umm, doesn't stick. It's not like we want food to stick or burn when we're making fried rice or noodles, but surely, the temperature should be pretty darn close to it. So the cooking surface should not have teflon. Why does the kadhai not work? No idea! All I know is that when I eventually decided to buy a proper wok, it worked a lot better.
Of course, the first couple of times I used the wok, I didn't see too much improvement. I didn't get that smoky-burnt-ish flavor. The food was either undercooked or mushy. And the fried rice was still a tad greasy, the noodles still saucy. So what was I doing wrong? Once again, Madhu Menon to the rescue! As he notes here, the temperature of the wok should be quite hot before you pour oil.
Also, when making fried rice, like Madhu suggests, make sure you add the rice and coat it in the oil BEFORE you add the sauces. The same principle works for noodles.
So firstly, get a wok. Secondly, make sure it is hot enough before adding the oil. Thirdly, add the rice or noodles BEFORE you add the sauces, and make sure the wok is hot enough throughout.
The right way of sauteing vegetables
Another problem I used to have with my rice or noodles - the veggies would either get too mushy or stay raw. The problem here arises from our Indian instincts to often overcook the vegetables. The carrots, bell pepper, onions etc in fried rice and noodles is not overcooked like in subji. It isn't raw either. It took me a while to get the level of al dente-ness right.
I have found that the best way of cooking veggies is in a hot wok, after the oil has heated. Make sure you veggies are sliced thin. They don't have to be diced really tiny. I usually julienne them. And then, keep stirring them as you saute them. The idea is to sear the veggies, not cook them through. Also remember that they will continue to cook even after you add the rice and noodles. So leaving them a bit more al dente than you like works well.
These are some basic tips. There are more tips about the combinations of sauces, flavoring, and making the soups that I will cover in the very near future. But for now, try these tips and tell me if your attempts at recreating Indo-Chinese street food don't give better results.
Labels: cooking, indian-chinese, indo-chinese, street food, tips
