Asian cuisine is really popular in the west, and the Chinese have made cooking a fine art. From delicious shrimp recipes to aromatic rice, duck dishes and many different types of tasty soups. The ways in which they cook their dishes vary, but one of the most common methods they use is steaming.
Steaming is also a common method of preparing the so called “turned out” dishes. These are prepared in much the same way as western steamed puddings; steamed in a heat-proof bowl and then turned out for serving. For turned –out dishes, the meat is cut into strips roughly 2in by 1in, usually with skin attached at one end, and packed into a heatproof bowl skin side down. Various appropriate seasonings and layers of salted and dried vegetables are then added, and in some cases salt fish is placed on top. The finesse lies in the care with which dried and salted foods are combined with sauces and seasonings to give the maximum interest and contrast to the final dish. The bowl of meat is steamed for one and a half hours, and, by the time it is cooked, the various floavors from the dried and picked foods and seasonings and sauces have seeped through the whole mass of meat, which by then is jelly like and tender. A small amount of wine can be added for extra flavor.
When this meat pudding is turned out on to the serving dish, the skin side of the meat is on top, forming a layer of skin-jelly which is especially succulent and attractive.
In the western province of Szechuan, the peasantry have developed this style of cooking to a fine art. In the famous Three Steamed and Nine Turned Out Dishes, three lots of the same type of meat are packed with three different combinations of flavorings and other ingredients in three different bowls, and all steamed together in the same steamer.
When the dishes are all cooked, you have a tour de force – one sort of meat in three different dishes, each with its distinctive flavor.
Duck and chicken are cooked in this manner, as well as lamb, beef, goat, pork, fish and sometimes certain shrimp recipes. The poultry is often cooked with 1lb or more of Chinese cabbage placed under the bird during the last thirty or forty minutes of cooking.
