Sodium and Chinese Food

Chinese food, when authentic, is probably the healthiest food on the planet. Chinese cuisine emphasizes vegetables, uses no cheeses and makes use of a lot of seafood and lean poultry. Additionally, Chinese cooking uses vegetable oils, which, in moderation, has enough unsaturated fat to counteract the cholesterol-raising properties of the saturated fat they contain.

Unfortunately, local Chinese takeouts give Chinese cuisine a bad rep, health-wise. They don’t produce completely authentic Chinese dishes, but rather produce Americanized versions of dishes, more suited to the local palate and usually much higher in calories, saturated fat, and, especially, sodium. These dishes are typically prepared with foods swimming in lots of gravy-like sodium packed heavy sauces, while typical home-style Chinese stir-fry is intended to have only enough sauce in it to allow it to cling to the main ingredients.

Eating excess sodium is terribly unhealthy and can contribute to high blood pressure in some individuals, which increases the risk of heart disease and stroke. Avoiding high sodium is probably a good idea for everyone, but especially so for people who are sensitive to it or who are on sodium restricted diets.

To illustrate the point, an average adult needs an intake of around 2,000 calories a day and of 2,300 milligrams of salt, which is about a single teaspoon of salt, according to government guidelines. Keeping these numbers in mind, a single tablespoon of soy sauce can easily amount to more than a half of an adult’s total recommended sodium intake for an entire day!

And chew on this- A typical plate of General Tso's chicken from your local take out, for example, is often loaded with about 40% more sodium and more than half the calories an average adult needs for an entire day! That’s just plain crazy!

A battered, fried chicken dish with vegetables may have over 1,300 calories, 3,200 milligrams of sodium and 11 grams of saturated fat. That’s 140% more sodium than is recommended for an adult per day, packed into a single dish! And that's before the rice (at about 200 calories a cup), and before an egg roll (200 calories and 400 milligrams of sodium) or similar appetizer. This can easily add up to more than 3600 milligrams of sodium if you eat only the single appetizer and the main dish without adding any soy sauce at all!! That's almost 2 days worth of salt for a single meal!

Even the veggie dishes aren't immune, with a plate of stir-fried greens having around 900 calories and 2,200 milligrams of sodium, or eggplant in garlic sauce having about 1,000 calories and 2,000 milligrams of sodium!

  
If you are on a sodium restricted diet, there’s no getting around the necessity of needing to avoid soy sauce, oyster sauce, fish sauce or other condiments that have high sodium.  

Surly a walk through the sauces isles at any Asian market will shock you with the amount of sodium in many of the products. But its not all bad news. By creatively using sodium friendly substitutes or by adding the proper aromatics, you can go a long way to avoiding the sodium trap. Vegetable stir-fries, or fried rice often use ginger or garlic to flavor the oil, after which the vegetables are added and stir-fried for a minute or two before a little broth, rice wine (or dry sherry) or even water is swirled in. Often added to stir fries, the holy trinity in Chinese cooking- ginger, spring onion (scallions) and garlic, or ginger, garlic and spicy hot peppers go a long way towards infusing great flavor in stir fried dishes. (The term “holy trinity“ is used to describe various “triples” of important ingredients in a variety of cuisines.)

You can even add a touch of salt along with a pinch of sugar to bring out the natural sweetness of the vegetable, or you can omit the salt entirely.

There is a great variety of herbs, spices and other ingredients that will punch up and boost the flavor of your dishes without resorting to the more usual sodium heavy sauces that most of us are accustomed to.

Naturally, the best way to avoid the entire sodium pitfall is to simply make your own Chinese food at home. This allows you to avoid adding salt, sodium rich sauces, and other ingredients high in sodium. A little bit of time spent at your local Asian grocery together with a touch of experimentation will allow you to find great substitutes to replace the more familiar super salty ones that are so unhealthy. Be sure not only to read the label looking at the sodium content, but note the serving size for that content. Some of these numbers may be deceiving. For example, a serving of sauce x might contain 350 mg of sodium. Not great, but not as horrible as it could be. But if that serving size is a tablespoon, you’ve got something to work with. You can use a teaspoon instead of a whole tablespoon and reduce your sodium intake from 350 mg to around 116 mg. However, if that sodium content corresponds to a serving size of say, a quarter teaspoon, that’s not too good. Using only a teaspoon of that ingredient will give you a sodium intake of 1400 mg or a tablespoon of it at 4200 mg!

Be aware that while “reduced sodium” on the label is encouraging, it may mean very little. So be sure to always read labels and note the serving sizes. A great example of how “reduced sodium” labels may be misleading is found in a popular soy sauce brand’s take on the whole low sodium matter. A tablespoon of Kikkoman’s “low sodium” soy sauce weighs in at a hefty 575 mg of sodium. Sure, that’s an improvement over their regular soy sauce’s 920 mg for the same tablespoon, but 575mg is a lot by any measure. That tablespoon of soy sauce is ¼ of an adult’s entire recommended daily dose of sodium!!! Outch!

I have found some fish sauces with lower sodium content. And I hear that a company in Japan has developed a soy sauce that actually has no sodium at all in it! Unfortunately, I have not been able to find out much more than that with regards to this product. But at least there’s a little hope as far as those two sauces are concerned. So far though, I haven’t found any oyster sauce product that is  within acceptable limits with regards to sodium. Regardless, there are plenty of other “sauces” that are sodium friendly and make for good substitutions. Simply put, its a matter of discovering and experimenting with the whole world of alternatives to obtain tastes that you like in your dishes while providing significant decreases in your sodium intake.

Some good "lower sodium" alternatives:

Basic Rice

Rice has been a staple foods of the Chinese for thousands of years. Archeological evidence shows that rice was a valued food dating back as early as 2500 BC, the late Neolithic period in the Yangtze basin. In fact, rice has fed thousands of people for longer periods than any other grain. As if to stress the reverence in which the Chinese culture holds for this grain, rice, to them, symbolizes life itself.

Today, in many parts of China rice is a fixture at every meal. And not just boiled rice, either - it is used in everything from noodles to desserts to poultry stuffing. Congee, a type of rice gruel mixed with vegetables, is a popular breakfast dish. And then, of course, rice is a feature of many main entrees.

Hint for you, if you consume a lot of rice. Your local Asian grocery should have them by the bag fulls. Large and small bags, and at a great price as well. So be sure to check there.

Being that rice is such an integral part of Chinese culture and cuisine it seems natural to begin with a basic “recipe”, or approach, to cooking it. So here we go…

At first glance, it seems that no two people make simple rice in the exact same way! Upon closer inspection, all of these methods are quite similar, and do yield good results, but I’ll include them all so that you can pick your favorite method and use that. Being a guy, I simply pick the method that involves the least amount of effort on my part!

If you’d prefer to see a demonstration instead of reading the “how to” here, chef Ming Tsai (http://www.ming.com/) has an awesome video on this topic posted on youtube. Its called Simply Ming: Secrets of how to make perfect rice and it can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVd3FsR8wHE

Basic Rice

Method 1 

Ingredients:
Equal parts rice and water

Directions:
Put the rice in a pot or bowl. Add some cold water and move your fingers through it to clean the individual grains. The milky substance that you’ll see in the water is the starchy residue resulting from the milling process. Drain the water. Repeat this process 2 more times for a total of 3 washings. You’ll notice that with each washing, the water will become less milky with the starch.
Once washed and drained, add an amount of water equal to the amount of rice in the pot. Let this sit for 2 hours.
To begin the cooking process, bring the water to a boil with the pot uncovered. Cook the rice for about 4 minutes, stirring along the way. Chopsticks work great for this. The water will recede and look like its gone. Cover the pot and cook over a low heat for about 8 more minutes. Stir from time to time, and check that the rice isn’t burning at the bottom of the pot.
After the 8 minutes is up, turn off the flame and loosen the rice to make it fluffy. Cover the rice until you’ll be serving it.
Properly cooked Chinese rice should be fluffy and not clumpy.


Method 2

Ingredients:

1 cup of raw rice

1 1/4 cups of cool water

(use a ratio of 1 to 1.25 for this version)

Directions:
As in the previous method, place the rice in a pot. Wash the rice and swish through it with your hands. Drain and repeat 3 more times until the water is no longer very milky. It won’t be totally clear, but it should become less milky with each wash. This will help remove the excess starch and clean the grains.
Put the cool water along with the washed rice in the pot. Turn the heat to high. When the water near the edge of pot starts bubbling, cover the pot and reduce heat to low. Cook for 15 minutes.
Turn off heat and keep the pot covered. Let it sit with lid on for 5 minutes to let the rice steam. Fluff with a fork, or with chopsticks and you’re done.

Method 3

Ingredients
12oz of rice, washed until the water runs clear
16 oz water (boiling)

Directions:

Place the rice in a pot and add the boiling water. Bring to the boil again and then cover with a tight-fitting lid and reduce to a low heat. Cook for 15–20 minutes.

Uncover the pot and remove from the heat. Fluff up the rice grains with a fork and serve immediately.

Method 4

Ingredients

Measure 2 parts water to 1 part rice

Directions:

Bring to a boil

Cover, lower the heat and let it simmer for 18 minutes. (don’t peek, as the steam will escape). Let the rice stand for a few minutes, to make it nice and fluffy.

A Word on Recipes

Regarding recipes, Eleanor Hoh of Wok Star (http://eleanorhoh.com/) says that “A Wok Star is someone who develops their own cooking style and thinks outside the box”. She goes on to say “I approach wok cooking as a process illustrated in a simple-to-follow visual “stir-fry crib sheet”. Once you get this BIG PICTURE, you’ll find creating your own wok dishes is as easy as making a sandwich!”

The first time I ventured into her web site I instantly felt at home with her approach, as it is so similar to my own philosophy for “following” recipes. I find that rather than blindly following recipes, I prefer to make changes as I see fit and use the recipes more as a guide. Some of these modified “recipes” result in less than stunning results (or disasters), but more often than not, this mindset results in a better dish than I could have hoped for, or even a stepping stone to a more successful incarnation on a subsequent attempt. Using recipes as "guides" allows for much greater flexibility. If you don’t like ingredient x then simply substitute it with ingredient y. If you have a fresh ingredient in your fridge, then why not modify an existing recipe to accommodate that. You’ll have far more fun and you’ll probably enjoy your creation far more by customizing it to your unique taste.

As Eleanor Hoh says, “The beauty of stir-frying without recipes is that it allows you to make the best use of fresh, seasonal vegetables or foods that are on special sale. This also means you can use up whatever food are available in your fridge without them going to waste. “

While we’re talking about recipes, more often then not these will involve stir frying. So I may as well mention now (again, inspired by Eleanor Hoh) that there are 3 essential elements for a successful stir-fry:

• High Heat- if you can, use a gas flame. You will have better heat control. Your results will be better, and easier to achieve.
• Fresh Ingredients- modify your “recipes” to take advantage of fresh, seasonal, or available foods. Don’t settle for frozen or canned foods if you don’t have to just to meet requirements of some recipe. It will make for a more fresh and diverse menu and leave more room for experimentation with new ingredients.
• A good Wok- this doesn’t mean an expensive wok. It just means a good wok. Try for a carbon steel wok if you can. Its lighter than cast iron, but produces great results and is easy to work with, clean and care for. The size of the wok you choose should depend upon how many mouths you usually feed. If you are alone, a smaller wok will do. If you’re feeding a family of 4, you’ll need a larger wok (remember, you don’t want to overcrowd your wok…so when feeding more people, use a larger wok)

Dietary considerations

Health considerations:

Another reason that you may wish to make recipes “your own” may have to do with dietary restrictions. These may include restrictions based upon either health considerations, or religious ones. For example, I must restrict my salt intake. Products like soy sauce and oyster sauce must be very limited in my dishes. Even in the products that I do include, I look for those containing the least sodium. This sucks, as I do love soy sauce, but oh well.

Kosher considerations:

Don’t be put off from exploring a recipe because it may feature a food that you can’t eat for religious reasons. Pork fried rice can easily be reincarnated into chicken fried rice, beef fried rice, or vegetable fried rice for example. for that reason, I encourage you to look at recipes like that, that may at first glance seem taboo. They may inspire you to make your own variations of them through substitutions that make sense for you. I don’t eat pork but I’ve heard that ground turkey is a good substitute. So I fill my dumplings with a ground turkey mixture rather than with ground pork. So far that’s worked for me! But you get my meaning, look at recipes for the inspiration more than for the directions and you’ll do well.

Your local Asian Market

If you’ll be exploring the world of Chinese (or Asian cooking in general...) go and seek inspiration in authentic ingredients, or at least have a look at some of these ingredients before you jump into trying out your recipes. Visiting an Asian market is like going to a museum for me, in the sense that I’m always going to discover something new. The abundance of exotic goods is simply insane. More often than not, the goods you’ll find at these stores will come from a host of Asian countries, not exclusively China. So if you’ll be trying out some Thai, Japanese or Vietnamese dishes, for example, you will be covered here as well..

To illustrate just how much more expansive Asian markets are, the “Asian” section in most ordinary magalomarts (as Alton Brown likes to refer to them), usually consist of a single shelf dedicated to “Asian” goods. Those goods are usually limited to Americanized products like cans of La Choy chow mein or an assortment of Kikkoman sauces.

In contrast, your local Asian market may have an entire isle dedicated just to noodles! Another isle dedicated only to various sauces. And another isle dedicated exclusively to specialized cooking utensils. Half an isle populated with different kinds of Nori for your sushi making needs, and an entire isle dedicated to various teas.

 The produce section is normally quite extensive, as Asian cooking relies heavily upon fresh ingredients. Many of these products are familiar to you, while many others are exotic and unfamiliar, which certainly encourages a degree of experimentation. You’ll never know what you will discover until you try some of these more unfamiliar goods! 

 A good example of this is that prior to my having shopped at an Asian market I’d never so much as heard of a bitter melon. Now, bitter melons have become a staple in my cooking. I should also mention that you will find the prices to be quite a bit lower for most items, certainly for the produce, than you will find at your local magalomarts. And you will find the selection far more extensive as well. In addition to the produce boxes are water filled bins of fresh water chestnuts, of bamboo shoots, of bean sprouts and even of fresh made tofu. You simply scoop out how much you want and bag it. And best of all, its crazy cheap!

 You will find too an extensive sea food department with more types of fish and shellfish than you night find in an aquarium! Some of the sea creatures will be alive in tanks. Others will be fresh, lying on beds of ice. Head on shrimps as well as “cleaned” shrimp, as well as several varieties of other shell fish, squid or crabs. Additionally, there is usually quite a selection of frozen fish, and fish related items as well.

 

Exotic sights more common to the streets of Chinatown are present as well. Freshly roasted duck, and other birds, can be found hanging about as well.

I cannot suggest strongly enough to check out your local Asian market, or several of them if they exist in your area. If one hasn’t got what you’re looking for, then certainly another will. There are 3 such stores very near me. They are all great, but one has quickly become my favorite and I find myself visiting that one far more than the others. I’m sure you will find a great one near you too. So check them out, you won’t be sorry!

Cleaning and caring for your wok

Cleaning your wok is just about as easy as cooking in it. Simply run it under very hot water and scrub it with a bamboo wok brush. That should usually dislodge any food particles or liquids left over from the cooking process.

Wipe your wok dry with a paper towel, and then put it over a flame to be sure to finish drying it thoroughly. Once the wok is dry, turn off the flame.

Add a few drops of oil (the same oil you use to cook in your wok) and swirl it around with a folded paper towel (remember, that wok is HOT!) and smear it to cover the entire insides of the wok. This will keep the surface clean and prevent it from rusting, which it will do surprisingly quickly if you don’t care for it in this way.

Cookbook author Grace Young (http://www.graceyoung.com/) has this to say about the topic (from an interview in the New York Times at http://consults.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/getting-the-most-from-your-wok/):

"I soak the wok in hot water for at least five minutes. Then I wash the wok with hot water without dishwashing soap using the soft side of a sponge (I prefer the Scotch-Brite sponge). If there is any stubborn food debris, I use the rougher side of the sponge. Then I rinse the wok, set it on a burner over low heat for a minute or two, or until the pan is dry. Do not use a towel to dry a wok, because it doesn’t thoroughly dry the metal. There are purists who claim a wok should never be cleaned with liquid detergent. I never deliberately add dishwashing soap to the wok, but if my sponge happens to be a little soapy I have no problems using it."

"If your wok is new, I would avoid cooking initially with any strong acidic foods like vinegar or tomatoes, because the wok has a fragile patina and the acid will destroy it. Once the wok is well seasoned, you can certainly cook with acidic foods, but it’s best to remove the stir-fry to a platter the moment it’s cooked."

Woks sometimes develop a sticky surface when not used for a while Grace has this to say about that:
"Your wok needs what I call a “wok facial.” Heat the wok until a bead of water just vaporizes within one to two seconds of contact. Remove the wok from the heat and add about 2 teaspoons of vegetable oil and 1 teaspoon of salt. Then take several paper towels and fold them into a thick pad. Use the pad to rub the oil and salt over the entire inside surface of the wok. Be careful that your hand does not touch the hot wok or the salt mixture. The salt crystals remove any stickiness, food debris or rust, and the oil moisturizes the metal. As you rub the towel you’ll see that the salt and towel will turn brown. Then brush all the salt out of the wok, rinse it in hot water and dry the pan over low heat for one to two minutes or until the pan is totally dry. One way to prevent the wok from getting sticky is to store the cooled wok in a large paper bag. If you live near the seashore or in a humid climate, the paper bag will also prevent the wok from rusting.