8 Essential Tools I Have in My Kitchen to Cook Chinese Meals Like My Mom (Almost)
From perfectly steamed rice to nourishing stir-fries, an authentic home-cooked meal is within reach
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Like most adults who’ve ever had to put dinner on the table, I didn’t know until decades later how good I had it as a kid. Every night, no matter the situation (hectic workday, tax season, holiday crunch time), my mom would pull off a complete Chinese meal in our kitchen with meat and vegetables, soup, and rice aplenty. All would appear before 6:30 p.m., as surely as the school bus would show up at 8 a.m. the next day.
I could never aspire to that, but I do try to cook Chinese when I can—eking out just one dish with rice for the night. Judging by the second helpings that my husband and son heap onto their plates, I actually manage to pull off an authentic meal, thanks to a few shortcuts and a few great tools. Some work by putting more control in my own hands; others, much to my relief, take it away completely to deliver foolproof results. Here are some of my favorite tools, along with a few CR-recommended products.
A good rice cooker takes the guesswork out of perfectly cooked rice and lets you set it, forget it, and use that time to tend to other parts of your meal—and life. (Because it keeps your pot warm once finished, you can even prep before heading to work, so it’s one less thing to worry about when you come home.) I inherited a cheap pink cooker from my sister, but models have advanced since then. Case in point: The Instant Zest Rice Cooker, a top performer in CR’s tests, is actually a multi-cooker with touch buttons for white and brown rice, plus oatmeal, quinoa, warming, and steaming. It makes 8 cups of cooked rice and has numerous safety features, including protection from overheating. (For more options, see our article on the best rice cookers.)
You can certainly braise in a big pot as my mom did, but I prefer a slow cooker because, like the rice cooker, you can set it, walk away for hours, and come back to food that tastes as if you’ve worked over the stove all day. It’s the only way I manage to get my mom’s 7UP chicken on the table (similar to this dish, except we use whole chicken thighs and skip the 8-hour marinade) as well as braised pork shoulder (here’s a recipe from Food Network’s Anne Burrell). Instead of cooking on the stovetop, as most recipes direct, I simply add all the ingredients to the slow cooker and let it work its magic. According to CR’s tests, the 5.3-quart Calphalon Digital SCCLD1 (a much fancier option than mine) showed solid performance on low and high heat, and its sole dial with clear markings makes it easy to use. Both the inner pot and the lid are dishwasher-safe. (For more options, see our article on the best slow cookers.)
Wok
All-Clad D3 Stainless 3-Ply Bonded Cookware, 14 inch
If you’re stir-frying for a crowd, then a wok is the way to go. With a wok’s curved high sides, you can really shake a bunch of things up in there without spillage and splatter. It works great for stir-frying beef and broccoli—a dish that’s easy to pull off when you use ready-made beef strips and pre-cut vegetables. I hate paying more for them, but at least it’s cheaper than takeout, which is something I’d surely resort to if my only other option at the end of a long day were to slice raw meat and chop unwieldy produce. This recipe is similar to what I use, minus the Shaoxing wine, which I never got around to stocking in my kitchen. I make it in this stainless steel wok from All-Clad, with a flat bottom that sits stably on my stove. (To learn more about woks, read about the experience of a first-time wok buyer.)
I use a more common frying pan instead of a wok when I’m not making a large stir-fry, for instance, fried tofu, which I serve with hoisin sauce, or shrimp with peas. (As with many of these dishes, I improvise, but this recipe approximates what I do.) I have an old All-Clad pan, but CR testers rated the Oxo Mira Tri-Ply highly across the board, including for even cooking and sturdy handling. Using stainless steel lets me turn up the heat and use any old spatula without worrying that I’ve gone past the safe temperature or ruined the coating, as I would with a nonstick. This model is also oven-safe to 600 degrees Fahrenheit and can be used on an induction cooktop.
Chopsticks
Kent Wang Ebony Chopsticks
It doesn’t feel like you’re eating Chinese food unless you’re eating it with chopsticks. We have a stash of disposable wooden chopsticks from takeout spots that I use to cook with. They’re so much easier to use than tongs for turning things in a pan, like the shrimp mentioned above. Plus, I don’t have to worry about accidentally using them when they’ve touched raw foods (yes, I worry a lot when I cook) because we have a set of black ones that I inherited from my childhood home for the table. They look like these from Kent Wang, which are made from ebony, a tropical wood. I prefer wood over melamine or stainless steel because food doesn’t slide off of them as easily. (Read more about choosing the right chopsticks.)
Tongs
OXO Good Grips 12-Inch Stainless Steel Locking Tongs
Tongs are essential for picking up what you need from a slow cooker. They’re also handy for assertively combining noodles with sauce for, say, zha jiang mian (fried sauce noodles), a traditional dish made with sweet bean paste and ground pork, and served with cool sticks of cucumber, or sesame noodles (which my mom never made, but the Pioneer Woman does and it’s my son’s favorite version). The Oxo tongs here, part of a wedding gift I received 15 years ago, lock seamlessly for storage and still work like new.
Spatula
OXO Good Grips Stainless Steel Turner
You can buy wok-specific tools, but I use a regular spatula no matter what kind of cookware I’m using. A good one is essential for lifting blocks of tofu or fried dumplings cleanly from the pan. I was gifted this model from Oxo along with the tongs, and it still works like a dream—from tossing green beans with garlic in a wok to scraping up browned bits from a pan.
Chef's Knife
Henckels International Forged Premio 8-Inch
My mom would use a cleaver to slice her own meat from a bigger cut (it’s cheaper that way). But since I’m lazy, opting for pre-cut meats instead, my chef’s knife gets much more use. I rely on it to cut ultra-thin slices of scallions, which I sprinkle on almost every dish mentioned here, both to brighten the flavor and make it look fancy. The knife also comes in handy for slicing or smashing garlic, and much, much more. I’ve been using an old Japanese-style knife, but if you’re shopping for one online, the Henckels Premio 8” may be worth considering. CR’s evaluation found that it has a special design to keep your fingers safely in place, and it works well with different hand sizes, too. (See our review of the best chef’s knives.)
