Adding Oil

Written the morning after the below, September 4th, 2015.

After three days of relentless cleaning I transformed my kitchen from a dust lined trash heap into a useable collection of aged appliances and cookware. I dropped most of my 700 rmb move in allowance on redoing my kitchen. Most importantly, I bought a new stainless steel wok. 

This morning marked the day I would actually cook in my kitchen. After some serious thought I concluded I would make noodles (since my rice cooker was broken) with carrots and potatoes and an additional dish of cabbage. The carrots and potatoes would be lightly browned and ever so slightly sweetened. The cabbage was to be hit with high heat, salt to soften it (but left with some crisp), and some rice wine vinegar — a Chinese classic. I was so excited since the overwhelming majority of vegetables I had eaten in China were overcooked to my tastes. They always had a texture of no life. The exception to this was my host mom in Chengdu; she was a fantastic cook and knew her veggies. 

So now the stage was set and the excitement was high. I pulled from my backpack all of my ingredients and then some: soybean oil, vinegar, soy sauce, salt, sugar, potato starch, cabbage, carrots, a potato and placed them all spread on the counter top. I turned to my very large bamboo cutting board and picked up my equally over-sized Chinese cleaver — the only knife a kitchen in China needs. 

With a heavy swipe I spliced the cabbage into large strips. Then with a more gently slide I stripped the carrot and spliced it into thin 8 centimeter (this is China, metric FTW) long strips. The potato was more confusing. I stared it it. Cut off one end. Stared some more. How did I want it sized? Cubes. 2 cm cubes. And several more drops of the cleaver left me with just that.

I swept my feet, 1 - 2 - 3, waltzing my way to face the electric stove top. With pride I glanced over the words on the electric stove and noted that I knew almost every Chinese character there. I pressed on, changed it to the stir frying setting and listened as it beeped, beeped again, beeped 8 more times, then shut off. Perplexed, I tried again — same result. I tried again but then hit all of the other buttons until the beeping stopped. I smiled and waited a few seconds before placing my hand above the stove top, no heat? I noticed that the temperature gauge was off while the on button was lit red. I hit a few more buttons until it beeped itself off again. 

Reinforcements. I texted my new host family in Tianshui, waited ten minutes, impatiently texted my Waiban, and then waited another ten. No one was answering so I turned to my always-there friend: the internet. My internet wasn’t working, again.

My waltz was now a pace and I wanted it to work. To my surprise my phone rang; “wei?” “ah, Ben, wo kan dao ni gei wo tai tai de duan xin…” My host father was responding to the text I sent his wife and then he stopped speaking slow and the familiar words turned to ash in my ears. But I caught a few keywords: on, before, place, pot, and what translated to “induction cooker”. I placed the pot on the induction cooker, hit on, and GOLDEN! It worked. “Ah, xianzai hao le. Xie xie ni.” I said thank you and he hung up. The wok was already browning so I tried throwing some curse words in it and hit the off button. Damn that thing heats quickly.

Alright, back a few paragraphs to the waltz: slide, add oil to the wok, turn to grab the cabbage and BAM, fire. The oil was on fire. With my head tilted back I reached for the off button and picked up the pan while my other hand reached for the fire extinguisher. The fire went out, no damage, but oil everywhere. 

Round two, I decided to start with water this time but moved the cabbage closer so I could add it in as another thing to absorb heat. I hit on again and within two seconds the little remnants of oil in the pan were sent whirling through the air, a cloud of potential burns covered the walls and filled the air. I ran from the alcove, grabbed a cotton shield and charged, arms raised, to hit the off switch. Another victory with a single mere flesh wound, a small glowing burn on my index finger. 

Round three would take some more preparation. I went back to the computer to search online for a “how to”. The internet was up and running again so I started with the products site. Unfortunately the instructions were very limited but let me know what temperature each setting was at. Apparently, I was using the hottest setting.

Next was research about what sort of tool I was using: “convection oven.” I guess these these directly transfer heat to the metal using magnets and thus can change temperature and add heat at an incredible speed. Well, that accounts for the fire and splattering, though I’m still confused as to what caught on fire. 

Returning to the convection oven I put oil in the pan, added the cabbage, salt, some sugar and then turned it on to the lowest setting. It got hot just as fast and the cabbage was cooked in moments. A little vinegar, off, and set in a bowl. 

I filled the wok with some water next to use to cook my noodles. It was here that I realized I didn’t actually put the noodles I looked at in the store in my basket. Well, carrots and potatoes it is. The rest of dinner was uneventful.

My meal was delicious and refreshing. Entirely based around veges it was a nice break from the often centrally located rice or noodles. PICTURES! GO!