1. Chinese Sauces

Light soy 生抽

Dark soy 老抽

Mushroom soy, similar to dark but nicer rounded flavour

Oyster sauce 蠔油 – Very popular for Cantones style cooking.

Vegetarian oyster sauce 素食蠔油, great for all sort of stir fries, main flavour from mushroom.

Chilli oil 辣椒油 - cantonese chilli oil sometime contains dried shrimps or shallots. Chilli oil will spice up any food you like.

Chilli bean sauce 辣豆瓣醬 (douban jiang)

Yellow bean sauce 磨豉醬 and 黃醬

Sweet bean sauce or sweet flour sauce 甜麵醬. This is similar to ground yellow bean paste with but sweet and salty taste. Normally it’s made with wheat flour.

Taiwanese bbq sauce 沙茶醬 (sa cha jiang), a mildly/hot spicy BBQ sauce made to imitate S E Asian satay sauce, good for meat marinade for stir frying or grilling.

Fermented black beans 豆豉 or black bean sauce 豆豉醬

Hoi Sin Sauce海鮮醬, not really a stir fry sauce. It is quite salty. Can also use for duck pancake but sparingly.

 Plum sauce 冰花梅醬.

Duck pancake sauce 北京鴨醬.

XO sauce XO醬- there is no XO cognac in it, a Cantonese extra premium sauce with all sorts of dried seafood like shrimp and scallops, spices and chilli.

 Sesame oil 香麻油 – always buy 100% pure

Ching kiang black vinegar* 鎮江香醋 - great flavour for Sichuan cooking, Chinese S&S sauce, Dipping sauce for dumplings, stir some into shark fin soup or sweet corn soup is also very nice.
Char Siu sauce 叉燒醬

LKK Chicken marinate 鹵水料汁 – master sauce for poaching chicken or other meat ready to go nothing to be added.

Sweetened black vinegar 八珍甜醋- a Cantonese specialist ingredient made with black rice vinegar with herbs and sugar made especially for making trotter and ginger vinegar especially for new birth mothers. I love it great for winter warm you cockles to no end.


2. Other Chinese flavouring ingredients

Cooking Rice wine – Shao Hsing Hua Diao Wine 紹興花雕酒.

Chinese sour plums 酸梅子– use for plum sauce or other cooking to give a sour taste.

Chinese dried tangerine/orange peel 陳皮 – essential ingredient for beef balls dim sum, there is also a flavoured peel for snack not suitable for cooking.

Chinese cinnamon 玉桂 – cassia bark good mainly for braising.

Sichuan peppercorns 花椒 – most Sichuan cooking and good for braising meat. Essential ingredient for master sauce spices, Chinese S&P style cooking.

Five spice powder 五香粉 – essential Chinese spice for braising.

Star anise 八角 - Chinese called this spice 'eight corners' great flavour for master sauce and braising any meat.

Liquorice root 甘草 – not commonly used but essential ingredient for master sauce.

Chinese mixed spice 鹵水料 – All ready to use master sauce spices.

Sichuan dried chilli – great for kung po chicken and other Sichuan hot dishes.

Knorr chicken granules 雞粉 in a tin – commonly used in Chinese cooking replacing msg.

Chinese cardamom or cao guo 草果 - very similar to indian black cardamom, mainly use for braising meat, not a common spice I would use.

3. Chinese fresh vegetables and herbs

Choi sum 菜心 - long stem green vegetable. great for stir fry or just steamed and drizzle with good oyster sauce and some sesame oil or garlic oil.

White Bak choi 小白菜- dark green leaf with pure white stem

Green bak choi 上海小白菜 (shanghainess bak choi) - much sweeter than white pak choi

Chinese mustard 芥菜(kai choi) - some looks like a large pak choi some bigger ones looks like a iceburg, with a sharp peppery taste. Good for stir fry and soup

Kai lan 芥蘭 - Chinese kale or broccoli without flower or with flower

spinach 菠菜 - Chinese spinach always sold as whole with the stalk.

Chinese cabbage or nappa cabbage 黃芽白- great for stir fry or soup. Korean indispensable vegetable for kimchi

Kangkong or water spinach 空心菜 Chinese called it hollow vegetable or tung sum choi, great for stir fry with white fermented beancurd or shrimp paste

Bitter gourd (melon) 苦瓜 - Bitter melon not as bitter as Indian kerala, great sliced and stuffed with meat or prawn, also very braised with black bean and spare ribs.

Winter melon 冬瓜 - Bland tasting melon, mainly of soup savoury or sweet.

Angled gourd 絲瓜 - great for stir fry. Also popular with Indian and Thai

Chinese chives 韭菜 - eaten as a vegetable, great for making omelette or filling for all kinds of Chinese dumplings. Big flies mad for them if they are around shut the window and doors.

chives flowers 韭菜花 - sweet flower stem of Chinese chives, normally use as stir fry with pork

Chinese or oriental aubergine 茄子 - the shape is different from normal aubergine. They are normally longish either with dark purple, light purple or green skin. Eaten and cook the same way as normal aubergine.

bamboo shoot with skin on or one which has been cleaned* 竹筍 or 竹笋 - fresh, tin or plastic packed. Great for stir fry.
water chestnut 馬蹄 - fresh* or tinned*. Fresh is 100 times nicer and taste slightly sweet than its tasteless counterpart in tin.

Bean sprouts 豆芽
Soya bean sprouts 黃豆芽- bigger and tougher than bean sprouts, Cantonese usually chopped them and stir fry with pork.

pea shoots 豆苗- snow pea sprouted shoots great for stir fry on its own with garlic.

Fresh shitake mushroom 冬菇

oyster mushroom 蠔菇 - quite bland and slippery once cooked, wilted down to nothing

Chinese celery 芹菜

Spring onion 葱

 ginger 姜

Garlic 蒜

4. Chinese dried vegetables or dried ingredients

Shitake mushrooms 冬菇

Wood ears or tree ear 木耳

Cloud ears 雲耳

Lily buds 金針

White fungus or snow ear* 雪耳/ 銀耳

Fatt choi 髮菜

Ginkgo nuts 白果

Dried lotus seeds 白蓮子

 Jujube or red dates 紅枣

Other Chinese dates – honey (matcho) dates蜜棗 and black dates* 黑棗, mainly for soup.

dried soya beans - for soya milk, tofu etc...

mung beans 綠豆*- or green beans for bean sprouts or cook as a sweet soup

red or aduki beans 紅豆 - for sweet soup or red bean cakes or red bean lollies another great use is making red bean paste


5. Tofu products

Fresh tofu

Fried tofu - brown outside and quite greasy.

Fried puffy tofu (dou fu pok) 豆泡– golden in colour, very puffy, chewy and will absorb a lot of the cooking sauces.

Dried tofu (beancurd) sticks 腐竹 (fu chook) – eggy yellow dried sticks for braising or making sweet soup. Great deep fried before braising to give it a nice nutty taste.

Dried tofu sheet 腐皮( fu pei) – wrap for making fried roll (fu pei kuean) or lay under the dim sum beef balls or wrap round meat and puffy fish maw (sin jook kuean)

Fermented white beancurd 腐乳

Fermented red beancurd 南乳



6. Chinese pickled vegetables and other preserved food

Tianjin preserved vegetables 天津冬菜 dung choi – brown bits of salty garlicy tasty vegetable for congee, noodle soup, fish ball soup and steamed minced pork cake.

zha chai , Sichun preserved vegetable *榨菜, very salty and spicy with chilli powder, need soaking before slicing or shredding. Some also come shredded and ready to eat. Good for stir fry with pork.

Preserved mustard (hum choi 咸菜 or hum shen choi 咸酸菜, basically means salty vegetable of salty and sour vegetables. – greenish yellow cabbage like vegetables in plastic pack , jar or in small tins

Snow vegetable 雪菜 – shea chai - brownish or greenish shredded vegetable for stir fry with pork or for noodle soup.

pickled radish*菜脯(choi bo) - salted or slightly sweet. Great chopped for omelette, chai tow kuey Malaysian style stir fried radish cake.

Moi choi 梅菜 - brownish salted and slightly sweet pickled vegetable, great to stew with pork

Tai tow choi 大頭菜 - salt pickled kalrabi for stewing with meat.

Salted eggs 咸蛋

Century egg 皮蛋/Preserved egg

Chinese sausage(lap cheong) - very nice dried pork sausage 臘腸 or liver sausage 潤腸

Chinese bacon (lap yuk) 臘肉 - dried belly pork, great steamed with rice or cook as stew with fresh belly pork

Preserved duck 臘鴨, two different types one preserved in salt and the other sweeter cure with soy sauce like lap cheong

dried shrimps 蝦米- various quality not too expensive and used in various cooking to give a nice flavour.


7. Noodles

Rice vermicelli* 米粉 – fine rice noodles, for stir fries, noodle soups and Singapore Rice Vermecelli.

Rice noodles 河粉(hoo fun), fresh or dried– Chinese or thai, Pad Thai, Chow Kuey Teow, etc…

Egg noodles 蛋面– fine or thick, dried or fresh, for noodle soup, chow mein or lo mein (noodle stir- in sauce)

Jian xi lai fun 瀨粉 – thick rice noodles, need soaking and long cooking like spaghetti but made with rice. Great for laksa and noodle soup.

Konnyaku noodles 芋絲– packed in water, very crunchy good for steam boat. Japanese also have their own konnyaku noodles. These noodles have the lowest calories and highest fibre and many people use as diet food.

Glass noodles or bean thread noodles 粉絲– great for soup or Vietnamese/Thai style salad.

Green mung bean thick noodle or sheet 粉皮 – for Sichuan Bang Bang Chicken, can be in whole round sheet or sliced like rice noodles.

Fuchou noodles or normally called mee sua 麵線 very fine and salty wheat flour noodles, great for chicken and rice wine noodles.

Yee Mein 伊麵 – a yellowish puffy noodles deep fried and looks like as a dried noodle cake. Great for stir fried noodles with lots of gravy.

And not forgetting instant noodles（方便面）in packets or cups – hundreds of different types and flavours


8. Flours

Rice flour 粘米粉 (oriental) – very finely milled rice flour (not to be confused with supermarket rice flour), great for steamed cake like lo bak goh (chinese radish cake), woo tou goh (taro cake), dumpling etc.

Glutinous flour 糯米粉 – for deep fried croquette jin doi, glutinous rice balls soup, Chinese New Year cake etc..

Wheat starch (tung mein fun)澄面粉 – essential ingredient for prawn dumpling (har gau).

Tapioca starch 菱粉 or 薯粉– used as a thickener or as part of the pastry with any of the above flour.

Potato starch 生粉 or 薯粉– similar use as tapioca starch.

Pak Choi flour 白菜麵粉 or Hong Kong flour – bleached low gluten flour specially for buns and bao.

Cornflour/ cornstarch 粟粉 – essential ingredient for thickening all sorts of dishes

Bicarb 鬆肉粉 – use as meat tenderiser.


9. Tin products 罐头食品

shitake

straw mushrooms

bamboo shoots

baby corn

water chestnuts

Sichuan preserved vegetable

Fried dace with blackbeans 豆豉鯪魚 - quite nice chewy fried salted fish with bean beans. serve warm with rice.

Tinned longan fruit 糖水龍眼

Tinned lychee fruit 糖水荔枝

10. Chilled or frozen products

Square Wonton pastry 雲吞皮 – chilled or frozen

Round dumpling pastry 餃子皮

Spring roll pastry/ egg rolls 春捲皮 – various size all frozen.

Duck pancakes 鴨皮 - thin pancakes to serve with crispy duck,

Fresh egg noodles – great for wonton noodles soup

Fresh rice noodles – ho fun 河粉

Fish balls, squid balls etc. – chilled or frozen, great for noodle soup, steam boat and stir fry

Fried fish stick – great for stir fry

Frozen prawns – peeled or unpeeled all different sizes

Frozen squids

Frozen scallops – big bag for under £20

Frozen dim sum



11. Chinese delicacies

shark fin 魚翅 - The gelatinous golden thread of shark fin. The fin is boiled and the golden thread removed. This is usually made into soup similar to sweet corn soup look and texture. Many people are not conscious of the depletion of sharks many Chinese including myself no longer eat this.

Bird nest 燕窩 - collected from caves from certain species of swifts. The nest is soak and any fine feathers meticulously removed.

Fish Maw 花膠or 鱼鳔 - the gelatinous air sac of big fish, normally sold dried. This is either soaked then make a gelatinous soup or deep fried from dried to a puffy golden stuff which is crunchy and will soak up any sauce, good for soup too.

Pork skin 豬皮 - dried and deep fried pork skin - poor man's fish maw

Tendons 蹄筋 - beef or pork sold dried like a hard rod, need careful soaking and boiling till gelatinously soft.

Abalone* 鮑魚 - fresh, dried or in tin. Very sweet flavour chewy muscles, need long cooking if dried.

dried oysters 乾蠔 - brown in colour and very rich in taste, great to stew with mushroom or add to congee.

Sea cucumber 海參 - another gelatinous delicacy, normally sold dried. Needs long soaking and will expand 2 -3 times its original size.

dried scallops 瑤柱 - light brown in colour, very yummy in various Chinese cooking

flower shitake 花菇 - premium quality shitake with a crackled cap.

Jelly fish 海蜇 - dried and salted jelly fish, normally soaked and mixed with sesame oil and sesame seeds and eaten as cold salad, as dim sum or starter.