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Wok work, dumplings, braises, and the home versions of dishes most cooks first met at a restaurant — each recipe linked to the technique articles that make it possible. Eighteen recipes live in this section, grouped by the job each one does.

How to read this section: heat and dough are the two axes here. For heat, read wok heat, then pan heat for the slower bakes and glazes; for dough, start at doughs for the flat, lamined, rested family and wrappers for the three thin families that carry fillings. Sauce logic lives in sauces 101.

Noodles

Lo mein (擈面) — "Tossed noodles" — the egg noodle cooked firm, drained, rested, and then brought into a hot wok with a 2 min of fast work. The wok-heat does the job of browning the surface of the noodle and setting the soy to it, and the stir-fry is the sequence: the egg and the aromatics, the protein, the green of the vegetable, the noodle, the soy, and the final balance check before the plate.
Chow fun (炒河粉) — The flat, wide, glossy rice noodle of the stir-fry — cooked briefly in a little water (the chow fun softening), drained, and then brought into a hot wok with a 2 min of fast work. Same wok-heat and same soy-and-sesame as the lo mein, but the flat, wide surface of the rice noodle is the one that browns and shatters at the edge, and the thin-cut of the bean sprout and the leaf of the cabbage is the 30 s that sets the balance.
Wonton noodle soup (云吞面) — A clear, light stock with shrimp-and-pork wontons in it, and a tangle of al dente egg noodles tossed with sesame oil on the side. The Cantonese rule of the dish: the noodles are never cooked in the soup, and the soup is light enough to taste the shrimp in. Everything else is in service of those two points.

Rice

Egg scallion fried rice (雞蛋炒飯) — The plainest of the wok's fried rice, and the one that separates the cooks who know the wok from the ones who don't. Cold, day-old rice, the egg in as loose strands, the scallion in at the very end, and a two-part soy seasoning that has to coat the grain, not pool under it. No chilies, no fish sauce, no paste — the whole dish is the 2–3 min of fast work and the 180 °C of the oil's browning window.
Congee with preserved vegetables (粥) — The rice of the section, but the one where the stir-fry is replaced by the long, slow simmer — a 60–90 min of the rice-to-water 1 : 10 that pulls the 300 g of rice through to a clear, silky, even-thinned surface, and the salt of the preserved vegetable and the fragrance of the five-spice doing the balance.

Steamed & set

Steamed egg custard (蒸水蛋) — Two to three eggs, beaten with warm water at 1.5:1, steamed at the dry-steamer temperature until the set is soft and the surface is glassy, then finished with the soy, the sesame oil, and the scallion. The whole dish is temperature: the water ratio decides whether it is silk or sponge, and the heat under the pan decides whether the silk has holes in it. Everything else is the finishing.

Stir-fries

Kung pao chicken (宫保鸡丁) — Diced chicken, deep-red dried chilies and green pepper in a glossy sweet-sour-salty sauce, with a scatter of roasted peanuts. The clearest example on this site of the wok-heat method at full speed: everything is on the bench before the wok is lit, because once the heat is up, the dish is a matter of seconds between "good" and "burnt."
Black pepper chicken (黑椒雞丁) — The fast work of the section, with the salt-and-sweet glaze of the black pepper and the thin-cut of the chicken and the green of the onion doing the balance. A 1–2 min of the wok-heat, and the whole dish is the marinate half of the chicken, the stir-fry half of the green, and the salt-and-sweet coat of the black pepper over the whole thing.
Mapo tofu (麻婆豆腐) — Silken tofu, gently braised in a meat-and-black-bean sauce, thickened twice, and finished with ground Sichuan pepper for the má (tingling) that gives the dish its name. The technique that matters most is what you must not do: you do not stir the tofu, and you do not let it scramble.

Braises & glazes

Hong shao rou (紅燒肉) — The red-braised pork — the long, covered braise of the section, and the one where the sugar is the color and the depth at once. A 2–3 cm cube of pork belly, a 45 min of slow, covered simmer in a soy-and-wine broth, and the 30 min of open reduction that pulls the liquid to a thick, glossy, salt-and-sweet glaze on the surface of the cube. A moo hong (the Thai braise) is the same 3–4 hr logic with the Thai spice underneath.
Char siu pork (叉烧) — A pork neck marinated in red fermented yeast, sugar and soy, baked until the outside is a deep, sticky caramelized glaze and the inside is still rosy, then rested and sliced thin. The glaze is the whole point: caramelization and Maillard working in exactly the order the pan-heat article says to make them work.
Sweet & sour spare ribs (糖醋排骨) — The deep-fry of the section — a 8 min of the 180 °C oil to set the surface of the 3 cm rib and the battering and double-fry of the glaze, so the acid and the sweet and the salt sit on a crisp, even, deep gold surface.

Dumplings, buns & pancakes

Xiao long bao (小笼包) — The soup dumpling, in two moves that do the same work: the jelly — pork skin, boiled down and jellied, minced so fine it disappears into the filling — that melts into the soup when the steamer does its work; and the pleat, sixteen of them, that holds the soup in while the wrapper sets. The soup is not in the juice; it is in the jelly, and that is the whole trick.
Boiled dumplings (饺子) — A two-water wrapper dough, a pork-and-cabbage filling that's beaten until it gels, half-moon wraps with a pleated seam, and a hard boil with three fresh-water "dunks." The full method, from flour to table — it's the one recipe on this site where the dough is half the dish.
Spring rolls (春卷) — The crisp, rolled, deep-fried wrapper of the thin-and-flat family — a thin, uniform sheet rolled once over a shredded vegetable and stirred, seasoned meat filling, sealed on the last edge, and fried 2–3 min at the right temperature to glass and shatter. The whole dish is the 30–60 s of the roll and the 2 min of the fry — one tight roll, one clean fry, and the seal that holds it all together in the oil.
Scallion pancakes (葱油饼) — Laminated-style flatbread: a half-hot-water dough wrapped around a layer of scallion-and-oil, rolled thin, pan-fried until blistered and crisp on the outside, and folded on the inside so each bite has a soft leaf and a crackly edge. The scallion oil is the flavor, not the scallion.

Hot pots & soups

Hot pot (火鍋) — The table-side simmer — a clear or a red broth at a slow, rolling boil, and the whole dinner is the act of lowering things into it, one pair of chopsticks at a time. The meat in for 30–90 s, the vegetable in for 1–2 min, the noodle in last. The broth isn't a sauce to reduce, it's a bath that has to stay clean and moving, and the balance of the dish is split between the broth (the salt and the depth) and the two dips (the fresh edge and the rich edge).

Dips & sauces

Hot & cold dip plates — the hot-pot's table (火鍋蘸料) — Two little bowls at the edge of the pot — the hot plate (the rich corner: the chili crisp, the sesame paste, the garlic, the soy) and the cold plate (the fresh corner: the cucumber, the knife-skills cut of the cilantro, the soy, a thin edge of the rice vinegar's acid against the salt-and-depth of the soy). The pot does the cooking; the two dips do the seasoning, and the meat comes off the table with whichever corner it wants on it.