When is the best time to add seasonings when cooking?
Introduction: Delicious dishes rely on various seasonings. It is well known that salt should be added late. However, when should seasonings like sugar, vinegar, and cooking wine be added to achieve both deliciousness and nutritional value?
Sugar: Adding sugar during cooking can enhance the sweetness of the dish, suppress sourness, and mellow spiciness. If using sugar for coloring, add it to a hot wok and stir-fry it until it turns purplish-red before adding the main ingredients and stir-frying together. If sugar is used only as a seasoning, it can be added during the stir-frying process. For dishes like Sweet and Sour Carp or Sweet and Sour Sliced Lotus Root, add the sugar before the salt.
Cooking Wine: Cooking wine is mainly used to remove the fishy smell of meat and fish and enhance the aroma of the dish. Cooking wine should be added when the temperature in the wok is highest during the cooking process, so that the fishy substances can be dissolved by the ethanol and evaporate together. For fish or meat that is not very fresh, it should be marinated in cooking wine before cooking to allow the ethanol to penetrate the fish or meat fibers and remove any off-flavors.
Reminder: Chinese cooking wine is divided into two main categories: yellow wine and white wine. Typically, white wine is used for stir-frying green vegetables, while yellow wine is used for meat dishes. This helps to bring out the umami and remove the fishy smell of the food. Western cooking wines include red wine, white wine, and spirits. Usually, white wine is used for white meat, and red wine is used for red meat. For example, fish is cooked with white wine.
Vinegar: Vinegar can not only remove gaminess, eliminate fishiness, cut through grease, and enhance aroma, but it can also soften vegetable fibers and prevent the destruction of vitamins in ingredients at high temperatures. The best time to add vinegar is at the "two ends" of the cooking process. For some dishes, like stir-fried bean sprouts, add vinegar immediately after the ingredients are put in the wok. This can protect the vitamins in the ingredients while also softening the vegetable fibers. For other dishes, like Sweet and Sour Spare Ribs or Scallion Lamb, add vinegar once after the ingredients are in the wok to remove gaminess and fishiness, and then add it again just before the dish is done to cut through grease, enhance aroma, and season.
Reminder: The acetic acid in vinegar is a weak acid with a low concentration. When used for cold salads, it will not destroy the nutrients in carrots and celery, so it can be consumed with confidence. Carrots and celery are rich in nutrients. Carrots contain a large amount of carotene, which is converted into vitamin A after ingestion. Vitamin A is key to maintaining eye and skin health and can promote calcium absorption, preventing calcium deficiency. Celery is rich in vitamins and plant fiber. In the hot summer, physical exertion is high, and people can easily lose their appetite. Adding a little vinegar to cold salads makes them crisp and refreshing, whets the appetite, and replenishes the vitamins and dietary fiber consumed. Besides carrots and celery, any vegetable that can be made into a salad can be seasoned with vinegar.
However, the situation is different when stir-frying carrots or celery. Heating the vegetables will accelerate the chemical reaction between acetic acid and the vegetables. Acetic acid will greatly destroy the carotene content. Celery is a green vegetable, and during the heating process, its nutrients and chlorophyll are destroyed by the action of acetic acid, causing the green vegetable to quickly turn yellowish-brown. This not only ruins the visual appeal of the dish but also reduces its nutritional value. Therefore, it is best not to add vinegar when stir-frying vegetables like carrots and celery.
Soy Sauce: Soy sauce can increase the aroma of food and make its color more vibrant, thereby stimulating the appetite. It is recommended to add soy sauce later in the cooking process to effectively retain the amino acids and nutrients in the soy sauce.
Reminder: When stir-frying vegetables, be sure to turn off the heat before adding soy sauce. Otherwise, the nutrients in the soy sauce will be destroyed and it will lose its fresh flavor. The sugar content in it will also change at high temperatures and produce a sour taste.
MSG: MSG can give plant-based foods a umami taste and meat dishes a savory aroma. When heated above 120°C, MSG turns into caramelized sodium glutamate, which is not only tasteless but also toxic. MSG works best at temperatures between 70°C and 90°C, so it must be added after the dish is removed from the heat.
Reminder:
1. It is not advisable to add MSG to cold salads. MSG can only fully exert its umami-enhancing effect at temperatures between 80°C and 100°C. Since the temperature of cold dishes is low, MSG is difficult to activate and may even stick directly to the raw ingredients, resulting in a tasteless and disappointing experience. If you must add MSG to a cold salad, it is best to dissolve a small amount of MSG in hot water before mixing it in.
2. Use salt, not sugar. The umami taste of MSG is more prominent at an appropriate sodium ion concentration. Therefore, MSG's umami flavor is best expressed in salty dishes. However, if MSG is added to sweet dishes, it will not only fail to enhance the flavor but will also suppress the original sweet and fresh taste and produce an off-flavor. Therefore, MSG should not be added to dishes like Chicken and Corn Puree or Sweet and Taro Puree.
3. It is not advisable to add MSG to fillings. Many people add MSG when making dumpling or spring roll fillings, which is very unsafe. After being mixed into the filling, MSG will go through high-temperature processes such as steaming, boiling, or frying. However, once the temperature exceeds 100°C, MSG will denature. It will not only lose its umami flavor but also form toxic sodium pyroglutamate, which is harmful to human health. Besides not being used in fillings, MSG should also be added to hot dishes just before they are removed from the heat.
4. No need to add MSG to meat dishes. Meat naturally contains glutamate, which, when heated with salt in the dish, will naturally form the main component of MSG—sodium glutamate. Besides meat, there is no need to add MSG to other umami-rich foods, such as eggs, mushrooms, water bamboo, or seafood.