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Red cooking, also called Chinese stewing, red stewing, red braising, or flavor potting, is a slow braising Chinese cooking technique that imparts a reddish-brown coloration to the prepared food. Red cooking is popular throughout most of northern, eastern, and southeastern China.

There are two types of red cooking:

• Hongshao ( traditional Chinese: 紅燒; simplified Chinese: 红烧; pinyin: hóngshāo): can be done in less than 20 minutes^{[ citation needed]} and usually does not require much water
• Lu ( traditional Chinese: 滷; simplified Chinese: 卤; pinyin: lǔ): usually requires prolonged cooking of up to several hours and the items must be submerged in the cooking liquid.

Types

Soy sauce (usually a mix of light and dark soy sauce), fermented bean paste, red fermented tofu or rock sugar is commonly used to both flavor and impart a reddish brown hue to the items being cooked. Food coloring is sometimes added for a more intense red coloration. Both lu and hongshao are forms of stewing or braising characterized by usage of soy sauce, Chinese rice wine ( Shaoxing wine, huangjiu etc.) and rock sugar. Whole spices ( star anise, black cardamom (caoguo), cassia or fennel seeds) or five-spice powder are crucial elements in these dishes but are used in moderation so that their flavors do not overwhelm the main ingredients.

Red-cooked stews may be heavy in meat content or contain a variety of meats, vegetables, and hard-boiled eggs. Such dishes may be served hot or cold, and the sauce or stock is often reused as master stock.

See also

• Ah-so sauce
• Char siu
• Fujian cuisine
• Hunan cuisine
• Jiangsu cuisine
• Kho (cooking technique)
• List of cooking techniques
• Shanghai cuisine
• Zhejiang cuisine

References

External links

• Article describing red cooking