I’m a big fan of dim sum, and yet, during this time, I haven’t been able to get any from my favorite restaurants. Thankfully, one of the most popular dim sum spots in NYC’s chinatown, Nom Wah Tea Parlor, just released an awesome cookbook. Authored by Wilson Tang, the owner, the book flows through recipes that might seem intimidating at first glance — dumplings, pan fried noodles, fried rice, and more — but are accessible, even to the beginner cook.
“That’s the whole point of Nom Wah,” Tang told me. “What we do is no big secret. We want to make things that are tasty that even a home cook would be able to tackle.”
While Chinese restaurants are known for their use of woks to achieve stir fry and pan fried results unparalleled, Tang assured me that “it’s not necessary, or really even safe to use them at home.”
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“Most woks aren’t compatible with home cooks' stovetops,” he said. “Their round bottoms are great for hitting the food at all angles, but they won’t stay stable on the stove as a result. In truth, you don’t need a wok to cook delicious Chinese food.”
Instead of investing in a wok and a wok adapter for your stove, Tang suggested instead a really good non-stick, flat bottomed pan.
“The T-fal 12.5-inch pan is the one I use at home. The size gives you plenty of surface area to fry on the bottom, and you can actually make pan fried noodles in it,” he says.
“But really,” he continued, “you can make almost the whole book in it. From dumplings to fried rice, this is really all you need to achieve restaurant level results. Plus, it means you can walk away and not worry about stirring it every ten seconds, and it’ll still come out excellent.”
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