Winter time @ Cooking through the lens of Chinese culture

Chinese culture categories food into hot, warm, cool and cold.

During the winter time, many people go for warm food to enhance their immunity system to protect themselves against the winter chill. One choice is lamb. Different parts of the lamb could be cooked into many different dishes – spicy deep-fried rack of lamb, soup with Chinese herbs, lamb belly pot etc. etc. Lamb meat are imported from the Mainland China, New Zealand and Australia. Soups and belly pots are usually made from Mainland Chinese lambs.

In Pic: lamb meat with rice

Both the western and Chinese styles lamb dishes have vegetables, water chestnuts, carrot and even bean curds on the side. This is to balance meat with vegetables for a proper diet. The lamb meat with rice is a good illustration of the dietary balance.

In Pic: Chinese radish

Chinese know that the warm food should not be taken too often because they could lead to indigestion and internal heat i.e. people feel that their bodies are much hotter than usual.

Therefore, one thing that the Chinese do remember is to eat radish every now and then which is believed to remove the heat and also aid in digestion. This is why radish is always a major ingredient for belly pot – to make sure that this dish is milder and suitable to most people.