What is Chinese Superior Stock and How to Use It
It boils down to quality.
Superior stock, which appears on many Chinese restaurant menus, is a rich, complex stock used to make the highest quality soups and banquet dishes.
Unlike French stocks, Chinese chefs will include premium ingredients as well as meat to impart more flavour to this stock.
Known in Mandarin as shangtang, it is derived from three key ingredients — chicken, pork and highly-prized Jinhua ham.
How to make it
Only the best ingredients go into this stock, so make sure to use good quality chicken and pork.
Choose cuts that are on the bone and have some skin, cartilage and fat. This is necessary to impart a rich, luxurious, silken mouthfeel to the finished stock. Chicken wings are ideal for this, as are pork hocks and trotters.
If Jinhua ham is unavailable, substitute it with jamon iberico or prosciutto, or any ham that isn’t too smoky.
Blanch the chicken and pork in salted water to remove blood and any impurities that may muddy up the stock. After that, rinse all the pieces to remove the scum. The ham doesn’t have to be blanched but should be rinsed as well.
Place the ingredients into a stock pot, along with aromatics like ginger, green onions and white peppercorns, and cover everything with cold water.
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Some recipes also call for the inclusion of dried shiitake mushrooms and conpoy, as well as dried seafood such as flounder, shrimp or abalone for a deeper umami flavour.
Starting on low heat, slowly raise the temperature incrementally until the water starts to ripple. At no point should the stock boil, so make sure it stays at a gentle simmer at all times. Skim off any scum that rises to the surface.
Keep this going for four to five hours. Dried longans are sometimes added an hour before the stock is removed from the heat to get rid of any meaty odours and to impart sweetness.
Once the stock is to your liking, add salt to taste. Remove the ingredients from the pot and strain the stock through a cheesecloth to clear out any remaining impurities.
Cool the stock in a large container, cover and place it in the fridge overnight. The next day, remove any excess fat that has coagulated on the surface.
The stock can be stored for up to three days in the fridge and up to three months in the freezer.
What it is used for
Just like any stock prepared ahead of time, superior stock is versatile and can be used to elevate many dishes, such as stews, braised items and even stir-frys.
To make braised abalone in oyster sauce, put fresh abalone, superior stock, water and oyster sauce in a saucepan and bring it to a boil before leaving it to simmer on the lowest heat for one hour. Once the stock has been reduced, thicken it with cornstarch and add some sesame oil before plating.
It can also be used to whip up a variety of Chinese soups — from simple wonton soup to the rich, complex Buddha Jumps Over the Wall — or serve as a base for noodle soups if you’re in a rush and don’t have hours to spare to boil a stock from scratch.
For a touch of decadence and aroma, add a splash of high-quality Shaoxing wine to accentuate the stock’s delicate flavours.
First published in AirAsia Play on 9 Dec 2022.
