Cooking Chinese food can be overwhelming at first. It begins with a long shopping list of unfamiliar bottles, pastes, and vegetables, a trip to the Chinese supermarket, and hunting down ingredients often labeled without English.

If you manage to get this far, the next challenge is adapting to a completely different cooking approach. Unlike Western cuisine—where you might slowly sauté onions and garlic while puttering around the kitchen—Chinese cooking involves extensive preparation followed by sudden, explosive energy. You heat the wok, throw everything in, and get it on the table as quickly as possible, often leaving the kitchen in disarray (that's certainly how mine looks). For beginners, cooking Chinese food typically means constantly re-reading recipe instructions, double-checking cutting techniques, cooking methods, and timing, because once you start, there's no turning back.

Over the years, I've purchased dozens of Chinese cookbooks and asterisked recipes, only to abandon them when faced with lengthy ingredient lists of items I didn't have. I understood that Chinese meals weren't served as single dishes, and after attempting to match two or three recipes together, I was quickly overwhelmed and gave up the whole venture. Perhaps, I thought, Chinese food was not traditionally cooked at home. It was restaurant food in a culture where eating out was the norm. It all seemed too complicated. Western cooking could be whole with just one dish on the table, or if trying to impress, perhaps a starter and dessert too. But transitioning from Western cooking techniques to the philosophy of Chinese food requires a significant mental shift.

After years of living and cooking in China, I've managed to simplify this complexity by breaking it down into three parts:

1) Before the Meal

2) The Prep

3) The Order of Cooking

This approach has helped me demystify Chinese cooking and reduce the confusion and stress.

Most people (including my past self) stumble at this stage and give up before they start. Chinese cooking can seem inaccessible to home cooks because most cookbooks or blogs teach you how to prepare individual dishes without explaining what to pair them with or how many dishes should be served. Older Chinese cookbooks present the opposite problem—attempting to teach the rules of balancing textures and ensuring all five flavours (sweet, bitter, sour, spicy, and salty) are represented. This is like teaching formal dining etiquette to someone who can't boil an egg. The simple truth is: pair whatever you want. Modern China follows few strict food rules—serve delicious food and your guests will be happy.

The key to planning a Chinese meal is to think about you, the cook, and your kitchen. Most Chinese dishes rely on the stove, so if you don’t plan carefully, you’ll run out of hobs or pans. Likewise, if you attempt too many wok-fried dishes, you’ll be cooking one dish then another and other in quick succession, resulting in early dishes going cold before the others are ready. Make sure your dishes utilise different equipment in the kitchen - perhaps the steamer for one, the wok for another, a saucepan for another and so on.

Next, determine how many dishes to prepare. While Chinese tables often look like grand banquets, everyday home eating isn't quite so elaborate. The simple rule used throughout China is to prepare one to two dishes more than the number of guests. For two people, cook three to four dishes; for six people, cook seven to eight. Consider planning something like:

A couple of cold dishes

Something slow-cooked in a pot

A couple of stir-fried dishes

A Staple food - baozi, rice, noodles

A simple soup

When cooking for a small group (two to five people), I typically plan one main meat dish, one or two vegetable dishes, a cold dish, a staple, and a simple broth or soup.

Most of your time for a Chinese meal will be spent doing prep. Chinese (and most Asian) cooking is vastly different from Western cooking. In Western cooking, there’s a calmness to the process - no one needs to rush along a casserole or roasted vegetables or a chowder, we just let gentle heat work it’s magic. Chinese cooking however, is front-loaded. You must get all your prep done before heating the wok. Be organised with your mise-en-place. I’m not always the best at this, I often assume I can compartmentalise the chopping board, sliding parts of spring onion to the right, garlic below that and ginger elsewhere, but it’s usually a disaster.

Spend two minutes getting a few small pots or bowls near you, plus a large one for the peelings and cut-offs. Then you can get cracking. You’ll need so much finely chopped garlic, ginger, coriander and spring onion, prep it all ahead of time and keep it organised. Once you start cooking a Chinese meal, you won’t have time to start chopping something you forgot.

Before cooking starts, think about the order of dishes. If you’re slow-cooking a stew or broth that takes over an hour, start that first, and let it simmer away. Always cook your cold dishes early and get them out of the way and onto the table. If steaming breads, dumplings or another dish, get the water boiling or steamer ready. About ten minutes before serving, start steaming them.

When you’re ready to move on and stir-fry, cook the most watery dish first as the liquid will retain the heat longer than drier stir-fries. Something like a braised tofu will stay hot for ten minutes, whereas a quick-fried cauliflower or stir-fried egg dish will be lukewarm after five minutes.

The last three minutes are the hardest; everything comes together at the last moment. Serve each dish separately on the table and dig in.

Reheating

In the UK, I lived without a microwave, but it comes in handy in China. Many home cooks make all their dishes, in any order they want, and then just pop them into the microwave a few minutes before serving. Although I personally don’t like the way microwaves heat up food, they do have their uses in a Chinese kitchen.

An Example Menu

Serves 4

Cold Dishes

Spinach & Peanuts

Qinglong Cabbage

Meat

Slow Cooked: Pork Ribs and Green Bean Stew

Quick Cooked: Xinjiang Lamb & Fried Naan

Stir-Fried Veg

Shredded Beans

Staple Food

Cornflour Nest Buns