Let me tell you a little secret. That Chinese food you get at your favorite carryout isn’t really Chinese food, or at least not Chinese food done how it should be.

On Feb. 21, three Otterbein international students held a Chinese cooking seminar sponsored by the Center for International Education and Global Engagement and open to staff and students. They were assisted by Christopher Musick, the executive director of international education and global engagement, and Weiwei Jiang, who works with the CIEGE.

This is the first of three seminars that the CIEGE wants to host this year. It is planning for a Sri Lankan seminar for next month and a Korean one in April.

For the Chinese cooking seminar, the three juniors (actuarial science major Richard Ji and English and business finance majors Yibing Sun and Ruoqian Huang) taught attendees how to make fried rice, stir-fry and egg drop soup.

They chopped carrots, broccoli and tomatoes. The meat used was pork and Chinese sausage.

Chinese sausage is nothing like American sausage.

“We make it every Chinese New Year,” said Ji. “We put the meat into the sausage to shape it, then we put it in the sunshine with salt and wine.”

By putting the sausage in the sun, it soaks up the salt and wine and dries the sausage. Unlike the sausage we are used to, Chinese sausage is chewier rather than mushy and has a sweet flavor.

Another thing that is done differently is the type of rice and how it is prepared. When cooking, the students try to use what’s called an overnight rice.

“The overnight rice is better than the ready rice because it is so sticky,” Jiang said.

It also looks different than the rice we are used to.

“Your Chinese rice is so short and fat,” Jiang said.

While they taught, the students never looked at a recipe.

“The interesting thing is here, people follow the recipe. In China, we don’t. We have memories,” Jiang said.

She and the other students learned from watching and helping their mothers cook.

Now that she is on her own, Jiang likes to cook because she can make her food how she wants it, especially stir-fry.

“Stir-fry is whatever you want,” Jiang said. “It all depends on your flavor and what you prefer.”

When the food was finally served, it looked and tasted nothing like what you would get at your local Chinese place.

First we ate the egg drop soup with large chunks of tomatoes, something not typically seen in the egg drop at restaurants. The tomatoes added flavor to the normally bland soup.

In fried rice, the rice is typically dry and the carrots and peas are so small you hardly notice them. Their rice was so moist that it stuck to the chopsticks. Their carrot pieces were dime-sized and about a quarter of an inch thick.

Instead of peas, there were pieces of sausage almost the same size as the carrots.

Lastly was the stir-fry. The pork in the stir-fry was tender and delicious, not dry and chewy like pork typically is in stir-fry.

Next time, instead of doing takeout, try making your own. The reward for your hard work will be a lot of flavor.

Tomato Egg Drop Soup
-Cut eight tomatoes into fourths – Warm cooking oil in a wok pan – Put tomatoes into the pan and cook until juicy – Add cold water to tomatoes until all tomatoes are covered in water – Add salt to taste
-Bring to simmer
-When about to boil, add five cracked eggs
-Cook until the eggs have a firm shape – Add extra salt if needed

Stir Fry – Warm cooking oil in a wok pan
-Stir in thin strips of pork – Keep on low heat and cook pork very slowly – Add a little cold water after the pork is cooked – Add chopped carrots and broccoli
-Sprinkle sugar over pork and veggies to taste
Fried Rice – Heat cooking oil in pan – Add Chinese sausage and diced carrots – Once the meat is browned and tender remove the sausage and carrots from the pan, keeping them warm in the oven – Put eggs into the pan with cooking oil – Add a lot of cooked white rice to the oil and egg – Add back in the carrots and sausage along with salt to taste