Chinese cuisine is famous worldwide, and no Chinese kitchen can be without cooking wine. In Taiwan, red label rice wine-introduced early in the Japanese occupation era a century ago-has been a staple not only of Taiwanese cuisine, but of the whole "greater Chinese cuisine" that has resulted from the arrival in Taiwan after WWII of many mainland styles, including those from Sichuan, Hunan, Jiangsu-Zhejiang, and Shanghai. "In all of the variants of these that exist in Taiwan, rice wine is a major ingredient," says Lin Cheng-chin, head chef for Chinese cuisine at the Executive Club in the Sheraton Taipei Hotel, who specializes in Sichuan and Jiangsu-Zhejiang styles.

Wine-wine situation

Epicure Liang Chiung-pai, who has authored 95 cookbooks, states: "The red label wine [now Daoxiang 40 proof] that everyone has been accustomed to using has a moderate alcoholic content and a light and clean bouquet, so that it can even be used on vegetables. For example, spinach and bean sprouts are relatively astringent, and you can only get rid of that taste by adding a little rice wine, which at the same time makes the green color especially lustrous."

Rice wine has countless uses in Chinese cooking, including disinfecting, preserving, deodorizing (especially of raw or unseasoned meat), tenderizing, and "hooking the flavor." For example, wine with a high alcohol content is used to kill bacteria in both the Taiwanese appetizer "raw clams pickled in salt and vinegar" and the well-known Zhejiang entree "raw crab infused with wine." (This serving style is called "raw drunkenness.") The Hakka customarily baste the pork and whole chickens used for offerings at New Year in salt and wine, then leave the meat to marinate for about six hours before cooking; the salt and wine seeps into the meat, preserving it remarkably well, as well as enhancing the flavor and aroma.

"It really is amazing how you can 'hook the flavor' out of any food simply by adding a little 'wok-warm-up wine,'" says Lin Cheng-chin. Though he doesn't know what chemical reaction is at work, in his 26 years wokking for a living, he has not only added wine to stews and soups to take out the distasteful smell of unseasoned meat, but he has always made it a point to, for example, sprinkle a few drops of rice wine onto free range chicken stew with clam before its gets to table; this is the only way to make sure that the aroma of the clam surges forth when you lift the lid.

It seems that Chinese like to get their food soused on rice wine before they eat it. Besides everyday foods that use rice wine, there are also tipsy tidbits like "drunken" chicken, drunken shrimp, ginger duck, and mutton hot pot.

Use what you got

Despite the rising price of Daoxiang 40 proof, many housewives are unable to quickly adapt to new varieties. But great chefs have long been using alternatives. "Wine is a kind of spice, and whatever wine I have on hand, that's the kind I use. The main principle to follow is to use wine with lower alcohol content for quick-frying or braising, while using wine with more alcohol for extended stewing or simmering, because it stands up better to heat," says Liang Chiung-pai. Lin Cheng-chin, who switched over to using Daoxiang salted cooking wine a year ago, explains: "It's simple, if there is salt in the wine, then I don't have to put salt in the recipe; if there isn't salt in the wine, then I will add it anyway."

"You can't simply give up just because you don't have red-label rice wine," says Liang Chiung-pai about the changes in cooking wine. Noting that Daoxiang 40 proof is a little sweet, she says that this means you can add less sugar or no sugar at all when making food. Daoxiang cooking wine is salty, so you can add a little sugar. She takes three New Year's dishes by way of example. For fried pork strips with gailan (Chinese kale or Chinese broccoli), because pork strips are already quite salty, if you use a little salted Daoxiang then there's no need to add further salt. For braised pork, which requires more spices and is cooked until the juices have all evaporated, you get the best taste with "rice wine head" (rice wine taken from the peak moment of distillation). Finally, Tianjian fried fish (fish with Chinese radish, cooked slowly over low heat until the juice become pasty) includes in its recipe sugar, vinegar, soy sauce, and a large amount of wine; for this dish use Daoxiang unsalted, because its light and clean flavor won't cover up the fresh-fish taste.

Liang Chiung-pai recommends that, besides rice wine, there is no harm in trying jiuniang, a sweet concoction of undistilled fermented cooked rice, which is cheap, safe, and has a unique sweet aroma. For example, if you add smooth jiuniang to dishes like braised fish head, braised shrimp, or fish in spicy bean paste, the meat comes out more tender and fragrant than with distilled rice wine. And in definitive Fuzhou dishes made with wine dregs (variations include eel, pork, and thin noodles), jiuniang is not only appetizing but especially warms you up.

Red label to the death

In day-to-day cooking, wine is used in only small amounts, so it is unlikely that most diners can tell which wine the chef is using. But for dishes that use two or three bottle of wine per pot-like shaojiuji (chicken stewed in rice wine and set alight), ginger duck, mutton hot pot, and pork stewed in Chinese medicine-the wine is decisive.

Chen Chun-che, a practitioner of Chinese medicine who loves shaojiuji and who tried preparing some with mainland rice wine while he was studying there, states: "No wine can replace red label in the flavor of shaojiuji." He says this is not only a matter of being accustomed to some particular taste, but also that in general when Taiwanese make this dish they don't customarily add salt, but want to get the unadulterated flavor of the wine, the chicken, and the Chinese medicine. Moreover, according to the theory of Chinese medicine, salt should not be added to tonic soup, so salted cooking wine is just not going to work. What's more, red label is 40% cane spirit (ethanol made from sugar cane), so it adds not just the flavor of alcohol to shaojiuji or ginger duck but also sweetness. This is something that you can't get with "rice wine head" or mainland Jinhua rice wine. Beer, used by some restaurateurs to replace red label after the recent bootleg wine poisoning incidents, is even less able to win the hearts, minds, and bellies of consumers.

Tien Cheng-te, chairman of King Duck, which has 500 outlets across Taiwan, avers that Taiwan Sugar Corporation's DIY sweet rice wine tastes similar to old red label, and can make ginger duck taste even better. It's just that for businesses that use a lot of rice wine, mixing the wine yourself is obviously a hassle. In January the TTWC came out with 120-proof cooking wine with 5% added salt; if you dilute it with two parts water to one part wine, the alcohol content comes out the same as that of old red label, while the salt content comes down to only 1.66%. This is sure to become the new choice for businesses that use large volumes of rice wine.

Over the past century, many generations of Taiwanese have become familiar with the taste of red label rice wine, developing many unique cultural and culinary traditions around it. But now rice wine is no longer synonymous with red label, and its twin Daoxiang 40 proof is caught between the rock of new competition and the hard place of WTO regulations (see the article "A Taxing Dilemma"). Is this the end for a longstanding Taiwan tradition?

Miso Daoxiang Drunken Chicken

Ingredients:

Three legs from free-range chickens, 500 g of miso, half a bottle of 80-proof Doaxiang wine (40 % alcohol content), 110 g of sugar, four slices of licorice, 150 g of soy sauce, 35 g of salt. (Note: If you are using Taiwanese miso, which is dark and salty, there is no need for soy sauce or salt.)

Directions:

1. Wash and debone the chicken legs; cover briefly in a small amount of salt and wine; remove with a bamboo sieve; tie up with string, and steam in a steamer basket for 30-40 minutes.

2. Remove and allow to cool; untie the string, so that the chicken doesn't stick together.

3. Place all spices and condiments into a bowl and mix until even; place the chicken in this sauce; cover and place in the refrigerator for two days.

4. Remove from refrigerator; wash with boiled water, and cut into slices; serve.

Stuffed Fish with Turnip

Ingredients:

One Crucian carp; 115 g of minced pork; one sprig of spring onion; one turnip.

Sauces:

1. One cup of rice wine, half a tbsp of soy sauce, half a tsp of starch.

2. One tbsp of rice wine, three tbsp of soy sauce, half a tbsp of sugar, a small amount of pepper, two cups water.

Directions:

1. Mince the pork again; add sauce #1 and mix until even. Clean the carp, and slice it open from the back; stuff it with the minced meat.

2. Steam the carp for 5 minutes, or slightly brown both sides in three tablespoons of oil; remove from heat. Peel the turnip, cut into thick slices, and place in a wok. Add sauce #2 and heat to a boil; then turn down the flame and simmer for 10 minutes.

3. Add the carp to the wok; heat until the juice is almost completely evaporated; serve.

Reminders:

1. The meat of the Crucian carp is thin, and there are many small bones, so you have to have a big fish in order to make stuffing easier.

2. When placing the fish in the wok to cook, it is best to place it on a bed of turnip; this not only prevents it from sticking to the wok, the juices drip onto and are absorbed by the turnip.

Ginger Duck

Ingredients:

One male red-faced muscovy duck; 600 g of ginger; five bottles of rice wine; 150 g of dark sesame oil

Medicinal supplement:

Use a general-purpose tonic, or ask a traditional Chinese pharmacist to make up a prescription to fit your individual needs.

Recommended side dishes: Cabbage, enoki mushrooms, tofu, corn, fish dumplings, or other typical hot-pot ingredients.

Dipping sauce:

Fermented tofu mixed with rice wine.

Directions:

1. Cut the duck into about five pieces.

2. Crush the ginger.

3. Heat the dark sesame oil in a wok, then throw in three chunks of ginger and heat until the fragrance becomes strong. Put the duck in the wok and cook until the water has all evaporated. Then place in a pressure cooker.

4. Add an appropriate amount of brown granulated sugar, MSG, and salt, then pour in rice wine, traditional Chinese medicine, and water; stew over a low flame.

5. Serve in a hot-pot to keep warm. Only add green vegetables after the alcohol fragrance dissipates, in order to avoid their absorbing too much alcohol vapor, ruining their flavor.