Star chef Brendan Pang has revealed the cardinal sin so many Australians make when they try cooking the Chinese recipes he adores for the first time.

“A lot of people try to do everything at once, but the most important thing with Asian cooking is planning and prepping first,” Pang tells 9Honey Kitchen.

“That means cutting all your vegetables, cutting your meat, marinating everything… really going through a step by step process.”

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Because so many Aussie home chefs try to do everything at once, they miss out on crucial steps like tasting the food as they cook.

Seasoning is so important to so many Asian recipes, so not tasting the dish after each step can leave it woefully under or over-seasoned.

Another common misconception is that marinating meat will take hours or even days, which puts many home cooks off from trying new recipes. Pang says it’s a total myth.

“Honestly, in most Chinese cooking you can marinate for 20-30 minutes and it’s fine. In that time, you can cut all your veggies up and get everything else ready,” he says. 

Some of the staple ingredients you need to have on hand for Chinese recipes are soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil and Chinese cooking wine.

Vinegar is another essential, but not the vinegar you may be used to.

“I know in Western cooking you use balsamic or apple cider vinegar, but I always try to have a Chinese black vinegar in the pantry,” Pang explains.

It has a different flavour profile to the vinegar in Western dishes and can be found at most major supermarkets, but you can probably get a better bargain at an Asian grocer.

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“Just ask the people working there which one’s the best, they’re usually really helpful,” Pang says.

He also suggests shopping for fresh produce like fruit and veggies based on what’s in season, as it will be fresher and is less likely to be imported.

One of the easiest Chinese recipes to try at home is a simple veggie stir-fry, a popular takeout order, which can be whipped up with a few fresh ingredients and patience.

Throwing all your ingredients straight into the pan with sauce is probably the cardinal sin of cooking a stir fry, as it will cause the ingredients to stew instead of frying up nicely.

“There are a few steps to really elevate your stir fry to make it really good,” Pang says. 

“It’s about cooking your veggies off separately, using fresh aromatics like garlic, marinating your meat or protein. A lot of people don’t do that, they just chuck it all in at once.”

It’s also important to avoid overcrowding the pan, so invest in a large wok if you plan to cook this recipe often.

Pang says it’s also a lot easier to make dumplings at home than most people realise, provided you use his favourite hack; premade pastry.

“Store-bought pastry is perfectly fine, I recommend it if it’s your first time cooking dumplings,” he admits, adding that making dumpling pastry from scratch is the hardest part.

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“In terms of making them, you can fill it up with just about anything and get that right. The seal on the dumpling is the most important part, people often overfill it.”

When you overfill a dumpling, the seal won’t hold and it’s likely to explode the second you try to cook it, so always err on the side of underfilling them.

Surprisingly, he’s also a fan of frozen dumplings. Or perhaps it’s not surprising, given he has his own line of frozen dumplings at Woolworths called Bumplings.

So how can Aussies elevate their frozen dumpling dinners? Pan fry them to add a bit of texture and add them to a salad, or drizzle them in a delicious sauce.

“The other day I made a Korean sticky sauce – like the sauce that you’d have on chicken wings – and tossed my dumplings through there,” he says. 

“And you don’t need to defrost frozen dumplings, cook them straight from the freezer.”

When he can’t be bothered cooking, Pang makes a rice bowl stacked with whatever condiments, veggies and simple ingredients he has lying around.

As for the dish he’d love to see more Aussies try cooking at home, Pang has been obsessed with Japanese katsu curry this year.

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“A lot of people make katsu curry at home and they use the little curry cubes that you buy from the grocery store, but katsu curry is quite easy to make from scratch,” he insists.

“You don’t even need to crumb your own meat if you go for a meat-free Monday.”

Pang’s been a fan of plant-based meals for ages and has been experimenting with meat substitutes in his recipes, like v2food’s plant-based meat and mince.

They taste great mixed with the flavours and seasonings in traditional Chinese cuisine, as well as Western meals like shepherd’s pie and bolognese sauce.

“I’m not vegan, but I do try to cut back on the amount of meat that I have because I think it’s kinder on the environment,” he adds.

Brendan Pang will be demonstrating live on the v2food Plant-Based Cooking Stage at the Brisbane Good Food & Wine Show from Friday 27-29 October. Click here for more information.