"Eco" here could be "ecological" and/or "economical".
"Energy" here could be gas or electricity or effort.
The Chinese style of cooking does not entail using an oven in general, especially in warmer, southern regions.
In a nutshell, the historical reason for stir-frying being adopted is the shortage of fuel (firewood) in the earliest days.
For those who are not that familiar with stir-frying, these are the main features:
1. Cut up the food (meat and/or veg) into small pieces, so that the cooking doesn't require a lot of time (therefore fuel).
2. The cooking utensil is ergonomically shaped for spreading the heat most effectively without using a lot of fuel (/ firewood) -- enter the wok.
3. Heat up the wok really hot, throw in a bit of oil which will heat up in no time, throw the ingredients in and stir around for the heat to reach all bits, sprinkle some water onto this to soften the ingredients, add the sauces (soya sauce; bean paste; whatever).
Of course, there's more to it than the three points above, but this blog is not about stir-frying, so I won't devote any more space to it. (I'm also not good enough at cooking to do stir-frying justice in a blog -- only if it's in a tongue-in-cheek spirit...)
When I became interested in Western baking at the age of 11, I had to organise my baking sessions so that the gas used for heating up this big box called an oven would be ergonomically utilised. (My mother was already supporting a big family single-handedly.) I had to make sure all the racks of the oven were loaded -- either bake at least two cakes or a batch of cookies as well.
Long before even the energy price hikes triggered by the Ukraine War and now the recent developments in the Middle East, I was already adopting eco practices in my cooking routine and other aspects of living. Here are some of them, in case you might be able to benefit from them (or the principles behind them).
1. For heating:
I lived for 18 years in Belfiore Lodge (in Highbury, near the old Arsenal football stadium). It looked like it'd come out of a Dracula film set but was an actual old Victorian house converted in the 1960s to four one-bed flats in the main house, with a wing of the same added at the same time. No central heating.
My flat was laid out in a straight line: living room at one end, bedroom at the other, with the kitchen in the middle. Throughout the winter, unless it was a mild winter, I'd leave my oven on at the lowest level, which would take the chill out of the whole flat. I'd also place a metal teapot inside for free hot water for my tea / coffee, as well as a pot of stew simmering away, with variations as the week wore on.
2. For cooking:
(i) Go for stir-frying as much as possible to minimise cooking time (and therefore also fuel). Cut up the food small, use a wok as well as a lid for keeping most of the heat in. Switch off the gas x minutes earlier to let the residual heat do the rest of the cooking. The x would have to be worked out by experience: what kind of (and what size) meat or veg. If you're fussy about getting the texture of your food exactly right (e.g., crunchy for stir-frying), this might not be the best practice. I'm not a good cook, nor am I fussy about my food, so it suits me well enough. As a low income earner, I'm happy to change my diet to suit my pocket.
(ii) I love Western-style thick soups. They're an entire meal on their own. The electric soup maker I have is set to 19 minutes for the whole process: you just need to specify what you want it to do (smooth or chunky, e.g. -- the blending comes part way through, not at the end). I've since discovered that I don't need 19 minutes because I cut up my veg very small, so now I switch it off after just 9 or 10 minutes. It's very smooth even with only half the cooking time specified by the makers. I shall try switching it off even earlier next time, and let the residual heat do the rest of the cooking. Admittedly, if you eat this soup (about 4 portions for me) over different sittings, you'll still need energy to heat it up, but only enough to heat it up, not to cook it. Soups (as well as stews and curries) improve when left overnight, so if you don't finish off the whole batch on the first day, you will have the bonus of subsequent helpings tasting better as well.
If you want to interpret the "eco" in the title as "economical, you can make a big batch of a base recipe, especially if you get the ingredients cheap for some reason (the veg seller trying to get rid of them because of the summer heat, or closing for a long weekend), pot them up, freeze them, and eat them in instalments with varying additions. "Economical" also in terms of time and effort energy (not just fuel energy) saved with a few instalments done in one cooking session.
Base recipe: potatoes and onions; potatoes and tomatoes (I bought 48 egg-size tomatoes for a quid in 2003).
Additions for varying the taste: chopped-up spring onion or coriander or parsley or basil or fresh chilli; cheese (different types); chopped bacon or ham or luncheon meat or spam; ground pepper (white is heavenly but more expensive); croutons (made out of bread that's not absolutely fresh -- more economy exercised here); anything you have around that needs using up or that you'd bought cheap (some kind of supermarket deal).
(From googling) Quote central heating was not common in London flats (or British homes) during the 1960s; it was considered a luxury and only became the norm by the late 1970s or 1980s. Most 1960s Londoners relied on single-room heating, such as coal fires, paraffin heaters, or electric fires, leaving bedrooms and hallways unheated and often freezing. Unquote
