Have you ever wondered, what do the Chinese Emperors eat at their time?
Food served to the emperors and royalties, you wouldn't expect anything less other than "HuaiYang" (淮揚) cuisine.
In Huai Yang cuisine, there are a couple of features that stands out a lot.
The prestigious designs, and its extraordinary slicing techniques
its emphasis on the fresh taste of the ingredients
the choice and combination of the ingredients
The main belief behind this cuisine is its high nutritious value and its astounding presentation.
It is definitely something different compared to SzeChuan cuisine where the flavors are overwhelming, Huai Yang cuisine emphasizes its uniqueness in the fresh tastes of the food.
For those of you who are concerned about nutritious value, Huai Yang Cuisine is the thing for you!
The main ingredients used are pork and fresh water fishes, the seasoning used to prepare these ingredients are very light, where the seasoning its mainly used to draw out the natural flavors of the main ingredients.
Within this cuisine, there are two dishes I enjoy very much, and I would like to share with you!
"Chrysanthemum Herring"
I fell in love with this dish the first time I had it. It is basically a deep fried fish with sweet sauce. If you observe closely, you can see the fish was sliced very thinly before frying, causing the meat to look like the chrysanthemum flower, hence the name of the dish. I remembered when I first saw this, I thought to myself "this looks like many pieces of fish meat deep fried, and assembled back into the fish", then I later found out it was the precise cutting techniques of the Chef used on the dish prior to deep frying it. I rarely eat dish that is not steamed, so seeing this deep fried fish intrigued me. At first I thought the sweet taste of the fish meat would be destroyed after being fried, if you just nodded, you're wrong. The tender, juicy, and fresh taste of the fish is unbelievable, and the crunchy texture made the dish much more appetizing, and lastly seeing how beautiful this dish looks almost made me didn't want to eat it!
"The Lion's head meatball"
As the name implies, it is a meatball, nothing more and nothing less. However, do not be fooled by its simple appearance. Seeing that it looks like a big Swedish meat ball, it is normal for anyone to assume that this is a clump of meat packed into a ball shape, but this dish is full of surprises. When you bite into the meatball, there are a few things that you will experience: 1) a crunchy outer layer of the shell 2) soft and juicy meat on the inside and 3) You will want more. The main difference between the Lion's head meat ball and a Swedish meatball is the texture. In the core of the Lion's head meatball, it appears hollow, the meat is not damaged when made into a ball shape. It almost feels a meat shell with an empty core, but the core is filled with sweet and fresh juices from the meat. Why is that? That's because the meat ball is first fried for the shape to hold its form, next it is steamed in low heat to draw out the essence of the meat!
Unfortunately, this time I wasn't able to find a good Huai Yang restaurant for you guys to try! If you find one, please tell me! For the time being, here is a video on how to make the Chrysanthemum Herring! Try making this yourself! and be sure to share with us how your dish looks and taste!
(Sorry, I wasn't able to find an English version, Enjoy!)
This week's focus will be GuangZhou cuisine (also called Canton Cuisine). As one of the Chinese cuisine in the eight subdivisions of all Chinese food, GuangZhou cuisine originated from GuangDong, it is famous for the large amount of varieties and the freshness of the food.
In comparison to other Chinese cooking, rather than uses spices and herbs, it focuses mainly on 8 main ingredients:
salt, sugar, ginger, green onion, soya sauce, rice wine, corn starch, and oil
Its focus lies not on the strong flavors, but the texture and taste from the 8 main ingredients listed above.You will rarely see dishes that are filled with red chili peppers like in SzeChuan cuisine I talked about before, because of the moderate climate of GuangZhou, it allows for many different kinds of crops to be grown, hence it allows for a lot more variety in the choice of the main ingredients.
Aside from the main ingredients of beef, chicken, and pork, chefs often use other animals like pigeons and snakes. It is said that snake meat can help keep warmth during the winter time, which is why it is often made into a soup for endure the cold winter nights.
Within GuangZhou cuisine, it is also very popular to use dried ingredients to compliment the dish for the extra kick in the flavors, like preserved eggs and dries shrimps. However, some of these dried ingredients are even used as the main dish, like shark fin (made into Shark Fin Soup), swallow's nest (made into a dessert).
In a typical full menu, you could expect a soup, cold dishes as appetizers, a meat dish (mainly steamed/deep fried chicken), a sea food dish (mainly steamed fish), and lastly dessert.
There is are a lot of emphasis on the soup, as it marks the beginning of the meal. A well made soup is very important, it usually would be boiled in a big pot for hours before serving, to ensure the flavors of all of the ingredients are drawn out. The main ingredient in soups are usually chicken and pork, because they carry the richest flavor that will not overwhelm the other ingredients.
Here are two websites that provide good information for tourists on Guang Zhou cuisine:
For this week's restaurant of choice, I had picked out "Golden Times Chinese Cuisine" located in Richmond Hill. There are a number of things you have to try, one of my special recommendation is their deep fried chicken (served with shrimp chips), the chicken is juicy and tender, and the skin is thin, unlike the ones you would eat at Kentucky Fried Chicken where it looks extremely fattening and unhealthy. The restaurant is more expensive than other places, but you're paying for quality food.
