Another important condition for the formation of official dishes is the combination of folk chefs and tasters. The formation of a famous dish is inseparable from chefs and tasters.
Government dishes are mainly divided into the following categories: Confucian cuisine, Dongpo cuisine, Yunlin cuisine, Suiyuan cuisine, Tan Jiacai cuisine and Duanjia cuisine. Confucian official dishes, with a long history, exquisite cooking skills and unique style, are the longest-lasting typical official dishes in China. Its cooking skills and traditional dishes have been handed down from generation to generation. From generation to generation, enduring. The success of Confucian cuisine is mainly due to the fact that the members of Confucius throughout the ages have been adhering to the teachings of Confucius that food is not greasy, stew is not greasy, and drink is not greasy. The production of dishes is extremely particular, which requires not only fine ingredients, meticulous cooking, rigorous cooking and attention to taste, but also skillful changes and adjustments to meet their tastes. Since the Western Han Dynasty, with the promotion of the political status of the descendants of Confucius, in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Duke of Feast was once the official residence, ranking first among the civil servants in the class, enjoying the privilege of bringing his family into the palace, and the emperor frequently made pilgrimage and offered sacrifices. Every time members of the royal family come to Qufu, they will be welcomed by a feast. For the influx of senior officials, Confucius also held a high-level banquet. For a long time, due to the influence of the concept of family status, most of the family members in Confucius' house came from official families all over the country, and they exchanged courtesy with each other, which made many famous foods gather together with their own characteristics and complement each other. Confucius' extensive social activities and frequent changes of chefs at home and abroad have promoted the continuous exchanges between Confucius and the court, between Confucius and the government, and between Confucius and folk cooking skills. In addition, for thousands of years, the famous chefs of Confucius have devoted themselves to studying, and on the basis of inheriting traditional skills, they have inherited the old system and brought forth the new, and gradually formed a kind of Confucius cuisine with unique style, complete famous dishes, rich and perfect categories, and excellent color, fragrance, taste, shape and utensils.
Confucius' banquet has also been gradually formed for a long time. Solemn etiquette and distinct grades; The style of the banquet is very rigorous, with scholarly family, the home of saints and the style of princes and ministers. All kinds of banquet dishes are rich and beautifully matched, and the main course, big dish and compatible dish have certain procedures. There are many banquets of Confucius, which can be divided into family banquets, wedding banquets, birthday banquets, farewell banquets, wishful banquets and so on. In terms of specifications, it depends on the level of materials and the number of dishes served. The highest standard "Man-Han Banquet" in history has to serve 196 dishes, with 404 pieces of tableware alone. Followed by swallow dishes, shark fin seats, sea cucumber seats and "double four" pots and other seasonal foods that change according to different seasons. For example, a birthday party is a special party for the feast duke, his wife and their elders. Its table is full of delicacies, cups and lamps, and besides furnishings and tableware, there is also a "high pendulum" with bells and drums, which is detached and comparable to the palace.
Confucian cuisine is widely used, ranging from delicacies to fruits and vegetables, peppers or wild vegetables in mountains and forests, all of which can make delicious vegetables. Confucian cuisine is exquisite in workmanship, good at seasoning, exquisite in container and comprehensive in cooking technology.
The naming of Confucian cuisines is very particular and meaningful, and some departments follow the traditional names, mostly home-cooked dishes; Some people think that ancient servants are elegant and poetic.
Cooking skill is a wonderful flower in China's cultural treasure house. Confucian cuisine with a long history can be called high-tech cuisine, and it is a wonderful flower in the art garden. The dishes accumulated over the years are dazzling and beautiful; There are many changes in the methods of reconciliation, which are the crystallization of the wisdom of Confucius chefs and the precious wealth created by their hard work. Most of them are exquisite and ingenious, and they have made great achievements in cooking skills. At the same time, with the replacement of Confucius chefs, Confucian cuisine is widely circulated in society. Therefore, the cooking skills and flavor characteristics of Confucian cuisine have a great influence on the formation and development of Chinese cooking culture, especially Shandong cuisine.
Tan Jia official dishes
As an official dish, Tan Jiacai is not easy to pass down. At the beginning of the 20th century, the three most famous private kitchens in Beijing, Duan Jia Cuisine in the military field, Wang Jia Cuisine in the financial field and Ren Jia Cuisine in the banking field, all disappeared with the rise and fall of government officials. However, Tan Jiacai, a private kitchen produced by a bureaucratic family in Qing Dynasty, took root in Beijing because of its unique color, fragrance and shape.
Tan Jiacai was born in the home of Tan Zongxun, a late Qing official in China. Tan Zongjun's father and son love delicacies, and Mrs. Tan's cooking is exquisite. She does not hesitate to hire famous chefs from Beijing to learn from each other, constantly absorbing the strengths of famous chefs from different schools, and over time, creating unique Tan-style dishes. Tan Jiacai, as a home-cooked dish, was well-known in Beijing at that time because of its exquisite selection of materials and exquisite production, especially the technological characteristics of emphasizing fire and seasoning. Later, due to Tan Jiayun's bad luck, he had to make a living by running, which made him develop further.
In cooking in Tan Jiacai, sugar and salt are usually evenly distributed, with sweetness representing freshness and salty taste representing fragrance. The dishes are moderate in taste and delicious, which are liked by both southerners and northerners. Another feature of Tan Jiacai is his emphasis on originality. Cooking Tan Jiacai seldom uses spices such as pepper in wok, and rarely scatters spices such as pepper after cooking. When eating Tan Jiacai, it is important to taste chicken when eating chicken and fresh fish when eating fish. Never interfere with the original flavor of dishes with other peculiar smells and strange smells. When stewing, you must never continue soup or juice, otherwise it will not be original.
Tan Jiacai is a home-cooked dish, which pays attention to slow cooking, unlike ordinary restaurants, where dishes are hastily made for business needs. However, in Tan Jiacai, most cooking methods are burning, stewing, stewing, steaming, roasting, frying, roasting and making soup, but there are few stir-fry dishes, and we don't pay attention to techniques such as shaking and turning spoons. It is also for this reason that it is ideal to eat Tan Jiacai in advance, leaving enough time for chefs to prepare materials and make them.
The most famous cooking in Tan Jiacai is bird's nest and shark's fin. In Tan Jiacai, there are more than a dozen cooking methods of shark fin, such as "three-silk shark fin", "crab shark fin", "casserole shark fin", "stewed shark fin in soup" and "stewed shark fin in sea". The shark's fin is completely soaked in hot and cold water and has no fishy smell. The prepared wing meat is soft and rotten, and the taste is extremely mellow. Among all shark fin dishes, "Braised shark fin" is the best. This dish is made of precious yellow meat wings (that is, Lu), and pays attention to eating the whole wings. Shark fin must be stewed on the fire for several hours. The shark's fin stewed in this way is rich in juice, soft and smooth to eat and extremely delicious.
Tan Jiacai's clear soup bird's nest is more unique. It does not use alkali to expand bird's nest. Although the bird's nest is white in color and large in quantity, its nutrition is greatly lost. The way to make this dish is to soak the bird's nest in warm water for three hours, then rinse it repeatedly with clear water and carefully select all the feathers and impurities. After the bird's nest is soaked, put it in a big soup bowl, pour half a catty of chicken soup, steam it in a cage for about 20 to 30 minutes, take it out and put it in a small soup bowl. Then boil the clear soup made of chicken, duck, scallop and ham, add appropriate amount of cooking wine, sugar and salt, season well, put it into small soup bowls, and sprinkle a few slices of finely cut ham on each bowl to serve. This vegetable soup is clear as water, slightly beige, delicious, and the bird's nest is soft, smooth and unbreakable, with high nutritional value. This is Tan Jiacai's masterpiece.
According to legend, there is another condition for eating, that is, the owner of the Tan family must be invited to be a guest. No matter whether the diners of each meal know each other or not, they should set up an extra seat for the owner of Tan's family, who always wants to have a taste. To eat Tan Jiacai, there is an unwritten rule that no matter how powerful the diners are, they need to walk into Tanjiamen to eat Tan Jiacai. Many celebrities once invited guests in Beijing, hoping that Chef Tan would have a "foreign meeting", but they were all rejected.
Tan Jiacai pays attention to food and tableware, and most dishes are equipped with exquisite tableware, one for each customer. This way of sharing meals is very hygienic. Tasting Tan Jiacai also pays great attention to the environment, especially decorating the room with elegant flowers, so that customers can feel an ancient and elegant atmosphere. It is precisely because Tan Jiacai is different that someone once praised that "the civilization of human diet has reached its peak".
Follow the processing technology of "selecting fine ingredients, cutting hard, cooking well and tasting right", integrate the continuous progress of modern science and technology and society with people's demand for food and health, take the road of "inheriting and carrying forward at the same time, bringing forth the new and synchronizing", and devote ourselves to the unremitting pursuit of "seeing the essence in traditional dishes and seeing the tradition in innovative dishes"; Push this century-old dish forward continuously.
Palace kitchen dishes
"Palace residence" refers to the palace and the official residence of dignitaries. The "inner kitchen" originated from the inner and outer courtyards of the old government building. Its outer courtyard is equipped with an outer kitchen, which undertakes the host's social activities and festival feast production. The inner courtyard is the official's home, and a kitchen is set up to cook and serve their daily meals, which is called "inner kitchen".
As the name implies, "palace kitchen dishes" are common dishes among government officials. Exquisite materials, elegant quality, inherited the tradition of Chinese cuisine, integrated the characteristics of western food, removed the essence of Haina cooking, and only paid attention to taste. Fresh but not salty, sweet but not greasy, fragrant but not vulgar, spicy but not strong, warm and solemn, harmonious charm. The renewal of dishes follows the four-season cycle, and the materials are biased towards grains, fungi and vegetables, which truly combines the concepts of diet conditioning and green health and wellness, and is a "delicious". At present, the only restaurant in Beijing that specializes in palace cuisine is Huilongguan's palace cuisine, which has registered its trademark. For example: hot and sour sea cucumber soup
Features: Sea cucumber is made of water-borne sea cucumber. When cooking soup, the water-soaked sea cucumber will actively absorb the seasoning in the soup, which is really delicious.
Tasting: The soup is fragrant, white and mellow, and has a unique flavor. Sea cucumber is tender and delicious, with pure taste.
Appearance: antique small bowl, full of atmosphere and luxury.
Toona sinensis shrimp
Features: The unique taste of Toona sinensis masks the fishy smell of shrimp. The two components complement each other and truly blend into one.
Taste: Shrimp meat is tender and delicious, with the unique fragrance of Toona sinensis. Reflected in an unprecedented experience.
Appearance: It can be seen that the chef is careful, and great efforts have been made to place the shrimp on the plate. This dish looks full from any angle.
Spinach mixed with clams
Features: Have a drink, have some China frog spinach and have fun. Choose the best clams. They are delicious.
Taste: delicious, light and refreshing.
Appearance: small and unique.
Abalone oxtail soup
Function: Nourishing and health care, beauty beauty. The most important thing in this dish is to remove the fishy smell of oxtail.
Taste: The soup is red, like adding tomatoes. No smell.
Appearance: highlight the main ingredients, full and rich.