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 the chef and taster.
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 have a long history, exquisite cooking skills and unique style, and are the longest-lasting typical official dishes in China. Its cooking skills and traditional dishes have been passed 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 have always adhered to the teachings of Confucius, that is, they are not tired of eating and stewing delicious food, and they are not tired of drinking delicious food. The cooking of dishes is extremely exquisite, which requires not only fine ingredients, meticulous cooking, strict cooking and attention to taste, but also clever changes and adjustments, and timely freshness to meet its taste. Since the Western Han Dynasty, with the promotion of the political status of the descendants of Confucius, during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Duke of Feast was once the official residence, ranking first among the civil servants, enjoying the honor of bringing his family to court, and the emperor often carried out pilgrimage and sacrifice activities. Every time members of the royal family come to Qufu, they will be welcomed by a feast. As for the influx of senior officials, Confucius also wanted to hold 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 cuisines gather together with their own characteristics and benefited each other. Confucius' extensive social activities and frequent turnover of chefs at home and abroad have promoted the continuous exchanges between Confucius and the imperial court, Confucius and the government, and Confucius and folk cooking skills. In addition, for thousands of years, the famous chefs of Confucius' House have devoted themselves to learning from each other's strengths, inheriting the old system and innovation on the basis of traditional skills, and gradually formed Confucius' dishes with unique style, complete dishes, rich and perfect categories, and excellent colors, smells, tastes, shapes 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 strict, with the wind of scholarly family, the wind of the home of saints and the wind of princes and princes. All kinds of banquet dishes are rich and exquisite, 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 provided. The highest standard "Manchu-Han Banquet" in history has to serve 196 dishes, and there are 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 delicious food, cups and lamps. In addition to decoration and tableware, it also needs a "high pendulum" accompanied by bells and drums. The atmosphere 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 cook delicious vegetables. Confucian cuisine is exquisite in craftsmanship, good at seasoning, exquisite in containers and comprehensive in cooking techniques.
The naming of Confucian cuisines is very particular and meaningful, and some departments follow the traditional names, mostly home-cooked dishes; Some people think this ancient servant is elegant and poetic.
Cooking skills are a wonderful flower in China's cultural treasure house, and Confucian cuisine with a long history can be called a wonderful flower in high-tech cuisine and art gardens. The dishes accumulated over the years are dazzling and beautiful; There are many changes in the method 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 skilled and ingenious, and they have made great achievements in cooking skills. At the same time, with the replacement of Confucius chefs, Confucian cuisine has also been widely circulated in society. Therefore, the cooking skills and flavor characteristics of Confucian cuisine have a great influence on Chinese cooking culture, especially on the formation and development of Shandong cuisine.
Tan Jia official dishes
As a formal 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 rose and fell with the rise and fall of government officials, and finally disappeared. 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 and his son loved delicacies, and the mistress of Tan's family was good at cooking. They hired famous chefs from Beijing to learn from them, and constantly absorbed the strengths of famous chefs from various schools. Over time, they created a unique Tan Jiacai. Tan Jiacai, as a home-cooked dish, was famous in Beijing at that time because of its exquisite selection of materials and exquisite production, especially the technological characteristics of heavy fire and heavy seasoning. Later, due to the bad luck of the Tan family, he had to make a living through business, which made it further developed.
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. You must not 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 restaurant dishes, which are hastily made for commercial 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 the skills of shaking and turning spoons. It is for this reason that it is best to eat Tan Jiacai in advance, so that the chef has enough time to prepare the materials and make it.
Tan Jiacai is famous for cooking bird's nest and shark's fin. In Tan Jiacai, there are more than ten cooking methods of shark's fin, such as "three-silk shark's fin", "crab shark's fin", "casserole shark's fin", "clear soup shark's fin" and "stewed sea shark's fin". The shark's fin is completely soaked in hot and cold water and has no fishy smell. The made 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 chicken wings (that is, Lu), and pays attention to eating the whole chicken wings. Shark fin must be stewed on the fire for several hours. The shark fin soup stewed in this way is rich in flavor, 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 and abundant, its nutrition is greatly lost. This dish is made by soaking bird's nest in warm water for three hours, then washing it repeatedly with clear water, and carefully selecting all 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, and take it out and put it in a small soup bowl. Then boil the clear soup made of chicken and duck elbow and scallop ham, add appropriate amount of cooking wine, sugar and salt, season and put it into small soup bowls, and sprinkle a few finely cut ham slices 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 also a condition for eating, that is, the owner of the Tan family must be invited as a guest. No matter whether the diners at each meal know each other or not, they should set up an extra seat for the owner of the Tan 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 invited guests in Beijing, hoping that Chef Tan would have an "outside meeting", but they were all rejected.
Tan Jiacai pays attention to food and tableware. 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 "human food civilization has reached its peak".
Follow the business meal processing technology of "selecting the best ingredients, cutting the best raw materials, cooking the best dishes, and conforming to the taste", 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 developing simultaneously, bringing forth the new and synchronizing", and commit 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 in the old mansion. Its outer courtyard is equipped with an outer kitchen, which undertakes the host's social activities and the production of festive banquets. The imperial court lived in the official's house and set up a kitchen to cook and serve their daily meals. This is the so-called "inner kitchen".
As the name implies, "Palace Kitchen Cuisine" is a common dish among government officials. It is exquisite in materials and elegant in quality, inherits the tradition of China cooking, combines the characteristics of western cooking, removes the essence of Haina cooking and only pays attention to taste. Fresh but not salty, sweet but not greasy, fragrant but not vulgar, spicy but not strong, warm and solemn, harmonious and charming. The renewal of dishes follows the cycle of four seasons, 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 food". At present, the only restaurant in Beijing that specializes in Forbidden City dishes is the Forbidden City Food in Huilongguan, 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.
Taste: 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, revealing the atmosphere and luxury.
Shrimp with Toona sinensis
Features: The unique taste of Toona sinensis masks the fishy smell of shrimp. These two components complement each other and really blend together.
Taste: The shrimp is tender and delicious, and the unique fragrance of Toona sinensis is added. Reflected in an unprecedented experience.
Appearance: It can be seen that the chef is careful, and the placement of shrimp in the plate has also made great efforts. No matter which angle you look at it, this dish looks full.
Spinach mixed with clams
Features: Have a drink, eat some China frog spinach, and have fun. Choose the best clams, which are delicious.
Taste: Delicious, light and refreshing.
Appearance: small and unique.
Abalone oxtail soup
Features: nourishing health, 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 components, full and rich.