The dinner was held in Bao Li Hotel, with four tables and the theme of Cantonese cuisine. Thanks to David Yip and Song Ming Chen, we tasted 1 1 delicious dishes. I'm not familiar with Cantonese food. The following narrative is mainly based on the menu and the information I found on the Internet. There must be something funny. Please correct me. Thanks to Delacroix Yu for taking food photos.
The first course is barbecued pork with ice. Ice meat is fat pork cured with sugar and soju. After curing, its color is like ice, smooth and transparent, so it is called "ice meat". The entrance is not greasy, and barbecued pork tastes better. It is worth mentioning that this dish also uses a special kind of south milk, which is made of taro instead of soybean. Mr. Mo Shi verified this special method in his "Examination of Sufu and Nanru". This dish was served in less than five minutes, and it was quickly divided between you and me.
The second course is wild tremella and winter melon cups. As can be seen in the picture, the snow ear is filled in a big cup made of wax gourd (the carving of wax gourd skin is a detail, so don't care). In fact, according to the raw materials, this dish should be called "wild snow ear and wax gourd cup with frog legs, Yao Zhu and fresh lotus" There are lotus seeds in the soup and lotus leaves outside the cup, and the "fresh lotus" deserves its name. Tremella, also known as tremella, is a common edible fungus. At present, wild tremella is becoming more and more scarce. It is generally believed that Zhangzhou is the best, but Tongjiang in Sichuan is not far behind. When I first saw the name of this dish, I thought it was a beet similar to rock sugar, tremella and lotus seed soup, but after tasting it, I found it was very salty. Winter melon cup is a traditional famous soup in Guangdong. Because soup is steamed in a saucepan and then cooked with water, it is called double cooking in English. The boiled soup tastes like wax gourd, sweet and fragrant, which is really wonderful.
On the third road came the golden egg, a sweet-scented osmanthus pickle. Pickled vegetables are pickled dried radish, which is called "pickled vegetables" in chaozhou people. Radish is called "vegetable head" in Minnan dialect, and the original meaning of preserved vegetable is dried meat, so the translation of preserved vegetable is dried radish. Fresh radish is dried, salted and stored to make pickles, in which drying and pickling are repeated alternately until the radish is dry and flat. Only when it has been stored for more than ten years can it be called an old pickle. This time, I ate the preserved vegetables that Mr. Ye got from his friend's mother for 20 years. Although I may have no special taste because of my bland taste, Chinese food pays attention to a rare thing. 20-year-old preserved vegetables, similar to 18-year-old daughter red, have a sense of history, which is enough for people to cherish. Preserved egg is a home-cooked dish, which is very popular in Taiwan Province Province, Fujian Province and Chaoshan area of Guangdong Province. When this dish was served, the eggs and pickled vegetables had been chopped up and mixed together, so we wrapped them in raw vegetable leaves and ate them. Hot and tender eggs with pickled vegetables and fresh and crisp lettuce leaves are very delicious.
The fourth course is stewed fish with salted shrimp. There are three kinds of shrimp in the market: sea shrimp in salt water, river shrimp in fresh water and the rarest estuary shrimp. The estuary is mixed with salt and fresh water, and it is generally believed that the aquatic products there are the most fertile, and the shrimps produced there are naturally extraordinary. The shrimp in this dish is this kind of salty freshwater shrimp. Fish rot is another famous Cantonese dish. In 1960s, Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh visited China many times. From the menu hosted by China, we can see that one of the four dishes and one soup on Wednesday night was "Grilled Fish with Mushrooms". I think fish tofu is a kind of fish balls, but its making method is very special (take fish and mix it until it is gelatinized, add starch eggs, squeeze it into balls and fry it). It tastes like tofu, so it is called fish tofu. Traditional fish curd is made from shad, but the chef Song Ming Chen of this dish uses Ikan Parang, also known as western saury. Judging from the menu introduction, he also restored the long-lost traditional practice of this dish, but I don't know how to make it. Ten pieces of rotten fish each of us has one. I felt lost before I tasted it, so I had to make up for my loss with broccoli and shrimp.
The fifth lane is the legendary famous dish: crab yellow Jiangnan Baihua chicken. This dish comes from Jiang Kongyin, a famous gourmet who enjoys the reputation of "the first person in Cantonese cuisine". Because he was the last scholar in the imperial examination in the late Qing Dynasty, he was once in imperial academy, so he was also called Jiang Taishi. Jiang Taishi studied food and created many new dishes, such as the famous Long Hudou, whose real name was Taishi Snake Soup invented by him. Jiangnan Baihua Chicken is also one of them. From the photo, this dish is not very photogenic, but under the plain appearance, it is an ingenious idea. The cooking method of this dish is to boneless the whole chicken, soak shrimp glue under the chicken, then reshape it into chicken shape and steam it. After steaming, the chicken skin is not scattered, and the chicken is fragrant and smooth, blending with the taste of shrimp glue below. The cooking method of this dish is complicated, which requires a high skill of the chef, so it is rare. I was lucky enough to taste it this time, which surprised me very much.
The sixth is Cantonese dim sum: fried horseshoe cake. Water chestnut, also known as water chestnut, is a perennial aquatic herb. We refer to and eat its bulbs. Deep-fried water chestnut cake is made of water chestnut powder, water chestnut meat granules, coconut juice, etc., which are cooked and fried. The fried skin of the water chestnut cake is soft, and the sweet and crisp horseshoe meat is embedded in the soft glutinous cake. When you bite it, many textures are clear, smooth and sweet.
The seventh course is steamed white Sudan with salt. Salt is the originator of all kinds of flavors. I've heard of sea salt, lake salt, well salt and rock salt, but it's the first time I've heard of basin salt. After some searching, I realized that this was a by-product of soy sauce. Soy sauce is made by soybean fermentation, and there are often crystals at the bottom of the crock used for soy sauce fermentation. Scraped out is a pot of salt flavored with black beans. Salt is considered as the essence of soy sauce. The pot of salt used in this dish was sent by the boss of a soy sauce factory in Zhaoqing where David had been. It is said that that family has made soy sauce for the 33rd generation, using a secret recipe that has been passed down for thousands of years. White Sudan is the second most expensive wild river fish in Malaysia, second only to unforgettable, and its meat is fresh and sweet. Unfortunately, there are hundreds of flowers, chickens, pearls and jade in front. This white Sudan is beautiful, but it lacks an amazing feeling.
The eighth course is a classic Cantonese dish, old duck in casserole. Pericarpium Citri Tangerinae is a traditional spice and seasoning with a long history, and the output of Pericarpium Citri Tangerinae from Guangdong News Agency is the highest. Xinhui tangerine peel is made from the peel of local red orange, which has a history of 700 years and has always enjoyed a high reputation. As the name implies, dried tangerine peel, like wine, is more fragrant and more expensive as it ages. In the market, 50 grams of dried tangerine peel for more than 20 years can be easily sold to1more than 50 dollars. This time, this dish is made of 50-year-old dried tangerine peel with rare ingredients. What's more, the duck meat is fat and thin, neither firewood nor greasy, and the surrounding dried tangerine peel is fragrant and soft. This is the dish I eat the most at the dinner table. It's so delicious that I can't bear to stop. The roast goose and red bean paste in famous shops in Hong Kong are very delicious, because Xinhui Chenpi is added to them.
The ninth way is to give Yunzi Yunsi tofu. Li Yunzi is the egg of a raccoon, which is a small crab that grows on the edge of a field. It is called Li Yunzi because its claws are like bow-like hands. The Analects of Confucius Yang Huo said, "Li Yunyi, jade and silk are beautiful.". Li Yunzi is a unique ingredient in southern China, which is rare and precious. Only 5 kilograms of Li Yunzi can make 50 grams of Li Yunzi. However, it may be that the food in front is too strong, or that the gift clouds distributed to each of us are scattered in the soup. I'm sorry I couldn't taste the soft and fresh fragrance of the gift cloud.
The tenth method is to get new baked rice with soy sauce paste. Niigata rice refers to Yueguang rice in Niigata Prefecture, Japan, which is a famous brand among Yueguang rice. Because it comes from the fish marsh area, it is called "Yue Guang in the fish marsh". Niigata is the origin of Yueguang rice: Yueguang rice means the light of Yuezhou, which is the ancient name of Niigata. David also took great pains for this bowl of rice: first of all, the rice is not cooked, but steamed with mineral water; Secondly, the lard of bibimbap is specially extracted from 150 degree plate oil, which avoids the burnt smell; Finally, pour in a little soy sauce-the processed product after baking. Such famous rice and such fine cooking certainly didn't disappoint us: the granules were full, and the viscosity, elasticity, luster and flavor were outstanding. I can't remember the last time I ate such delicious rice, but I just hope I can't add any more rice. Everyone is so small.
The last dessert is the old sucrose rice cake. The sugar used in this snack comes from a village in Hainan Island, which is famous for its excellent sugar cane. Every new year, the village will make sugar cane into brown sugar, and use this handmade brown sugar to make rice cakes as sacrifices to the kitchen god. David receives brown sugar gifts from villagers every year, and this time he takes them out to feast our eyes.
The eleven dishes of this banquet can be said to have a history and a story. At that time, I satisfied my appetite, but now this combing makes me feel the entertainment of my heart and brain. These dishes or ingredients are rare or made in a special way. It is a good opportunity to taste such Cantonese food in Singapore. Due to the deterioration of the environment and the floating of people's hearts, there are fewer and fewer snow ear, dried tangerine peel and Li Yunzi; Last year, after the death of Granddaughter Jiang, the gourmet family like Master Jiang disappeared. Of course, these are embarrassing, but now a young boy like me can taste such authentic Cantonese food and thus taste the profound and strong traditional food culture, which shows that beautiful things will never disappear. As David often said: "Remember the heritage of ancestors when eating food, and expand skills to accumulate the happiness of future generations". As long as there is respect for ingredients and persistent pursuit of food, the ruined inheritance can be revived, and the declining culture may not be able to reproduce its glory, even in Shine on You.