FLAVORS WITH A DASH OF DELIGHT
When it comes to combining the tastes of the southeast with a little spirit, Chinese chefs have never been shy about adding a little cognac. Li Yingxue reports.
In 1859, the first shipment of Hennessy arrived in Shanghai, marking the start of China’s fondness for combining French cognac with delicacies from south of the Yangtze River.
More than 150 years later, Hennessy invited four popular Chinese chefs to rediscover the beauty of food from the southeast and add a dash of cognac for good measure.
The four chefs — Du Caiqing, Chinese master chef at the Hyatt on the Bund, Shanghai; Gao Xiaosheng, Chinese executive chef at the Pudong Shangri-La, East Shanghai; Wang Yong, executive Chinese chef at the Four Seasons Hangzhou at West Lake; and Zhang Shaohua, executive chef at the Park Hyatt Ningbo — teamed up to host a gala dinner presenting traditional dishes from south of the Yangze River with a modern twist in Shanghai on May 21, as part of the annual Hennessy and Meals dining event.
“All the dishes we have designed, from the cold dishes to the desserts, are typical foods from either Shanghai, Hangzhou or Ningbo, and all are made using local ingredients,” says Du.
Du designed his cold dishes — sweet lotus roots with osmanthus flowers, fish jelly with Pu’er tea, and smoked bean curd with kalimeris — to compliment Gao’s pickled pig ear and pig tongue.
Usually fish jelly is made of crucian, but Du uses cod instead of carp to give it a fresher flavor. The jelly is made with a fish-andshrimp soup and Pu’er tea, which gives it a dark red tinge and distinctive tea flavor.
“I put some lemon peel on top of the jelly to lighten the flavor of the dish,” says Du. He uses tofu skin to cover the smoked bean curd with kalimeris, and adds a drop of vinegar and sugar.
Wang upgrades the Song Sao (sister-in-law) fish soup by using a white gravy base instead of a light soup, to which he adds sliced cucumbers and carrots.
“Traditionally the soup is light, with a bit vinegar and pepper, but I chose to make it a heavy soup that’s also freshened by the cod that I roast first, before peeling off the crunchy parts,” Wang says.
Wang cooked one of his signature dishes at the gala dinner — braised pork and abalone with brown sauce. He stews the meat Shanghai-style for an hour before adding the truffle sauce.
“The fattiness of the meat compliments the Hennessy XO very well, as it enhances the roundness of the cognac and elevates its elegance,” says Wang.
“Usually we drink white liquor with Chinese dishes, but now we are exploring more about pairing red wine or cognac with Chinese cuisine.”
Gao also brought one of his signature dishes to the gala dinner, a dish that took him years to perfect — mini eight-treasures-stuffed duck.
In 2002, Gao met a customer who liked the eight treasures stuffed duck dish, but wanted a smaller portion. Gao tried to use chicken, pigeon and even quail successively to make the dish but he was never satisfied with the results. It was only when he figured out how to stuff the skin of the duck’s neck with the fresh ingredients — sea cucumber, abalone, mushrooms, bamboo shoots and glutinous rice — did it finally work.
Du’s phoenix-tailed prawn was designed especially for the dinner. It’s a modern take on peeled panfried prawns. Du peels half of each prawn and keeps the other half of their phoenix-like tail to improve the presentation of the dish. For seasoning, instead of dipping the prawn in vinegar, Du made vinegar and lemon “bubbles” using a modern molecular gastronomic technique.
“People are used to eating prawns with a spoon, so I think the vinegar bubbles will help make it more fun for the guests to enjoy the dish,” says Du.
Zhang created a vegetable dish, crispy rice cakes with cane shoots, adding sea sedge powder as seasoning, which is also an updated way of serving the traditional Ningbo dish of sea sedge and rice cakes. The deepfried rice cakes are sliced before they are served, and the natural curve they form adds an artistic touch to the presentation of the dish.
The gala dinner ended with Du’s four Western desserts with Chinese ingredients served in the same glass bowl with dry ice — a thousand-layer cake made with broad beans, a Longjing tea flavor tiramisu, French pudding with kalimeris and black chocolate ice cream.
It’s the fourth year of the Hennessy and Meals: The Rediscovery of the Taste of Chinese Cuisine event, which previously explored the cuisine of Xiamen, Fujian province, and Guangzhou and Shunde in Guangdong province.
Hennessy also opened a pop-up food lab in Shanghai from May 25 to 27 to explore the secrets behind the flavors. It was free to join by registering in advance. Customers were able to sample some of the dishes created by the four chefs for the gala dinner.
Model Zhang Liang, He Sui and actor Zhou Yiwei were invited to be the first “testers” at the lab, where they served Du’s phoenix-tailed prawns as openers.