Today, I would like to talk to you about the cuisine of Beijing. At the "Fangshan" restaurant in Beihai, Beijing, there is a cooking technician named Wang Jingchun. From the age of fourteen, Wang Jingchun apprenticed at the "Haifeng Lou" restaurant in Beijing, and later went to the "Dingxing Lou" restaurant to learn art. In 1945, he came to the "Fangshan" restaurant and worshipped Wang Yushan, the "King of Catching and Frying" who was personally appointed by Empress Dowager Cixi, as his teacher. At that time, he saved money, bought cigarettes and tea for the master, and asked the master to go to the restaurant, he laughed and said that this was called "patting the horse's ass". After the master finished cooking, he borrowed the opportunity of brushing the large spoon, and used his finger to sip on the bottom of the spoon to taste what it was, he explained, this is called "stealing art".
Because he humbly sought advice, had "seeing in his eyes", was appreciated by the master, and gradually learned a lot of traditional Qing Palace cuisine, so that he later became one of the few famous chefs in China to cook Qing official cuisine. Wang Jingchun's imitation cuisine, with a strong traditional flavor, from the swallow and wing treasures to the folk snacks, all maintain the original appearance. At that time, the emperors and concubines of the Qing Dynasty used Teng, first of all, pay attention to the names of dishes, so many dish names have the meaning of auspicious celebration, such as "Dragon and Phoenix Chengxiang", "Shoubi Nanshan", "Belt on the Dynasty", "Rising Sun" and so on.
In addition, when Wang Jingchun cooks, curry, tomato, black pepper, cream and other Western food raw materials are not used, and local dishes such as "wooden coconut meat", "back pot meat", "goo meat" and other local dishes are not made; he even advocates that when cutting shredded meat, it is necessary to use chopsticks to cut it, which is the rule of the imperial dining room at that time, this method of cutting shredded meat, one is to meet the health requirements, the other is safe. The dishes he produces generally win with precious ingredients, delicate preparation methods, and quaint images; in terms of cooking methods, he pays attention to steaming, grilling, roasting, stir-frying, boiling, frying, etc.; he also pays attention to large dishes and exquisite utensils.
For example, the dish of "braised whole deer" made by him is to cleanse the deer's five internal organs (heart, liver, stomach, lungs, intestines), boil it in a pot, cut it into thin slices, after boiling water, put it into the copper hot pot with silver plating in the chicken soup, after boiling, add refined salt, shao wine, monosodium glutamate, corn flour and other spices, when the soup becomes thick, sprinkle the coriander segments, pour into the chicken fat, and then put the pot into the bowl.
Another example is the dish of "braised rhinoceros beef" that he made, which first boiled about a pound of rhinoceros beef in boiling water for about half an hour, then cut it into about twenty inches, neatly stacked in a bowl, added shallots, ginger slices, soy sauce, refined salt, rice wine, sugar and other spices on the drawer steamed, hong Kong out of the soup, upside down in the bowl, and then adjusted the soup to taste, hooked with corn flour into yellow sticky juice, drizzled with some sesame oil, poured on the rhino beef chunks.
There is also another feature of Wang Jingchun's imitation cuisine, that is, the name image, in the production, but also rich in craftsmanship. Such as "hibiscus swallow dish", "anchovy shark fin", "money fish belly", "mother mantis sea cucumber", "pine tree monkey head", "pipa prawn", "chicken branded squirrel yellow fish", "chrysanthemum tenderloin", "lantern tofu", etc., so that people feel that it is an artistic enjoyment, eager to eat and can not bear to put down. At that time, these artistic dishes were created to cater to the emperor's hobbies.
Finally, such as the "pine tree monkey head" dish, is the hair vegetables into stumps, the orchid slices cut into strips to make branches, the monkey head mushrooms into tree tops, water chestnuts and fungus into three pine towers? The shape of this image seems to reproduce the natural scene of the growth of the monkey's head mushroom. Another example is the "goldfish duck paw", which is to remove the bones of the duck paw, and the duck paw will "change" into the tail of the goldfish; then the made fish meat is made into the body of the goldfish, and the red cherry is set on the head of the goldfish as the eye is used to make a vivid and realistic goldfish, after cooking, pouring soup, it is really like a live goldfish swimming in the plate.