Jiangsu Cuisine. 8 Great Chinese Cuisines Part 2
In this week's episode we wanted to show you a taste of Jiangsu Cuisine, it is one of the prettiest and most presentable cuisines and has a rich history as well as very special and bold flavours!
6) 文思豆腐- Needle tofu
Starting off the list, I wanted to show you guys this dish, needle tofu! Look how thin that is, and the best part, its all hand cut, that takes immense skill! Seriously, cutting something hard like a potato, I understand, but cutting something as soft and finicky as tofu, because its wet and slippery, they say it takes at least 10 years of practice to get this right, they pass the test if you can slide this through the eye of a needle. This is a test for many top Chinese chefs around the country! They serve this in a nice chicken broth, with some mushrooms and vegetables, all cut super thin, not a bad way to start the meal!
5) 盐水鸭- Nanjing salted duck
The history of the dish goes back hundreds of years, possibly to the 14th century, but it grew more famous during the Qing Dynasty. The tender white duck meat has some fat but is not greasy, and in presentation the dish is fragrant and often crispy.
Nanjing is famous for its ducks, they eat everything from a duck, but this dish ranks highly in China, its brined in salt and spices, the flavour is good, but it lacks something, it lacks a kick!
4) 扬州炒饭
At number 5 we have Yangzhou fried rice, this is the ultimate deluxe fried rice, so if you had the special fried rice in the UK, or house fried rice in the US, they are based on this dish! So a mixture of seafood, meat and vegetables are stir fried together, they use Chinese cured ham. The dish is usually served at banquets, after the meal to ensure that everyone was satisfied with the banquet, which speaks volumes!
3) 狮子头- Lion’s head meatball
This dish is over 1500 years old, and was served during royal banquets only! Legend has it that Emperor Yang of the Sui dynasty created the grand canal connecting Beijing to Hangzhou 1500 years ago, was visiting the south, there he saw a bed of Sunflowers and wanted a dish to remind him of the beauty, the chef’s cooking method were revolutionary at the time, minced, fried and braised meatballs, so decorated the plate with flower petals to make it look like a sunflower. The name then came at the banquet, when a general was rewarded for his bravery and valor, his house flew the lion banner, thus it was named lion’s head!
The lion’s head is just a braised meatball, a very tasty meatball, absolutely no lion meat involved! It’s minced pork with equal balance of lean and fatty pork, braised in soy and sugar, it’s very tender, mm, its so soft! I think they fry it first to seal in the flavours, and then braise it in aromatics, soy sauce, rock sugar, and oyster sauce. It’s very juicy as well! I can see why this deserves a spot on the royal banquet!
2)小笼包- Soup dumplings
The soup dumplings, this originated from Jiangsu area, Wuxi popularized in Shanghai! Right, there’s a very special way to eat these little gold nuggets! The secret is to bite a little bit, drink the soup, pour over some vinegar, then pop it into your mouth! You have to eat these with etiquette! Do not try and put it into your mouth at once, because it will scold, speaking from personal experience!
The flavour of the xlbs are delicate, they first cook the meat stock, then they freeze it, and chop it up then wrap it in a dumpling, this way when you bite into it just explodes with flavour in your mouth! I could honestly eat about 500 of these.
1)松鼠鱼
At number 1 we have the squirrel fish, some call this the pine fish, presumably because it looks like a pine nut, and squirrels eat pine nuts! Just look at how beautiful this is, the presentation, the care and hard work went into this, the colour! It takes excellent knife skills to make this dish, they hand cut the fish to make it look like this, then its glazed with a layer of thick, sticky sweet and sour sauce! The taste oh man its delicious, the fish is a little bit crunchy, the sauce I love anything that is sweet and sour, this dish is worthy at any banquet!
If you enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to check out some of the other ones from this series by clicking here.
Until next time I’m out.
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0:00 Intro
3:16 Squirrel Fish
5:03 Yangzhou Fried Rice
6:49 Needle Tofu
9:27 Nanjing Salted Goose
11:45 Braised Duck
13:24 Lion's Head Meatball
16:50 Soup Dumplings
19:03 Rice Wine
20:35 Verdict
Stuffed Eggplant Recipe (Hakka Style)
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Hakka Stuffed Eggplant (客家酿茄子) is my favorite way to eat eggplant. You can also use this recipe to make stuffed tofu, pepper, bitter melon, mushroom... Stuffed food is one of those characteristic styles of Hakka cuisine.
????PRINTABLE RECIPE -
INGREDIENTS
For the filling
400 g 14 oz of white fish fillet, cut into chunks
1/2 tsp of salt
1/2 tbsp of soy sauce (Amazon Link -
1/2 tsp of sugar
1/2 tsp of sweet paprika (Amazon Link -
1/2 tbsp of cornstarch (Amazon Link -
2 tbsp of chinese cooking wine (Amazon Link -
1/2 tbsp of sesame oil (Amazon Link -
2 tsp of finely minced ginger
1 tbsp of finely minced garlic
1/4 cup of diced scallion
3 tbsp of water
To make the sauce
1 tbsp of soy sauce (Amazon Link -
1 tbsp of oyster sauce (Amazon Link -
1 tsp of cornstarch (Amazon Link -
Some Black pepper to taste (Amazon Link -
1 cup of water
Others
2-3 Chinese long eggplants
3 tbsp of cornstarch to coat the eggplants
2-3 tbsp of vegetable oil to pan-fry
INSTRUCTIONS
Roughly cut the fish fillet into chunks and put it into the food processor along with the rest of the filling ingredients. Use the on and off mode to blend everything for 20-25 seconds. Don’t grind the meat too fine, otherwise, the filling will turn out too mussy. Remove it from the food processor and set it aside.
Slice the eggplant at a 45-degree angle into 1 centimeter thick pieces. Place all the slices on the cutting board. Put a few tbsp of cornstarch into a sieve and lightly dust onto the eggplant cut surface. Repeat this on the other side. Don't dust too much, otherwise, the filling can not attach well. A thin layer of cornstarch will prevent the meat from falling off and it also creates a starch layer on the outside of the eggplant which helps to catch more flavors from the sauce.
Spread a small amount of filling, 1/2 tsp will do, onto the eggplant slice. This will wet the cornstarch lightly and help the meat to fully make contact with the eggplant so it doesn’t fall off while cooking. Then put more filling, about 1.5 tbsp, on the top. Shape the edge with a dining knife. This recipe is enough to stuff 3 long skinny eggplants, of course, it depends on the size of your eggplant.
Before cooking, combine all the sauce ingredients in a bowl and set it aside.
Add vegetable oil into a frying pan. Place in the stuffed eggplant with the meat side down and pan fry over medium heat until golden brown. Flip it and fry the other side for a minute or 2.
Pour in the sauce. Be careful with the hot steam coming out. Move around the eggplants so they can absorb more flavors. If your pan is not big enough, you can fry the eggplant in batches. Just remember to divide the sauce in half too.
Transfer the eggplant to a plate. Sprinkle some diced scallion as garnish. Serve with white rice.
Videography / Editing by Austin Schargorodski -