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Fruits and flowers add variety on the plate
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VEGETABLES, grains and meats make the basis of most dishes, but sometimes, there is room for a little more variety. For thousands of years, Chinese cuisine has used flowers and fruits in sautéed, fried and boiled dishes, while tea leaves were a popular ingredient for soups. Some creations may have been a little too creative, but the best ones have stood the test of time and are now traditional recipes.
Hangzhou, known for its honey and rice, looks back at an old culinary culture that was recorded in books and diaries written by the scholars and literati who visited the city and its famous lake. Shanghai Daily has found some of the best Hangzhou recipes that incorporate flowers, fruits and tea.
Osmanthus flowers, the tiny golden ones that bloom in fall, are not only appreciated in parks and gardens but also preserved as osmanthus sugar, widely used in Hangzhou’s sweet cuisines.
It is sprinkled on Hangzhou specialties like candied lotus root stuffed with rice. From the outside, the dish looks like an uncut lotus root, but the tubes are filled with sweetened glutinous rice.
This special sugar also goes well with lotus root powder, traditionally considered a very nourishing food in China.
Hangzhou is famous for its variety of root powders. West Lake Lotus Root Powder is popular around the country.
To make the powder, the crunchy dried root is reduced to tiny white granules with a reddish tint.
The prepared drink, a tonic, is translucent, light pink in color and easy to digest.
Packaged as an instant food, it can be drunk when hot water is added.
Osmanthus sugar is available in supermarkets and grocery shops, and some Western chefs have used it in ice creams, chocolates, and cotton candy.
As the homeland of Longjing (dragon well) tea, several Hangzhou dishes feature the tea leaves, but Longjing shrimp is the best known.
It uses the shoots of Longjing tea produced in spring and tender shelled river shrimps. The orange and pink shrimp and greenish leaves make for a great color combination on the plate.
The best season to savor this dish is late spring, as Longjing tea leaves are usually picked in late April. The classical way of eating this dish is to alternate between sipping the tea and taking one shrimp, combining the sweetness of the shrimp and the fragrance of the tea.
In restaurants, the dish usually costs around 100 yuan (US$15.45), but preparing it at home isn’t difficult.
First make a cup of strong Longjing tea.
Shell the shrimps and mix them with starch, egg white, and some rice wine, then deep fry them for less than one minute.
Now sauté ginger and scallions, take them out of the pan and add the shrimps.
Infuse the tea water and add some of the tea leaves. Sauté until shrimps are fully cooked.
Recommended restaurants:
• Zhiweiguan Restaurant
Address: No. 10, Yanggong Causeway
Tel: (0571) 8797-1913
Address: 83 Renhe Rd
Tel: (0571) 8701-8638
• Elochee
Address: 120-3 Wushan Rd
Crab is considered one of the most delicious seafoods around the world, but cracking it open and getting the meat out costs some time, effort and skill.
This crab dish, called xieniangcheng in Chinese, makes it easier to get to the crab meat.
Its origins go back nearly a millennium. Crab was on China’s imperial tribute list and crab dishes were featured prominently on the imperial banquet menu during the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279), which had its capital in Hangzhou, then called Lin’an.
Hangzhou chefs came up with the recipe because they wanted to find a crab dish that would allow the court to look a little more graceful while they were eating.
When the dish is served, the orange is placed in a bowl, with sliced white crab meat and the golden crab roe inside the fruit, mixed with its flesh and other seasonings, including ginger and Chinese vinegar.
When the tender crab meat is steamed with the creamy roe and the flesh of the orange, the flavor is delicate and complex — sweet at first, then a bit sour, then sweet again.
The crab meat absorbs the fragrance of the orange, and it can easily be eaten with a spoon.
Fresh crab meat and roe is only used during fall and winter, when crab is harvested. If you order the dish now, you will likely get canned crab paste.
Recommended restaurants:
• Zhiweiguan Restaurant
Address: No. 10, Yanggong Causeway
Tel: (0571) 8797-1913
Address: 83 Renhe Rd
Tel: (0571) 8701-8638
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