Asian Cuisine - Northern China

Our menu for our Northern China session was as follows:

• Hot and Sour Soup
• Jiao Zi
• Vinegar slipped fish chunks
  
• Mo-shu pork
• Mandarin Pancakes
• Lamb on rice sticks
• Stir-fry Bok Choy

The prominent flavour combination for northern Chinese dishes is sour-oily.

Hot and sour soup is often recognized in North America with a red colour - this is a soup which is not prepared in the traditional northern Chinese method. The traditional soup is given spice by adding ground white pepper, which should be felt at the back of the throat when eaten. An important aspect of this soup is the addition of the egg just before service. The soup needs to be an an appropriate temperature so as not to instantly scramble the eggs but instead allow the egg to "whirl" into the soup creating long thin strands. For our soup, the presentation was nice and flavour was good although the mushrooms were slightly underdone and the sour flavour was slightly too subdued. Also, the eggs had not formed the appropriate strands.

Jiao Zi are potstickers or dumplings, filled with a seasoned cabbage and ground pork mixture. These dumplings are served with a vinegar and ginger dipping sauce. Our dumplings were cooked well and presented well, and had a good flavour. Chef commented on the amount of ginger in our dipping sauce saying it was heavy.

Vinegar slipped fish chunks, while perhaps having the least appetizing name on the menu for the day, was one of the most flavourful dishes. This is a dish of marinated fish (the chunks) which is wok fried and then finished ("slipped") in a red rice vinegar sauce. Our fish was cooked well although had broken up during cooking and the pieces were too small for Chef's liking. However, he said our sauce had amazing flavour and was one of the best he had tasted all week.

Mo-shu pork is a shredded pork dish which is served with Mandarin pancakes as a side. The pork is marinated then cooked with bean sprouts, mushrooms, and tiger lillies, and is coated with a sesame-oil and chicken stock based sauce. The mandarin pancakes have their dough prepped and then are rolled into shape in sesame oil in pairs, and then cooked in a pan. The two pancakes cooked together with a layer of oil between allow a crispy and a soft side to be produced on each pancake. For this dish, our flavour and presentation were good, Chef did not have any particular comments regarding it.

Lamb on rice sticks is a marinated lamb dish which is cooked with leek, carrot, and bamboo. The rice sticks are cooked in a hot oil and instantly puff up in size when cooked. Traditional service is to cook the rice sticks and immediately remove them, serving them pure white. I cooked our rice sticks slightly longer to give them a light tan colour, which Chef commented on. I mentioned I had done it intentionally and he pointed out this was not the traditional form of service on this dish. The lamb and sauce were both very good in presentation and Chef was happy with the flavour.

Stir fry bok choy is a quick vegetable dish where bok choy is cooked with garlic and onion and served with a sauce. Chef said our dish had a very nice presentation and the flavour of our sauce was excellent on this dish.