From the Emperor’s kitchen


17 July 2012 | last updated at 12:24AM

By OLIVIA MIWIL|streets@nstp.com.my 

EMPRESS-IVE: Chefs from China present dishes from ‘the Emperor’s kitchen’, including the dessert favoured by the Empress Dowager Cixi

CHEFS from Beijing, China have made their way to Intercontinental Kuala Lumpur  to bring Malaysians a feast from "the Emperor's kitchen".
Chef Wang Gang showed the type and quality of fare one can expect by cooking up, live, the series of dishes available this month at Toh Lee Chinese restaurant.

For the trio of flavoured abalone, he first washes the fresh abalone thoroughly before popping it into a pot of boiling, salted  water.

It is then sliced into three. One slice is place on top of Japanese pickles, one atop seaweed, and one atop baby cabbage.  

The dish is accompanied with sesame and soy sauce, Beijing vinegar, as well as garlic and condiments.

The traditional soup of Beijing with tomato,  wild mushroom and razor clams is served in a plate instead of a bowl.

Even though the soup is orange, it is not as sour as it looks. The chewy bits of wild mushroom and razor clam, which have a similar taste but different textures, are delicious.

The sauteed wild rice and winter melon with egg white may not win points for its appearance. The egg white oozes out from beneath a heap of brown-black wild rice.   However, the rice has goes really well with the egg white and winter melon.

The Beijing-style sweet and sour cod fish is an indulgence. The golden brown fish is neither too sweet nor too sour, and its skin, which has absorbed all the flavours, is fried to a delicate crisp.

It is served with broccoli to cleanse the palate for the next dish -- Chinese-western fusion-style  wok-fried tender beef fillet.

Beijing executive Chef Tony Zhang explained that the beef was of a high quality local source.

"The black peppercorns  give the Western touch, and blend well with the Chinese shaoyu sauce," he said.

Moving on to dessert, the traditional royal stuffed sweet rice dumpling is said to be favoured by Empress Dowager Cixi.

"The dumpling was only tasted by commoners 200 years after it was invented," Zhang added.

Chinese sweet rice dumplings are similar to the contemporary mochi, except that it has a thicker and rougher glutinuous flour and rice skin.

Its filling is both sweet and salty, as it consists of seasoned sesame seeds, walnuts, peanuts and dried Osmanthus.

The Emperor's menu, priced at RM148++ per person, comprises trio of flavoured abalone, tomato and wild mushroom soup with razor clams, Beijing-style gong bao king prawns with crab roe, wild rice and winter melon with egg white, steamed oxtail with Chinese spicy bean paste, and royal stuffed sweet rice dumplings.

The Imperial Dynasty menu, priced at RM188++ per person, includes chilled lobster and jellyfish plate, matsutake mushroom chicken soup, Beijing-style sweet and sour cod fish, stir-fried crispy chicken with asparagus, beef fillet with Chinese black pepper shaoyu sauce, and royal stuffed sweet rice dumplings.

The dishes are also available a la carte priced from RM30++ to RM820++ per portion.

For details, call 03-2782 6128.
from
Beijing-style sweet and sour cod fish.

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