Bridge2you - China adventure for gourmets

01/01/2024

Wish you all a very happy new year & all the best for 2024!🎊🍾💐🎈

25/12/2018

Wish everyone a very happy holiday and all the best for 2019!

21/06/2015

The Chinese celebrate Dragon Boat Festival on June 20 this year. In the lunar calendar, the festival occurs on the fifth day of the fifth month, so the festival is also commonly called the Double F...

02/04/2015

The Braised Pork is the most popular dish in China. Almost everyone knows it and has eaten it, either home-cooked or in restaurants. There are different versions in different places and everyone...

18/03/2015

13/03/2015

Beijing Roast Duck

I think it was 30 years ago I ate the Beijing Roast Duck the first time of my life. I cannot even remember what was the circumstance, in which restaurant and with whom. I can only say it must be a big day because the cost of a duck was a quarter of my monthly salary then.

I sat at the table, waiting curiously. When the gold-coloured duck came finally, I was mouth-watering. I watched the chef slicing first the skin, then meat to small pieces, which were piled up neatly on a plate and brought to our table. Together came the steamed thin pancakes, strips of the Chinese green union, and a saucer of sweet soya paste. I was so hungry and could not help to grab a thin pancake, took one piece of skin and one piece of meat with chopsticks and laid them on the pancake, added some union strips with soya paste, then wrapped it by hands and bit a big mouth immediately. The salty sweetness from the paste, the mild pungency of the green unions, and the tantalizing fragrance of the roast duck mingled in my mouth. I sighed with satisfaction. From that moment I fell in love with the Beijing Roast Duck. For a very long time, the fragrance of the fatty crispy duck skin and the creamy soup cooked with duck bones stayed in my memory.

China has a long history of eating duck and many different ways of cooking it, for example, boiled salted duck, braised duck in brow sauce, deep-fried duck, smoked duck, etc. Among them the Beijing roast duck is my most favorite one. The roast duck was originated in Southern China. About 700 years ago when the third emperor of Ming Dynasty moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing, the dish came along as well. What distinguishes the Beijing Roast duck from the traditional roast duck are two things:

Firstly, it uses a special breed - the White Beijing Duck which is plump and perfect for roasting. Secondly, ducks are hanged in an open oven where you can see they are roasted with the trunks of fruit trees.

The success of a roast duck depends partly on the preparation and partly on the chef’s skill of slice. A skillful chef should be able to slice a whole duck to at least 90 pieces at a similar size. The most delicious part is the skin, which also the most important measure to judge the cooking skill of a chef. It must be crispy and moisture, so is melted in mouth.

Since then I’ve had many different types of ducks, but the Beijing Roast Duck remains one of my most favorite dishes.

13/03/2015

http://www.bridge2you.eu/taste-china---blog/beijing-roast-duck

I think it was 30 years ago I ate the Beijing Roast Duck the first time of my life. I cannot even remember what was the circumstance, in which restaurant and with whom. I can only say it must be a...

19/02/2015

31/12/2014

http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016046-pork-and-shrimp-won-tons Winter does not retreat. Here’s what I want: a table by a fogged-up window, with fat won tons, drizzled with hot pepper oil and...

16/12/2014

Sometime ago a Dutch friend and I organized a Chinese dinner for 15 Dutch people. One of the dishes I cooked was a clear soup using fish and lamb. The combination may sound a bit odd to Europeans as...

15/12/2014

In China, every profession has its own god. So does the chef. Among the most commonly recognised gods with the culinary profession, Yi Yin (伊尹) is the most famous and legendary one. He lived 3700...

24/11/2014

The Winter Solstice Festival has its origins in the Chinese concept of yin and yang, which represents balance and harmony in life. It’s believed that the yin qualities of darkness and cold are at their most powerful on the shortest day of the year, but al

The Winter Solstice Festival or Dōngzhì (冬至) Festival is one of the most important festivals celebrated by the Chinese and other East Asians. It is one of the 24 seasonal division points in...