Strange Delicacies of Combined Flavors
April Junzi Chef's Table
The recipes we’re cooking from this month are very, very old.
Most of them are from around 1330, when Mongols ruled over China and the imperial pharmacist Hu Sihui wrote the very first book on Chinese medicine and Chinese cuisine, 饮膳正要 or “Important Principles of Food and Drink.”
As a culinary encyclopaedia, this book catalogued regional recipes that eventually permeated into the national cuisine of the whole of China. Today, many of the most iconic Chinese dishes had roots in recipes from this book, which we’ve taken the liberty to serve them to you tonight.
Each menu is designed and printed in-house by our creative team, inspired by the theme of the month.
- Menu, April 2018 -
FAT CHICKEN DUMPLINGS, or DEBONED CHICKEN MORSELS
with sprouting ginger, vermicelli, sichuan peppercorn
PEKING DUCK, or ROAST DUCK FROM THE 14TH CENTURY
roasted with sheep’s stomach, onions, and finely ground coriander
POPPY SEED BAO
NOODLE SOUP, or HANGING NOODLES
in duck and mutton broth with sweet melon and vinegar
CHINESE SWEET PUDDING, or EARTH IMMORTAL CONCENTRATE
candied Chinese yams, apricot kernel, goat’s milk custard
Chicken dumplings with sprouting ginger, vermicelli, sichuan peppercorn
Family-style 2nd course: Roasted duck and fluffy poppy seed bao with lamb gravy, to soak up all that flavor.
Chef Lucas describing Hu Sihui's "A Soup for the Qan" the book that inspired April's Chef's Table recipes and ingredients.
For April, we got our spring flowers from Fox Fodder Farm and a porcelain soy sauce bottle-turned vase from our friends at Wing on Wo.
The 4th course: hanging noodles in duck and mutton broth with sweet melon, plus a touch of red vinegar
The 5th and final course: Chinese sweet pudding with, candied Chinese yams, apricot kernel, goat’s milk custard