Chinese food, how should it be served with wine? This is a big question that is difficult to answer in general, but in the eyes of food documentary filmmaker Chen Xiaoqing, this is also the charm of Chinese food. "Different ingredients, different auxiliary materials, different seasonings, coupled with the order of dishes on the table, the combination of food and wine... And so on, and the changes are endless. It is this wonderful encounter that forms a kaleidoscopic, colorful world of gastronomy. At a recent creative dinner event hosted by Hennessy, food documentary director Chen Xiaoqing said.
At this dinner, Hennessy invited three powerful and creative chefs from the current Chinese food scene to string together the entire dinner with three themed nine-course dishes. The aim of all these efforts is also the effort Hennessy has been making in the Chinese market to "rediscover the taste of China", to integrate cognac, a grape distilled high brandy, into the modern Chinese table.
Wang Yong, Executive Chef of The Four Seasons Hotel in Hangzhou's Xizi Lake, brought a "delicious menu". The three courses include carved peony shrimp, delicate cherry meat and gin soup pomegranate balls.
The flower carved peony shrimp is Master Wang Yong's version of Jiangnan drunken shrimp. Originally, the method of drunken shrimp in Jiangnan was thousands of faces, but Wang Yong chose a large peony shrimp with a fresh and sticky taste, added plum flavor to the flower carving wine, and finally added ice Hennessy V.S.O.P into the throat, and the aroma progressed layer by layer.
Cherry meat is one of the famous "four pieces of meat" in Suzhou, which undergoes hours of cooking, sweet and salty taste, and melts in the mouth. Fermented red curd milk combined with ice Hennessy V.S.O.P can produce a floral aroma that is debilitating and fragrant.
Traditional Cantonese pomegranate balls, taking the shape of guava, wrapped in a soft crab meat pork filling with protein skin, floating on top of the delicious millet golden soup, combined with Hennessy Parrotin, highlighting the umami taste.
Chen Xiaodong, the chef of the modern new Cantonese restaurant "Yue", brought a "humane menu". He served the brine foie gras, which had become more and more well known outside Guangdong in recent years, with caviar, and sent a mouthful of Hennessy X.O into the throat to balance the fatness of the foie gras with the freshness of the caviar.
Take the flavor type of traditional beef soy sauce, but redesigned with the Western method of soy sauce beef, the fried tempeh pepper is made into a sauce, roasted at low temperature to make a whole piece of beef, and then wrapped in tempeh garlic flavor "Baoyun Su". Paired with chilled Hennessy X.O, the rich layers elegantly outline the hidden aromas in the wine.d'.
Master Wang Yong's third dish is perilla flower boiled heart abalone. The traditional abalone flavor is strong, but this dish is creatively seasoned with rare perilla flowers.
Jiang Zhencheng may be the most famous Chinese chef in the international catering industry. His Taiwanese restaurant, RAW, specializes in creative French cuisine, but Sichuan cuisine is something he's always loved. "Sichuan cuisine originally had 24 flavor types, but now there are no more than 10 kinds of common ones. I hope that through deep deconstruction, it will return to its previous peak and reach Daya. Jiang Zhencheng said. He brings three dishes, each of which feels both familiar and fresh.
In the middle and back of the dinner, a refreshing Sichuan clear soup was used to carry the upper and lower parts. Jiang Zhencheng skillfully uses Sichuan seasonal Longquan loquat and artichoke into the dish, the soup color is clear to the bottom, when paired with ice Hennessy V.S.O.P, the sweetness of the pipa is clearly recognizable.
Low temperature fried cordyceps flowers plus white truffle oil, coupled with fresh and tender snow crab meat, the taste of green peppercorns from beginning to end, without losing the soul of Sichuan cuisine.
The last dan dan noodles are finished, in line with the eating habits of Chinese. The fish oil from the tuna belly is very harmonious with the spicy oil of the dandan noodles, and the addition of Ice Hennessy X.O makes the flavors blend.