Manchu Han Imperial Feast

Manhan Quanxi, literally Manchu Han Imperial Feast was one of the grandest meals ever documented in Chinese cuisine. It consisted of at least 108 unique dishes from the Manchu and Han Chinese culture during the Qing Dynasty, and it is only reserved and intended for the emperors. The meal was held for three whole days, across six banquets. The culinary skills consisted of cooking methods from all over Imperial China.

 

Names

Quite a number of English names have been used to describe the dish combinations.
 Manchu Han Imperial Feast
 Qing Han Imperial Feast
 Manchu Han Feast
 Feast of Complete Manchu-Han Courses
 Man Han Quan Xi


History

Qing Dynasty

When the Manchus conquered China and founded the Qing dynasty, Manchu and Han struggled for power. Kangxi emperor wanted to resolve the disputes, and held a banquet in his 66th birthday. The banquet/imperial meal consisted of Manchu and Han dishes, both groups also attended the banquet together. After the Wuchang Uprising, common people learned about this royal cuisine. The original meal was served in the Forbidden city in Beijing.

Preparation

The meal was prepared comprising six banquets over three days with over 300 dishes. Altogether there are said to have been 196 main dishes and 124 snack dishes, for a total of 320 dishes sampled over three days. Depending on how the dishes are counted with the samples, at the absolute minimum there were 108 dishes. The emperor, after previewing the dishes, gave the feast its present name. The feast was divided into inner-palace and outer-palace banquets; only the imperial family and meritorious officials, including Han officials above the second rank, were invited into the inner-palace banquets. A book from the reign of Qianlong gives a detailed description of the feast and the dishes and ingredients.


The meal

It is said that there were "Thirty-Two Delicacies", referring to the more exotic ingredients used for the banquet. The "Eight Mountain Delicacies" includes such dishes as camel's hump, bear's paws, monkey's brains, ape's lips, leopard fetuses, rhinoceros tails and deer tendons. The "Eight Land Delicacies" includes several precious fowls and mushrooms, and the "Eight Sea Delicacies" includes dried sea cucumbers, shark's fin, bird's nest and others.

Some of the individual names of the dishes within:
 Snowy Palm - bear claw with sturgeon
 Golden Eyes and Burning Brain - bean curd simmered in chicken, duck and cuckoo brains
 Monkey King and Shark - goat brain
 Live monkey brain
 Egg tart

 

Utensils

The utensils, like the food, were also lavish; the majority of utensils were finely crafted bronzeware, and porcelainware in the shape of many animals were designed with mechanisms for keeping the dishes warm throughout the meal. In general the Manchu dishes were first sampled, followed by the Han dishes.
 
In popular culture

The imperial meal was re-enacted in the movie The Chinese Feast and the TV drama Happy Ever After. It's also featured in the anime Cooking Master Boy. and Princess Pearl. In modern times, the Sintic term "Manhan Quanxi" can be used as an idiomatic expression to represent any feast of significant proportions. As an example, various media outlets may refer to a dinner gala as "Manhan Quanxi", while in China there are also numerous cooking competitions which make use of the aforementioned name, while not specifically referring to the original meaning of the imperial feast. The name is also used extensively in product names in the food industry, such usage evident as brands of sauces and instant noodles by various companies.


Replicas

The cuisine is extremely rare in China today, and if offered it is by a large margin one of the most expensive meals in the entire Chinese cuisine collection. Even when served, it is done with replacement ingredients, as many of the animals are essentially endangered species. Waiters serving the replicas are required to wear some form of traditional Chinese clothing.

Hyatt to strengthen presence in China

Hyatt Hotels Corporation (HHC) has announced it is to add more than 1,000 new rooms to its China portfolio by 2013.

The Hyatt Regency Wuxi and Hyatt Regency Xuzhou will debut in 2012, followed a year later by the Grand Hyatt Nanjing. All three properties will be located within China’s Jiangsu province on the country’s Eastern coast.

 

 

The 350-room Hyatt Regency Wuxi will be part of a larger two-tower development which will also hold serviced apartments, office space, a shopping arcade and other leisure facilities. The hotel itself will have four restaurants, an 800sqm ballroom and ten meeting rooms, and also a spa and fitness centre.

The Hyatt Regency Xuzhou, also due to open in 2012, will take up the upper most levels of a new 60-floor development in Xuzhou city centre. Along with 350 guestrooms, the hotel will offer restaurants, a grand ballroom and a fitness centre. The hotel will sit within one of five new towers, all forming the new development.

 

The Grand Hyatt Nanjing will be the last of the three properties to open in 2013 in Nanjing, capital city of Jiangsu province. Again part of a larger mixed-use development, the Grand Hyatt will sit alongside serviced apartments, a shopping mall and other leisure facilities. Like the previous two properties, the 400-room hotel will also come with a grand ballroom, extensive meetings facilities and a spa and gym.

Six Hyatt-branded hotels have opened in Greater China in the past 18 months, including the Park Hyatt Shanghai, Park Hyatt Beijing, Grand Hyatt Macau, Grand Hyatt Shenzhen, Hyatt Regency Hong Kong, Sha Tin, and the Hyatt Regency Hong Kong, Tsim Sha Tsui.

Famous chief: Mario Batali

 

 

Mario Francesco Batali (born September 19, 1960) is an American chef, writer, restaurateur and media personality. In addition to his classical culinary training, he is an expert on the history and culture of Italian cuisine, including regional and local variations. Batali co-owns restaurants in New York City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Singapore, Hong Kong and Westport, Connecticut. Batali's signature clothing style includes shorts and orange Crocs He is also known as "Molto Mario".

Family background and personal life

Batali was born in Seattle, Washington, the son of Marilyn (née LaFramboise) and Armandino Batali. His father was of Italian ancestry and his mother was of French-Canadian and English descent. According to research by Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (of Harvard University, in 2010 for the PBS series Faces of America), Batali's paternal great-great grandparents opened an Italian foods store in 1903. Batali's family roots are found almost entirely in the Western United States. Mario’s great-great-grandfather left Italy in 1899, going to Butte, Montana, to work in the copper mines, but later moved west to settle in Seattle.

Batali's family moved to Yakima, Washington, shortly after his birth. When Batali was about 8 years old, his family moved back to Seattle when his father was hired as an engineer for Boeing. His father went on to work for Boeing for thirty years before, upon retirement, opening Salumi, a specialty cured-meats shop in Seattle.

Mario moved to Spain with his family in 1975 and returned to the U.S. in 1978 to attend Rutgers University, where he majored in Spanish Language, Theatre and Economics, and graduated in 1982. He attended Le Cordon Bleu, though he left because he found the pace too slow and felt that the best way for him to learn was in a professional kitchen. Mario currently lives in New York City with his wife Susi Cahn (of Coach Dairy Goat Farm) and two sons, Leo and Benno. He also owns homes in Northport, Michigan, and Red Hook, New York.

Professional career

During college Batali worked as a dishwasher at "Stuff Yer Face" restaurant in New Brunswick, New Jersey, quickly moving up to stromboli and pizza maker. Batali went on to serve as an assistant in the kitchens at the "Six Bells" public house in the Kings Road, Chelsea, under Marco Pierre White, La Tour d'Argent in Paris, Moulin de Mougins in Provence, and the Waterside Inn, outside London. In 1985 he worked as a sous chef at the Four Seasons Clift in San Francisco before being promoted to helm the Four Seasons Biltmore Hotel's La Marina restaurant in Santa Barbara.At twenty-seven, Batali was the highest paid young chef in the company. In 1989 he resigned and moved to the northern Italian village of Borgo Capanne to apprentice in the kitchen at La Volta, where he sought to master a traditional style of Italian cooking inspired by his grandmother, Leonetta Merlino.

In 1993, Batali opened "Po". In 1998, with business partner Joseph Bastianich (son of Lidia Bastianich), he went on to start "Babbo Ristorante e Enoteca". The pair have since opened seven additional restaurants, Lupa (1999), Esca (2000), Otto Enoteca Pizzeria (2003), Casa Mono (2004), Bar Jamon (2004), Bistro Du Vent (2004, closed in 2006), Del Posto (2005), Enoteca San Marco (2007 in Las Vegas, Nevada, later renamed Otto), B&B Ristorante (2007 in Las Vegas, Nevada), Tarry Lodge (in Port Chester, NY), Carnevino (2008 in Las Vegas, Nevada), Tarry Lodge in Westport, CT (2011) and a shop named Italian Wine Merchants (1999) which is no longer under Batali's ownership.

The New York Post reported in September 2007 that Batali’s contract with the Food Network would not be renewed, and that he would no longer be featured on its Iron Chef America series. The article further reported that although Batali had not initially been dismissed from Iron Chef America, he decided not to make any further appearances on the show after the network made the decision to cancel his cooking show, Molto Mario, which had been airing on Food Network since 1997. A Food Network spokesperson confirmed to ABC News that Molto Mario would no longer be aired, but said that "Mario Batali is still part of the Food Network family. Sometimes family members go off and do other things. We completely blessed his decision to go to PBS ... He is still going to appear on Iron Chef America."No new episodes of Molto Mario have been filmed since 2004, but the network continued airing re-runs, with reruns currently airing first on Fine Living and currently on Fine Living's replacement channel Cooking. Batali was absent on the season finalé of The Next Iron Chef, but he appeared twice during Iron Chef America's 2008 season, and his likeness has been licensed to appear in the Nintendo game Iron Chef America: Supreme Cuisine. As of episodes airing in 2010, Batali's name and likeness do not appear in the show's opening credits.

Batali is featured in PBS’s show Spain... on the Road Again with Gwyneth Paltrow, Mark Bittman (of The New York Times) and Claudia Bassols (a Spanish actress) featuring Spanish cuisine. The 13-episode series was filmed from October 2007 into early 2008. This will be the first of a series of shows that will be developed for PBS over the next several years. Batali is also in negotiations with Travel Channel to develop a series on Italian cuisine and culture with Anthony Bourdain that reportedly will be an "exhaustive, definitive Italy series with the kind of production values that Planet Earth had".

Batali teamed up with premium drum stick producer Vic Firth to create custom kitchen tools. Together they designed a line of wooden rolling pins, pepper grinders and salt grinders.

In 2009, Batali announced the creation of the Mario Batali Foundation "to educate, empower and encourage children". The foundation is an event-driven fundraiser for children’s disease research, children’s hunger relief, and literacy programs.

Batali has been critical of fellow international chef Gordon Ramsay, calling his cooking styles dated and boring. Although the New York Post reported, in 2009, of a feud between Ramsay and Batali, Batali has stated, "We really don't even know each other.... I'd love to hang out with him."

In 2009, Batali made his film debut in Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox.

In 2010, Batali teamed with High Five Labs to create his own iPhone app called Mario Batali Cooks!. The following year, Batali became a co-host of ABC-TV's daytime show The Chew.

Batali recently lost 45 pounds, hoping to shed about 80 pounds total. Batali said he decided to lose weight after he saw a picture of himself. He counts on light exercise and portion control to lose the weight. Batali said, "It’s really about calorie intake and calorie outtake. You just have to eat enough to get you to the next meal."

Mario is featured also in the MMORPG World of Warcraft: Cataclysm: in Stormwind City there is the NPC Bario Matalli which is regarded as "Sous Chef" and feature the highest-level cooking recipes available.

In 2012, Mario Batali planned to open 3 restaurants in Hong Kong.

 

Fried Rice with Chinese Sausage

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup oil divided
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 tablespoon chopped ginger
• 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
• 1 carrot, finely diced
• 2 stalks celery, finely diced
• 3  Chinese sausage,
• 1 small bunch scallions, sliced, divided
• 4 cups cooked white rice
• 1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar

 

 

Cooking methods

1.Heat 2 tablespoons of canola oil in a wok over high heat.
2.Add the beaten eggs and fry until they are fully cooked. 
3.Transfer them to plate.
4.Add the remaining oil, ginger, garlic, carrot, and celery, and stir-fry for 2 minutes. 
5.Add the sausage and half of the scallions and cook for 1 minute. 
6.Add the cooked rice, Soy sauce and rice wine vinegar. 
7.Stir-fry until the rice is hot, about 2 minutes. 
8.Stir in the reserved eggs and transfer to a serving dish.
9.Garnish with the remaining scallions and serve.


What it looks like

 

It is recommended to made in a flash, gone even faster. It is common dish as Chinese families all loved this. Made it using smoked sausage instead of the Chinese sausage is also a good idea.

 

 

 

My home made dish-Ground chicken pot

Today I would like to introduce my favourite homemade dish, the ground chicken port- where I learned how to cook it from my mother.It is a very commonly seen dish in my hometown where people eat it all year as a home-style dish. I was been told that, people in my hometown, Xuzhou City in China, where closed to Weishan Lake- the largest lake in the country- Previously, in the rest of the fishermen on the Weishan Lake, because of the limited shipboard conditions, they often take a small clay stove, sitting on an iron stove, a few pieces of firewood fire support below, and then press the practice of boiling a pot of homemade dishes, pots edge also plastered with bread, so they had this meal-in-one cooking methods. Nowadays, there are dishes to pot cook the traditional systems to be improved, including fish,  beef, tofu, crayfish etc.

Materials

 

Chicken:600g
Flour 300g
Corn flour 80g
2 eggs
Ginger 15
Galic 25g
2 green peppers,
1 star anise,
Salt 15g,
Cooking wine 10g,
Soy sauce 5g
Fresh chili powder 3g,
Gourmet powder 3g,
Oil 250 grams


Cooking Method

1. Cut chicken into pieces,  washed in boiling water for later use.
2. Cut green peppers into small pieces 
2. Mix flour, corn flour into a pot, add 500g water and knock into the eggs, add a salt, gourmet powder, make small pancakes for later use.
3.Use another pan, put in oil until hot, the put in ginger, galic, peppers, salt, cooking wine, soy source and fresh chili powers, grourmet power, keep the big fire for 5 minutes until boiled.
4. put in chicken and use small fire for 50 minutes
5. put pancakes around the pan and keep small fire for another 30 minutes.
6. Mission completed.

What it is like