Take-Aways

In the hutong alleys behind the Drum and Bell towers north of the Forbidden City, lives this tiny and bubbly Cantonese woman, a self styled “only woman chef” of Beijing. She has had the brilliant idea of giving Chinese cooking lessons literally from the back of her kitchen simultaneously offering a gastronomic and a cultural experience. Again, I am impressed by the creativity and passion a person can bring to their endeavour. Everything, from her website, the printed recipe leaflets and glossary of main ingredients to the tiny kitchen, which in reality is not a part of the main house but a separated area in the courtyard, is immaculate. The attention to detail is one that a person can only impart on their own brainchild and most prized project. It was fun. Firstly I rambled along a neighbourhood full of interesting little shops, traditional Chinese homes and bicycles, not a tall building in sight. Then, the chef, Chunyi, met me at the entrance of Shajin, her own hutong and took me along the alleyway, under a couple of arches, taking a couple of turns here and there, to the red door of her home. Inside or rather in the courtyard where the class takes place there is a big solid wooden table and a pomegranate tree. We learnt about dark and light soya sauce, which in reality should be called young and old soya sauce, Chinese yellow whine, vinegar and its ideal level of acidity and how to gage the heat in the wok. I am reminded again of the nuclear physics precision and the level of alertness that cooking with a wok requires. It’s all in the preparation, the actual cooking is over in a matter of seconds. The atmosphere is relaxed and intimate as there are only three of us taking the class. We cook and then we eat and chat and cook again, three dishes in total but it takes time. We make everything from scratch and none of us are expert choppers. Cantonese style prawns, fish flavoured chicken, which is actually a Sichuan dish, spicy, with no fish whatsoever in it and stir fried spinach. We each take turns at the wok and each come up with different and distinct end results. At the end of our roughly 4 hour session, satiated and content we are set free for the afternoon. Free to ponder at how the same basic ingredients can manage to produce so many different flavours and variety of tastes but also whether we will be able to reproduce what we made without the guidance of this artist of the wok. www.hutongcooking.com