Chapter 802 A delicious but not luxurious high-end banquet—Nixon’s state banquet during his visit to China! [Please subscribe]

"Brother, is this dish easy to make?"

When Lao Huang heard about coconut steamed chicken, he immediately became interested. If it was simple and easy to make, he would have the opportunity to show off his high-end cooking skills in front of his family later.

Lin Xu said:

"It's really not difficult. Get a little rooster, kill it and put it in a pot. Pour in some coconut milk and cook it for twenty minutes. Then chop the chicken into pieces and put it in the coconut shell. Pour in the original chicken soup and season it with a little salt.

Just put it in a steamer and steam it for half an hour, and the coconut steamed chicken is ready."

Lao Huang blinked:

"The state banquet dish is so simple?"

Lin Xu smiled and said:

"This is just a more common practice. The coconut steamed chicken used at the state banquet is a little more complicated. For example, the chicken needs to be removed from the bones. When steaming, the coconut meat must be scraped into noodles and steamed together with the chicken. This not only

It tastes good and looks more beautiful."

In the early years, there were basically no scruples about the dishes served at state banquets, but in order to cater for the eating habits of foreign guests, they were generally required to be without bones, thorns, or shells.

Naturally, the state banquet to welcome Nixon would not neglect this point.

In fact, at the several state banquets hosted by Nixon, the ingredients were basically deboned, dethorned, and shelled.

The eating habits of Westerners are different from those of Easterners. Westerners are not used to spitting out bones, fish bones and other behaviors when eating. In their opinion, these are very rude behaviors.

Therefore, the food they bring to the table will be processed in advance during cooking.

When Lao Huang heard this, he backed down:

"Remove the bones? Forget it. As a knife expert like me, I guess the chicken bones haven't been removed yet, so I chopped off the palm first."

While they were chatting, Xie Baomin walked in accompanied by Uncle Gao.

"Are the ingredients ready?"

Today, all the teachers are at the battle together, and Uncle Gao is very concerned about the preparation of the dishes.

Lao Huang said:

"Uncle Gao, everything is ready. All the dishes are double portions. I also specially bought two pieces of herring weighing more than ten pounds, so that you can cook them more easily."

Xie Baomin checked the ingredients and made sure they were fine. He turned to look at Zeng Xiaoqi and said:

"We are ready, when can you start?"

"Immediately, the lighting and radio equipment will be taken care of. It will take about ten minutes at most."

The recording of this kind of program requires multiple cameras to operate at the same time. The director station needs to test all the audio and video signals. In addition, the sound must be stereo, not mono, which is very troublesome.

So despite the fact that these people came very early, they still haven’t set up the equipment yet.

With nothing to do, Lin Xu took a look at all the dishes at the banquet. The first was the five appetizers, including five-spice braised eggs, egg roll meat, Jinhua ham, Northeastern sausage, cold meat stuffed duck and other dishes.

This kind of appetizers are all small plates, the portion is very small, basically just for tasting.

The appetizer is purely to liven up the atmosphere for the appetite, and at the same time let both parties relax a little. This is the first time to toast and greet each other.

Then it’s time to heat up the dishes.

There are not many types of dishes, and they can reflect the frugal side of the leader.

There are also five hot dishes, including hibiscus and bamboo fungus soup, three shreds of shark's fin, two large prawns, straw mushrooms and coconut steamed chicken, and five cold dishes to make up ten dishes, which is perfect.

This banquet, which symbolizes a new chapter in Sino-US exchanges, is not as extravagant and wasteful as imagined.

Even if the leader added some cooking, there were only eleven dishes, and the only expensive ingredient was shark's fin, and the price was not very high at the time.

As for after-dinner snacks, there are only one almond cheese dish, one pastry, and one fruit platter.

But the host and guest were very happy at that time. Premier Zhou even took out the Moutai that he had treasured for many years and shared it with Nixon to celebrate this ice-breaking moment.

It is said that before Nixon arrived, he practiced chopsticks and Chinese liquor for a long time, and also had a detailed understanding of table manners.

On the day of the state banquet, I was worried that Western friends would not be used to using chopsticks, so the Great Hall specially prepared knives and forks.

Instead of using a knife and fork, Nixon skillfully showed off his skills with chopsticks, expressing with practical actions that his trip to China was prepared with full sincerity.

Lin Xu finished reading the menu left back then and asked his senior brother:

“Are the dishes at modern state banquets becoming less and less homely?”

Xie Baomin took a sip of the tea prepared on site:

"It can't be said that modern state banquets only start from themes such as saving, greenness, and health, taking into account time control, and the dishes are relatively restrained. There are a lot of restrictions, and the shape must be elegant, so it can only be done in a small area.

But no matter how state banquets develop, there will never be an oversized plate with only one bite. Chinese food has its own beauty and will not follow the Michelin-style line."

Uncle Gao added from the side:

"Under normal circumstances, state banquets in the capital are more frugal. For major international events held in local areas, state banquets are relatively sumptuous. Because this kind of state banquet not only entertains foreign guests, but also promotes the local area, it will be more grand."

While chatting, Zeng Xiaoqi strode over:

"Okay, we can start. Which dish should we take pictures of first?"

Uncle Gao put down his tea cup and said while adjusting his chef uniform:

"Let's take the cold dishes first. These are easier to store, so it doesn't matter if you wait a while after making them. The taste of hot dishes is likely to deteriorate once they cool down."

Among the several cold cuts, the one that takes the longest is probably the braised eggs.

Xie Baomin took half the pot of water, put the eggs in one by one, sprinkled two spoons of salt, and started cooking.

Sprinkling some salt into the eggs when boiling can effectively prevent the eggshells from cracking.

In addition, you can also remove the water from the flame after boiling the eggs, and then wait for a few minutes before cooking. This can also prevent the eggshells from cracking during the cooking process.

After the eggs were boiled, Lin Xu began to prepare the egg rolls.

Almost all over the country, there are dishes rolled and steamed with eggs. In most places, they are rolled with meat fillings, and mashed potatoes or other ingredients are also rolled.

Lin Xu chopped the pork belly into minced meat and marinated it with condiments such as onion, ginger salt water and pepper water.

Taking advantage of this time, he beat a few eggs, added some starch while beating them, and then spread them into egg skins.

Spread it out and cut the egg skin from a circle to a square, and then spread the meat filling evenly on the egg skin, about one centimeter thick.

Then roll it up from one end. When rolling, pay attention to the fact that the volume of the meat will shrink when it is cooked, so roll it as tightly as possible.

In this way, the steamed egg rolls will not be loose, and the presentation after being sliced ​​and plated will be more attractive and beautiful.

As for ham and sausage, it’s relatively simple. Northeastern sausages are ready-made, so there is no need to prepare them, just cut them and put them on the plate.

Jinhua ham is comparable to Spanish ham. After years of curing, the most essential upper part can even be eaten raw.

However, they did not do this at the welcome state banquet. Instead, they fried the ham.

Cooking it in the way Westerners like fully expresses the leader's diplomatic philosophy of respecting the West and pursuing peace.

Ham and sausage are relatively simple dishes and do not require special preparation.

On the other hand, stuffed duck as a cold dish is more particular. This is a cooking method of marinating the duck first and then roasting it, just like the roast duck and Jinling roast duck in Cantonese cuisine.

Yanjing Hotel has a roast duck oven, and Uncle Gao is going to go to the roast duck oven himself to operate it, so as to present the dishes as perfectly as possible.

Lin Xu prepared the egg rolls, carefully placed them on the steaming tray, and then sent them to the steaming cabinet to start steaming.

At this time, Xie Baomin had also boiled the eggs until they were eighty-ripe. He took out all the eggs and put them in cold water to cool down. He took the opportunity to peel off the eggshells and put the soft eggs into the prepared braised soup pot.<

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"The braised eggs cannot be fully cooked, and are best when they are runny. This is not only easier to peel, but also allows the flavor of the braised soup to better penetrate into the inside of the eggs."

Xie Baomin explained the steps and essentials while operating.

Put all the eggs into the stewed soup, turn on the heat, bring the stewed soup to a boil first, and then simmer over low heat to let the flavor of the stewed soup penetrate into the inside of the eggs as soon as possible.

The way to judge whether the braised eggs are done is also very simple. Take out one and cut it open. If the whole egg changes color from the outside to the inside, it means that the eggs have been completely braised and are ready to be taken out of the pan.

Braised eggs are usually eaten cold, cut into crescent shapes, and topped with a little bit of the original broth of the braised eggs. The taste is both alcoholic and satisfying.

By the time Uncle Gao roasted the duck that Cheng Jianshe had marinated in advance, the preparations for the five appetizers were almost complete.

It was already eleven o'clock. Lin Xu looked at the time and asked:

"Should we continue or shoot in the afternoon?"

The five hot dishes didn’t take too long.

Although bamboo fungus, shark's fin and other ingredients require a long time to prepare, the ones used on site are all prepared in advance, so there is no need to prepare them from scratch, so there is no need to rush.

Luo Jiayao was the person in charge of the entire scene. He said:

"Then let's tidy up and start having lunch. It happens that the camera needs to be charged and the recorded material needs to be saved."

Upon hearing this, the staff on site immediately became busy.

As a migrant worker, everyone loves lunch break.

At the same time, the airport.
To be continued...