Cool Breeze from Hangzhou

Is the Beijing thermometer making another plate of fiery Chongqing lazi ji just too hot to handle? Try a change of pace with the sophisticated food of Hangzhou.

Hangzhou cooking started during the Han Dynasty but came into its own when the Song Dynasty made the city its imperial capital.  The cuisine features refreshing dishes, elegantly presented and delicately flavored.  Ingredients are combined for contrasting tastes and never stewed beyond recognition.  The cuisine avoids strong tastes such as raw garlic or heavy-handed sesame oil.  Chilis are used primarily for color as in a dish of crisp broccoli stems with curls of salty brown duck skin.  Longjing green tea is the marinade for white soft-shelled shrimp, while scallops are lightly sauteed then tossed with crisp asparagus spears.  Lotus root is wrapped in glutinous rice and flavored with sweet osmanthus flowers.  Sugar and black Chinkiang vinegar flavor the fresh water fish dish of xihu cuyu.

A famous banquet dish is dongpo rou, named after the 11th century poet Dong Po.  It is made with streaky bacon braised in a clay pot to melting perfection with shallots, wine and vegetables.  Pan juices of deep soy sauce and yellow wine form the sauce.

Beggar's chicken is a favorite dish where a whole bird is wrapped in fresh lotus leaves and baked for hours in a mud casing.  The story is that long ago a beggar was found starving near the lake.  Other beggars offered their last chicken but without pots they had no way to cook it.  One suggested packing it in mud and burying it in the fire.  Hours later, and to the beggars' delight, the feathers came off with the cracked mud and the chicken emerged tender and succulent.

For a taste of Hangzhou in Beijing, try Qu Nar Restaurant (see listing under Zhejiang).