Chefs keeping traditional Cantonese cuisine alive the hard way – by evolving dishes while keeping to their roots
- ‘I hate it when restaurants put foie gras or truffle on Cantonese food,’ chef Danny Yip says, who doesn’t like to lose a dish’s spirit when improving on it
- But young people don’t want to learn time-consuming traditional skills, chef Margaret Xu says; modern Western cooking techniques could help
About a year ago, Danny Yip, the chef and owner of The Chairman restaurant in Hong Kong, wanted to create the most minimalist dish using just goose and salt. “I wanted it to have more of a goose flavour,” he says.
First, he made a stock of poultry bones, then marinated the goose in it with some salt to enhance the flavour. Then he steamed the goose for six hours to get rid of the oil, and smoked it for four hours with camphor wood. To finish the dish, he spooned hot oil over it, giving the skin a glossy sheen.
It was four days of work, but Yip says that on the plate, it’s just two ingredients: goose and salt.
“This is the way to keep Cantonese cuisine alive, but not away from its roots. It has to keep evolving,” he says.
Yip, whose restaurant was ranked no. 2 on Restaurant magazine’s 2020 list of Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants, admits his dishes are not traditional Cantonese. Instead, he prefers to think of new ways to improve on classic dishes while not losing the spirit of Cantonese cuisine.
“What is the essence of Cantonese cooking? It’s the freshness of the cuisine – fresh seafood that is swimming – alive, rather than chilled. It’s about presenting ingredients in their natural flavour,” he explains, adding that his camphor smoked goose is one such example.