Hutong Cuisine Offers Chinese Cooking Classes

Beijing Chef Teaches Basic Skills, Authentic Recipes to Small Groups

© Cheryl Probst

Mar 25, 2009

Chun Yi opens her home to students six days a week, taking only Wednesdays off. Her home is located in Beijing’s picturesque hutongs, hence the name Hutong Cuisine.

Chun Yi, a transplant from Guangzhou in South China, learned to cook from her mother. Besides Cantonese dishes, Chun Yi also teaches how to prepare several spicy Sichuan dishes such as mapo doufu (a tofu dish) and gongbao jiding, commonly known as kung pao chicken in the United States. She also teaches how to make Beijing dishes, such as stir-fried beef with red pepper.

Students will make two to three dishes, including the main course, and watch her make another dish during the food preparation session. This class is four hours long, with breaks for each student to eat the dishes he or she has prepared.

Hutong Cuisine Offers Market Tour

Chun Yi also offers optional segments, such as a trip to a nearby market to buy food to be cooked in class that day. At the market, Chun Yi explains that Chinese believe the wing has the best meat on the chicken, just as spare ribs are the tastiest part of a pig. She explains about the various herbs and spices, as well as the attractively arranged fresh produce. The market is about a 15-minute walk through the hutongs from her home, so students need to wear comfortable walking shoes.

Back at her home, students gather around a prep table as Chun Yi explains the various soy sauces, rice wines and vinegars that are used in Chinese dishes. Chun Yi, who speaks excellent English, also demonstrates the use of a cleaver to slice paper-thin slices of fresh garlic and ginger. There is an additional charge for the optional segments.

While Chinese dishes in restaurants are brought to the table looking as if they’d taken hours to prepare, Chun Yi demystifies the recipes so students won’t have any problems replicating the dish at home.

Here’s Her Recipe for Gongbao Jiding:

• 100g chicken breast, diced in small cubes
• 30g deep-fried peanuts

Seasoning

• 1.5 tsp minced garlic
• 1.5 tsp minced ginger
• 1 green onion, cut into sections
• ¾ of a dried Asian chili pepper (Mexican chili peppers don’t have the same taste), crumbled into sections; leaving the seeds in will make the dish even spicier
• ½ tsp Sichuan peppercorns

Marinade

• ½ tsp rice cooking wine
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp corn starch

Sauce

• ¼ tsp salt
• 1.5 tsp sugar
• ½ tsp corn starch
• 2 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp rice cooking wine
• 1.5 tsp rice vinegar
• 3 tbsp water

1. Mix the marinade and sauces in separate bowls and set aside. Mix the chicken with the marinade and let sit for 15 minutes.
2. Pour 2 tbsp cooking oil in a wok and add the chili pepper. Add the Sichuan peppercorns a few seconds later.
3. Next add the chicken and marinade, stir-frying until the chicken is cooked. Add the garlic and ginger next, stirring for about 15 seconds.
4. Move the mixture to the center of the wok, and add the sauce on the side. When the sauce comes to a boil, stir it into the chicken mixture.
5. Turn off the heat; add 1 tsp sesame oil, the green onion and the peanuts.

Hutong Cuisine is located on Shajing Hutong, about a 15-minute walk from the Drum Tower. Her classes are attended by both travelers and expats living in Beijing. Returning students do not have to pay for the seasoning and chopping lessons. A class schedule is posted on her website.

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