The Hirshon Chinese Imperial Concubine Chicken Wings – 貴妃雞翅

September 25, 2018 by The Generalissimo Leave a Comment

Chinese Imperial Concubine Chicken Wings Image Used Under Creative Commons License From dougou.com

Citizens, your bibulous and occasionally well-marinated Leader – the tipsy Immortal currently known as TFD! – is especially fond of Chinese dishes that take advantage of the fabled alcohols of this legendary cuisine!

This recipe dates back more than 1,000 years to the Tang dynasty, where China’s capital was Chang’an, an ancient capital of more than ten dynasties in Chinese history, today known as Xi’an.

Chang’an means “Perpetual Peace” in Classical Chinese since it was a capital that was repeatedly used by new Chinese rulers. By the time of the Ming dynasty, a new walled city named Xi’an, meaning “Western Peace”, was built at the Sui and Tang Dynasty city’s site, which has remained its name to the present day.

As noted on the fantastic Chinese recipe blog by Madame Huang:

Red wine is rarely associated with traditional Chinese cooking, but at least one ancient dish comes as close to coq au vin as possible: Consort’s Chicken Wings, or guifei ji.

As was described a few months ago when I talked about lychees, another one of the Consort Yang’s favorite dishes, this dates from about 1,300 years ago.

The Xuanzong emperor was so besotted with this plump and lovely consort that although he had over a thousand women in his harem, the only one whom he wanted was Yang Guifei.

This bewitching woman also had a taste for wine and liked getting tipsy. The story behind this chicken dish is that one day she and the emperor were in the Hundred Flower Pavilion sipping wine and having fun when she said mischievously, “I want to fly to the sky!”

The emperor was probably in his cups too, as he thought his beloved consort wanted to eat something that flew, so he ordered his imperial chefs to immediately prepare just such a dish for them. These harried masters of the kitchen quickly came up with a dish of chicken wings for the imperial table, by which point Yang Guifei was sober enough to be so delighted with what they had served that she proclaimed it delicious. And so it was named in her honor.

She was right. This is a wonderfully simple yet utterly divine chicken dish that can be served hot or cold or anywhere in-between. Some people who don’t know the story behind Consort’s Chicken Wings use the whole chicken, but I think that only the tender wings should be used, as it’s only fitting.

I like to cut each wing into three pieces, since they are much easier to enjoy that way. Keeping the wing tips for ourselves as little snacks, I then serve the drumsticks and middle sections, often nestled up against a pile of Beijing-style spinach and peanut appetizer, which both contrasts with and complements the flavors and colors of the chicken.

But back to that red wine. We will talk more about this in the near future, but red wine in particular has been made in north-central China for ages, and also has been memorialized in certain dishes, such as the Grape Fish of Anhui, which uses wine in the sauce.

Noted wine expert Gerald Asher recently spoke to me about pairing Western wines with Chinese food, an idea whose time has surely come. When he came over for dinner the other night, we had this chicken dish as first course along with a California Chardonnay.

Knowing Ms. Yang, she would have asked for seconds of both.

Citizens, my version of this ancient recipe is especially imperial and based on the version from Madame Huang. My version uses a hint of rosewater to simulate the Chinese rose wine the original recipe called for, plus the eccentric but apropos use of Benedictine and Brandy (B&B) to simulate a Chinese herbal liqueur that is almost impossible to obtain in the U.S.

I prefer a noble Port in this dish as opposed to the more pedestrian red wine. The use of a bit of tomato paste is common in most modern versions of this dish and I enjoy a bit more spice, so I also use a bit of Guilin chili paste.

Battle on – The Generalissimo

The Hirshon Chinese Imperial Concubine Chicken Wings – 貴妃雞翅

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Ingredients

8 whole chicken wings, preferably free-range and organic
3 tablespoons top-quality soy sauce
***
2 cups peanut oil
1 leek, trimmed and cleaned (cut into sections)
5 quarter-sized slices ginger
7 tablespoons regular Chinese soy sauce
6 tablespoons Shaoxing rice wine
1½ cups filtered water
2 tablespoons Chinese yellow rock sugar bits
½ cup Port
¼ cup Shaoxing rice wine (or dry sherry)
⅛ cup Benedictine and Brandy
2 tbsp. Guilin Chili paste
1 tbsp. tomato paste
2 tsp. Cortas brand Rosewater (optional, but recommended)

Instructions

Rinse the wings and pat dry. Pull off and discard any feathers and loose fat or skin. Cut each wing into three sections, discard the tips. Place the wings in a work bowl and toss them with the soy sauce to coat. Leave to marinate for 1 hour.
Heat the oil over medium high heat until a chopstick inserted in the oil immediately bubbles all over. Drain the wings and discard the soy sauce.
Fry the chicken wings in two batches of all drumsticks, and all middle sections so that they fry evenly. When each piece is golden brown, remove to a colander and place this in the sink. Rinse the oil off of the wings under running water to make the final flavors as light as possible.
Drain off all but 1 tablespoon of the oil from the wok. Heat the oil over high, and toss in the leek or green onions. Stir-fry them quickly until browned, and then add the soy sauce, rice wine, water, and rock sugar. When it comes to a boil, add the browned chicken wings. Bring the sauce to a boil again and then lower to a simmer.
Cook the wings uncovered for about an hour, or until the sauce is reduced and the wings are very tender. Remove the ginger and leek pieces; save them for a snack, as they are very tasty but not particularly good looking.
Add the port, optional rosewater, B&B, tomato paste and chili paste to the chicken and bring the sauce to a boil again. Simmer the sauce for a short while so that the chicken can absorb the wine flavors; the sauce should again be reduced to a thick sauce. Taste and adjust the flavors. Serve the wings hot, cold, or warm.
The sauce can also be used for something else, like cooking bean curd, carrots, or potatoes. It will gel up once it gets cold because of the chicken skin, so remove the chicken from the sauce before you refrigerate them.

https://www.thefooddictator.com/the-hirshon-chinese-imperial-concubine-chicken-wings-%e8%b2%b4%e5%a6%83%e9%9b%9e%e7%bf%85/

Sri Lankan Curry Feast – Lamprais

August 2, 2018 by The Generalissimo Leave a Comment

Lamprais Image Used Under Creative Commons License From gurgaonfoodie.com

My Citizens, few cuisines combine heat and spice better than Sri Lankan – this island off the southern coast of India has a long and storied history – first as Ceylon, the island of spices and gems, today as Sri Lanka. The feast I am going to share with you today is one known all over the island, and one that requires many hands to help make it. While supremely delicious, this set of recipes is by no means for the faint of heart!

Lamprais, commonly known as lump rice, is a Dutch Burgher-influenced dish, that is very popular in Sri Lanka. Lamprais is derived from the Dutch word “lomprijst”, which loosely translated means a packet of food.

It consists of two special curries (a three meat curry – beef, pork and lamb – and ash plantain with aubergine), seeni sambal, belacan, frikadeller meatballs and rice boiled in stock, all of which is wrapped in banana leaves and baked in an oven. The rice is made by frying raw short grain rice with onions and spices in butter or ghee and then cooking it in a meat stock.

The traditional recipe always contains three meat items, however modern versions include just a single meat, such as fish or chicken or as a vegetarian version with TVP or grilled, cubed veggie burgers.

From 1640 until 1796, Sri Lanka was under Dutch rule. The Dutch Burghers (an ethnic group of mixed Dutch, Portuguese Burghers and Sri Lankan descent) came up with this delicacy.

As noted on the excellent website explorepartsunknown.com:

Derived from the Dutch burg, or city, the word burgher translates to the “citizens” or “residents of a city.” However, sometime during the period between the 15th and 17th centuries, when Dutch ships set forth to establish a mercantile empire in Asia, the word came to be used to describe a new middle class composed of traders.

Many of these merchants, drawn not just from Holland but also from other northern European nations such as Germany, Britain, and France, joined the Vereenigde Oost Indische Compagnie (VOC), or Dutch East India Company, established in 1602. Their first port of call was Batavia—now Jakarta—on the island of Java in present-day Indonesia, which served as the VOC’s headquarters. Having established a strong command center, the VOC eventually wrested control of the lucrative spice trade in Ceylon from the Portuguese in 1640.

Over the next century that the Dutch ruled over Ceylon, the Dutch Burghers came to be loosely identified as a new social group of mixed northern European ethnicity intermingled with strands of Portuguese and Sinhalese lineage, acquired through intermarriage with the local population. When the VOC was dissolved in 1800, a few Dutch Burghers chose to stay behind in their adoptive homeland, negotiating a complex identity that was neither entirely European nor completely Sri Lankan in its ethos. Out of this mash-up of cultural and culinary influences was born the lamprais.

During my travels around Colombo in search of a good lamprais, I was routinely amazed by one fact: the number of elements that are neatly tucked into a packet that is barely larger than an adult’s hand. Inside each meticulously wrapped parcel sits a small mound of unctuous short-grained rice cooked in meat stock. A rich, deep-brown mixed-meat curry, usually a combination of chicken, pork, and beef, moistens the rice. The brown-and-white palette of the curry and rice camouflages the other accoutrements.

There is vambatu moju, a sweet-sour pickled-aubergine dish with the sharp tang of white vinegar; seeni sambol, a condiment made of caramelized onions speckled with bonito flakes and a smidgen of prawn blachang, or dried prawn relish. Two small frikkadels, or crisp-fried meatballs, crown the complex offering.

The lamprais doesn’t lend itself to niceties: The best way to savor it is to mix everything well and eat it with your fingers, so that the peppery heat of the curry is undercut by the sweet moju, and the fishy seeni sambol is complemented by the blachang, which packs a mighty umami punch.

It’s clear from its sheer construction that even in a more leisurely era, lamprais warranted sufficient effort to be considered a special-occasion meal. “Lamprais was a Sunday speciality, which all the ladies of the extended family got together to make,” Deloraine Brohier, historian and author of “A Taste of Sugar & Spice,” a rare resource on Dutch Burgher cuisine, told me in 2014. Brohier died in April at the age of 89.

In her 2012 book, the 86-year-old Brohier describes the preparation of almost theatrical scale that went into making each element of the lamprais when she was growing up in Colombo. “The night before, shin and meat were boiled for about two hours; and the meat, we must bear in mind, was not just beef but a medley of meats—chicken, pork, beef, and mutton.

The same night the plantain leaves would be washed, cleaned, and left to dry. Some long-grained rice too was cleaned, washed, and set aside.” Lamprais was the social glue that brought Dutch Burgher families together to partake in the communal pleasures of cooking and eating.

With the South Asian staple of rice as its beating heart, it seems safe to assume that the lamprais is definitely not of Dutch origin. “People in Holland to this day are completely ignorant of this savory rice meal, and the average Dutchman would not know should he be asked about the lamprais,” writes Brohier, who was conferred an honorary knighthood by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in 2002.

In fact, Dutch colonialists may have built upon a kernel of an idea they first had a taste of in Java. At that time, as it is to this day, lemper was a popular Indonesian snack made of glutinous rice filled with chicken, fish, or meat, encased in a banana leaf. When they brought the lemper to Sri Lanka, the Dutch embellished it with curries and condiments laden with local spices and flavors, including black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, and cured bonito flakes, traditionally produced in the Maldives.

The prawn blachung—or belacan, as it was also known—a pungent paste of dried fermented shrimp, salt, and chilies, was also likely Indonesian or Malaysian in origin. In both countries it continues to be a much-loved relish. The frikkadels (or “forced meatballs” made of minced beef) may have been the only truly European element of the dish. In its entirety, braiding together eastern and western threads, the lamprais was a dish with a distinct Dutch Burgher identity, one the community could consider entirely its own.

This recipe set is not my own – I found it on a now moribund cooking website and share it with you now! I have cleaned up the numerous typos and grammar errors, but this is otherwise the same recipe I found years ago (which is why it does not have my name on it – I am unable to improve on this!). Remember Citizens – take a deep breath. Don’t be intimidated by all the ingredients, just get yourself some help in the kitchen! Thank you to “EHO”, the unknown author in Sri Lanka who shared this recipe all the way back in 2003! 😀

Battle on – The Generalissimo

Sri Lankan Curry Feast – Lamprais

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Ingredients

1. Lamprais Curry
1 small fowl
½ lb beef
¼ lb mutton
¼ lb lean pork
¼ ox liver (optional)
1 tbsp. sliced red onions
1 tbsp. ghee or dripping
¼ tspn fenugreek
1 tbsp. roasted curry powder
3" piece of rampa
25 dry chilies (roasted dark and ground)
¼ lb dried prawns ( roasted and pounded)
½ stem lemon grass
10 cardamoms(ground)
a sprig of curry leaves
juice of 1 lime
1 tbsp. vinegar
5 cloves garlic (chopped)
3 slices green ginger
¼ tspn of cinnamon
½ tsp saffron
3 cups thick coconut milk
salt
***
2. Frikkadels (Dutch forced meat balls)
1 lb minced beef
1 thick slice of bread (slightly roasted & grated)
1 tblspn chopped red onions
1 ½ tsp sweet cumin (slightly roasted and ground)
a pinch of saffron
1 tsp chopped fennel
3 cloves of garlic (chopped)
2 slices young ginger (chopped)
1 tsp powdered cinnamon
5 cloves
pepper and salt
1 egg
juice of ½ lime
biscuit powder
ghee for frying
***
3. Brinjal paella
4 medium sized brinjals (Eggplant)
1 Tbsp. pounded maldive fish
1 Tbsp. sliced red onions
1 Tbsp. coriander seed
1 Tbsp. ground mustard seed
1 ½ tspn white cumin and ½ tspn sweet cumin (ground together)
1 Tbsp. sugar
¼ stem lemon grass
a small sprig of curry leaves
4 cloves of garlic (chopped)
3 ripe chilles (sliced)
3 slices of young ginger (chopped)
2" piece of cinnamon
2" piece of rampa
1 wine glass coconut vinegar
1 ½ oz. tamarind (squezeed in salt water)
coconut oil
salt
1 teacupful thick coconut milk
a pinch of ground saffron
20 dry chilies (ground)
***
4. Chilli & Onion Sambol
½ lb finely sliced bombay onions
¼ lb sliced red onions
3 chopped green chilies
juice of ½ lime
salt
***
5. Prawn Blachang
½ lb dried prawns ( roasted and pounded)
about 15 dry chilies roasted
1 ½ Tbsp. roasted coconut
3 cloves garlic
3 slices young ginger chopped fine
4 oz chopped red onions
juice of 2 large limes
1 Tbsp. sugar
salt
***
6. Ash Plantain Fries
4 medium sized ash plantains
2 tspn saffron powder
salt
vegetable oil
***
7. The Rice
Ingredients:
1 ½ measures white rice (parboiled)
¼ lb ghee
¼ lb red onions
20 peppercorns
6 cloves
4" piece of rampa
½ stem lemongrass
a sprig of curry leaves
3" piece of cinammon
15 cardamoms (powdered)
salt
***
Packeting & Baking:
About 8-12 plantain leaves , cut into pieces of approx 16" x 12", washed, and wiped dry and thereafter warmed by holding over a flame, till the leaf loses its moisture and crispness. (Care must be taken not to burn the leaf)
Thick coconut milk
Baking tray

Instructions

1. Lamprais Curry Method
Partially boil the fowl, beef, mutton, and ox liver, and keep the stock (***see note at end) for boiling the rice.
Cut the diferent meats and the pork and the fowl (removing all the bones) into very small pieces and place in a clay 'chatty' pot with the coconut milk, the ground ingredients, garlic, ginger, cinnamon, fenugreek, and half each of the onions, rampa, lemongrass and curry leaves, and boil until the meat is tender.
Add the prawns, cardamoms and lime when the curry is half cooked. Heat the ghee in another clay 'chatty pot' and fry the remainder of the ingredients. Then turn in the meat preparation and allow to simmer for a few minutes longer. Add salt to taste.
2. Frikkadels (Dutch forced meat balls) method:
Season the meat with pepper, salt, cloves and cinnamon; add the onions and grated bread and moisten with the lime juice and egg slightly beaten. Mix well together and make into small balls.Dip in the beaten egg, roll in biscuit powder and fry in hot ghee.
3. Brinjal paella method:
Slice the brinjals lengthwise, rub over with salt and saffron and fry in oil. Mix the ground ingredients with the vinegar and tamarind and mix in the rest of the ingredients, except the coconut milk and sugar.
Heat 2 Tbsp. oil in a "chatty' pot and when very hot turn in the brinjal mixture , add the coconut milk and let it simmer on a slow fire for about 15 minutes, stirring all the time. Mix in the sugar just before taking off the fire.
4. Chili & Onion Sambol method:
Mix the sliced onions with the chiles. Moisten with the lime juice. Add salt to taste. Keep in fridge till required for use.
5. Prawn Blachang method:
Grind together the prawns, chilies, onions, garlic, ginger and then moisten with the lime juice. Mix well after adding salt to taste. Keep in a closed container in fridge till required for use.
6. Ash Plantain Fries method:
Skin the plantains and cut into rectangular lengths ( 1 ½" x ½" x ½" approx.). Mix well with saffron and salt to taste. Deep fry in oil.
7. The Rice method:
Heat the ghee in a 'chatty', and when very hot put in the onions, a small piece each of the rampa, curry leaves and lemon grass and stir until the onions are fried. Then turn in the rice (which must be washed well) and stir for a few minutes.
Then add the stock and the rest of the ingredients (except the cardamoms) and boil until the rice is almost cooked, at which time stir in the cardamoms and continue to boil till the rice fully cooked.
(** The Stock: 1 lb of breast bones could be kept to boil in about 4 bots. of water. The water used to partially boil the chicken, pork etc should then be added to this beef stock and kept to boil for a further 5 minutes. (Hot water may be added to the stock to have the correct quantity in which to boil the lamprais rice.)
Packeting & Baking method:
Put about a large teacupful of rice on each leaf. Pour two dessertpoonsful of thick coconut milk over the rice.Arrange a little each of the previously prepared dishes on the rice.
Place 2 frikadels and 2 or 3 ash plantain fries on the side of the rice.Then fold up the leaf, making it into a neat oblong packet. Fasten the two ends with a piece of ekel.
Place all packets in the baking tray, and bake in a moderately hot oven (300 F) for about 15 minutes, when you see the plantain leaves just starting to turn brown.

https://www.thefooddictator.com/sri-lankan-curry-feast-lamprais/

The Hirshon Anhui Hotpot – 一品锅

June 23, 2018 by The Generalissimo Leave a Comment

Yipinguo Image Used Under Creative Commons License From gushi.tw

My Citizens, your incandescent leader – the never ordinary TFD! – was privileged to eat at one of San Francisco’s finest restaurants last night – and it is one of the finest Chinese restaurants in all of the country! The chef’s table in the kitchen of Eight Tables was without question an unmatched experience and I was blown away by their use of Chinese medicinal herbs in several of the dishes!

In honor of that meal, allow me to share a unique recipe from Anhui province in China, where medicinal cuisine perhaps had its earliest start in China!

As noted on wayofchina.com:

Anhui (安徽) cuisine is also called Huibang cai (徽帮菜), Anhuicai (安徽菜), and Huizhou fengwei (徽州风味). It is one of the Chinese famous eight major cuisines.

The Anhui cuisine originated in the Southern Song dynasty, it was a local specialty. Its unique geography and humanistic environment give Anhui cuisine unique taste. The reason why Anhui cuisine becomes one of the Chinese famous major cuisines because it played a very important role in the Chinese history.

Huizhou merchants are one of the famous merchants’ groups in the history of China. Anhui is located in poor mountainous areas and people could not survive by farming in the old days.

Huizhou merchants began to be active in the Song Dynasty, and their heyday was in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty. Huizhou merchants were almost everywhere and sold almost everything at that time. They were hard-working, diligent, and thrifty, gradually growing from small businesses into large capitalists.

The Ming and Qing Dynasties was a time when China’s commodity economy was more developed. Capitalism had sprouted in the Ming and Qing dynasties. This was when Huizhou merchants peaked.

While Huizhou merchants were doing their businesses, they also brought their hometown flavor to almost every corner of China. Anhui cuisine became a famous major cuisine since then.

There are two sayings about how the Huizhou merchants helped the propagation and development of Anhui cuisine:

The first is that at that time, the Huizhou merchants always talked about business, entertaining, or gathering with friends while put on a Huizhou style dinner to show their respect for the guests.

The second is that Huizhou merchants were all over the country, and kept their own tastes. So Anhui cuisine restaurants were all over the country in order to meet their requirements.

From the late Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty, Huizhou merchants had the No.1 strength among the top 10 business groups in China. Huizhou people had established thousands of Anhui cuisine restaurants across the country. There were more than 140 Anhui cuisine restaurants in Shanghai, which shows that the Huizhou merchants had a wide range of influence at that time.

As to this specific recipe, allow me to quote from the excellent site carryitlikeharry.com:

If you were to ask me to name one fad that is currently raving in the Chinese culinary world, I’d say it is Yipinguo 一品锅.

While all westerners know about ‘Chinese fondue’ (also known as hotpot, or shabu shabu), not many know about Yipinguo.

Yipinguo 一品锅 literally means ‘first grade pot’. By ‘pot’, one infers a ‘stew’.

Yipinguo has a very specific origin: it is a winter dish of the people living in the Anhui 安徽 province in central China, specifically in the county of Huizhou 徽州. It was made in the Ming dynasty by the wife of the State Secretary Bi Jiang 毕锵 (AD1517-1608), Madam Xu 余氏.

The Chinese Emperor came for a visit and Xu wanted to showcase the local dish of a hotpot. She presented the dish to the Emperor who loved it, and named it ‘first grade pot’. The term ‘Yipin’ 一品, is the same term used to classify court officials, hence only the Emperor has the right to confer the grade. Henceforth, the local Huizhou hotpot dish became known as Yipinguo 一品锅.

So what is so special about it?

Firstly, unlike other hotpots, Yipinguo is cooked, before it is placed on the table. Guests do not get to cook the raw ingredients over a boiling pot of broth.

Secondly, ingredients in a Yipinguo are layered in a strict hierarchy, such as that the lower layers are ingredients that take longer time to cook.

Thirdly, one does not stir the pot and it has to be presented as it has been placed.

Last but not least, the combination of the ingredients in the Yipinguo follows a strict Chinese medicinal rule of food compatibility, unlike other Chinese hotpots.

Layering of Yipinguo

The lowest layer comprises hard vegetables; daikon radish, carrots, bamboo shoots, winter melon.

The next layer is meat: pork, beef, duck, chicken, game meat and any kind of liver.

The following layer: seafood such as prawns, baby lobsters, fish, abalone, shellfish.

The second top layer is mushroom types: shiitake, straw mushrooms, black fungus etc.

The penultimate layer is made up of tofu products: tofu puffs, tofu sticks, tofu etc.

TFD follows tradition that the top layer should be something green – I use the leaves and yellow flowers of Yu Choy, which looks a lot like Chinese Broccoli (Gai Lan), except that the Yu Choy stalks are skinnier and the flowers are yellow (Gai Lan has white flowers).

This vegetable is tender, the taste of the leaves are very much like spinach leaves, even though it is part of the mustard family. Fresh Yu-Choy has small tight yellow flowers, bright green leaves and stems, and if you look at the bottom of the bunch of stems, they should not be dried out.

The yellow flowers add to the imperial pedigree of this dish, as yellow was a color reserved for the Emperor alone. I have also upped the luxury quotient with ingredients worthy of the imperial presence! Lastly, I also specify a unique alcohol brewed with Chinese medicinal herbs first created for the Imperial family!

This is a ‘no-cook’ recipe and a delicious one at that, my Citizens! It includes wild game, wild herbs and a cooking technique that all define Anhui cuisine!

Battle on – The Generalissimo

The Hirshon Anhui Hotpot – 一品锅

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Ingredients

Layer 1:
Some dried (or fresh) Bamboo shoots
1 Carrot, sliced and cut into decorative coins
½ Daikon radish, peeled and sliced
Some peeled and diced winter melon
A handful of dried wolfberries
Layer 2:
½ chicken breast fillet, sliced
½ duck breast fillet, sliced
Layer 3:
About 10 minced venison balls
Layer 4:
10 raw prawns
1 or 2 top-quality canned abalone, sliced
⅓ pound black cod fillet
Layer 5:
5 dried top-quality dried shiitake mushrooms, heavy cracking on top and thick capped
¼ cup dried wood ears
5 dried top-quality morel mushrooms
handful of dried lily buds
Layer 6:
1 cake very firm tofu, sliced
8 tofu puffs
Top Layer:
Leaves and yellow flowers of Yu Choy
Others:
1 whole pot of Chinese Superior Stock (strongly preferred) or chicken stock (salted)
½ cup Imperial Lotus White Chiew (御蓮白酒, Yàlián báijiǔ): This is a variety of baijiu infused with twenty medicinal herbs. It was first produced for the Chinese royal family in 1790. Alternatively, you could use Chu Yeh Ching (竹葉青酒, zhúyèqīnqjiǔ, lit. "bamboo-leaf green liquor"): this sweet liquor, produced in Shanxi, is made from Fenjiu brewed with a dozen or more selected Chinese herbal medicines. One of the ingredients is bamboo leaves, which gives the liquor a yellowish-green color and its name. Its alcohol content ranges between 38 and 46% by volume. As a final alternative, use top-quality shaoxing rice wine

Instructions

There are no ‘cooking skills’ required, just like for other hotpot dishes. The taste of the dish comes from the ingredients and the stock.
Place your ingredients by layer according to the instructions above, but leaving out the topmost layer of greens.
Fill the pot until your stock just covers your ingredients.
Bring it to boil then cover and let it simmer on medium heat for 2 hours, occassionally adding more stock. In the last 15 minutes, add the greens and flowers.
Once done, serve the whole pot on the table and let your guests discover the ingredients layer by layer.

https://www.thefooddictator.com/the-hirshon-anhui-hotpot-%e4%b8%80%e5%93%81%e9%94%85/