Beijing Boyce

Beijing Eats author Eileen Wen Mooney–who can obviously stand the heat, because she’s getting into the kitchen–has started Eileen Cooks. ”Classes are open to anyone who wants to learn how to cook Chinese and Western dishes and desserts,” she says. They are available four days per week, cost RMB600 for six, and cover “wholesome home cooking”–from green pepper and beef stir fry to onion soup to samosas and mint sauce. She provided some details over dinner last week and emailed me more this week, so here it is her own words, with some info about her culinary background and reasons for starting the program:

While growing up, I spent a lot of time in the kitchen of my house in Bali watching my mother–a Hakka native of Meixian, Guangdong province–mixing soy sauce, eggs, cassava starch, and white pepper into minced meat to make meatballs. I helped her wrap zongzi, glutinous rice parcels packed in bamboo leaves, which we made every year during the Dragon Boat Festival. I stood beside Nengah, our maid, as she ground candle nuts, chillies, garlic, shallots, ginger, turmeric, and palm sugar, all in a heavy stone pestle (called cobek in Balinese) to make bumbu kare, or curry paste. I loved watching her grind fried peanuts, fried shallots, shrimp paste, garlic, and chillies to make her own peanut sauce for pecel, a mixture of bean sprouts, yard long beans, and morning glory, adding a little squeeze of limao (a tiny lime indigenous to Bali) at the end. This added zest brought the peanut sauce to a higher level. I fondly remember her also grinding chillies and shrimp paste to make sambal terasi, a chillie paste, to go with fried tempe. These memories seem even more important to me today in this age ofprocessed foods.

When I was a high school student in Taipei in the late 1970s, I took my first Chinese cooking classes at a school run by Madame Fu Pei Mei, one of the islandʼs most famous cooks, where I learned how to cook non-Hakka dishes for the first time. Mapo doufu, Kong Pao chicken, and sweet and sour pork were among the other dishes I learned, in addition to learning how to cut and debone a whole chicken.

Living in New York for 8 years from 1977 to 1985, I also enjoyed watching Annmarie Receniello, my sister-in-law, cooking Italian food. This was my very first time learning how to make Italian meatballs, lasagna, manicotti, eggplant parmesan, and sauces. I also learned how to prepare my mother-in-lawʼs award winning baked clams (her mother won $5 for this recipe when it was published in the New York Daily News in the 1950s), spaetzle, different kinds of breads, cookies, cakes and pies.

As I learned how to cook more dishes, I began to collect recipes from friends and acquaintances who invited me to their homes. I was very curious about all kinds of foods, and so I would ask friends how their food was made, jotting down the recipes on scraps of paper that I later typed up at home. I never quit searching for new and
interesting recipes.

However, after taking up food writing, I was often away from the kitchen. I began to take my cooking skills for granted until one day I burned a pan of shallots to almost black charcoal. I was frustrated. How could this happen?

I realized that I had become detached from my beloved kitchen because of work; as a food writer, I had been eating my way through every corner of Beijing, and my soul was out of the kitchen. I was also affected by the feeling that the quality of Chinese food was declining rapidly in Beijing as a result of commercialization and greed, and I was also becoming more concerned about food safety. This all made me want to return to the kitchen, the epicenter of our life, where we ask ourselves daily “Whatʼs for dinner tonight?” I started by making a simple pot of stock, which was handy for a lot of purposes. I used it to make soup, three-cup chicken, a bean curd dish, and more. The options were endless.

I realized that with some basic skills and ingredients at hand, you can really create variety in the dishes that you make. For my cooking class, I have chosen recipes based on two criteria: 1) ones that my husband and children love and ask for on a regular basis; and 2) recipes that can be mastered easily in no time. I would like to inspire everyone to start to make their own food again. Once you start, youʼll love it.

When we first moved to Beijing, and I was working full time, I didnʼt always have time to cook for my family. Our ayiʼs dishes were simple and tasty, but there was not much variety in her repertoire and so we ate the same dishes over and over again. If youʼre a foreigner living in Beijing and want to learn how to cook Chinese, youʼre welcome to join us. If youʼre a good cook but donʼt have the time to teach your ayi how to cook, send her to my class. If youʼre Chinese and want to learn some Western dishes, youʼre welcome too.

Better dead than red?

You’d think a wine named “Karl Marx” would be a red, but not so with this one I found haunting the shelves of Jinkelong supermarket in downtown Beijing during the Chinese New Year. The label says it is a semi-dry sparkling, though I have yet to confirm it with a taste test. It might be time to create a page for, uh, atypical labels found in China. See also:

• It makes me feel dirty all over: X-rated Australian wine in China
• A mystery solved: What does Foreign Girl taste like?

Prepare for some glass struggle.

Pictured here: The first burger sold at the first Beijing outlet of Fat Burger (map), part of a combo (RMB60) with bacon (RMB5) and cheese (RMB5), “fat” fries, and Coke Zero, ordered at 11:01 AM–hey, I skipped breakfast. Here are ten quick points about Fat Burger:

1. One person called it the “best fast food burger I have had in Beijing.” That is a good observation because the dining experience is a bit closer to McDonald’s or Burger King–though the seats are more comfortable and food is delivered to your table–than to, say, Blue Frog, where you might have a few drinks.

2. A regular combo, which includes a single patty burger, fries and soda, is RMB60. A similar combo is RMB80 to RMB110 at places such as Blue Frog, Let’s Burger, and Union, RMB55 to RMB75 at spots such as Luga’s Villa, Saddle Cantina, or The Den, and way less at Burger King.

3. The meat is imported from Australia, due to the ongoing ban on American beef, and is ground on site, while the fries are imported from the U.S. Expect your burger to be well-done. We tried to do one with some “pink” in it but patty thinness makes it difficult.

4. Customers seemed satisfied with their meals, including the five-year-old beside me who was very protective of her burger as she scarfed it down. Fellow burger fan Sarah+1 opined of her meal: “It’s good. There are no surprises and there shouldn’t be.” The patty texture is good and works well with the flavors and juices from the toppings and sauces, though I’m thinking a double patty would give the burger a better heft  – there’s always next time. I found the “fat” fries a bit heavy – if you like Blue Frog’s fries, you’ll like these.

5. The fountain sodas include Coke Zero, not that common in Beijing. And I do realize the irony of ordering such a beverage while eating a burger topped with bacon and cheese.

6. The person who takes the order shouts it out and the rest of the staff then shout it back in unison. That’s only going to happen during opening day, right?

7. The music is, uh, eclectic, ranging from Bruce Springsteen to Morrissey–was that a song from his “Meat is Murder” album?–to a lot of oft-repeated Men at Work to lulling tunes that made me want a mid-day nap. And yes, you did hear Billy Joel four times in just over an hour.

8. Sandwich/salad joint O’Brien’s shares the same space. The staff looked a bit dejected as their burger flipping colleagues nearby got all the attention.  I tried to cheer them up by buying a coffee — a large is RMB19 and since the wireless signal is OK, this is not a bad place to park for an hour and plough through some emails.

9. Other Fat Burgers are planned in Beijing;  sounds like Sanlitun is high on the list of preferred locations.

10. Some Fat Burger prices: double fat burger – RMB60; triple fatburger RMB80; grilled or deep-fried chicken sandwich – RMB30;  cheese, bacon, or fried egg – RMB5 each. A bacon and egg sandwich is RMB20, a hot dog RMB28, and onion rings, fat fries, or skinny fries RMB20. Milk shakes are not yet available but will be RMB30, while a soft drink is RMB12.

Burger links:
The Sanlitun Burger Battle: A quesadilla twist
Big Mac attack: The 24-hour McDonald’s in Sanlitun Village
Monday walk about: Let’s Burger, Saddle, LPG, Burger King
The Big Bite is back: Kiosk reopens
The Beijing burger battle rages on: 8 songs on CJW
Luga’s Villa: Bumping up burger prices
Sanlitun burger battle: The Rickshaw fights back
Today’s beef: Union Bar & Grill
Let’s Burger: A bit too saucy
Bits and bites: Burger battles et al.