Kaifeng Food

 

 

Kaifeng people love mashed sweet potato very much. The making of the potato dish is quite complicated. First, cook sweet potatoes, peel the skin and remove the fibred threads on them. Second, wrap the peeled potatoes in a clean, white kitchen cloth, and then mash them by hands to make it becomes potato mud. Third, add some white sugar into the pot, boil it, and then add cooking oil and the mashed sweet potato. Fourth, stir all the stuff in the pot until it becomes "red mud". Lastly, put on a dish, add hawthorn pieces, rose pieces and osmanthus-flavored sugar. Kaifeng mashed sweet potato is good for stomach health and so nutritious.

Kaifeng Four-treasure (开封套四宝, Kaifeng Tao Si Bao) is a traditional poultry dish in the ancient city. It gathers four excellent flavors, i.e. chicken, duck, pigeon and quail. The making of the great dish is very interesting that it is "animal inside animal", to which the biggest one, the duck is in outside, the smallest, that is, the quail, the most inside one. The belly of the quail is stuffed with herbs and vegetables. The technique of the chef is demanding, he must remove all the bones of the animal and put another, the smaller one, without bone, too, into its belly. Even legs are inside legs!!! When serving, you will see the whole duck first; it is so smooth with strong fragrance. After you ate the duck, a whole chicken appears. A pigeon will be seen after chicken, and the quail, finally you will taste the vegetables in the quail's belly. 

Deep-fried bean jelly (开封炒凉粉, Kaifeng Chao Liang Fen) is a beloved favorite in Kaifeng city. Bean jelly is made of powder from mung beans. Deep-fried bean jelly is with soy sauce, shallots, gingers and cooking oil. The jelly pieces look red-brown, soft but not greasy. It has been introduced to China's capital Beijing, and it is said that someone has brought the delicacy to Russia and Eastern Europe.