Tabletop traditions

Beijing cuisine

Country Kitchen's executive chef Chai Xin's Spring Festival dinner menu is inspired by his childhood memories of Beijing's hutong (traditional alleyways).

He still recalls wandering around and setting off firecrackers with his friends on Lunar New Year's Eve when he was a child.

"My grandma would stew a pot of meat and prepare equal numbers of cold and hot dishes for the dinner," Chai says.

He prepares braised mutton with soy sauce in old Beijing style for the feast. The mutton is boiled on a low fire for two to three hours and then is marinated in the soup for another five hours. It's next sliced and deep-fried to seal in the juices and aroma.

Pig-trotter jelly and black-chicken feet with pickled garlic are traditional cold dishes.

Chai recalls that his grandmother would put the stewed pig skin and soup in a bowl in the kitchen, which had no heating, and the pork-trotter jelly would be ready the next day.

His restaurant is adding chilled hawthorns to this year's menu to bring an authentic northern-style experience to the festival's meals.

Dumplings are a must for the big meal and are prepared before midnight to eat on the first day of Lunar New Year to bring good luck.

Chai prepares dumplings filled with baby cabbage, glass noodles, eggs and black fungus.

"I will make the dumplings in two colors-gold and sliver-to represent wishes that my customers become wealthy," he says.