The chinois, that conical sieve named after the Chinese hat of the same shape is one of the many essentials in a French kitchen. When I first learned that, I immediately thought about dumb black and white American movies which stereotypically has some pidgin speaking “oriental” played by a white guy, with eyebrows shaped for the slanty eye effect. Must be that Chinese film course I took a couple years ago bearing down on me. I didn’t use a chinois today but at one point, I did a double take looking at one because of what I cooked earlier.
I still remember the Cognac hitting the pan, bursting into an orange column, a bunch of emotions running through my mind as I fumble around with a typically Australian screwcap. Coq au Vin is one of those Frenchiest of classic French dishes and I had dumped an entire bottle of cheap Aussie grog into the pan, lifting the sediment off the bottom and washing the saute cuts into a swath of purple. The sauce made gritty by bits of mushroom, onion and bacon breaking down into almost indeterminable little pieces. As I stick a clumsily fashioned heart-shaped crouton on top of my dish, I’m reminded of the odd weekends I spent at the house of my mother’s mother.
Chinese families like to stick together, gigantic groups hoarding together frequently to meet up, catch up but most importantly, eat up. One thing my grandma was great at making was Hong Zao Ji or a Red Wine and Ginger Chicken served with Mee Sua, a kind of vermicelli noodles. Basically, all I did as a kid other than fight over the NES and Mario was to fight over the bright red soup with the sourish chicken and flavour soaked noodles.
On the one hand, we have one of the European mother cuisines, with one of its famous dishes, an alcohol laden pile of purple. On the other, arguably the mother cuisine of Asia, with one of its myriad dishes, an alcohol laden red riot. How do they compare? Well, to be bloody honest, quite damn similar, which then leads me to wonder about the spread of humanity and cultural exchanges from Asia to Europe. I’m hardly insinuating that Hong Zao Ji has got the smallest smidgeon of anything to do with the creation of Coq au Vin but by my tastebuds, the flavours are strikingly coincidental.
Its really interesting to see how both dishes compare in makeup, presentation, texture and flavour. Both are informal dishes, not the prettiest by a long shot even if the bizarre colors would have you thinking otherwise. Both are textural, Coq au Vin as I described before and Hong Zao Ji made so by the natural lumpiness of the fermented glutinous rice wine and ginger. Both carry a tang that cuts through the oily chicken. Both form a colorful crust like surface on the chicken, with tender white flesh hidden within. Both delectable in their own right.
I suppose it doesn’t take too much for some brilliant chef to decide that putting some swig in with some chicken would make a great dish. Still, its wonderful how two separate cultures are each able to create such similar dishes with next to no input from each other that share such close flavor ties.
I suppose it is a small world after all.
