TAKE AWAY MY TAKEAWAY
PROGRAMME 4: CHINA
BACKGROUND
The experts
Adam and Danny are mentored by chef and restaurateur Vivi Cheung. Their cooking is judged by Hong Kong food critic Reggie Ho.
Chinese food in the UK
Chinese food is the second most popular type of ethnic food, after Indian, in the UK.
Chinese seamen were the first immigrants to arrive in the UK, in the late 19th century. They settled in ports like London and Cardiff, and gradually began to set up laundries and Chinese cafés. These were few and far between until the '50s, when the first Peking-style restaurants opened up in London's Soho, in an area that gradually evolved and became known as Chinatown. The Cathay in Glasshouse Street, owned by Chung Koon, was one of the first.
In the late '50s, Chung Koon's son John set up the first ever Chinese takeaway, in London's Queensway, and he also persuaded holiday-camp tycoon Billy Butlin to put Chinese chicken and chips on his menus. From then on, it was only a matter of time until almost every small town had its Chinese restaurant or takeaway, which often doubled as a fish and chip shop. Now there are around 8,000 Chinese outlets in the country, turning over £1.7 billion each year.
Sweet and sour, snakes and chopsticks
The sweetness comes from white or brown sugar, while it's rice vinegar that provides the tangy sour note. Rice vinegar is made from fermented rice, and it has a sweeter, much more subtle flavour than the malt vinegar that we sprinkle on our chips. Sweet and sour dishes feature in the area around Guangdong (formerly Canton) and Cantonese cooking is the local cuisine in Hong Kong. Sweet and sour flavours also appear in the food of the western province, Hunan, which uses more fiery ingredients, including chilli and ginger, as well as the milder shallot.
There is a Cantonese saying, 'Any animal whose back faces the sun can be eaten'. As well as chicken, beef and pork, dishes can include snakes, snails, insects, worms, chicken feet, duck tongues and entrails. Snakes taste rather like chicken, but they are eaten not just for their flavour, but because people believe they have medicinal powers and can cure illnesses, or even make men more potent.
The Chinese invented chopsticks - the 'nimble brothers'. Made of bamboo, wood or plastic, they are used to eat even the most slippery foods without a problem. It's easier to manage chopsticks if you hold the rice bowl up close to your mouth. Don't be embarrassed about slurping - the Chinese eat with gusto and don't mind if you make a noise. Chinese chopsticks have blunt ends – unlike Japanese ones, which are pointed for picking out fish bones.