Learning by Cooking– Sichuan Cuisine
By admin on 2015-01-29

On Monday, the 21st of March 2011, a series of workshops on Chinese cuisine and language, organized by the Confucius Institute at the University of Vienna, was opened in the adult education centre Hernals. This “adventurous cooking” is at the same time a cooking course and a language course.

In this first class the participants learned how to cook Sichuan cuisine. The cuisine is characterized by its spicy taste and rich flavour.

The head of the Confucius Institute at the University of Vienna, Mag. Wang Jing, welcomed the participants and Mrs. Liu, course instructor and master chef, was introduced. Mrs. Liu briefly introduced herself and talked about the cuisine of Sichuan.

After that the main part of the evening began – the cooking course. As a starter “Hongyou Chaoshou”, samosa with spicy sauce, was cooked. At first Mrs. Liu demonstrated the preparation of the stuffing before the participants filled the samosa. After a proper sauce was prepared, the participants enjoyed the self-made samosa.

Afterwards Mrs. Liu first demonstrated the preparation of both main dishes, “Lazi Jiding”, diced chicken with hot chilli and “Yuxiang Rousi”, sliced pork shred with fish taste, afterwards the attendees dabbled in cooking their own dishes. Mrs. Liu gave several advices on cooking and assisted her students in preparing the dishes, who cooked particularly delicious food.

The second part of the workshop, the Chinese course, was imparted in a brief break. Mag Wang taught several everyday phrases and particularly interesting characters to the participants, among whom were also some persons who are already well grounded in Chinese.

Towards the end the desert ?Tang Yuan“, sweet dumplings, were cooked and enjoyed.

The participants, who discovered the wide variety of the Chinese cuisine, went satisfied home. They plan to delight their families and friends with the culinary pleasures of the Chinese and Sichuan cuisine. “Learning Chinese in cooking adventure” proved to be a thorough success.