Cooking Chinese in the Countryside: Yangshuo Cooking School


This will be my very last blog post from Guilin. Once again, it's worked its charm on me and despite the heat and humidity, I wish I didn't have to leave. Swimming in the clean clear rivers every day, cycling around under the hot sun wearing a broad-brimmed farmer's hat, eating lots of good food and enjoying the slower pace down south - it's a heady mix and Shanghai will have to work hard to beat it.



On one of my last days I visited the Yangshuo Cooking School - now an even bigger operation since I last visited a year ago. It's still held in a rustic little farmhouse, looking out over lush green fields of rice and lotus to the karst mountains in the distance, but the school now holds classes twice every day, with a week-long intensive offered for serious foodies. In a morning or afternoon session you will first enjoy a guided tour of the Yangshuo wet market, then spend two enjoyable hours with fellow food-lovers learning to cook five new Chinese dishes, and then eating them. For 150 yuan per person, it's something of a bargain. 

I've included one of their simple recipes below as a taster.


The kitchen set-up. And yes, those great big gas bottles are perfectly safe.



Steamed Chicken With Ginseng and Red Berries

This recipe, adapted from the Yangshuo Cooking School, is a healthy combination of ingredients designed to give the body maximal benefit through the medicinal components of ginseng root, chinese dates and goji berries. Luckily it's delicious too!

Ingredients


Method







In the village after class a communal nap was taking place under the camphor laurel tree. A damn fine idea, and I would have joined them had there been any spare space.


See you all back in Shanghai!



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