Table for Ten menu - Saturday 5th May

 

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“Chinese cooking is, in this sense, the manipulation of… foodstuffs as basic ingredients. Since ingredients are not the same everywhere, Chinese food begins to assume a local character simply by virtue of the ingredients it uses”

The next menu for Table for Ten is inspired by our love of Chinese food. Although we live in Scotland and love local food, our menu is designed to make the best use of Scottish produce in Chinese-style cookery.

Taking into account the principles of fan and ts’ai we have created a menu that should be both delicious and harmonious.

Table for Ten Menu

十大菜单表

Dim Sum

点心

Tomato and Eggflower Soup

番茄和鸡蛋花汤

Peking Duck

北京烤 鸭

Jasmine Tea Sorbet

茉莉花 茶冰糕

Sweet & Sour Prawns

Crispy Chicken Dumplings

Bean Sauce Noodles with Pork

甜酸 辣虾
香酥鸡饺
豉 汁面条猪肉

Kumquat Fondant & Lychee Ice Cream

金橘糖果软馅及荔枝冰淇淋

“In the Chinese culture, the whole process of preparing food from raw ingredients to morsels ready for the mouth involves a complex of interrelated variables that is highly distinctive when compared with other food traditions of major magnitude. At the base of this complex is the division between fan, grains and other starch foods, and ts'ai, vegetable and meat dishes. To prepare a balanced meal, it must have an appropriate amount of both rice or noodle product and meat and vegetables, and ingredients are readied along both tracks. Grains are cooked whole or as flour, making up the fan half of the meal in various forms: fan (in the narrow sense, "cooked rice"), steamed wheat-, millet-, or corn-flour bread, ping ("pancakes"), and noodles. Vegetables and meats are cut up and mixed in various ways into individual dishes to constitute the ts'ai half. Even in meals in which the staple starch portion and the meat-and-vegetable portion are apparently joined together, such as in . . . "wonton" . . . they are in fact put together but not mixed up, and each still retains its due proportion and own distinction.”

Quotes taken from Chang, K.C. (1977) Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives, Yale University Press, Newhaven, pp429.

You may also be interested in some of the symbolism associated with the food we have chosen:

Duck (鸭肉, yāròu) – fertility

Pork (猪肉; zhūròu) - strength, wealth, abundant blessing

Prawn (大虾; dàxiā) - liveliness

Chicken (whole) (鸡肉; jīròu) - prosperity, togetherness of the family, joy (note: chicken with its head, tail and feet symbolises completeness)

Noodles (面条; miàntiáo) uncut - long life

Kumquat (金橘; jīn jú) - gold, hence fortune, wealth

Lychee (荔枝; lìzhī) - close family ties

If you’d like to join us for our Chinese-inspired supper, then please email us at tableforten@btinternet.com