Chen Songhui, a renowned master chef of Cantonese Cuisine located in Hong Kong is a recipient of numerous international awards in culinary competitions. He has received numerous awards for his craft and is generally hailed as the coveted, ‘King of abalone.’
In an interview with New Tang Dynasty Television, Chen praised and expressed his appreciation for the “International Chinese Culinary Competition” hosted by NTDTV to promote traditional Chinese cuisine. Chen himself a strong advocate and promoter of authentic traditional Cantonese cuisine as well as the ethics of being a chef, and said he would encourage more chefs to join the competition.
Chen is the chief chef at the Gi Kee Seafood Restaurant, better known as the “high class sidewalk food stall.” It is not known for its chic decor but is renowned for its first class cuisine, patronized by many celebrities in town. Chen’s superb culinary artistry has won him many awards, including the prestigious Golden award of Extraordinary International Cooking Stars. He also won France’s highest Cooking Honor, the Blue Ribbon Award, and he also won the Golden Award of the World Kitchen-King International Culinary Masters.
Chen sang high praises for NTDTV’s sponsored competition, “[The competition] is good for the promotion of Chinese culinary culture. The essence of Cantonese cuisine is the large variety and styles it encompasses. That’s why I am calling on my peers and all the aspiring as well as veteran chefs to join in, the more the better, to give a boost to the promotion of Chinese culinary culture.”
Chen began learning how to cook Cantonese Cuisine at the age of 15 and has accumulated an abundance of experience in the past 25 years. He stressed that as a chef, moral integrity is very important, “If your character is good, then the quality of the cooking will be good. The quality of the cooking represents your moral character. If you don’t put your heart into it and the food is poorly cooked, it follows that your character is also questionable.”
Chen has much knowledge of Cantonese Cuisine, saying that it has a very long history and maintains that one should use traditional flavors and essence.
He continues, “Cantonese Cuisine is all about authentic flavor. For example, to sauté sliced conch, fresh squid or frog in oil so they taste fresh and light instead of rich and heavy, they need to be seared rapidly using the high heat of a wok. If the wok is hot enough to do the job, in the Cantonese language, it is said to have sufficient "wok hei.”
Chen has been introduced to us his forte, which are abalone dishes he created using fresh and chilled abalone. “I use flash-froze South African abalone and make in a way that looks and tastes exactly like expensive dried abalone. This is about as good as you can get in cooking,” he said.
Besides abalone dishes, Chen’s other award-winning dishes include “wind borne sand chicken,” in which the seasoning on the chicken looks like golden sand. Another dish includes, “Dungeness Crab coupled with King Crab.” Chen did an on-site demo, cooking a variety of dishes such as the “Giant and baby shrimp,” which was a good example of how much time and experience he has put into crafting the art of cooking.
Click here to read the original article in Chinese: http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/8/8/23/n2238133.htm
