How to throw a dinner party w/chinese food

[hzrt8w]

A herbful beggar's chicken can be done in the oven.

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Where do you find the clay to do beggar's chicken?

[Tepee]

Well, clay is ideal, but lots of us modern beggars use salt (at least a kg of it), plain flour and water. Makes a shell that's rock-hard.

Edited April 29, 2005 by Tepee (log)

[sheetz]

I once made a beggars chicken that used a yeast dough for the outer shell. After the chicken was baked you could eat the crust along with it.

Edited April 29, 2005 by sheetz (log)

[Dejah]

My qi-gong master is from Shanghai. He came to Brandon for his first workshop about 4 years ago. I was delegated to feed him. The first time, it was simple - I still had a restaurant at that time and we had banquet fare. After I got to know him better, I "found out" that he'd really appreciate home style cooking. He misses having simple basic fare when he is travelling - the kind that he'd cook at home. Since then, he eats at least once at our house - enjoying whatever our family is having. I usually do a soup, steamed dish, stir-fry, simple vegetables, lots of rice, and fruit. Or, I may have a sweet soup a little later rather than sitting back with coffee. I also keep a record of what I feed him each time so there is variation.

So, as someone else suggested, find out, discreetly if you can, what your guest prefers. He may be tired of "banquet fare" if he's been travelling for some time. Sometimes, highly respected guests like to "let their hair down".

[trillium]

Since then, he eats at least once at our house - enjoying whatever our family is having. I usually do a soup, steamed dish, stir-fry, simple vegetables, lots of rice, and fruit.

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Your "lots of rice" comment made me laugh. Whenever we cook Singaporean/Chinese food and have mostly eaters over who are not Asian we always have tons of leftover rice. It's almost become a plan, where we make chow fan with the leftovers. On the other hand, when we'd do LNY dinners for mostly Asian eaters, we'd have to make a couple batches of rice ahead of time, so there would be enough!

regards,

trillium

[stephenc]

At every chinese dinner party we've ever been to, at least in the United States, we don't do "banquet style". It's more of a homestyle, with every dish thrown in the center of the table. For 10 or more people, we often just lay out a buffet.

You don't need expensive equipment to do homestyle cooking. You can steam a fish in a regular pot or steam ricecooker. Hell, my mom has even microwaved a fish, topped with salt, ginger, greenonion, hot oil, soy. No one could tell it wasn't steamed.

Greens are easy.

Check a few homestyle chinese cookbooks for some stirfrys. They're tough to mess up.

Lo mein or rice noodles are good too. You could conceivably just get order this takeout to save time.

Everyone likes dumplings right? There was a whole thread on here about them a couple of months ago. You could make some dumplings ahead of time, freeze them, and boil them up.

Make a soup.

Buy some fruit for dessert, especially oranges.

If all else fails, cook up some fried chicken. People may have different tastes, but EVERYONE likes fried chicken.

Edited April 29, 2005 by stephenc (log)

[Makan King]

It sounds like the guest of honour is a venerable elderly person (Popcorn's tachi instructor's taichi instructor's taichi instructor??). If this is the case, then odds are that he would prefer Chinese food.

I agree with going for a casual buffet dinner if it is to be held at home. All the suggestions made so far are excellent. I would only suggest that it would be terrific if you have a round table where all ten guests can gather round. You then just need to serve all the dishes at once on the table, fill up the rice and soup bowls and the party is all set. I think the Chinese prefer eating round a round table as it promotes conversation and sharing and for all the propitious symbolism conveyed by a round table.

The logistics of staging an eight-course banquet at home would be quite staggering, especially if you are going to follow the tradition of serving the banquet course by course. If this is the intended course, hire a cook and a serving staff, otherwise you would be enslaved in the kitchen and would have no time to actually entertain your guests.

If your guests are Singaporeans, do play around with the dishes and venture from the typical southern Chinese cooking. A Malaysian or Nonya style curry would be welcome for instance, and can be prepared the day before and just reheated before the meal commences. Perhaps a chicken curry, a braise (perhaps belly pork with sea cucumber and shitake mushrooms braised in soya sauce), two different types of vegetables (a lo hon chai and simple stir-fried greens), a steamed whole fish, tempura prawns and a simple soup (lotus root, peanut and pork ribs, perhaps, or tofu cubes, fishballs, cabbage and dried scallops simmered in chicken stock) would make a great feast and go very well with simple steamed white rice. Many of these dishes can either be prepared the day before or prepped many hours in advance.

Good luck!!

[jo-mel]

I've done many 'banquet' type meals, over the years. Even tho I've had plenty of experience, I still end up catering my own dinner! It is very difficult to put on an impressive meal without constantly going to and from the kitchen. Even with pre-prepared foods, if you serve one or two dishes at a time, you have to be on the go. Putting 8 to 10 dishes on the table at once needs more than one person cooking. (IMMHO)

If you want to have your dinner at home, and if you have a roundish table and if you have the proper heat unit, you could do a Hot Pot with ease. All the preparation is done well ahead, you can sit for the entire dinner and it is wonderful ice breaker. Also, if you want, you could have American style desserts with coffee/tea in the living room when the hotpot is finished.

Just a thought.

[miaomee]

In Chinese banquets I've attended, soup was always served, and it was always the penultimate course - right before the fruit...

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In Chinese banquets I've attended, soup was always served, and it was always the penultimate course - right before the fruit...

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That's rather interesting. It is totally different from the Chinese custom.

In formal Cantonese banquets in Hong Kong, the "soup" is usually shark-fin soup which is the 4th/5th (I forgot) course. The eighth course is usually fried chicken, right after steamed fish, followed by the "starch" like fried noodles/fried rice and such.

In Cantonese banquets in USA, things are altered a bit. They usually bring out "soup" (such as West Lake beef soup, crab-meat asparagus soup, etc.) as the first course. In casual dining in USA, they would bring out the "house soup" before the main course arrive.

I have not seen soup seved at the end, unless you are talking about the "dessert soup" such as red bean dessert soup, or cantaloupe soup with tapioca, etc..

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The typical order of a chinese banquet menu (although I won't say the menu I suggested above is 'banquet') in Msia:

Hors d'oeuvres

Soup

Chicken*

Prawns*

Fish*

Veg

Rice/Noodles

Dessert/Fruit

*The order of the proteins could be interchangeable.

Well, if you're serving this at home, and if you have a big enough table, I don't see why you can't bring on the whole lot!

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I once read an article to explain the reason different dishes were arranged in a Chinese banquet, most of the menus follows a few simple rule:

1) Entree or Chinese call it "cold dish", for a formal banquet setup, there could be a warm entree and a cold entree

2) The rest of the dishes will be arranged according to their tastes - from the lightest to the heaviest. In Malaysia and Singapore, shark fin soup is normally served soon after the entree.

3) Vegetable dish is normally served after all the meat dishes, as it is a Chinese tradition to serve their guests with meat as a token of respect.

4) Rice and noodles are served after vegetable dish, just in case guests still had not enough.

5) Lastly comes dessert or fruits.

For rich people banquet, or those who are very particular about "eating", menu shall be created with no repetition of dishes in mind. For example, if fried chicken wings were served in warm entree, there shall not be xing li gai or zai zi gai in the menu.

Not sure if the above are true but I did follow these rules when creating the menu for my own wedding banquet

[miaomee]

"Bak Zham Gai" matches with ginger dippy or oyster sauce dippy might appeal to older generations from Singapore or Malaysia.

Steam egg makes another good dishes for old folks. You could do as simple as "steam water egg" with a garnish of soy sauce and coriander leaves or you could "steam 3 yolk egg" with shrimps and some small char siew pieces. When the egg is ready to be served, put a 1/4 teaspoon of garlic oil, and some fried garlic flakes on the egg, smells marvelous.

[hzrt8w]

I once read an article to explain the reason different dishes were arranged in a Chinese banquet, most of the menus follows a few simple rule:

1) Entree or Chinese call it "cold dish", for a formal banquet setup, there could be a warm entree and a cold entree

2) The rest of the dishes will be arranged according to their tastes - from the lightest to the heaviest. In Malaysia and Singapore, shark fin soup is normally served soon after the entree.

3) Vegetable dish is normally served after all the meat dishes, as it is a Chinese tradition to serve their guests with meat as a token of respect.

4) Rice and noodles are served after vegetable dish, just in case guests still had not enough.

5) Lastly comes dessert or fruits.

For rich people banquet, or those who are very particular about "eating", menu shall be created with no repetition of dishes in mind. For example, if fried chicken wings were served in warm entree, there shall not be xing li gai or zai zi gai in the menu.

Not sure if the above are true but I did follow these rules when creating the menu for my own wedding banquet 

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I haven't been to a Chinese banquet outside of Canton. Speaking of the Cantonese banquet experience, especially those popularized in Hong Kong, what you described totally defied my experience.

1) Yes the first one (appertizer if you will) is usually a cold (room temperature, not chilled) dish, mainly composed of roasted suckling pigs, "bak jum gai" chicken, jelly fish, BBQ pork, etc..

2) Arranged from lightest to the heaviest? Hmmm... if that is the case, steamed fish should be the second course but it never is. The second one is typically dried scallop with mushrooms or something similar. It is "heavy" right off the bet. Shark-fin soup is not until typically the fifth course.

3) Vegetable (non-meat) dish is almost never used in a banquet. Cantonese (maybe Hong Kongers) think all vegetable as not-worthy of serving at banquets. ("Cheap")

4) The carbo's are usually in the form of fried rice and fried noodles (especially yee-mian), served at last (when everybody is 90% full). Most of the time these dishes are wasted. They are not counted as a course.

5) Desserts... well, only kind of... some bao with lotus seed paste as fillings, or dessert soups like red beans, honeydew/tapioca, kind of thing. Fruits... almost invariably oranges.

Having no repeated items in the menu is just kind of common sense.

In a Cantonese banquet you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be a Zha Zi Gai (Fried Chicken) and no chicken wing (again: "cheap"). Typically this is course # 8 after the steamed fish (#7).

I had posted a typical Cantonese banquet menu in this forum somewhere some time ago. Can't find it any more.

[miaomee]

Perhaps what I described had totally defied your experience, I am sorry I didn't know that we shall use Canton or Hong Kong's style as a blueprint.

Edited June 8, 2005 by miaomee (log)

[Hest88]

In a Cantonese banquet you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be a Zha Zi Gai (Fried Chicken) and no chicken wing (again: "cheap"). Typically this is course # 8 after the steamed fish (#7).

I don't remember what happens in Hong Kong, but here in California the fish at Cantonese restaurants is *always* the last main course before the noodles/fried rice. It's never followed by chicken.

[hzrt8w]

Perhaps what I described had totally defied your experience, I am sorry I didn't know that we shall use Canton or Hong Kong's style as a blueprint.

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I am sorry. I missed the M'sia part. I didn't realize we were to discuss Chinese banquets outside of China.

I suppose every region would change the tradition to some degree to fit the local custom. A banquet can even be whatever the host or chef feels like doing.