Spice Temple Melbourne Hunan Dinner Recap

Hunan is probably most famous for being the home of Chairman Mao, but it is also famous for its cuisine. At its heart the food is wonderfully peasant home-style, with plenty of garlic and chillies. Hunan cuisine is colorful and vibrant, and showcases quality ingredients. I find it has a wonderful directness – being spicy hot, but not as oily or numbing as the cuisine of its neighbour, Sichuan.

We had been planning this dinner for a few months and I was really looking forward to it. It was wonderful to sit down, put a menu together and have a few weeks of testing to get the dishes right. The other nice thing that resulted from the dinner is that we have ended up with several great new dishes that are now on the Spice Temple Melbourne menu.

Spice Temple Head Chef Ben Pollard (left) and Sous Chef Brendan Sheldrick.

Staff briefing – we had a full house booked and we wanted to make sure the evening ran like clockwork.

Ben sorting through the Pearly meat balls.

Shiitake mushrooms and cucumbers pickled for a month in oil, sugar, vinegar and a little chilli.

White-cut chicken salad with coriander, garlic and spring onion. The dressing was simple but had lots of salted chillies in it – fiery and salty with some acid from the pickles – it was  perfect.

Pearly meat balls are beautiful little meat balls of fatty pork, spiked with pickled mustard greens, salted radish and dried shrimp. They are then coated in glutinous rice and steamed; a simple soy broth provided the perfect counter balance. The texture has a wonderful springiness to it.

Potato salad with chilli and garlic. Salads and stir-fries using potato are prevalent in the cuisines of many regions of China. When I first tried these many years ago in China I was a bit unsure, but after eating a few of them I fell in love with the wonderful crunch they all displayed, and the nice bit of chilli.

Duck braised in beer with fresh chillies and spring onions was a huge hit. The cooked-down beer gives the dish a really deep, rich flavour, and the heat from the chillies is the perfect foil. The duck is also rendered meltingly tender – what more could you ask for?

Dong’an or vinegar chicken was the perfect choice for this banquet. The chicken is first white-cooked and torn into pieces, and is then flavoured by stir-frying lots of ginger, chilli and some Sichuan peppercorns to add depth. This went straight onto the Spice Temple menu the next day.

The classic and most famous Chairman Mao Pork. It is rumoured that he ate it every day. It is simple and comforting and the texture is the most wonderful part of the dish. The pork is first browned in caramel, then shao xing wine is added along with ginger, star anise, cinnamon and stock; it is then braised slowly for a few hours. After cooking it is so tender and the fat is like jelly. You add soy to the dish to balance out the sweetness before serving - a very satisfying dish indeed.

A steamed custard was served with the other dishes along with rice to cool the mouth and add another texture to the meal. I love these and have had them many times in China. They’re simple, nourishing and the perfect accompaniment to spicy dishes.

The concept of Eight Treasure Rice was turned into a delightful rice pudding – very delicate, and very delicious. I personally love rice puddings of all kinds and this was the perfect end to a wonderful evening.

We’re hosting our next dinner on the 10th October – the Imperial Chinese Dinner, and I’m sure it’s going to be another success. Bookings can be made through Spice Temple Melbourne on (03) 8679 1888.

Tags: Ben Pollard, Brendan Sheldrick, Hunan, Melbourne, Neil Perry, Regional Dinner, Spice Temple Melbourne

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 at 1:47 pm and is filed under Neil's Restaurant Stories, Spice Temple Melbourne. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.