The foie gras book of Master Dong

Monday 25 October 2010

Here’s a work that’s sure to titillate the imagination of chefs and anyone who loves creative cuisine! Throughout these pages adorned with sublime photos, we learn that foie gras has been enjoyed in the Middle Kingdom for some time now. We also mainly discover an extraordinary range of recipes that celebrate foie gras and Chinese cuisine. Here’s a dialog with their creator, the chef Da Dong, and Alain Rougié who was able to convince him to make this book!

In Peking, the three restaurants under the direction of Chef Da Dong have the reputation of being among the best in the Chinese capital. People fl ock there for his famous Imperial Peking Duck, for shark fi n, but also for the impressive menu of specialties photographed like works of art. That is where you see, in particular, Da Dong’s passion for foie gras. Explanations from the Master.

DA DONG : « FOIE GRAS ENTERED CHINA THROUGH THE DOORS OF THE INTERNATIONAL HOTELS »

Duck is one of the preferred poultry birds for the Chinese. Everyone knows our art of cooking it. We eat the meat of the duck, but also its liver that we have great appreciation for. Foie gras presents an extremely different fl avor from the fact of having been fattened. It is with this fl avor at once delicate and tender that Rougié has largely contributed in making foie gras known and appreciated in China. In the same category as caviar or truffl es, foie gras was at fi rst considered a typically western luxury product. It arrived in China through the doors of international hotels and Chinese cooking schools that trained chefs for those kinds of establishments. Personally, I decided to work with foie gras as soon as I was able to obtain a product of the highest quality. And for that, I owe thanks to Rougié, notably since the creation two years ago of their duck farm just outside Peking.

ALAIN ROUGIÉ : « RECIPES THAT HAD NEVER BEFORE BEEN WRITTEN »

Da Dong has been working with foie gras for many years now according to his own vision of cooking. In his restaurants, I had the pleasure of discovering totally unexpected dishes. Chinese cuisine makes virtuostic use of a number of spices, of green vegetables, of mushrooms that are unknown elsewhere. It masters numerous cooking techniques. The art of Da Dong is marrying this grand culinary tradition in a unique way with bubbling creativity and an uncommon esthetic. In this book devoted to foie gras, you will discover recipes that had never before been written. And it’s all there. Time of preparation and cooking, ingredients, proportions, detailed steps of the recipe. While I’m at it, I’d like to tip my hat to the photographer who did amazing work to illustrate this book!

DA DONG : « DISTILLING THE MAIN STRENGTHS OF OUR CULINARY TRADITIONS »

With foie gras, the cooking temperature takes on an extreme importance. Personally, I like for the surface to be seared and the inside cooked only to about 30 or 40%. But we have various other ways of cooking it. We might fry it, roast it, braise it, poach it, or even steam it. In the recipes that I chose, you will discover foie gras associated with pork, with roasted duck, with different sprouts and vegetables, with mushrooms that are native to our country. I also have several recipes in which I poach foie gras in spiced bouillons with some Shaoxing rice wine or some sorghum schnapps. In fact, I make a special effort to distill the main strengths of our culinary traditions: concern for health and the optimal balance of foods, the pleasure of taste with often unexpected associations, and fi nally the esthetic of plating. In China, we have the pleasure of mastering numerous art forms such as bonsai, calligraphy, and landscape painting. My inspiration for composing dishes comes from all of that!

ALAIN ROUGIÉ : « MASTER DONG IS A FIERCE PERFECTIONIST! »

To prepare this book, we spent considerable time together. These were intense and fascinating moments. Master Dong (Da means master in Chinese) is a fi erce perfectionist! His wish is that this book will be of interest to the chefs of his country, as well as to foie gras lovers the world over. In the beginning, it will be distributed in restaurants and in various cooking schools in China. For our part, we are going to make sure this book gets known by all the chefs who are interested. It’s our way of contributing to the sharing of experiences that enrich chefs everywhere in the world!!