This is the first in a series of reviews taken from our experiences of several cooking classes that we participated in whilst travelling through Asia. We’re both foodies and love to explore new cuisine, this could have something to do with creativity. We both love to photograph and create nice imagery and design and we both like to design and create new and exciting food, and then photograph it! It all seems to be very complimentary!!

Whilst on the road, living out of our bags, on buses, trains and in hostels we didn’t get to cook and prepare our own food nearly as much as we would do on an ordinary day back home. In China we were really luck whilst staying in Beijing, we had an apartment for a month which mean’t we could go out and choose our ingredients from the local farmers market, this in itself was such a fantastic experience. Eating out all the time does take it’s toll but this is also part of the experience of exploring a country and it’s delights.

Taking part in a cooking class every so often mean’t we could explore further into the way the region or the country works with their local ingredients and taught us about the principles of their cuisine.It also mean’t we could eat everything we cooked!

We’re going to start with a course that we both loved and rate very highly in our travelling and food experiences. This was at The Yangshou Cooking School in Yangshou, Guangxi Province, China.

Their location on the banks of the Li River is stunning surrounded by karst peaks, bamboo rafts, and tourists! The course we did was a half day class starting at 8am with a local market tour. This is something that is very consistent with cooking courses in Asia, always starting with a market tour to give you an insight into where they source their ingredients from, what is local to the region and the atmosphere of a busy market place can be absorbed. Our chef and guide Kelly picked up on key ingredients that we would use such as bamboo shoots, chilli, chinese mushrooms and chinese eggplant before taking us back to the school.

We were informed about the morning, what we would be cooking and how we would do it. We each had our own cooking station with a wok on a gas stove, our own chopping boards, knives, bowls, oils and sauces for cooking with. The ingredients were portioned out for us and we would then prepare each dish before cooking it. Kelly demonstrated and then we cooked, and then we ate! For the final 4 dishes though we cooked them one by one and then had our own little banquet sat outside with the riverbanks below us – pretty idyllic!

Chinese cooking is all about sharing and dishes are served as a matter of balance. Hot and spicy dishes such as chicken with ginger and chilli should be offset by cooling preparations such as steamed fish or stir fried vegetables. A little bit of Yin and Yang occurs and equal attention should be paid for the balance of the food’s taste, texture, size, shape and aroma.

We had previously noticed how much oil was used in Chinese cooking, but on this particular course there wasn’t quite so much oil used and the dishes were very tastey and true to the Guangxi region. Not all Chinese food is the same, as we travelled from region to region we experienced subtle and strong differences in the presentation, spice, and taste.

There were around 10 of us in the class with a good mixture of young and old, and vegetarians were catered for equally. All in all we learned a lot about the values of Chinese cooking as well as picked up on some new and exciting recipes, which we think we could cook when we’re back in our own kitchen again.

Below are a few of those recipes! We hope you enjoy! Please do let us know if you manage to cook any!

Steamed Stuffed Vegetables

50gms minced pork / use finely chopped firm tofu for vegetarian option
1 tablespoon of Chives – chopped
One quarter teaspoon of salt
Mixed vegetables – peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, courgette,

Mix the mince/tofu, salt and chives together. Stuff vegetables and steam for 15 minutes in a steaming basket. (Can use boiling water in a pan with an oven proof glass bowl instead and place vegetables in the bowl and then cover)

This dish is great as a starter and would be good at a barbeque or for a little tray of canapes!

Beer Fish

100gms fish (firm white with skin on)
2 tablespoons of peanut oil
Half tomatoe – chopped
Half green, half red pepper – sliced
1 tablespoon of sliced garlic tops or spring onions
1 tablespoon ginger – sliced
2 cloves of garlic – crushed
1 tablespoon of soy saice
Half teaspoon salt
Half glass of beer

Heat the wok, add oil and leave on full heat. Turn down the heat, put fish into work skin down, add salt on top of fish. Fry on each side for about 3 minutes making sure skin is brown. Put all veges, garlic and ginger on top of fish. Pour on soy sauce and beer. Cover with lid and cooking for 5 minutes. Remove lid add spring onions, reduce liquid for 2 minutes. Serve.

This is a really tastey dish indeed!! It’s so easy but we found it’s all about timing, adding the ingredients at the right time. A useful hint on the crushing of garlic – all we did was smash it with a large flat knife and that was that – no extra chopping required.

Eggplant Yangshou Style

100gm eggplant
2 tablesppons of peanut oil
Half red pepper – sliced
One quarter teaspoon of ginger – sliced
2 cloves of garlic – crushed
2 spring onions – sliced
Quarter teaspoon of salt
One teaspoon soy sauce
Half teaspoon oyster sauce

Heat wok and add oil. Heat until oil is smoking and then add eggplant and fry until browned and cooked. Move eggplant to side of wok, reduce heat and fry garlic, ginger and pepper for one minute. Mix eggplant with vegetbales, salt, soy sauce and oyester sauce. Add spring onions. Serve.

All of these dishes are for 2 persons, so double your quantities if you’re cooking for 4!

So another day in Yangshou beckoned and the weather was still on the chilly side with plenty of moisture thrown in for good measure. We had heard about some Tai Chi lessons that Trippers could organise for guests with a local tutor, so we booked ourselves onto a course to see if we could remember anything from our previous lesson in Beijing. The tutor was really good at explaining what to do and helped you into the positions but wasn’t overly fussy if you could not manage it each time. This made the class go far more smoothly and it was very enjoyable. It’s amazing at the power that can be generated from simple moves and relaxed muscles when defending yourself. Dave got tested on a few times again to show what the motions were used for in self defence. It was freezing on the rooftop even though we had many layers of clothes to try and keep us warm!

After the two hour lesson we headed to the cafe for some warmth and food. We opted for more ginger and honey tea, which is so good, but so sweet, and some lunch. We had heard from other guests that the dragon eggplant was a good choice so we opted for the non-pork option and some tofu. We have eaten our fair amount of eggplant over the months in China, but this dish blew them all out of the water! It was amazing. Slightly fried like a tempura batter with a great sauce and veggies on top. Really great, we loved it.

We decided to head into the main town to walk off lunch and see if we could find bargains on sunglasses and some nice cushion covers that Helen had her eye on in a funky little shop on West Street. They were costly and they wouldn’t budge on the price, so we bought just the one and decided to see if we can get it replicated either back in the UK or maybe in Vietnam. On our way back to the hostel, playing on the public exercise machines by the river, we bumped into Maayke and Alex who were staying at Trippers and decided to have a walk down to the river. More often than not you’ll find a very picturesque place that in areas tends to lend itself towards being a dumping ground, this is the case we’ve seen across China. It is a case of the beauty and the beast at times.

Evening meal was again back at… you guessed it… Trippers! Comfort food to the max, soup, cheese burger and the amazingly tasty apple crumble with ice cream! Not the most classic “Chinese” of meals but you have to have some tastes of the west every so often. After some cards and a few drinks we headed to bed in the knowledge that we would have the dorm all to ourselves that evening. As soon as we had closed the door to the room a bunch of four Irish lads burst onto the scene but exited for food pretty quickly as they’d just got in from Shanghai. Misfits it was!

There were a few snores that night, but it wasn’t too bad for Helen sharing a room with 4 other lads!!

The next day was our final day in Yangshou town and along came the wet and cold weather. We had more editing and writing to catch up on so the crappy weather was a good excuse to stay inside, drink ginger and honey tea and keep warm. We finally had enough of work and decided to head out for a walk into the countryside which got the blood pumping and warmed us up no end. There are some really interesting walks and exploration to be done around China and you will always come to a little village where photograph opportunities just jump out.

For food we headed into Yangshou to find something cheap and not the hostel food, even though it was lovely, we wanted something else and some new scenery. We found a place and order our food. The food was very average and we were both disappointed. Helen’s vegetable noodles soup dish came with chicken in it and had very little flavour. We even asked for some chilli to make it more interesting but all we were given was Tabasco sauce! Not very Chinese in style or flavour.

Back at Trippers we proceeded with yet more writing and relaxing in the cafe/bar with hot chocolate. Pizza was required to forget the taste of lunch and Trippers duly obliged again. The Irish boys were having food, drinks and they cracked open the game Risk and asked Dave if he wanted to join in. Some good quality lads time was taken up, along with beers and world domination. Helen went to bed and Dave almost conquered the world, but he was too nice to the opposition! The bar closed up at 11pm and that was the end of that! We hope the lads made it to Hong Kong on time, we are sure that there train took longer that the one hour that they were told by someone in the hostel! It takes at least 10 hours we would guess!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

We had breakfast at the hotel in the form of muesli and fruit before going off on bikes for the day. At Bamboo they have a good choice of mountain and city bikes (we opted for mountain bikes of course) perhaps some of the best bikes we’ve used on our travels so far!

We had a map with some good trails outlined and so off we went in the hopes of finding some less tourist-driven villages. Finding the right path is okay to start with as you head out of Yangshou town via the back roads and then there is a path that cuts under the bridge and from here you get to a gravel road, which is pretty tricky to ride over, although much more manageable if you have a decent mountain bike – you often see people on tandems and city bikes on this kind of terrain!! From here you go towards smaller paths which take you through farmland and villages, you just head north up the Li River towards Moon Hill, its a long journey on bikes and we often found ourselves the only people on the roads and thinking we may be on the wrong path.

After a brief stop for satsumas and snacks we went on our way to Moon Hill. When we arrived there were many tourists who were either enjoying the views, shopping, eating or planning to take a trip up the hill. It was getting close to 4pm by this time and we’d been cycling for the past 4 hours so decided not to climb the hill. But we did stop for some fresh corn and a few photos of the random tourist attractions such as a monkey dressed in an Asian suit posing along side happy holiday makers at what cost we didn’t stop to find out.

It only took about another 45 minutes or so to get back into Yangshou mostly on the high way which was in no way as satisfying as going through all the villages and countryside. When we got back we opted for a spot of Chinese food at another Lonely Planet recommendation Kelly’s. The food was fairly good and we weren’t charged too much for it either. Afterwards we went o Monkey Jane’s for a few drinks just to get familiar with the place before the big bash the following night. They also do really cheap beer!! We met a group of travellers who invited us to play cards with them…8 games of Shithead later and we were ready to call it a night. We had a good link with one of the guys as he’d been traveling with someone we’d met in Dali, I picked up on his Irish accent after Jane had said we may bump into them. Small world this traveling lark!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)