Crisp-fried peking duck skin with five spice goose liver wrapped in egg crêpe

I don’t know if it happens to you but the taste of some dishes stays on in my heart for ever. A few years ago, I had a bowl of shark’s fin soup at the Club Chinois in Singapore. The soup, as I still fondly remember, had the most delicious of flavours.

The shark fins had been blanched and steamed in a stock, and then flavoured with a sauce prepared with stock and Chinese wine. The taste was something that one doesn’t usually connect with Chinese food. But then, that’s what the chefs at the Singapore restaurant (a part of the TungLok Group, which also owns the My Humble House chain) have been specialising in. They are among the top chefs of the world who have been giving new meaning to old Chinese dishes.

Master chef Ken Ling

Naturally, when I heard that the chief chef of My Humble House in Singapore — who is practically the head honcho of the group — was visiting India, I looked forward to meeting him. I had met Woody Achuthan at Club Chinois, who’s now the senior vice-president of the group, but hadn’t encountered master chef Ken Ling. Of Malaysian origin, chef Ken is known for revolutionising the old world of Chinese cuisine.

The difference between the food at even some of the top-rated Chinese restaurants and the dishes at My Humble House is stark. My meeting with chef Ken at My Humble House — the rooftop restaurant at the ITC Maurya, New Delhi — explained some of the intricacies of this evolving genre of Chinese cuisine. What the food maestro likes to do is enhance the subtlest of flavours of a dish. For instance, the hot and sour clear soup with crab claws that I ate there had the most amazing flavours of crabmeat, which had been enriched by the strength of the stock.

The chef, who hops across the world visiting all the group’s restaurants, tells me that he picks up cooking styles and recipes during his travels. His strength lies in choosing the freshest of ingredients and in infusing a dish with a particular flavour. His pan-seared Chilean sea bass, for example, had been lovingly enveloped with the flavours of ginger.

I belong to that school of thought which believes in the simplicity of creativity. You’ll understand what I mean when I describe the sorbet that he served in between dishes. It worked wonderfully — it cleansed the palate and pleased the eye. On a bed of ice, he had put half a lemon and then topped that with a little heap of the sorbet. When you bit into the sorbet, you got the tangy taste of the lemon.

The marinated and roasted rack of lamb that he served was equally innovative. He had cooked the lamb in the lamb reduction sauce, which gave it the most delicious of flavours.

Likewise, the Peking duck skin with goose liver was a creative union of tastes and tradition. The duck skin was crisp, and the liver had been flavoured with the Chinese five-spice mix. And this came wrapped in what can only be called a very, very light paratha (though it had been described as an egg crepe). The final outcome was astounding.

The chef’s creativity was one reason why Chinois became the first Singapore restaurant to win the coveted Diamond Award bestowed by the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences in 2008. Now I am told that My Humble House in Delhi has been similarly honoured by the New York-based academy.

The restaurant describes chef Ken’s creativity in these words: “A master dabs contemporary paints on traditional art.” I think that says it well. He takes an age-old recipe of a Chinese dish, and gives it few interesting turns here and there, ending up with a taste that’s memorable. That’s why, long years after the shark’s death, its fins continue to fascinate me.

Pan-seared Chilean sea bass with juliennes of ginger and spicy Sezchuan sauce (serves 1)

Ingredients

• 200g Chilean sea bass • 100g shredded spring onion • 50g shredded ginger • 4 baby pak choi leaves

For the spicy Sezchuan sauce: • 8g Maggie seasoning • 15ml Chinese vinegar • 5ml light soy • 3ml dark soy • 10g sugar • 3g Sezchuan pepper powder

Method:

Marinade the fish with the ingredients used for the spicy Sezchuan sauce for three hours and then keep the fish aside. Put all the ingredients used for the sauce in the wok and cook for a while. Thicken the sauce with potato starch. Place the shredded onions on the sea bass and pan sear it on a hot non-stick pan. Cook from both sides till light brown in colour. Blanch the baby pak choi and sauté it. Arrange the leaves on a plate along with the pan-seared sea bass. Drizzle the spicy Sezchuan sauce around it. Serve hot.

Salt-baked drunken chicken with Chinese wine (serves 1)

Ingredients

• 200g chicken drumsticks • 100ml Chinese wine • 5g star anise • 3g cinnamon stick • salt to taste • 3g Rhizoma Ligustici (Chinese herb, optional) • 50g diced onion • 50g white spring onion

For the salt mixture: • 1 kilo salt • 5 egg whites

Method:

Marinate the chicken in the Chinese wine, Chinese herb, star anise, cinnamon stick and seasoning for 3-4 hours. Make the salt mixture by mixing the salt and the egg white. Divide it into two parts. Cover the chicken with butter paper and then with one part of the salt mixture. Bake it at 100°C for 30 minutes. Once it is cooked, break the salt mixture and take out the chicken and slice it. Meanwhile sauté diced onions and spring onions in a wok and arrange them on a fresh butter paper. Top this with the sliced chicken.

Take the remaining part of the salt mixture and arrange the salt-baked chicken wrapped with butter paper on it. Serve hot.

Photographs by Rupinder Sharma