Han Ximin

1824295095@qq.com

AN exchange was held online Tuesday, attracting 10 chefs from Shenzhen Pengcheng Technician College and 10 from the Guangdong Community Federation in Madrid, Spain to share Cantonese cuisine culinary skills.

At the Shenzhen venue, teachers and students from Shenzhen Pencheng Technician College prepared classic Cantonese dishes such as double-color lobster balls, braised Guangming pigeons, crispy fried chicken, fried rice with Dapeng sea urchin, pan-fried Shajing golden oysters, crispy swan-shaped durian pastry and five-color shrimp dumplings.

At the Madrid venue, the chefs prepared Western-style food such as Mediterranean red shrimp with crispy noodles, Spanish cuttlefish sauce rice with fresh black bean sauce, fried truffle with fresh stonefish slices, octopus salad and other classic Spanish dishes.

Through the video link, participants discussed culinary skills and their inspirations for making the dishes.

“We made the crispy fried chicken today, which is a traditional Cantonese dish. With customers’ tastes improving, this dish will be popular since it combines Eastern and Western styles. Through this video, we can see Spanish-style dishes and be inspired by their cooking methods,” said Ding Zhimin, a student from the technician college’s health management department.

Zheng Xin, deputy chief of the department, said the exchange will open a new platform for the college’s students, who are mainly trained for the Shenzhen market.

Liang Haochuang, honorary head of the Guangdong Community Federation in Madrid, said that Chinese food adapted to Western tastes uses local ingredients in Spain and is cooked Cantonese-style, as a way to popularize Cantonese cuisine in Spain.

Liu Ying, head of Shenzhen Pengcheng Technician College, said the exchange is one way to promote the internationalization of the Canton Chef program and carry on Chinese food culture.

In 2019, the Shenzhen Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau launched the Canton Chef program. So far, a total of 22,000 chefs have participated in training under the program and over 5,000 have been awarded senior culinary talent titles.

A total of 40 Canton Chef training bases and master’s workshops have now been set up across the city. Through exchanges with renowned domestic and international chefs, the Canton Chef program will be helpful for the students’ employment and career development, as well as international exchanges of Chinese and Western cuisines, according to Yang Baohua, head of the bureau’s occupation capability cultivation department.