Two worlds,One wok: Hakka cuisine beyond noodles

CHENNAI: A third-generation Chinese settled in Kolkata, chef Katherine Chung began her culinary journey under her mother’s guidance when she was a 10-year-old and started enjoying the process. “My grandfather came to Karachi in the pre-independence era for work. After the partition of India and Pakistan, he moved to Amritsar. When Operation Bluestar took place, we shifted to Kolkata. We were the only Chinese family in Amritsar,” starts Katherine.

She kicked off her home kitchen by delivering food during the pandemic and recreated the traditional Hakka recipes. “Though I started cooking other well-known international cuisines for my children, I always wished to delve deep into my home cuisine,” says the chef. She gained exposure and landed opportunities to conduct pop-ups across the country. During such times, when she reveals that she is a Hakka, people’s immediate response would be, ‘Yes, we know Hakka. It’s noodles.’ After that, ‘I am not a noodle’ became the theme of her pop-ups.’

The Hakka cuisine is simple, pragmatic, and home-style food, without heavy components. It is a part of Chinese cuisine with slight changes in the ingredients and preparation methods. “As authentic cooking requires a considerable amount of time, nowadays people are not preparing the dishes or opt for a different method, losing the originality,” Katherine remarks.

Chef Katherine has visited Chennai for the first time to showcase her culinary excellence at the five-day pop-up at Stix, Hyatt Regency Chennai. She drew inspiration from all the regions occupied by the Hakka people across the globe. “As it is a migrant community, the pop-up is an amalgamation of flavours from India, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Canada, the United States of America, and Australia, among others,” she explains to DT Next.

All the dishes served in the pop-up reflected subtle flavours and home-style preparation. To start with, the red yeast rice and goji berry chicken soup is a spicy red-coloured soup with goji berry and well-cooked chicken strips. The typhoon shelter eggplant is eggplant coated and cooked with garlic, red chilies, and panko, which has an overpowering taste of garlic. The non-veg variant was served with prawns, in which the seafood was a bit chewy.

The filling in the lettuce wraps was tasty and complemented by fresh lettuce. The red fermented tofu fried wings served with sweet chili sauce have juicy chicken wings. However, the sauce is the essence of the dish. The scrumptious Xinjiang spice tossed mutton is our top pick in the starters.

In the main course, the steamed prawns with glass noodles were flavourful and the prawns were cooked to perfection. The ma’la french beans and yu xiang braised eggplant weren’t as convincing as we expected them to be. One unique dish we came across in the pop-up is the salt baked chicken, which is a traditional and special food in Hakka cuisine. In this, a whole chicken is marinated in rice wine and sand ginger (Hakka ingredient) and cooked in hot salt. Though the chicken was tender, it lacked punching flavours. However, chef Katherine claims that the dish is cooked by people on a daily basis and is toned down in flavours to give a home-style feel.

Among the desserts, the fried custard with coconut ice cream was delicious. Another traditional dessert served by the chef is sesame balls, which is a must-go food during the Chinese New Year.

Excited about her visit to Chennai, Chef Katherine says, “I am a huge admirer of dosa and here my daily breakfast is dosa and filter coffee. Even during my pregnancy phase, I craved dosa.” She also adds that rajma chawal is her comfort food and is not a big fan of Chinese dishes.

—Two Worlds, One Wok pop-up will take place at the Stix, Hyatt Regency Chennai till November 26. For reservations, contact 9884369333.