Staff meals Beijing-style

For a first-timer to Asia I received a brief and intense intro to the world of Chinese culture and cuisine. I was there to work, training a team of bakers in some of the finer points of artisan breads and I spent most of every day in Beijing at the restaurant from 9:00 am to 6 or 7 pm.  I obviously have my regrets at what I did not get a chance to explore but for the limited amount of free time available I think I managed to get a decent overview of the Beijing food scene.

The one thing that kept my frustration level at not having more time to explore Beijing to a simmer was the fact that we had in-house cooks who were dedicated exclusively to making staff meals.

The Ayi (or auntie) as all female helpers, be they cooks, dishwashers, nannys etc. are called in China were from Szchechuan and although they toned down the spice (they used dried red chilis liberally but never Szechuan peppercorns) there was a ton of flavour in the twice daily meals made from scratch.

Each meal had at least two to three elements in the stir fry which for the most part was pork or tofu based for protein along with any number of local greens, cabbages, etc. There was also a soup which could be as simple as millet cooked in water with minimal seasoning all the way up to noodle soup with greens added. All in all very satisfying and to be honest this was as thrilling to me as any specialty restaurant that I ate in.

This post is dedicated to the tiny Ayis (all about 5 feet tall) who made sure I got plenty to eat while I baked bread.