A unique culinary voyage , a delectable luxury dining experience that braces’ quality with accessibility, Shanghai Club is a discovery. The restaurant showcases a perfect blend of ancient Chinese tradition along with contemporary décor with touches of the symbolic red colour to emphasize upon the Chinese ambiance.

Like we experience in India, Chinese Cuisine too varies almost every hundred miles or so. There is the Szechuan, Hunan, Cantonese, Beijing, and Peking with umpteen other variations in between.

Cantonese cuisine, originally known in China as Guangdong Cuisine, is often referred to as Yue cuisine. This is the cuisine of China’s Guangdong Province, and more specially adheres to its Capital, Guangzhou. Cantonese is a Cuisine with a mild taste, the Cantonese enjoy the natural flavors of fresh sea fish and Sauces, including hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, plum sauce, sweet and sour sauce, and soy sauce. the flavours are well balanced and not greasy. To leave intact the flavours of the primary ingredients, which are at the peak of their freshness and quality, very little few and very little spices are used. The spice does not engulf the natural flavor of the main ingredients. Except the use of garlic and coriander, in order to retain the taste and flavours of the main ingredients, the Cantonese avoid the use of fresh herbs as against the  liberal use of the same in Sichuanese, Vietnamese,  Lao, Thai and European. In fact, garlic is often used as a vegetable in Cantonese cooking!

This makes Cantonese a popular cuisine in China and Cantonese Chefs are highly sought after in China. Chef Jia brought to India by the ITC being one of them. As required, he uses a variety of cooking methods from roasting, steaming to stir frying.

Cantonese cuisine, less spicy than the Sichuan and Hunan methods of preparation is yet a flavorful and delicious cuisine; far more delicate than other eight forms of Chinese food.

these 10 days at the Shanghai club Express traces the Cantonese route through two set menus – the Superior ticket and a First class ticket on The Shanghai Express. the Superior ticket @ Rs.1500 per person + taxes, avails the diner a four course meal including soup and dessert.

A soup from the choice of four—two pure vegetarian and 2 non-vegetarian. Our Jain friends had their choice too.

One main course from a choice of 4 vegetarians (including for Jains), 1 fish, 1 prawn, 1 lamb, 1 chicken. The Sliced Lamb in chili oyster Sauce paired with Guangzhou Glass Noodles from the vegetarian Menu was YUMMY! So was the enchanting flavours of Wok tossed noodles with pickle vegetables, Asparagus in Chili garlic sauce, Steam tofu in special hot black bean sauce, crispy baby corn salt and pepper at Shanghai Club.

One Noodles/rice from a choice of 3 vegetarians and 3 non-vegetarian.

One dessert from a choice of three. Apricot honey rice pudding with a sprinkle of Pista and julienne of Apricot, highly recommended.

The FIRST CLASS ticket is available for Rs. 2000 and the menu includes a choice of 4 Vegetarian and 4 N0n-vegetarian starters

The Cantonese experience will soon be followed by Beijing and Shanghai destinations on THE SHANGHAI CLUB EXPRESS.

So book your tickets now to experience delicately balanced flavours of yin and yang, dished out by Master Chef Jia.

The Raw Mango Curry or ‘Kairi ni Curry’ is a seasonal dish. It is a sweet and sour curry made completely without chilles though spicy. The spiciness comes from the cloves, black pepper, cardamom and cinnamon.

The Parsi Zoroastrians of India celebrate the mango season! They look forward to adding raw or ripe mangoes to various dals, lentil stews, beans, sprouts, meat and vegetable stews. So, Ambakalyo, Bafaenu, Kairi Ni Daar, and Kanda Kairi Nu Gosh and of course, the Raw Mango Curry or ‘Kairi Ni Curry’ is something to which they all look forward.

The Raw Mango Curry uses no Chili, whether green or red, and no coconut or other nuts to thicken the gravy. The gravy thickens because of the amount of onions used. On its completion, the Raw Mango Curry comes out sweet sour and spicy

At the time when this recipe was written down there was either use of wood stoves or of a Primus Stove, sometime Around The 1920 it was obviously at the time considered a great delicacy and the cooking time required was over 3 hours

The mango pieces required about 20 minutes to cook and then another hour to make the mango syrup

the meat took an hour or more then after adding the first few ingredients it had to be cooked for a further 12 minutes and then, again for a further 20 minutes

And after adding the gravy cook uncovered for another 12 minutes

We’ve come a long way from that especially if one uses a pressure cooker. Do try the curry it sounds delicious the saffron is optional but would certainly enhance the flavours if used.

Ingredients:

500 Gms meat of a young male goat or meat of your choice (no fowl. For that you need different spices);

250 Gms ghee/cooking medium of choice;

500 Gms onions;

250 Gms peeled raw green mangoes;

1 tablespoon of sugar;

20 Gms large black currants;

1 inch piece of peeled ginger;

10 Gms (one fistful) leaves of fresh coriander;

10 cloves powdered,

½ teaspoon turmeric powder;

10 balls of black pepper

10 pieces of green or white cardamom (white strongly recommended. Parsis use the white in all their cooking.)

2 inch stick of cinnamon;

1 pinch Saffron strands or ¼ teaspoon saffron powder;

2 tablespoons lemon juice;

10 gms salt or as per taste.

PREPARATION:

Deseed the currants and cut into rough pieces (buy the largest currants you can find).  Put aside.

Cut the coriander leaves fine and grind to a paste. Reserve for later use.

Retain whole, the seeds of one cardamom and put aside.

Grind very fine: the peeled ginger, turmeric powder, rest of the cardamom seeds, powdered cloves, cinnamon and saffron.

Cut the meat into small pieces,

Hand wash in room temperature water, just once and put aside for later use.

METHOD:

Cut the mangoes to bite size pieces,                

Boil the raw mango pieces in a little water,

Cook till soft and well cooked,

Retain the water from boiling, if any;

Divide the mango pieces into two equal portions,

Drain one potion,

Retain the second portion with any water that may have remained after boiling;

Mash the drained portion of mango, with the back of a spoon, in to a fine paste;

Put the mashed mango aside, preferably in a crockery vessel.

Take the remaining portion of the mango pieces with any water that may have remained,

Add more water to cover the mangoes in 250 ml of water,

Heat,

Add the sugar and the lime juice,

Boil to made a one-string syrup (it is interesting to know that the original recipe, which was cooked on a wood stove, recommends a full hour of further boiling),

Once the syrup forms, take the mangoes off the stove,

With the back of a spoon mash the mango pieces into the syrup to make a paste of the syrup and mango.

Grate the onions,

Heat 200 grams ghee,

Fry onions until evenly brown,

Stirring occasionally to prevent onions burning at the bottom of the vessel,

Add the meat to the brown onions and fry till all the meat pieces change colour and begin to brown on all sides ,

Add all the ground coriander leaves,

Add salt to taste,

Fry for a further minute or two,

Add 900 ml of water let the meat cook till tender and edible (recipe on wood stove speaks of two hours or more, if required),

Add water if needed so as to ensure that there is about 200 ml of gravy left after cooking.

Remove the gravy from the pot and place aside for later use.

Add all the remaining ghee to the to the meat,

Further add the ground ginger and spices; and mix well,

Fry the spices and the meat together for another 2 to 4 minutes,

Add a few cardamom seeds, the mango pastes (the sweet and unsweetened), and the currants to the meat,

Cook for another few minutes for the meat to absorb the flavours of the spices.

Pour into the meat, all the gravy that was put aside and cook uncovered for another few minutes.

Serve with long grained white rice boiled with salt and a couple of cloves.

Serve a salad made of onions, tomatoes and cucumbers dressed in lime juice and salt (Cachumber).