Skills of cooking beef and mutton (Hongbinlou whole lamb banquet preparation skills)
Beijing Hongbinlou opened in the third year of Emperor Xianfeng's reign in the Qing Dynasty (1853). It is an old restaurant that specializes in Muslim cuisine. It was originally located in Tianjin and moved to Beijing in 1955. The Qing Dynasty court entertained Muslim guests with high-end whole-lamb banquets. Whole-lamb banquets were popular in restaurants in the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China. Hongbinlou's famous chef Song Shaoshan and others enriched and improved it on the basis of learning from their predecessors, creating a special banquet with 120 dishes. The whole banquet uses lamb as the main ingredient, and the skills are used according to the ingredients. The structure is complete, the layout is meticulous, and there is a merit of following the rules and regulations. Hongbinlou's whole-lamb banquet has rich cooking methods and brings traditional techniques to the fullest. The banquet starts with the head of the lamb and ends with the tail of the lamb, and the dishes are served in order in an orderly manner. As for the head of the sheep, the top of the head is called "Qilinding" and is braised; the meat of the back of the head is called "Golden Crown" and is grilled; the brain is called "Cloud Head" and is stewed; the middle part of the ear is called "Shunfeng" and is stir-fried; the meat of the eyelid is called "Hupi" and is roasted; the meat behind the ear is called "Walnut Meat" and is fried; the meat under the nose bone is called "Wangfengpo" and is cooked; the crispy nose bone is called "Minggu" and is steamed, and so on. Therefore, the banquet is inherited from the tradition of the late Qing Dynasty, so it is specially avoided that the zodiac sign of Empress Dowager Cixi is the sheep. Although the whole sheep is used, there is no "sheep" in the name of the dish, but it is combined with the characteristics of the dish and given an elegant alias, such as the dish with sheep eyes and spinal cord as the main ingredients is called "Whip Hydrangea", and the dish with sheep liver as the main ingredient is called "Red Leaves with Frost". The preparation skills of the Hongbinlou whole sheep banquet occupy an important position in the history of Chinese cooking. Its elegant naming method shows the characteristics of traditional culture and has a certain reference value in the study of Chinese food culture.