Chef brings ‌Chinese New Year to Berlin

With Chinese New Year festivities upon us, the New Year's Eve dinner is the most important meal of the year in a Chinese household as families come together to celebrate. The dinner serves up the finest dishes that can be quite the test of culinary expertise. At the Chinese Culture Center in Berlin a special class was held demonstrating how to hone the skills needed. CGTN tagged along.

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Renowned Chef Long Wei put a group of amateurs through the finer points of top-level Chinese cooking to make the perfect Chinese New Year's Dinner.

Long is a master at his craft who travelled to the German capital from Beijing to give this class. He was previously the chef at the Chinese Embassy in Washington DC.

The menu on offer is Guìhuā nuòmǐ ǒu - lotus root stuffed with sticky rice - with sōngshǔ yú (squirrel fish) in a sweet and sour sauce. Méicài kòuròu (pork belly) with steamed bread followed.

And no Chinese New Year would be complete without the meat and vegetable-filled dumplings - Jiǎozi - so delicate and beautiful when made by a professional…..not so in this reporter's hands.

After the learning, of course, comes the eating. Eleneus Meulengracht, one of the students, told CGTN that he was taking home high expectations.

"I like cooking in general, and I am not very experienced in cooking Chinese food. And so I think, yeah, it was a really very good experience. And I think I will try to make the fish in the future, but I will try everything else as well."

Petra Lehmann is the Chairperson of the German-Chinese Friendship Association of Ludwigsfeld in Brandenburg. She told CGTN she hopes to bring what she has picked up in this class to future events that she will run.

"We hold a small event for my club every week and every month, and it's always about hard politics," she said. "Now, I finally want to experience more of Chinese culture of all the beauty and wealth of this country. And I think that was, a first moment to get to know a small part of this wonderful cuisine. So not only to eat it, but also to participate in how you create this wonderful food.”

However you prepare your Chinese New Year feast, we hope you fare better than our reporter in the dumpling-making stakes and wish you a very happy Spring Festival.

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