Originally Posted by
owbjhx
I agree with yittz. In general, Huang Rong's signature dishes in She Diao suggest that Jinyong probably knows as little about real cooking as he does about real fighting. The three main ones are:
"Who Hears the Falling Plum in the Jade Flute?"
- flutes of baby lamb rump, piglet's ear, calf's kidney, minced deer leg, and rabbit.
"Fine Accompaniment Soup"
- dark green broth, with lotus leaves, turtledove-stuffed cherries, pink flower petals, and baby bamboo shoot tips.
"24 Bridges in the Clear Moonlight"
- steamed spheres of doufu, cooked in pockets hollowed out inside a ham.
Actually, the last one sounds like it might be interesting.
Elsewhere in the novel, HR cooks:
- a slab of beef wrapped in wet mud (the first meal she ever cooked for Guo Jing);
- the famous Beggar's Chicken (a fat rooster stolen from a farmhouse, gutted and washed but with the feathers still on, wrapped in wet mud and roasted over a fire);
- a 'picnic' for GJ and Hong Qigong while they're training: smoked leg of frog, 'Eight-Treasure Duck', and a roll of snowy-white 'silver vermicelli';
- a dinner of sauteed hearts of baicai, with chicken oil and shredded duck feet; and
- chicken stewed with 'koumo' mushroom (GJ's favourite!).
This stuff isn't very "She Diao", but it'd probably actually taste nice.