Chefs at BRICS Summit working hard to provide food for international journalists

BRICS

International journalists covering the BRICS Summit in Xiamen are likely satisfied with the food there. At the International Broadcast Center, chefs are working hard to provide meals.

CGTN’s Anand Naidoo was granted access to the kitchen.

The kitchen at the 2017 BRICS Summit International Broadcast Center in Xiamen is some place few people get a chance to see. More than 130 chefs are working there to feed up to 28-hundred people at once. They prepare nearly 20 dishes for each meal service.

Xu Chunfeng is one of those hard-working chefs. He has 40 years’ experience making shacha noodles, one of the most famous dishes of Xiamen.

“There are 7-8 ingredients included in the base,” Xu Chenfeng talks about the process of making shacha. “We blend oil extracted from peanuts, roasted sesame oil with curry and chili powder, and mix them with the soup last.”

There are also special shacha dishes for Muslim journalists with chicken as a base instead of pork.

Chefs are using the best of what this region has to offer. As a coastal city, Xiamen is rich of fresh and delicious seafood such as tuna, shrimp and cod.

Even the chicken there is different. It is from a place named Hetian province, prized for its tender meat. The chefs prepare 300 chickens at a time for just one meal.

“Hetian chicken with mushrooms is one of the most famous dishes here in Fujian province,” according to Chen Tiehui, manager of Seashine Group.

The dishes there are rooted in Chinese culture, but in many cases they are adapted to fit the palates of journalists from more than 80 countries.