CHINESE-II

Cantonese cuisine (粵菜, pinyin: yue4 cai4) originates from the region around Canton in
southern China's Guangdong province.

There is a Cantonese saying: "We eat everything on the ground with four legs except
tables and chairs. We eat everything in the sky except airplanes."1 Cantonese cuisine
includes almost all edible food in addition to the staples of pork, beef and chicken --
snakes, snails, insects, worms, chicken feet, duck tongues, ox genitals, and entrails. A
subject of controversy amongst Westerners, dogs are raised as food in some places in
China, though this is not a common food you find in restaurants, and is illegal in Hong
Kong.

Despite the countless Cantonese cooking methods, steaming, stir frying and deep frying
are the most popular cooking methods in restaurants due to the short cooking time, and
philosophy of bringing out the flavor of the freshest ingredients.

Elements of Cooking

Spices
Cantonese cuisine can be characterized by the use of very mild and simple spices in
combination.

Ginger, spring onion, sugar, salt, soy sauce, rice wine, corn starch and oil are sufficient
for most Cantonese cooking.

Garlic is used heavily in dishes especially with internal organs that have unpleasant
odors, such as entrails.

Five spices powder, white pepper powder and many other spices are used in Cantonese
dishes, but usually very lightly.

Cantonese cuisine is sometimes considered bland by Westerners used to thicker, richer

and darker sauces of other Chinese cuisines.

Freshness
Spicy hot dishes are extremely rare in Cantonese cuisine.

Spicy hot food is more common in very hot climates, such as those of Szechuan,
Thailand, etc. where food spoils easily.

Canton has the richest food resources in China in terms of agriculture and aquaculture.
The copious amount of fresh food and mild weather led to Cantonese cuisine bringing
out, rather than drowning out, the natural flavors.

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As an example of the high standard for freshness at Cantonese meals, cows and pigs used
for meat are usually killed earlier the same day. Chickens are often killed just hours
beforehand, and fish are displayed in tanks for customers to choose for immediate
preparation. It is not unusual for a waiter at a Cantonese restaurant to bring the live
flipping fish or the crawling lobster to the table to show the patron as proof of freshness
before cooking.

Seafood
Due to Canton's proximity to the southern coast of China, fresh live seafood is a specialty
in Cantonese cuisine.

In a Cantonese's viewpoint, strong spices are added only to stale seafood to cover the
rotting odor.

The freshest seafood is odorless, and is best cooked by steaming.

For instance, only a little soy sauce, some ginger and some spring onion is added to a
steamed fish.

The light seasoning is used only to bring out the natural sweetness of the seafood.

However, most restaurants would gladly get rid of their stale seafood inventory by
offering dishes loaded with garlic and spices.

So if the waiter insists on a spicy preparation for your pick of seafood, it may mean that
it's already started to smell. Pick something else.

As a rule of thumb in Cantonese dining, the spiciness of a dish is usually inversely

proportional to the freshness of the ingredients.

Soup
Another unique Cantonese specialty is slow cooked soup.

This is almost unheard of in any other Chinese cuisines.

The soup is usually a clear broth prepared by simmering meat and other ingredients for
several hours.

Sometimes, Chinese herbal medicines are added to the pot.

The ingredients of a rather expensive Cantonese slow cooked soup are: fresh whole
chicken, dried air bladder of cod fish, dried sea cucumber and dried abalone.

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Another more affordable example includes pork bones, watercress with two types of
almonds, etc. The combinations are varied and numerous.

The main attraction is the liquid in the pot, the solids are usually thrown away unless they
are expensive ingredients like abalones or shark fins.

A whole chicken may simmer in a broth for six hours or longer.

The solids are usually unpalatable but the essences are all in the liquid.

Traditional Cantonese families have this type of soup at least once a week.

Though in this day and age, many families cannot afford this tradition due to the long
preparation time required.

For the same reason, not many restaurants serve this type of soup either.

Even if they do, it can only be served as soupe du jour.

Preserved food
Though Cantonese cooks pay much attention to the freshness of their cooking
ingredients, Cantonese cooking also uses a long list of preserved food items.

Some items gain very intense flavors during the drying/aging/preservation/oxidation

process, similar to Italian style sun-dried tomatoes' intensified flavor from drying.

Some chefs combine both dried and fresh variety of the same items in a dish to create a
contrast in the taste and texture.

Dried items are usually soaked in water to rehydrate them before cooking, such as
mushrooms.

Or they are cooked with water over long hours until they are tender and juicy.

For example, dried abalone and dried scallop have much stronger flavors than the fresh
one without the undesirable strong fishy odor.

Not only do preserved foods have a longer shelf life, sometimes the dried foods are
preferred over the fresh ones because of their uniquely intense flavor or texture.

Some favorite dried/preserved food products include:

Dried Shiitake mushroom
Dried abalone
Dried scallop
Dried sea cucumber

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Dried air bladder from various fishes
Dried shrimp
Dried shark fin
Dried bird nest
Dried Bok Choy - a kind of chinese green vegetable
Pickled Bok Choy
Pickled raddish
Fu Yu - Salted and fermented tofu
Salted preserved fish
Salted preserved duck
Salted preserved pork
Salted egg - preserved in brine until the egg white turned watery and the yolk turned solid
Thousand year old egg - preserved in lime until the egg white turned gelatinous and dark
brown, the yolk dark green
various dried fruits, herbs and flowers

etc.

Sample Dishes
Cantonese dishes are too numerous to be completely listed, but some notable

dishes include:
Dim Sum - (literally touch of heart), small dishes served with tea usually at lunch
Shrimp wonton noodle soup
Char shiu - BBQ pork usually with a red outer coloring
Braised squabs
Thick rice porridge with various toppings and deep-fried breadsticks
Pork rind curry
Dace fish balls
Steamed fish
Steamed fish intestines
Salted preserved fish
Steamed chicken
Slow cooked soups
Shark fin soup
Braised dried abalone
Herbal turtoise gelatin
Various steamed desserts and sweet soups
Steamed shrimp dumplings (har gow)
Lo mein - noodles served a unique way

Other favorites with unique Cantonese style:

Roasted suckling pig
Roasted duck
Braised crispy chicken

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Soy sauce chicken
Beef entrails
Beef stew
Hot pot
Pan-fried crispy noodles - two sides brown fried egg noodles
Black tea with condensed milk
Various dessert drinks served with shaved ice

Hakka (客家) people are migratory tribes of ethnic Han people originated from central
China.

Their ancestors exiled themselves from foreign rulers such as the Mongols in Yuan
Dynasty.

Due to their late migration to the southern areas of China, they found that all of the best
land had been settled long before. The Hakkas then were forced to settle in the sparsely
settled hill country. As a result, fresh produce was at a premium, forcing the Hakkas to
heavily utilize dried and preserved ingredients, such as various kinds of fermented
beancurd and much use of onion. Due to the hill country being far inland seafood is a
rarity. Pork is by far the most favored meat of the Hakkas, with back bacon being the
preferred cut as it has alternating layers of fat and lean meat, providing an excellent
texture.

A couple of famous dishes in Hakka restaurants in Hong Kong:

Salt baked chicken (東江鹽焗雞) - supposed to be baked inside a heap of hot salt, but
many restaurants simply cook in brine nowadays.
Duck stuffed with rice (糯米鴨) - a whole duck is de-boned while maintaining the shape
of the bird, the cavities are filled with seasoned sticky rice.
Tofu soup in pot (東江釀豆腐煲) - the stuffed tofu cubes.
Beef ball soup - very simple clear broth with lettuce and beef balls.

Other traditional Hakka dishes include: Fried pork with fermented beancurd: This is a
popular Chinese New Year offering which involves two stages of cooking. As previously
mentioned, fresh food was at a premium in Hakka areas, so the marinated pork was deep
fried to remove the moisture in order to preserve it. When a meal of pork was desired, the
fried pork was then stewed with water and wood's ear fungus. Think of it as a Hakka
equivalent to canned soup.

Yong Tau Foo (釀豆腐): Various oddments including eggplants, chillies and bitter melon
stuffed with fish paste, beancurd, beancurd skin, fish and meat balls among other
ingredients, served in clear soup.

Kau yuk (扣肉): Alternate pieces of pork and yam served in a dark sauce whose principal
component is, of course, fermented beancurd.

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Hakka food also includes takes on other traditional Chinese dishes, just as other Chinese
dialects do.
Hunan Cuisine, sometimes called Xiang Cuisine (湘菜 pinyin xiang1 cai4), consists of
the cuisines of the Xiangjiang region, Dongting Lake and western Hunan Province, in
China.

While similar to Szechuan cuisine, Hunan Cuisine is often spicier and contains a larger
variety of ingredients. Hunan is known for its liberal use of chilli peppers, shallots and
garlic. Many Hunan dishes are characterized by a strongly flavored brown sauce. Some
rely on sweetness from ingredients such as honey; sweet and sour sauces are also
characteristic of the style.

Hunan cuisine is difficult to precisely characterize, as it has absorbed stylistic elements

from all over China. For this reason, the region is sometimes regarded as China's culinary
center. Common cooking techniques include stewing, frying, pot-roasting, braising, and
smoking. Due to the high agricultural output of the region, ingredients for Hunan dishes
are many and varied.

Some representative Hunan dishes include:

Sweet and Sour Chicken
Orange Beef
Crispy Duck
Dongan Chicken
Peppery and Hot Chicken (Hot and Spicy Chicken)
Lotus Seeds in Sugar Candy
Mandarin cuisine refers to cooking style in Beijing, China.

It is known as jing1 cai4 (京菜) among Chinese.

Since Beijing has been the Chinese capital city for centuries, its cuisine was influenced
by people from all over China. The Emperor's Kitchen was a term referring to the
cooking places inside of the Forbidden City of Beijing where thousands of cooks from
the different parts of China showed their best cooking skills to please royal families and
officials. Therefore, sometimes it is very difficult to tell if a Mandarin dish is really
originated from Beijing or not.

Mandarin wikis may help here. Some famous Mandarin dishes:

Hot and sour soup??
String beans with minced pork??
Eggplant with Minced pork in chili sauce

Due to a large Muslim population in China, many Chinese restaurants cater to Muslims or
cater to the general public but are run by Muslims. A Chinese Islamic restaurant (清真菜
館) can sometimes be similar to a Mandarin restaurant with the exception that there is no
pork in the menu. In most major cities in China, there are small Islamic restaurants
typicially run by migrants from Western China, which offer inexpensive noodle soup.

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These restaurants are typically decorated with Islamic motifs such as pictures of Islamic
rugs and Arabic writing.

Another difference is that lamb and mutton dishes are more commonly available than in
other Chinese restaurants.

In the US, Chinese Islamic restaurants are frequented by non-Chinese as well.

Pakistanis and Arabics are among the regular clientele.

Shanghai cuisine, known as Hu cai (滬菜 in pinyin: hu4 cai4) among Chinese.

someone needs to describe the characteristics of Shanghai cuisine. Some famous

Shanghai dishes include:
Shao Loon Bow - steamed dumplings with meat filling,
Yin See Jiaun - silver threaded bun,
Yim Douh Sin - a soup,
Sze Ji Tou - braised meat ball
Chiu Do Fu - deep fried stinky tofu (pinch your nose for the rotten odor).

Szechuan Cuisine or Sichuan Cuisine (川菜, pinyin: chuan1 cai4), originating in the
Sichuan province of western China, has an international reputation for being spicy and
flavorful.

Some well-known Szechuan dishes include "Kung Pao Chicken" and "Twice Cooked
Pork". Although many Szechuan dishes live up to their spicy reputation, often ignored are
the large percentage of recipes that use little or no spice at all, including recipes such as
"Tea Smoked Duck".

What many do not realize is that the chili pepper, a common ingredient in Szechuan
cuisine (often used unseeded), was only introduced to China following Columbus's
discovery of the New World. Chili peppers were perhaps introduced to the remote
Szechuan province by Western missionaries. Previous Szechuan cuisine was not
completely without spice, however. Szechuan Pepper is an indigenous plant (fruit) that
produces a milder spice, and is still a key ingredient in Szechuan food to this day. The
reason for this emphasis on spice may derive from the region's warm, humid climate.
This climate also necessitates sophisticated food-preservation techniques which include
pickling, salting, drying and smoking

Common preparation techniques in Szechuan cuisine include stir frying, steaming and
basting. Beef is more common in Szechuan cuisine than it is in other Chinese cuisines,
perhaps due to the widespread use of oxen in the region. Stir-fried beef is often cooked
until chewy, while steamed beef is sometimes coated with rice flour to produce a rich
gravy.

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Some common Szechuan dishes include:
Chengdu Chicken
Kung Pao Chicken
Tea Smoked Duck
Twice Cooked Pork
Mapo Dofu
Szechuan Hotpot

Chiuchow cuisine or Chaozhou cuisine originates from Chiuchow, a city of China in the
Guangdong Province, not far from Canton.

Hence the cooking style is very similar to Cantonese cuisine.

However, Chiuchow cuisine does have some unique dishes that are not in Cantonese
cuisine.

Chiuchow cuisine is known for serving rice soup, in addition to steamed rice with meals,
which is quite different from Cantonese porridge or congee which is very thick and gluey.
The Chiuchow rice soup is very watery with the rice sitting loosely at the bottom of the
bowl.

Authentic Chiuchow restaurants serve very strong oolong tea in very tiny cups before and
after the meal.

There is a famous feast in Chiuchow cuisine called "Gau Dai Gui" (九大簋) which
roughly means "nine big courses" in the dinner.

Chiuchow chefs pride themselves on their skill in vegetable carving.

Carved vegetables are used as garnishes on cold dishes and on the banquet table.

Chiuchow is also known for a late night dinner called "Da Loun" (打冷). Chiuchow
people like to eat out in restaurants or at roadside food stalls close to midnight before
they go to bed. Some restaurants stay open till dawn.

Some famous Chiuchow dishes include, among others:

Steamed goose
Cold crab
Fun Goh (a steamed dumpling filled with dried raddish, peanuts and ground meat)
Shrimp balls
Oyster pancake
Tiet Kwun Yum (a premium grade Oolong Tea)

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Buddhist cuisine is known as zhai1 cai4 (齋菜 -- literally, pure dishes) among Chinese.

When picking up the menu in a Chinese Buddhist vegetarian restaurant, one may wonder
if the menu is misprinted. One will find the menu listing dishes such as chicken, duck,
beef, lamb, pork, fish etc in addition to the vegetable dishes. All these meat dishes are
made of imitation meat. Some of these taste like the real thing.

Due to religious beliefs, many Buddhists do not eat animal products because they don't
believe in killing. Other Buddhists will interpret the precept against killing to mean
human beings and thus indulge in omnivorous behavior. Even Buddhist monks in some
parts of the world have been known to eat meat.

Many adherents would allow milk and (unfertilized) eggs in their diet, but some strict
believers would not. Some Buddhist vegetarians don't eat onion, garlic nor leek either.
Buddhist cuisine is not necessarily vegan. someone need to expand on the Buddhist rules
on dietary restrictions. In order to cater to those Buddhist customers who have missed the
meat dishes, Buddhist vegetarian chefs become extremely creative in imitating meat
using gluten, tofu, agar and other plant products. Gluten and tofu are very versatile
material, because they can be manufactured into various consistencies and textures. With
the proper seasoning and flavour, they can mimic various kinds of meat quite closely.
Many soy (mainly those fermented) products provide the meaty favour. Pure vegetable
dishes in these restaurants are not different from those offered in regular Chinese
restaurant, perhaps with the only exception that lard would never be used in Buddhist
cooking. Occasional customers to a Buddhist restaurant tend to forget about the pure
veggie dishes and order a table full of imitation meat dishes due to the novelty.

Buddhist vegetarian restaurants can be profitable businesses because the material cost is
much cheaper than meat, but the dishes are priced as if they are made of real meat. Also,
Buddhism is so widespread in China that there is never a shortage of customers.

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