Chinese cuisine

Products: rice, meat and poultry, soy products, Beijing cabbage, hoisin sauce, Sichuan pepper

Popular Dishes: Meat, Poultry, Fish and Vegetables in Sour-Sweet Sauce, Peking Duck, Wontons

Peculiarities of Chinese cuisine
In this cuisine, unlike most Asian countries, there is much more meat than seafood. In addition to rice, the northern part of the country actively cultivates cereals – and eats flour dishes. And in general, according to the Chinese themselves, there is nothing edible that they do not use for food. There is no single Chinese cuisine: both the composition of products and cooking methods vary from region to region.

There are several influential and well-known culinary traditions:

• Cantonese;
• Shandong;
• Jiangsu;
• Sichuan.

Cantonese cuisine has given the culinary traditions of many countries dim sum, small portions of various snacks served for breakfast or before lunch. These can be vegetables and fruits, rice porridge with various additions, including meat, rolls of rice cakes with meat or vegetable fillings, even soups. Among dim sum snacks, fried dumplings (wontons), jiaoji filled with meat and vegetables, and steamed dumplings or yeast patties (baozzi) are a must. The most popular filling includes pork and cabbage, as well as pumpkin, mushrooms, tofu, and shrimp.

Shandong cuisine makes extensive use of grains and seafood, and preserving the taste of the food is important in cooking. The most famous dishes are stewed trepanfish and abalone, and carp in sweet and sour sauce. The most exotic dishes are shark fin soup and swallow’s nests. The real symbol of Chinese cuisine is Peking duck, also a traditional dish of Shandong Province. The duck meat, baked in a wood-fired oven, is served sliced thin with tortillas, sweet sauce, or soy and crushed garlic.

Jiangsu cuisine is characterized by its delicate flavor and the selection of ingredients according to the season. The most famous are “crystal pig’s feet” (salted pork hooves are fermented, stewed with onions, ginger, and rice wine added, and then frozen); pork head stew, turtle stew, pork meatballs, and crab shell powder.

Sichuan cuisine is characterized by spicy and greasy dishes. One of the symbols of this cuisine is ma po tofu, soybean curd stewed with ground pork or beef with seasonings and fermented soybeans. Another classic dish is gongbao chicken: marinated chicken pieces fried in sesame oil with nuts and red peppers.