- Names: Fujian food, Min cuisine
- Location: Southeast China, Fujian Province, Xiamen, Quanzhou
- Distinctives: lighter, with a sweet and sour taste, using ingredients from the sea and the mountains
Fujian cuisine is a type of Chinese cuisine that can also be called min cai. Fujian cuisine is derived from three separate influences, each of which is slightly different from the next. The three areas of Fujian cuisine are: Fuzhou, South Fujian, and West Fujian. Fuzhou dishes are fresher than the others, and contain less salt; they are also rarely very sweet or sour. South Fujian dishes are sweeter, hotter dishes that are flavored with hot sauces, custard, and orange juice. West Fujian dishes are the saltiest dishes of the three.
Though there are three categories of Fujian cuisine, there are also some unifying characteristics. Many Fujian dishes incorporate specialty ingredients sourced from the mountains, including mushrooms and bamboo shoots, and from the sea, including shellfish and cuttlefish.
Fujian cuisine also incorporates fine slicing techniques into its cooking and preparation methods, as fine slicing is said to better present the aroma and texture of food.
One of the most notable aspects of Fujian cuisine is that its dishes are mostly served in soup form, like mussels quick-boiled in chicken broth.
Seasonings Used
The Fujianese are distinguished for applying a wide variety of herbs and seasonings to flavor the food. They apply them to make the food taste good and make it aromatic. They also want to make it different and interesting, something new. When applied artistically, the various colors and herbs can also make a beautiful presentation.
- Salty seasonings: sea salt, shrimp sauce, shrimp oil, and soy sauce.
- Sour seasonings: white vinegar and qiaotou (a vegetable similar to green onion.
- Sweet seasonings: brown sugar, anise, and cassia cinnamon.
- Hot seasonings: pepper, mustard, and shacha sauce.
Special Cooking Techniques
The mostly used cooking techniques include steaming, pan-frying, frying, quick-frying, steam stewing, deep-frying and simmering. In addition, pickling with red vinasee is the distinctive cooking technique of Fujian cuisine, such as steamed fish in red vinasse, the fish is pickled with red vinasse and then steamed. Chiefs attaches great importance to cutting techniques as well. The slices should be as thin as paper.
Fujian Cuisine: Staple Dishes
Buddha Jumps Over the Wall. Over 10 ingredients are simmered with Shaoxing wine to cook this Fujian food, including chicken, abalones, squids, scallops, hams, quail eggs.
Boiled Sea Clam with Chicken Soup. This dish is a representative Fujian food, which tastes a little salty, while beef and pork tenderloin can also be added. The sea clams used are from Changle, Fujian.
Sweet and Sour Litchis. Because the fried chopped pork with red vinasse look like litchis both in shape and colour, this dish was named after litchi. Another important ingredient is chestnuts.
Sliced Whelk in Red Vinasse. As cooked thin whelk slices is covered with bright red vinasse sauce, the dish looks like a beautiful red flower in full blossom. It is a special local food in Fujian that is crisp, tender and refreshing with appealing appearance.
Fuzhou Fish Balls. Minced pork or shrimp is wrapped into the dough of the mixture of potato flour and minced eel, shark or mackerel to make the fish balls. They are boiled or fried before eating.
Oyster Omelette. This Fujian cuisine recipe is frying eggs together with the paste of oysters and potato flour. It is a traditional snack that is quite popular in Fujian, Taiwan and Chaoshan area.
