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Min Cuisine
- Updated:
- Aug 28, 2009;
- by:
- China Highlights;
- Clicks:
- 99;
Min Cuisine, also called Fujian Cuisine, originates from South China’s Fujian Province. The history of Min Cuisine dates back to 5000 years ago. It consists of three styles, namely Fuzhou style, which is usually tastes light compared with other styles, often with a mixed sweet and sour taste; Western Fujian style, featuring slightly spicy flavoring from mustard and pepper; and Southern Fujian style, which usually tastes spicy and sweet.
The three notable features of Min Cuisine are: the use of delicacies from the mountains and sea as the main ingredients, a specialism in soup making and expertise in applying various kinds of seasonings. Fujian’s abundant natural resources mean Fujian Cuisine is rich in high-quality ingredients, especially delicacies from the mountains and sea.
Min Cuisine pays a great deal of attention on utilizing soup. As a saying about the region's cuisine goes: "It is unacceptable for a meal not to have soup". Fujian people like to use various kinds of sauces and seasonings to create the tastes of salty, sweet, sour and spicy. Salty seasonings include shrimp sauce, shrimp oil and soy sauce; sour seasonings include white vinegar and qiaotou (a vegetable similar to green onion and garlic); sweet seasonings include brown sugar and crystal sugar; sweet-smelling seasononings include brown sugar, spiced powder, aniseed and cassia bark; and spicy seasonings include pepper and mustard.
The cooking techniques of Fujian Cuisine are: pan-frying, deep-frying, boiling, baking, stewing, mixing, sautéing with wine, stewing in gravy, grilling, cooking with red rice wine, simmering, stir-frying, smoking, braising and salting. Among them the most characteristic one is cooking with red rice wine, which includes stir-frying with red rice wine, and baking with red rice wine, quick-frying with red rice wine and deep-frying with red rice wine. The “drunken" (cooked in wine) dishes are prevalent in Fujian Province and very famous throughout China.
Representative Dishes
Fotiaoqiang (literally Buddha Jumps Over The Wall), one of the most notable dishes in Min Cuisine, is a complex dish making use of many ingredients, including shark fin, sea cucumber, abalone, and Shaoxing wine. As folklore goes, a poet of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) wrote a poem to describe the dish: “The dish was so delicious and fragrant, even a Buddha who smelled the aroma would jump over the wall of a temple to taste it.”
Zui Paigu (literally Drunk Ribs), made of wine marinated ribs, pan-fried with particular seasonings and sauces, is another famous dish in Min Cuisine.
Min Cuisine Menu
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