Fujian cuisine
Fujian cuisine or Fujianese cuisine, also known as Min cuisine or Hokkien cuisine, is one of the native Chinese cuisines derived from the native cooking style of China's Fujian Province, most notably from the provincial capital, Fuzhou. Fujian cuisine is known to be light but flavourful, soft, and tender, with particular emphasis on umami taste, known in Chinese cooking as xianwei, as well as retaining the original flavour of the main ingredients instead of masking them.
Many diverse seafood and woodland delicacies are used, including a myriad variety of local fish, shellfish and turtles, or indigenous edible mushrooms and bamboo shoots, provided by the coastal and mountainous regions of Fujian. The most commonly employed cooking techniques in the region's cuisine include braising, stewing, steaming and boiling.
Particular attention is paid on the finesse of knife skills and cooking technique of the chefs, which is used to enhance the flavour, aroma and texture of seafood and other foods. Strong emphasis is put on the making and utilising of broth and soups. There are sayings in the region's cuisine: "One broth can be changed into numerous forms" and "It is unacceptable for a meal to not have soup".
Fermented fish sauce, known locally as "shrimp oil", is also commonly used in the cuisine, along with oyster, crab and shrimp. Peanuts are also prevalent, and can be boiled, fried, roasted, crushed, ground or even turned into a paste. Peanuts can be used as a garnish, feature in soups and even be added to braised or stir-fried dishes.
Fujian cuisine has had a profound impact on Taiwanese cuisine and on the overseas Chinese cuisines found in Southeast Asia as the majority of Taiwanese and Southeast Asian Chinese people have ancestral roots in Fujian province.
Styles
Fujian cuisine consists of three styles:- Fuzhou: The taste is lighter compared to other styles, often with an equally-mixed taste of sweet and sour. Fuzhou is famous for its soups, and its use of fermented fish sauce and red yeast rice.
- Southern Fujian: The taste is slightly stronger than Fuzhou cuisine, showing influence from Southeast Asian and Japanese cuisines. Use of sugar and spices is more common. Various kinds of slow-cooked soup are found. Many dishes come with dipping sauces. Main ingredients include rice, pork, beef, chicken, duck, seafood and various vegetables. Sometimes includes Taiwanese cuisine in its definition.
- Western Fujian: There are often slight spicy tastes from mustard and pepper and the cooking methods are often steaming, frying and stir-frying. The food is saltier and oilier compared to other parts of Fujian, usually focusing on meat rather than seafood.
Seasonings
Fujian is also well known for its "drunken" dishes and is famous for the quality of the soup stocks and bases used to flavour their dishes, soups and stews.
Notable dishes
One of the most famous dishes in Fujian cuisine is "Buddha Jumps Over the Wall", a complex dish making use of many ingredients, including shark's fin, sea cucumber, abalone and Shaoxing wine.Fujian is also notable for yanpi, literally "swallow skin," a thin wrapper made with large proportions of lean minced pork. This wrapper has a unique texture due to the incorporation of meat and has a "bite" similar to things made with surimi. Yanpi is used to make rouyan, a type of wonton.
| English | Traditional Chinese | Simplified Chinese | Pinyin | Pe̍h-ōe-jī | Description |
| Bak kut teh | 肉骨茶 | 肉骨茶 | ròu gŭ chá | bah-kut-tê | Literally means "meat bone tea". A soup of pork ribs simmered in a broth of herbs and spices including star anise, cinnamon, cloves and garlic. It is usually eaten with rice or noodles. |
| Banmian | 板面 | 板面 | bǎnmiàn | Flat-shaped egg noodle soup | |
| Braised frog | 黄燜田雞 | 黄焖田鸡 | huáng mèn tiánjī | Frog braised in wine | |
| Buddha Jumps Over the Wall | 佛跳牆 | 佛跳墙 | fó tiào qiáng | hu̍t-thiàu-chhiûⁿ | Contains over 30 ingredients, including shark's fin, abalone, sea slug, dried scallops, duck, chicken breast, pig's trotters, mushrooms, pigeon eggs and other ingredients. A legend is that after the dish is cooked, the aroma lingers, and upon detecting the smell, a Buddhist monk forgot his vow to be a vegetarian and leapt over a wall to taste the dish. |
| Clams in chicken soup | 雞湯汆海蚌 | 鸡汤汆海蚌 | jī tāng cuān hǎibàng | Clams cooked in chicken stock | |
| Crispy skin fish rolls | 脆皮魚卷 | 脆皮鱼卷 | cuìpí yú juǎn | Fried bean curd skin with fish fillings | |
| Dried scallop with radish | 干貝蘿蔔 | 干贝萝卜 | gānbèi luóbò | White radish steamed with conpoy and Chinese ham | |
| Drunken ribs | 醉排骨 | 醉排骨 | zuì páigǔ | Pork ribs marinated in wine | |
| Eastern Wall Dragon Pearls | 東壁龍珠 | 东壁龙珠 | dōng bì lóngzhū | Longan fruit with meat fillings | |
| Five Colours Pearls | 五彩珍珠扣 | 五彩珍珠扣 | wǔ cǎi zhēnzhū kòu | Squid braised with vegetables | |
| Five Colours Shrimp | 五彩蝦松 | 五彩虾松 | wǔ cǎi xiā sōng | Stir-fried diced shrimp and vegetables | |
| Fragrant snails in wine | 淡糟香螺片 | 淡糟香螺片 | dàn zāo xiāng luó piàn | Snails cooked with wine lees | |
| Meat strips with green pepper | 青椒肉絲 | 青椒肉丝 | qīng jiāo ròu sī | Pork strips with green pepper. It has been adapted to become "pepper steak" in American Chinese cuisine. | |
| Min sheng guo | 閩生果 | 闽生果 | mǐn shēng guǒ | Stir-fried raw peanuts | |
| Misua / mee sua | 麵線 | 面线 | miàn xiàn | mī-sòaⁿ | A thin variety of Chinese noodles made from wheat flour |
| Ngo hiang | 五香 | 五香 | wǔ xiāng | ngó͘-hiong | Fried roll in five-spice powder filled with minced pork and vegetables. Also known as quekiam or kikiam and lor bak in places such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. |
| Oyster omelette | 蚵仔煎 | 蚵仔煎 | hé zǎi jiān | ô-á-chian | Omelette with oyster filling |
| Popiah / Lunpiah | 薄餅/潤餅 | 薄饼/润饼 | báobǐng/rùnbǐng | pȯh-piáⁿ | Crepe with bean sauce or soy sauce filling |
| Red wine chicken | 紅糟雞 | 红糟鸡 | hóng zāo jī | Chicken cooked in red yeast rice | |
| Stuffed fish balls | 包心魚丸 | 包心鱼丸 | bāo xīn yúwán | Fish balls filled with meat | |
| Yanpi | 燕皮 | 燕皮 | yàn pí | A thin wrapper made with large proportions of lean pork |
There are many eating places around the province that sell these specialties for two yuan, and which are thus known as "two-yuan eateries". In Xiamen, a local specialty is worm jelly, an aspic made from a species of marine peanut worm.