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Anhui Cuisine
Anhui cuisine is known for its use of wild game and herbs, both land and sea.
Beijing (Mandarin) Cuisine
Beijing cuisine has been influenced by culinary traditions from all over China.
Cantonese (Guangdong) Cuisine
Of the various regional styles of Chinese cuisine, Cantonese is the most well-known outside of China.
Fujian Cuisine
Fujian cuisine is famed for using seafoods, and for the visual presentation of its dishes.
Jiangsu Cuisine
Jiangsu cuisine's texture is characterized as soft, but not to the point of mushy or falling apart.
Shangdong Cuisine
Shangdong cuisine is characterized by seafood, with light tastes, also famed for its soup and utilizing soups in its dishes.
Shanghai Cuisine
Shanghai cuisine is epitomized by the use of alcohol. Fish, eel, crab, and chicken are "drunken" with spirits and are briskly cooked/steamed or served raw. The use of sugar is common.
Szechuan (Sichuan) Cuisine
Szechwan (Sichuan) cuisine is known for being hot and numbing, because of the common ingredient Sichuan peppercorn, chilli, ginger and spicy herbs. This emphasis on spice may derive from the region's warm, humid climate.
Zhejiang Cuisine
Zhejiang cuisine is characterized in poultry, freshwater fish, seafood, and the utilization of bamboo shoots.
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Hunan Cuisine
Hunan cuisine consists of the cuisines of the Xiang River region, Dongting Lake and western Hunan Province, in China. Hunan cuisine is consisted of three styles: Xiang River style which is represented by dishes of Changsha, Dongting Lake style which is represented by dishes of Hengyang, and western Hunan style which is represented by dishes of Xiangtan.
Hunan cuisine is one of the eight regional cuisines of China and is well known for its hot spicy flavor, fresh aroma and deep color. 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. Hunan is known for its liberal use of chilli peppers, shallots and garlic.
Hunan cuisine is known for being dry hot, or purely hot, as opposed to Szechuan cuisine, the neighbor to which it is often compared. Hunan Cuisine is often spicier and contains a larger variety of ingredients. Other characters distinguish Hunan cuisine from Szechuan cuisine is that in general, Hunan cuisine utilizes smoked and curing food in its dishes much more frequently than Szechuan cuisine. Hunan cuisine dishes are often more oily and look darker than Szechuan cuisine dishes.
Another feature of Hunan cuisine is the menu will change following the season's alternation. In a hot and humid summer, a meal will usually start with cold dishes or a platter holding a selection of cold meats with chillies for opening the pores and keeping cool in the summer. In winter, a popular choice is the hot pot, for heating the blood in the cold months.
The cooking skills employed in the Hunan cuisine reached a high standard as early as the Western Han Dynasty, giving it a history of more than 2,100 years. Hunan is located in southeastern China along the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, north of the Five Ridges. It contains rivers, lakes, mountains, rolling hills, plains, and pools, which provide abundant delicacies, such as game, fish, shrimp, crab, and turtle. Making full use of these rich resources, local people created a wide variety of delicacies. Hunan cuisine consists of more than 4,000 dishes, among which more than 300 are very famous. Hunan food is characterized by its hot and sour flavor, fresh aroma, greasiness, deep color, and the prominence of the main flavor in each dish. It consists of regional cuisines from the Xiangjiang River Valley, the Tongting Lake region, and the western mountainous area.
Human food is hot because the air is very humid, which makes it difficult for the human body to eliminate moisture. The local people eat hot peppers to help remove dampness and cold.
The Xiangjiang River Valley is represented by Changsha, Xiangtan, and Hengyang. The region has good transportation, talented people, and abundant resources. Local dishes require meticulous care of the raw materials and stress cutting skill, length and degree of cooking, color, and appearance. Cooking methods include stewing, simmering, curing, steaming, stir-frying, frying, and quick - frying. The flavors are pungent, chili, fresh and fragrant, and thickly fragrant. Such dishes as fried chicken with hot and spicy sauce, stir - fried tripe slivers, tripe in duck's web soup, dried scallop and egg-whites, and dog meat in hot pot are all typical foods.
The Dongting Lake region, surrounded by Changde, Yiyang, and Yueyang, is a tourist area. The Story of Yueyang Tower, written by Fan Zhongyan, a man of letters and a statesman during the Song Dynasty, stressed the beauty of the landscape, and gave a cultural aspect to the making and naming of local dishes. Representative dishes are Xiaoxiang Turtle, Wuling snake in its own soup, mashed shrimp in lotus pod, Tongting wild duck, jade - belt fish roll, and fish fillet in velvet. Deep color, hot and salty flavor, aroma, softness, and beautifully shaped and patterned serving dishes characterize these famous local dishes.
Jishou, Huaihua, and Dayong represent the western mountainous area. Because this area is mountainous, it has abundant game, mushrooms, and fungi. Its dishes are simple, rich, and pure. The mountain dwellers also make smoked, cured meats that are salty, fragrant, hot, sour, and delicious. For example, steamed cured meat, Double Ninth Festival could fungi, deep - fried loache (a fish similar to a carp), and hot and spicy frog legs all have the rich flavors of this mountainous region. Hunan cuisine stresses a pungent flavor, and dishes made of cured products also make an important contribution to Hunan food.
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