Guide to Chinese Food

The Perfect Taste Makers

Chinese people put a lot of effort in perfecting the blend of the colour, aroma, taste and shape, of the food which is of prime importance in the preparation of each dish, thereby, satisfying the sense of taste, sense of smell, and visual senses. The primary methods of preparing dishes as used by Chinese include stir-frying, stewing, steaming, deep-frying, flash-frying, and pan-frying.

The Misconception

Most foreigners are unaware of the authentic Chinese food. They think that “Chinese food” usually implies a lot of deep-fried, strong-flavoured and greasy dishes that all taste similar. In reality, Chinese food is extremely diverse like the Chinese culture. China houses many nationalities and therefore presents a wide variety of Chinese foods, each with quite different but fantastic and mouth-watering flavours.

The Variety of Taste

Mainly the Chinese cuisine can be divided into eight regional cuisines. To name a few, there are Shandong Cuisine, Fujian Cuisine, Huaiyang Cuisine, Zhejiang Cuisine, Anhui Cuisine. There are also other local cuisines that are famous, such as Beijing Cuisine and Shanghai Cuisine.

The two most popular Chinese cuisine types are:

Guangdong (Cantonese) Cuisine

This cuisine is familiar to Westerners. The dishes taste clean, light, crisp and fresh and use fowl and other meats to produce its unique dishes. It includes basic cooking techniques such as roasting, stir-frying, sautéing, deep-frying, braising, stewing and steaming. Steaming and stir-frying are most frequently used to preserve the ingredients' natural flavours. Guangdong chefs also pay much attention to the artistic presentation of their dishes. Their most popular food items include Steamed Sea Bass; Roasted Piglet; Dim Sum (a variety of side dishes and desserts), etc.

Sichuan (“Szechwan”) Cuisine

It is characterized by its spicy and pungent flavours, with a variety of tastes. It emphasizes the use of chilli, pepper and prickly ash, garlic, ginger and fermented soybean to produce the typical exciting tastes. Wild vegetables and meats are often chosen as ingredients and pickling and braising are used as basic cooking techniques. It is often said that one who doesn't experience Sichuan food has never reached China. The cuisine offers delicacies like Hot Pot, Smoked Duck, Kung Pao Chicken, Tasty and Spicy Crab, Twice Cooked Pork, Mapo Tofu and others.

Another kind of cuisine that is an important part of Chinese Cuisine is the Medicinal Cuisine. It is derived from traditional Chinese herbal medicine practice and combines traditional Chinese medicine with traditional culinary materials to produce delicious food with health restoring qualities. The selection of herbs depends on each individual's condition of health. Doctors prescribe medicinal food because of its herbal nature. In order to extract more of the herbs' healing properties, cooking methods such as stewing, braising and simmering are usually used in this cuisine to prepare foods like Baby Pigeon Stewed with Gouqi (Medlar) and Huangqi (membranous milk vetch), Pork Simmered with Lotus Seed and lily, etc.

Chinese have an intricate relationship with food. It is not something that only deals with the taste buds, it goes beyond. It not only deals with improvement of health but also in establishing peaceful coexistence. A lot of Chinese foods are also symbolic, especially during traditional festivals or other special occasions. The Chinese use chopsticks as it reflects gentleness and benevolence. In China, since people eat together, usually the host will serve you some dishes with his or her own chopsticks as a show of hospitality. Chinese has a way of saying things with food be it respect or hospitality.