Today's topic: Min Cuisine (閩菜), it contains many styles from different parts of China, today's focus will be on food from Fu Jian (because it is the most popular amongst all types of Min Cuisine)!
What you need to know!
The same broth can take ten different forms! (that's right, TEN!)
To people of Fu Jian, a meal without soup is NOT a meal.
History: The dish I'm about the recommend, the infamous FO TIAO QIANG, is a delicacy that had been passed down since the Qing Dynasty (approx. 400 years ago!). In Chinese it directly translates to Buddha Jumping over the wall. You may think, that's a weird name for a dish, but there is actually a story behind it!
Description: Within this dish, every ingredient used is aromatic and rich in flavor, you can find a mix of different types of food in there, shark fin, abalone, sea cucumbers, beef, chicken, and many more. The story tells when this dish is made, the aromatic smell that lingers will cause monks who swore to never eat meat, would jump over the wall of the monastery just to have a single bite.
As mentioned before, most of the Min Cuisine involves a lot of soup and broths, Fo Tiao Qiang is no exception, when preparing this dish, all of the delicacy is put in a bowl and broiled slowly for hours until the aroma of all types of ingredients fills the room.
*Blogger's corner* So what is your view on Chinese now? We've tasted 3 out of the 8 major Chinese cuisines, what's your opinion so far? If there is a particular type of food you want to learn more about! Be sure to leave me a comment, and maybe it can be the topic for next week!
Have you ever wondered, what do the Chinese Emperors eat at their time?
Food served to the emperors and royalties, you wouldn't expect anything less other than "HuaiYang" (淮揚) cuisine.
In Huai Yang cuisine, there are a couple of features that stands out a lot.
The prestigious designs, and its extraordinary slicing techniques
its emphasis on the fresh taste of the ingredients
the choice and combination of the ingredients
The main belief behind this cuisine is its high nutritious value and its astounding presentation.
It is definitely something different compared to SzeChuan cuisine where the flavors are overwhelming, Huai Yang cuisine emphasizes its uniqueness in the fresh tastes of the food.
For those of you who are concerned about nutritious value, Huai Yang Cuisine is the thing for you!
The main ingredients used are pork and fresh water fishes, the seasoning used to prepare these ingredients are very light, where the seasoning its mainly used to draw out the natural flavors of the main ingredients.
Within this cuisine, there are two dishes I enjoy very much, and I would like to share with you!
"Chrysanthemum Herring"
I fell in love with this dish the first time I had it. It is basically a deep fried fish with sweet sauce. If you observe closely, you can see the fish was sliced very thinly before frying, causing the meat to look like the chrysanthemum flower, hence the name of the dish. I remembered when I first saw this, I thought to myself "this looks like many pieces of fish meat deep fried, and assembled back into the fish", then I later found out it was the precise cutting techniques of the Chef used on the dish prior to deep frying it. I rarely eat dish that is not steamed, so seeing this deep fried fish intrigued me. At first I thought the sweet taste of the fish meat would be destroyed after being fried, if you just nodded, you're wrong. The tender, juicy, and fresh taste of the fish is unbelievable, and the crunchy texture made the dish much more appetizing, and lastly seeing how beautiful this dish looks almost made me didn't want to eat it!
"The Lion's head meatball"
As the name implies, it is a meatball, nothing more and nothing less. However, do not be fooled by its simple appearance. Seeing that it looks like a big Swedish meat ball, it is normal for anyone to assume that this is a clump of meat packed into a ball shape, but this dish is full of surprises. When you bite into the meatball, there are a few things that you will experience: 1) a crunchy outer layer of the shell 2) soft and juicy meat on the inside and 3) You will want more. The main difference between the Lion's head meat ball and a Swedish meatball is the texture. In the core of the Lion's head meatball, it appears hollow, the meat is not damaged when made into a ball shape. It almost feels a meat shell with an empty core, but the core is filled with sweet and fresh juices from the meat. Why is that? That's because the meat ball is first fried for the shape to hold its form, next it is steamed in low heat to draw out the essence of the meat!
Unfortunately, this time I wasn't able to find a good Huai Yang restaurant for you guys to try! If you find one, please tell me! For the time being, here is a video on how to make the Chrysanthemum Herring! Try making this yourself! and be sure to share with us how your dish looks and taste!
(Sorry, I wasn't able to find an English version, Enjoy!)
This week's focus will be GuangZhou cuisine (also called Canton Cuisine). As one of the Chinese cuisine in the eight subdivisions of all Chinese food, GuangZhou cuisine originated from GuangDong, it is famous for the large amount of varieties and the freshness of the food.
In comparison to other Chinese cooking, rather than uses spices and herbs, it focuses mainly on 8 main ingredients:
salt, sugar, ginger, green onion, soya sauce, rice wine, corn starch, and oil
Its focus lies not on the strong flavors, but the texture and taste from the 8 main ingredients listed above.You will rarely see dishes that are filled with red chili peppers like in SzeChuan cuisine I talked about before, because of the moderate climate of GuangZhou, it allows for many different kinds of crops to be grown, hence it allows for a lot more variety in the choice of the main ingredients.
Aside from the main ingredients of beef, chicken, and pork, chefs often use other animals like pigeons and snakes. It is said that snake meat can help keep warmth during the winter time, which is why it is often made into a soup for endure the cold winter nights.
Within GuangZhou cuisine, it is also very popular to use dried ingredients to compliment the dish for the extra kick in the flavors, like preserved eggs and dries shrimps. However, some of these dried ingredients are even used as the main dish, like shark fin (made into Shark Fin Soup), swallow's nest (made into a dessert).
In a typical full menu, you could expect a soup, cold dishes as appetizers, a meat dish (mainly steamed/deep fried chicken), a sea food dish (mainly steamed fish), and lastly dessert.
There is are a lot of emphasis on the soup, as it marks the beginning of the meal. A well made soup is very important, it usually would be boiled in a big pot for hours before serving, to ensure the flavors of all of the ingredients are drawn out. The main ingredient in soups are usually chicken and pork, because they carry the richest flavor that will not overwhelm the other ingredients.
Here are two websites that provide good information for tourists on Guang Zhou cuisine:
For this week's restaurant of choice, I had picked out "Golden Times Chinese Cuisine" located in Richmond Hill. There are a number of things you have to try, one of my special recommendation is their deep fried chicken (served with shrimp chips), the chicken is juicy and tender, and the skin is thin, unlike the ones you would eat at Kentucky Fried Chicken where it looks extremely fattening and unhealthy. The restaurant is more expensive than other places, but you're paying for quality food.
Coming from Hong Kong, where GuangZhou cuisine is mainly served, we rarely eat dishes filled with chili peppers. However, as a Chinese, I feel that there is a need to discover different cuisine served in different parts of China.
Amongst the eight major types of Chinese, today's main course will be about SzeChuan food. As the name implies, the origin of the food came from the southern part of China, SzeChuan. Famous for their flavorful spices, the majority of the SzeChuan dishes tends to be more spicy. In Chinese cuisine, even spicy has two levels, there is "麻" (pronounced Ma), the strong numbing taste created with a lot of SzeChuan peppercorn is famous from their spicy hotpot; the second element is "辣" (pronounced Lat), which basically gives the dishes the heat, usually created using SzeChuan red chili peppers.
Some of the more famous SzeChuan dishes are Ma Po Tofu, Kung Po chicken and their spicy hotpot. A particular restaurant I enjoy going to is "SzeChuan Garden", located at First Markham Place on Hwy7.
One of my favorite dishes from there is their "Fuqi Fei Pian" which is finely sliced beef and tripe marinated in a Ma Lat sauce, the combination of the two spices works in harmony to create a tangy and spicy flavor.
I remembered that day I sat on my chair, looking at the Fuqi Fei Pian, I thought to myself "Toro, what are you getting yourself into?" The simple view of the orange chili oil and the red chili peppers terrified me, I was very hesitant to eat spicy food, but since my friends kept talking about how good this dish is, I had to find the courage to at least try. The dish was very spicy, but the fact that it was served cold made it easier to eat. From someone who doesn't eat spicy food, I think this had got to be the best dish I had tasted. Do not be afraid of the chili oil, its not as bad as you think! It is actually the chili oil that gives it the distinct taste you'll never forget.
This dish is served cold as an appetizer, the "Ma" flavors is meant to stimulate your appetite, but if you can't eat too spicy, you should consider ordering a glass of soy bean milk just to be safe.
I personally think that SzeChuan cuisine is one of the most unique types of cuisine amongst Chinese cooking, since almost all types of dishes are filled with rich spices and packed with flavor. Although they are all spicy, but the peppers and the marinate do not overwhelm the taste of the meat or vegetable.
After trying the FuQi Fei Pian, I was exposed to even more spicy food. If you can eat very spicy, you must try the Spicy fish served in a hotpot. Don't be alarmed by the red chili peppers that fills the pot, it may not be as spicy as you think! :) My impression was "No way I'm eating that!", but since you're only eating the fish, the heat level is not that high, you can actually taste the different flavors like capers, parsley, and other herbs and spices they put in this dish. But as a result, my lips fell like it was on fire for the next few hours :(
If you ask anyone what their
definition of Chinese food is, many will tell you its "dim sum". The
term itself its a directly translated from the Chinese word 點心, which roughly translates to
snacks. Originally, the term "dim sum" was only meant to describe
different dishes of snacks, but it slowly evolved to a general term for a place
that serves "dim sum".
The origin of "dim sum"
came from Northern China, where people drank a lot of tea, people often made
snacks to compliment the tea. Throughout time, this tradition was flipped
around, where people would eat "dim sum" and drink tea compliment the
food.
"Dim sum" mainly falls
into two categories, salty foods and sweets. Some of the more popular items are
the shrimp dumplings, barbeque pork buns, egg tarts, and as disgusting as it
may sound to some people, chicken feet in a spicy sauce. The majority of the dishes are steamed or fried, but the "dim sum" varieties are endless.
The place I want to introduce
everyone to today is "the Royal Teahouse" located at the intersection
of Woodbine Avenue and Apple Creek Boulevard. Aside from the great quality of
the food and decent proportions, their tea leaves they use is also very
aromatic.
(Foods in picture to the right: Sticky rice, shrimp dumpling, curry squid, watercress and meat dumpling, fried squid tentacles, custard cake)
Some of my personal favorites from that place is their fried egg
plant, where they slice the egg plant into very thin slices and fried in a thin
batter, finished with some sprinkles of paprika. The crispiness of the batter
gives the soft eggplant a crunchy texture, and the little heat from the paprika
gives the dish an extra kick.
(highly recommended!)
Overall, I think this is one of my
personal favorite "dim sum" place to go to. The price may be higher
than other restaurants, but it is definitely worth the money.
Also, one of their most famous tea is the Jasmine tea. Drinking tea while eating "dim sum" will help with digestion. Let me know what you think of this restaurant!
Royal Teahouse
10 Apple Creek Boulevard
Markham, ON
(905) 946-1898
