Fujian cuisine facts for kids
Fujian cuisine, also called Min cuisine, is a special cooking style from China's Fujian Province. It's known for being light, tasty, and tender. A key part of Fujian food is the focus on umami (pronounced oo-MAH-mee) flavor, which Chinese chefs call xianwei (simplified Chinese: 鲜味; traditional Chinese: 鮮味; pinyin: xiān wèi). This means the food tastes savory and rich, but still lets the natural flavors of the ingredients shine through.
Fujian Province is next to the sea and also has mountains. This means chefs use lots of different seafood, like fish and shellfish. They also use ingredients from the mountains, such as edible mushrooms and bamboo shoots. Common ways to cook in Fujian include braising, stewing, steaming, and boiling.
The people of Fujian have traveled by sea for a long time, which has helped create their unique cooking style. Fujian cuisine is famous for making mountain and seafood dishes that look, smell, and taste great. It's known for being fresh, rich, meaty, and not greasy. Soups are also a very important part of Fujian meals.
Chefs in Fujian pay close attention to their knife skills and cooking methods. This helps make seafood and other foods taste, smell, and feel even better. Making and using broths and soups is super important. There's a saying: "One broth can be changed into many forms." Another saying is: "It's not okay for a meal to not have soup."
Fermented fish sauce, locally called "shrimp oil" (simplified Chinese: 虾油; traditional Chinese: 蝦油; pinyin: xiā yóu), is often used. Other ingredients like oysters, crabs, and shrimp are also common. Peanuts are used a lot too, in both savory dishes and desserts. They can be boiled, fried, roasted, or even made into a paste. Peanuts might be used as a topping, in soups, or added to braised or stir-fried dishes.
Fujian cuisine has greatly influenced the food in Taiwan and in places like Southeast Asia where many Chinese people live. This is because many people in those areas have family roots in Fujian Province.
Contents
Styles of Fujian Cuisine
Fujian cuisine has several main styles, each with its own special taste:
- Fuzhou style: This style is lighter. It often has a mix of sweet and sour tastes. Fuzhou is famous for its soups and uses a lot of fermented fish sauce and red yeast rice.
- Putian/Henghwa style: This comes from the coastal town of Putian. It's best known for seafood dishes, including lor mee (a type of noodle dish) and Doutuo clams.
- Southern Fujian style: This taste is stronger than other Fujian styles. It shows some influence from Southeast Asian dishes. Using sugar and spices like shacha sauce and five-spice powder is more common here. You'll find many kinds of slow-cooked soups, and many dishes come with dipping sauces.
- Western Fujian style: This style often has a slightly spicy taste from mustard and pepper. Common cooking methods include steaming, frying, and stir-frying. The food here is usually saltier and oilier than in other parts of Fujian, and it often focuses more on meat than seafood.
Special Seasonings in Fujian Food
Fujian uses some unique seasonings. These include fish sauce, shrimp paste, sugar, shacha sauce, and preserved apricots. Wine lees, which are leftover from making rice wine, are also commonly used in many dishes. Red yeast rice (simplified Chinese: 红麴/红糟酱; traditional Chinese: 紅麴/紅糟醬; pinyin: hóngqū/hóngzāojiàng) is another popular ingredient. It gives food a rosy-red color, a nice smell, and a slightly sweet taste.
Fujian is also well known for its "drunken" dishes, where food is marinated in wine. The region is famous for the high quality of its soup stocks and bases, which are used to flavor many dishes, soups, and stews.
Famous Fujian Dishes
One of the most famous dishes in Fujian cuisine is "Buddha Jumps Over the Wall". This is a very complex dish that uses many ingredients. These include shark's fin, sea cucumber, abalone, and Shaoxing wine.
Fujian is also known for yanpi (Chinese: 燕皮; pinyin: yàn pí). This means "swallow skin." It's a thin wrapper made with a lot of finely minced pork. This wrapper has a special texture because of the meat. Yanpi is used to make rouyan (Chinese: 肉燕; pinyin: ròu yàn), which is a type of wonton.
| English Name | Traditional Chinese | Simplified Chinese | Pinyin (Mandarin) | Pe̍h-ōe-jī (Min Nan) | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bak kut teh | 肉骨茶 | 肉骨茶 | ròu gŭ chá | bah-kut-tê | "Meat bone tea." It's a soup with pork ribs cooked in a broth of herbs and spices like star anise, cinnamon, cloves, and garlic. People usually eat it with rice or noodles. |
| Banmian | 板面 | 板面 | bǎnmiàn | A soup with flat-shaped egg noodles. | |
| Braised frog | 黄燜田雞 | 黄焖田鸡 | huáng mèn tiánjī | Frog cooked slowly in wine. | |
| Buddha Jumps Over the Wall | 佛跳牆 | 佛跳墙 | fó tiào qiáng | hu̍t-thiàu-chhiûⁿ | This dish has over 30 ingredients! Some include shark's fin, abalone, sea slug, dried scallops, duck, chicken, pig's trotters, mushrooms, and pigeon eggs. A story says that its amazing smell made a Buddhist monk forget his promise to be a vegetarian and jump over a wall to try it. |
| Clams in chicken soup | 雞湯汆海蚌 | 鸡汤汆海蚌 | jī tāng cuān hǎibàng | Clams cooked in chicken broth. | |
| Crispy skin fish rolls | 脆皮魚卷 | 脆皮鱼卷 | cuìpí yú juǎn | Fried bean curd skin filled with fish. | |
| Dried scallop with radish | 干貝蘿蔔 | 干贝萝卜 | gānbèi luóbò | White radish steamed with conpoy (dried scallop) 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 inside. | |
| Five Colours Pearls | 五彩珍珠扣 | 五彩珍珠扣 | wǔ cǎi zhēnzhū kòu | Squid cooked slowly 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. | |
| Gua bao | 割包 | 刈包 | guà bāo | koah-pau | Soft buns filled with pork belly. |
| Meat strips with green pepper | 青椒肉絲 | 青椒肉丝 | qīng jiāo ròu sī | Pork strips with green pepper. This dish inspired "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 very thin type of Chinese noodle made from wheat flour. |
| Ngo hiang | 五香 | 五香 | wǔ xiāng | ngó͘-hiong | A fried roll seasoned with five-spice powder and filled with minced pork and vegetables. |
| Oyster omelette | 蚵仔煎 | 蚵仔煎 | hé zǎi jiān | ô-á-chian | An omelette with oyster filling. |
| Popiah / Lunpiah | 薄餅/潤餅 | 薄饼/润饼 | báobǐng/rùnbǐng | pȯh-piáⁿ | A thin crepe with bean sauce or soy sauce filling. |
| Red wine chicken | 紅糟雞 | 红糟鸡 | hóng zāo jī | Chicken cooked using 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 a lot of lean pork. |
In some places in Fujian, you can find "two-yuan eateries" that sell these special dishes for a low price. In Xiamen, a local favorite is worm jelly (simplified Chinese: 土笋冻; traditional Chinese: 土笋凍; pinyin: tǔ sǔn dòng). This is a jelly made from a type of marine peanut worm.
Images for kids
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A plate of worm jelly.
See also
In Spanish: Gastronomía de Fujian para niños
