Shandong Cuisine

As an important component of Chinese culinary art, Shandong cuisine, also known as Lu Cai for short, boasts a long history and far-reaching impact. Shandong cuisine is representative of northern China's cooking and its technique has been widely absorbed in northeast China.

Shandong cuisine is famous for its wide selection of material and use of different cooking methods. The raw materials are mainly domestic animals and birds, seafood and vegetables. Condiments such as sauce paste, fistulous onion and garlic are freely used, so Shandong dishes usually taste pungent. The dishes are mainly clear, fresh and fatty, perfect with Shandong's own famous beer, Qingdao Beer.

Sichuan Cuisine

Of the eight major cuisines of China's culinary art, Sichuan cuisine is perhaps the most popular. Sichuan cuisine, known as Chuan Cai in Chinese, enjoys an international reputation for being spicy and flavorful.

Sichuan cuisine is famous for its distinct and various flavors, the most outstanding ones are fish flavors, pepper powder boiled in oil, strange flavor and sticky-hot. Masterly used cooking techniques are sauteing, stir-frying without stewing, dry-braising,  Pao (soaking in water) and Hui (frying then braising with corn flour sauce).          

Sichuan cuisine is well known for cooking fish. The raw materials are delicacies from land and river, edible wild herbs, and the meat of domestic animals and birds. Beef is more common in Sichuan cuisine than it is in other Chinese cuisines, perhaps due to the widespread use of oxen in the region. Stir-fried beef is often cooked until chewy, while steamed beef is sometimes coated with rice flour to produce rich gravy.

Although many Sichuan dishes live up to their spicy reputation, often ignored are the large percentage of recipes that use little or no spice at all, including recipes such as "tea smoked duck".

Guangdong Cuisine

Guangdong cuisine, known as Cantonese cuisine in the West, originates from China's southern province Guangdong and develops in Guangzhou, Huizhou and Chaozhou of Guangdong Province and Hainan Island. It is perhaps the most widely available Chinese regional cuisine outside China.

Cantonese are known to have an adventurous palate, able to eat many different kinds of meats and vegetables and other exotic ingredients. Cantonese food is surely one of the most diverse and richest cuisines in China. It usually has fowl and other meats that produce its unique dishes. Various unusual materials are used for their dishes, including snakes, cats and pangolins. Cooked snake is considered a delicacy in Guangdong.

In addition, Guangdong is also well known for its dim sum, snack-like delicacies of savory and sweet buns, steamed meat with vegetable and pastries. Dim sum is usually served for breakfast and lunch.

Fujian Cuisine

Fujian cuisine was a latecomer in southeast China along the coast. The cuisine emphasizes seafood, river fish, and shrimp. The Fujian coastal area produces 167 varieties of fish and 90 kinds of turtles and shellfish. It also produces edible bird's nest, cuttlefish, and sturgeon. These special products are all used in Fujian cuisine.

The most characteristic aspect of Fujian cuisine is that its dishes are served in soup. Its cooking methods are stewing, boiling, braising, quick-boiling, and steaming, The most famous dish is Buddha Jumps Over the Wall. The name implies the dish is so delicious that even the Buddha would jump over a wall to eat it once he smelled it. A mixture of seafood, chicken, duck, and pork is put into a rice-wine jar and simmered over a low fire.

Fujian dishes are slightly sweet and sour, and less salty. Sweetness makes a dish more tasty, while sourness helps remove the seafood smell.

Jiangsu Cuisine

Jiangsu cuisine, also known as Su Cai in Chinese, is one of the major components of Chinese cuisine, and consists of the styles of Yangzhou, Nanjing, Suzhou and Zhenjiang dishes. It is very famous in the whole world for its distinctive style and taste. It is especially popular in the lower reach of the Yangtze River.

Jiangsu cuisine has the characteristics of strictly selected ingredients, exquisite workmanship, elegant shape, and rich culture trait. The typical raw materials are fresh and live aquatic products. It highlights the freshness of ingredients. Other cooking ingredients are often carefully selected tea leaves, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, pears, and dates. Its carving techniques are delicate, of which the melon carving technique is especially well known. Due to using the methods of stewing, braising, quick-frying, warming-up, stir-frying, wine sauce pickling and adding some sugar as condiments, Jiangsu dishes taste fresh, light and mellow.

Zhejing Cuisine

Zhejiang cuisine, also called Zhe Cai for short, is one of the eight famous culinary schools in China. Comprising the specialties of Hangzhou, Ningbo and Shaoxing in Zhejiang Province regarded as land of fish and rice, Zhejiang cuisine, not greasy, wins its reputation for freshness, tenderness, softness, and smoothness of its dishes with mellow fragrance.

Zhejiang cuisine specializes in quick-frying, stir-frying, deep-frying, simmering and steaming, obtaining the natural flavor and taste. Special care is taken in the cooking process to make the food fresh, crispy and tender. Thanks to exquisite preparation, the dishes are not only delicious in taste and but also extremely elegant in appearance. Zhejiang cuisine is best represented by Hangzhou dishes, including Hangzhou roast chicken (commonly known as Beggar's chicken), Dongpo pork, west lake fish in vinegar sauce, Songsao Shredded Fish soup, etc. 

Hunan Cuisine

Known as Xiang Cai, Hunan cuisine has already developed into a famous culinary school in China. Hunan dishes consist of local dishes from the Xiangjiang River area, Dongting Lake area and Western Hunan mountain area. Hunan's culinary specialties are akin to those of the chili-rich Sichuan dishes. It is also characterized by thick and pungent flavor. Chili, pepper and shallot are usually necessaries in this division.

Hunan food is characterized by its hot and sour flavor, fresh aroma, greasiness, deep color, and the prominence of the main flavor in the dishes. Hunan food is hot because the climate is very humid, which makes it difficult for human body to eliminate moisture. The local people eat hot peppers to help remove dampness and cold. The main cooking methods for Hunan dishes are braising, double-boiling, steaming and stewing. It is also renowned for its frequent use of preserved meat in cooking.

Anhui Cuisine

Anhui cuisine (Hui Cai), one of the eight most famous cuisines in China, features the local culinary arts of Huizhou. It comprises the specialties of South Anhui, Yanjiang and Huai Bei. The highly distinctive characteristic of Anhui cuisine lies not only in the elaborate choices of cooking materials but also in the strict control of cooking process.

Most ingredients in Anhui cuisine, such as pangolin, stone frog, mushroom, bayberry, tea leaves, bamboo shoot, dates, games, etc., are from mountain area. Huangshan Mountain has abundant products for dish cooking. Huangshan Chukka has tender flesh and a sweet taste. It can be boiled in clear soup or braised in soy sauce.

Anhui cuisine chefs pay more attention to the taste, color of dishes and the temperature to cook them, and are good at braising and stewing. They are experts especially in cooking delicacies from mountains and sea. Anhui dishes preserve most of the original taste and nutrition of the materials. Generally the food here is slightly spicy and salty. Some master dishes usually stewed in brown sauce with stress on heavy oil and sauce. Ham is often added to improve the taste and sugar candy added to gain freshness.