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Chuan Cuisine
- Updated:
- Aug 27, 2009;
- by:
- China Highlights;
- Clicks:
- 150;
Sichuan Cuisine is the most widely served cuisine in China. The dishes of Sichuan Cuisine are famous for their hot and spicy flavor. An outstanding facet of Sichuan dishes is the delicate use of pepper or chili. The ingredients used are great in variety, including poultry, pork, beef, fish, vegetables and tofu. The methods of cooking vary according to the texture required. Fast-frying is the most widely used cooking method.
Sichuan Cuisine wins universal praise for its hotness, sourness and numbness it produces, which are rare in other regional cuisines. These together sum up the unique flavor of Chuan Cuisine, which enjoys a good reputation as a cuisine that is "one dish with one flavor and one hundred dishes with one hundred flavors". Its cooking methods include baking, sautéing, dry-sautéing and steaming. Chuan Cuisine has good combinations of flavors and often has thick gravy. Based on five flavors: saltiness, sweetness, numbness, spiciness and sourness, all kinds of seasonings are added, which cooperate with each other and develop into twenty-three compound flavors of all sorts, such as home-style, salty and fresh, fishy, litchi flavor and bizarre flavor.
Although, Chuan Cuisine is served at every corner of the world, the most authentic Sichuan food is still to be found at its hometowns: Chengdu and Chongqing.
Special Chuan Cuisine
Spicy Diced Chicken
Spicy Diced Chicken is cooked by frying diced chicken, dry red pepper and golden peanuts. Spicy Diced Chicken is as popular among W esterners as the Mapo Bean Curd.
Mapo Bean Curd (Mapo Tofu)
Mapo Bean Curd is bean curd set in a chili-and-bean based sauce, which is usually a thin, oily, and bright red suspension, and often topped with minced meat, usually pork or beef. Seasonings include water chestnuts, onions, other vegetables, or wood ear fungus. The taste of Mapo Bean Curd is fittingly described as numbing, spicy hot, fresh, tender and soft, aromatic and flaky. Mapo Bean Curd is easy to find outside of China.
Chuan Cuisine Menu
| Kung Pao Chicken (diced chicken fried with peanuts) |
宫保鸡丁 | Gongbao Ji Ding |
| Twice Cooked Pork | 回锅肉 | Hui Guo Rou |
| Stir-Fried Bean Curd in Chili Sauce | 麻婆豆腐 | Mapo Doufu |
| Sichuan Hotpot | 四川火锅 | Sichuan Huoguo |
| Chongqing Spicy Deep-Fried Chicken |
重庆辣子鸡 | Chongqing Lazi Ji |
| Steamed Pork with Spicy Cabbage | 冬菜扣肉 | Dongcai Kourou |
| Sesame Oil Chicken | 麻油鸡 | Mayou Ji |
| Husband and Wife Lung Slices (slices of beef and offal seasoned with chili oil) |
夫妻肺片 | Fuqi Fei Pian |
| Dongpo Cuttlefish | 东坡墨鱼 | Dongpo Moyu |
| Fish Flavored Beef Shreds | 鱼香牛肉丝 | Yu Xiang Niurou Si |
| Duck Hotpot (the hotpot is divided into two parts: one spicy, one plain) |
鸳鸯火锅 | Yuanyang Huoguo |
| Fried Bean Curd and Beef with Cayenne Pepper (very spicy) |
麻辣烫 | Mala Tang |
| Boiled Mutton | 沸腾羊肉 | Feiteng Yangrou |
| Boiled Fish with Pickled Chinese Cabbage |
酸菜鱼 | Suancai Yu |
Sichuan Hot Pot
Sichuan Hotpot, like most of the cuisine in that humid and populous province, is very spicy. The broth is flavored with chili peppers and other pungent herbs and spices. The main ingredients include hot pepper, Chinese crystal sugar and wine. Slices of kidney, chicken breast, beef tripe, goose intestines, spring onion, soy bean sprouts, mushrooms, duck and sea cucumber are the usual meats used in the dish.
Fuqi Fei Pian is made of thinly sliced beef, bovine lung or tongue seasoned with chili oil. There is a romantic story about the origin of this famous Sichuan dish. Guo Zhaohua, the inventor of this dish, and his wife sold their acetarious (treated with vinegar) beef slices by trundling a small cart along the street. Their beef slices were very delicious, and no one could resist the charming smell in that street. People liked the food made by this couple very much, so they gave it the name Husband and Wife Lung Slices.
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