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Su Cuisine
- Updated:
- Aug 28, 2009;
- by:
- China Highlights;
- Clicks:
- 86;
Jiangsu Cuisine, called Su Cuisine for short, originates from the native cooking styles of South China’s Jiangsu Province. It has a fresh taste, with moderate saltiness and sweetness, which is thick without being greasy, and light without being thin. Meanwhile it places an emphasis on the making of soup and retaining the original taste of the ingredients. Once it was the second largest cuisine among ancient China’s royal cuisines, and it remains a major part of the state banquet in China.
Su Cuisine is composed of six styles: Nanjing Style, Yangzhou Style, Suzhou Style, Huai’an Cuisine, Xuzhou Cuisine and Haizhou Cuisine. Among them Nanjing Style, Suzhou Style and Yangzhou Style are the most notable.
Nanjing Style is famous for its fine cutting techniques, which makes the dishes not only fine-tasting, but also very delicate and good-looking. It features freshness, fragrance, crispness and tenderness. Suzhou Cuisine tends to be sweet in taste and excels in using vegetables of the four seasons, freshwater fish and seafood. Yangzhou Style, which has been called Huai-Yang Style in the past, is renowned for its fine cutting techniques, perfect timing, fresh color and original design.
Su Cuisine is made according to precise material choice and a precise cooking schedule . It requires exquisite and fine cooking. There is an excellence in cooking methods such as stewing, simmering, baking over a slow fire, warming up, steaming, sautéing, stir-frying, and skillful braising in mud and baking on forks.
With the Yangtze River passing through it and a coast on the Yellow Sea, Jiangsu Province is abundant in freshwater fish and seafood, which comprise the major ingredients of Su Cuisine. Jiangsu people have been experts at cooking fish with various cooking techniques for about two thousand years. Su Cuisine has exhibited a fondness for duck dishes since about one thousand years ago. A rich variety of local vegetables are widely used in Su Cuisine, including watershield (or Brasenia) from Taihu (Tai Lake), lotus, Chinese chestnut, winter bamboo shoots, water bamboo and water chestnuts.
Representative Dishes
Santao Ya (a dove encased in the carcass of a wild duck, which is encased in a larger farmed duck, steamed and served in its soup) is a representative dish originated from Yangzhou. It tastes extremely fresh and special.
Salted Soup Duck, originated from Nanjing, is a dish with a history of over one thousand years. Autumn is the best time to make it, because ducks are fat at this time and can be seasoned with Osmanthus flowers. That is why it is also known as “Osmanthus Duck”.
Steamed Meatballs with Crab Powder.
Su Cuisine Menu
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