Delicacies
Jiangsu cuisine
(china-fun.net)
Updated: 2011-01-04 18:33
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Jiangsu cuisine is also called Huaiyang Cuisine or Su Cuisine, which is one of the Eight Chinese Cuisine. It mainly includes Huaiyang Cuisine, Suxi Cuisine, Nanjing Cuisine, and Xuzhou Cuisine. The best of JS cuisine is to boil-cook the freshwater aquatic products, exquisite of cutting technique, emphasizing fire level of attainment, with the mixture taste of salty and sweet, fresh,mellow and light, paying attention on the original taste and flavour, specializing in the cooking methods of simmer, stew, braise, steam, and stir-frying etc.
Jiangsu province is located in the Southeast of China which is close to the sea and has a pleasant weather, making it not only full of fish products but also varied in the vegetables. With the variation of materials for cook, Jiangsu Cuisine has developed its own unique feasure. Jiangsu Cuisine also has a long history, dating back to the Qin and Han dynasty, the area along the Changjiang river mostly served “rice with fish soup” as the meal. From Sui and Tang dynasty, the prosperity in the market of Jinlin, Gusu as well as Yangzhou stimulated the development of Jiangsu Cuisine.
Jiangsu Cuisine is also famous for its beautiful appearance. All the dishes should not only taste marvelous but also look attractive. For examples: Rotten crab and Sweet crab produced in Jiangsu Cuisine had been served as a tribute. First, the crab should be wiped clearly and attached thickly with the golden paper-flower decorated by dragon and phoenix form. A dish called “Louzi hui” is the combination of crucian and carp wrapped by the green bamboo or young seedling of chrysanthemum. The very well-known flower-like dish called “exquisite peony” is in fact made of the fish by carving the fish into the outline of peony. The design craftwork of dishes has been popular in the very area and has an important impact on other area of China such as Beijing, Sichuan, Guangdong, Fujian, as well as the rural area in Jiangsu province.
The four series under Jiangsu Cuisine have the separate characteristics. here I will mainly introduce one called "Huaiyang Cuisine".
Huaiyang Cuisine is prolonged with its fine cutting technique, good at fresh fish cooking as well as the dish made of chicken and meat. It also emphasizes the fire level control, the cooking methods of simmer, stew, braise etc. The carve of vegetables of fruits is the main part of Jiangsu Cuisine.
One of the traditional top dishes is named as “cross the bridge”. It is said that during the Qing dynasty, in Yangzhou, people put the well-boiled noodles into the fresh soup made of the snakehead, the name of the dish was “cross the bridge”.
