Luosifen, a native to Liuzhou in China's Guangxi province, is a dish consisting of a snail-based broth, rice noodles, and an array of additional ingredients, typically including pickled bamboo shoots, peanuts, tofu skins, and green vegetables. The hot and spicy taste comes from an elaborate concoction of spices and herbs that's used to make the broth, as well as a sizable amount of chili oil that's added to the finished soup at the end.
Luosifen is typically sold by street vendors and only rarely served in restaurants, with each place having their secret recipe. Recently, specialized luosifen restaurants started to appear in numerous Chinese cities, but also abroad.
MAIN INGREDIENTS
Donkey burger is a unique Chinese hamburger that is especially popular in Baoding and Hejian. It is prepared by filling a shao bing roll with shredded donkey meat, green peppers, and coriander leaves. The meat is usually served cold, and the burger can be found both on street corners and in upscale restaurants.
Baoding donkey burger is served in a round shao bing, while the Hejian variety is served in a rectangular shao bing. It is believed that the practice of consuming donkey meat dates back to the time of Ming Dynasty.
Beggar's chicken is a Chinese delicacy and the city of Hangzhou's most famous dish, consisting of only one ingredient - a whole chicken. The secret is in the preparation method: the stuffed chicken is tightly wrapped in lotus leaves, packed in clay, and baked in a special oven or over an open fire, resulting in tender, moist, and aromatic meat, along with being one of the visually most interesting dishes in existence.
Once the dish has been served, the hard outer shell is often cracked open with a hammer. Legend has it that a starving beggar was in possession of a chicken but had no means to prepare it, so in a stroke of genius, he covered it with mud and baked it over an open fire.
MOST ICONIC Jiao hua ji
View moreChòu dòufu or stinky tofu is a fermented variety of the popular Chinese soy product. The fermentation process is highly variable, but it typically includes brine in which tofu is left to sit for up to one week. The brine usually consists of fermented milk, vegetables, and meat, which create an incredibly distinctive smell, often described as being particularly unpleasant.
The most famous legend says that this famous snack was created by Wang Zhi-He, who accidentally invented it when he left cubed tofu sit in an earthen jar in the sun. When he discovered that despite the awful smell the tofu tasted great, he started producing and selling this unusual treat.
MAIN INGREDIENTS
A dim-sum classic, fried stuffed bean curd paste is an exceptionally delicious and nutritious Chinese dish. This dish enhances the otherwise subtle flavor of bean curd by stuffing hollow bean curd pieces with a prawn-and-pork mince filling. The stuffed bean curd pieces are then pan-fried until nicely browned and crispy on the outside.
Typically garnished with chopped scallions or coriander, the dish is often served with a dipping sauce made with chicken stock, oyster sauce, Shaoxing rice wine, and sesame oil.
Popiah is a traditional roll, wrapped and filled with a variety of ingredients. Often compared to the more famous spring rolls, the main difference is that popiah is never deep-fried. The crepe-like wrappers for popiah are delicate and light, but easily foldable to hold all the ingredients together.
The fillings are extremely versatile, but usually have four essential components: the main fillings, garnishes, spices, and sauces. The main fillings vary from meat and seafood to vegetables, while thinly sliced condiments most commonly include cucumbers, Chinese sausages, or eggs.
VARIATIONS OF Popiah
Over the bridge rice noodles (guo qiao mi xian) is a rice noodle soup, a specialty of Yunnan cuisine. When broken into segments, the soup consists of chicken soup, rice noodles, sliced meat, and vegetables, as well as some additional ingredients used for garnishing and seasoning.
The dish originated from Mengzi County over 100 years ago. What's peculiar about this soup is the way in which it is prepared; a bowl of hot soup, a bowl of rice noodles, and a platter with sliced ingredients are brought to the table where the dish is assembled and cooked.
Even though it is often referred to as the Chinese meat pie, xianbing is, in fact, more similar to an over-sized, seared jiaozi-style dumpling. Both are made with the same, basic flour-and-water dough, except the one for xianbing is layered before being rolled out, and unlike jiaozi dumplings which are steamed, xianbings are pan-fried.
Being one of the hallmarks of the Northern Chinese Islamic halāl cuisine, the crispy-crusted xianbing is traditionally filled with soy sauce flavored minced beef, ginger, and onions, while in other regions it can also be filled with pork, lamb, or even with an all-vegetable filling in its vegetarian version.
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