Eyes on China – A China travel Blog

A unique Chinese food is dim sum. Actually dim sum is more than one category of dishes is a dietary habit. Dim sums are small dishes for snacks or tea time (in Chinese: yam cha), but is served in restaurants on a chariot. Most dim sum dishes are steamed, but can also be fried or braised. Common toall sums which are weaker in small portions, bite size, and usually with a strong flavor. The dim sum is of Cantonese origin and very popular not only in China but also in other Asian countries
Noodles occupy an important position in Chinese cuisine. In fact, the Chinese were the inventors of noodles, and were brought to the European country of noodles, Italy, by Marco Polo in the 13th century.

Unlike the Italians, who can not explain why their spaghetti are unworkable time, the Chinese have a logical reason for the apparently very long noodles are better; both superstitious Chinese long noodles long half-life. Make pasta as traditional Chinese acrobatics is an art. The mass was removed and turned in the air to spread by centrifugal force, but today machines use other techniques.

There are two kinds of noodles in Chinese cuisine, egg noodles or carry, and rice noodles or Bijon (in English sometimes referred to as glass noodles because they just look like glass). Whereas egg noodles are mostly in the form of thin spaghetti, rice noodles are also commonly served as ho fan (wide noodles like the Italian fettuccine and tagliatelle).

In Chinese cuisine, the noodles can be served in three ways: a stew of meat and some vegetables, or mixed with meat and with a thick sauce poured over or without sauce, while for the noodles with egg pasta sauce (mien) are commonly used, is Bijon noodles if served without salsa.

egg noodle dishes with sauce appear on Chinese menus with English translations often specified as fried. This is very misleading, as they are mostly just skipped. There is nothing clear of that “fried” dish, sauce and cornstarch in place of bad taste gives the dish a porridge texture.

Those who want to eat the dishes that are fried Western standards must order the fried Chinese English terminology. are fried spring rolls, shrimp and prawns.

Except as stated above soups clear noodles, there are also many thickened soups in Chinese cuisine. The thickening is normally produced from corn starch. As thick broth soups may contain meat, fish, seafood and vegetables. Unlike Western cuisine, Chinese cuisine lettuce often used in soups, but not in salads.

The two most famous Chinese soups, the shark fin soup and bird’s nest soup appear to be thickened but the sticky texture makes, in any case, the result of the addition of corn starch, but the two main ingredients shark’s fin and bird’s nests that simmered for many hours.

As the Chinese are the only ones who can make reasonable use of the fins are exported by Chinese traders to countries around the world.

Nests in the production of bird’s nest soups are exclusively those of the swallows. They are built by birds, mainly algae that are cemented together by their own saliva. Swallow nests are mainly in the high cliffs in areas along the southern coast of China. The Chinese term for birds’ nests is not done. An area rich in bird nests is north of Palawan, the Philippines archipelago. There is a city famous for its cliffs has been named for the nests of birds: El Nido.

As rice is transformed into pasta, another common Chinese agricultural products, soybeans, transforms into tofu. Soybean curd has not come to Italy. It was, however, is also integrated into other Asian cuisines. Bean curd (Chinese: a kua) accompanying the original Chinese foods that normally accompany dishes like potatoes German (where they are used as vegetables).

Soybean curd, commonly known as tofu Western world, has the appearance and texture of soft cheese and is produced by grinding soybean cake formation much of it that can be stored for long. It can be cut into slices, and as is rather tasteless by itself (like noodles), easily takes the flavor of sauces and other ingredients in a bowl.

A byproduct of the bean curd has a texture less stable (as thickened milk) is sold by street vendors Asia as a dessert or drink in the morning. Walk the streets, equipped with two large aluminum baskets volume, containing the fresh bean curd, and the other dressings, syrups, and other ingredients.

Prominent as noodles may be in Chinese cuisine, the most basic staple is rice. The Chinese word for rice is the fan (remember the fan ho – wide rice noodles).

To serve food in portions for one person is very untypical of Chinese food habits. Usually, the rice side dishes are not served individually but the family style with large plates in the center of a table. This order of eating is still strongly reflected in the way Chinese restaurants are furnished. Often there is lack of space for people who come alone or in pairs. Especially the big round tables you can see, with a round table in the middle that can be activated for all, using chopsticks, you can help himself or herself to a few bites of each dish.

It is commonly known that the Chinese invented chopsticks as a set of instruments to be used when eating, but the reason is not commonly known. In fact, the Chinese were taught to use chopsticks long before the spoons and forks were invented in Europe (the knife is older, not as an instrument to eat, but as a weapon). Chopsticks were strongly advocated by the great Chinese philosopher Confucius (551-479 BC).

He reasoned that, as an advance of civilization, the instruments used for slaughter should be banned from the dinner table. Therefore, knives can not afford, so always Chinese food is cut into bite size before it reaches the table.

Chinese cuisine is not complicated in the way that French cooking is complicated. Much less dependent on the temperature of ingredients and exact date for frying, baking or cooking. Most Chinese dishes are cooked in water or oil. Of course, there are many dishes, but most of them do not require elaborate processing in the kitchen as one of the most popular dishes from China, Peking duck slices (thin grilled duck, wrapped in thin pancakes along with the onion, radish, etc and eaten with a sweet plum sauce).

But while Chinese cuisine French cuisine can not beat the extent that it is hard to prepare the dishes, Chinese cuisine certainly wins the prize for weird ingredients.

Now, as the French have their strange and hard to find ingredients such as truffles, which can not come up with an ingredient such as bird nests mentioned above is.

The Chinese have a refreshing approach to food unemotional. One might think that the time to eat something does not cause a disease must be a way you can prepare delicious.

Therefore, birds nests are not the only food foreign material used in Chinese cooking. Others include seaweed, shark fins, sea cucumbers, etc. There is no forbidden foods like pork in Muslim countries and beef for Hindus. Conversely, many foods are recommended in Chinese cuisine for a variety of medical applications, several of them to restore sexual energy.

This goal, for example, apparently achieved through the consumption of soup number 5 that contains the testicles of various animals.

Many animals with a phallic look is also supposed to help men’s sexual power, such as eel and snake. Snake meat is highly prized in Chinese cuisine rather than a series of alleged pharmaceutical effects taste (it tastes like chicken). Snake is supposed to be particularly good in winter because it is considered the heart of warming. Eating the snake of the gallbladder is supposed to achieve a sure cure for rheumatism. A dish named Dragon, Phoenix, Tiger is prepared of snake, chicken and the cat is supposed to be an especially powerful agent to restore youth and vigor.

Of course there is nothing wrong with eating cats, snakes and birds’ nests, most likely that these foods are nutritious, even just the idea of it can not convince Westerners to enrich their diet with these delicacies. Cats in particular to be considered pets, receive sympathy Western tradition to a degree that no award of less cute animals such as pigs or chickens.

On the other hand, what criteria makes some kinds of animals and other clean power unacceptable to the Western diner are just perceptions based on ignorance. Shrimp live in mud and mostly near the sites where waste is dumped at sea, and who believe chickens only eat clean food to see them pecking in the manure of the hills. Who, after these elaborations, doubts that the Chinese have a more intelligent approach to food than Westerners ….

China is a vast country and therefore no surprise that there are many regional variations in Chinese cuisine. In general, one can say that southern Chinese Cantonese cuisine puts more emphasis on seafood and the north of Beijing, Chinese cuisine includes more meat. Of all the meats, pork is most common in all Chinese cuisines. In fact the pig is so respected by the Chinese that the Chinese character for “home” is a combination of the characters in “roof” and “pig.”

The Chinese central regions of Sichuan and Hunan are the hottest food in China. Garlic and pepper are widely used.Chairman Mao, who was Hunanese, once said that the more you eat chiles the most revolutionary becomes. It was meant as a joke (most likely), but the statement is consistent with the Chinese belief that diet makes a big difference in the welfare of a person. However, Mao Zedong’s theory does not explain why other cultures which undoubtedly chile eating loads are generally far more conservative than revolutionary.

For good food, the Chinese have a different orientation to the West. First, the atmosphere of a restaurant is much less important, and even first-class Chinese restaurants tend to be simple and inexpensive furniture. Secondly, unlike the European custom, a plate fails to be much more expensive when prepared by a chef better.

In Europe, a particular food (for example, the roast duck) can cost several times as much in an exclusive restaurant that does it in a normal restaurant, in the case of Chinese restaurants is less specific preparations that make a first-class restaurant category, but the use of luxury food and more expensive.

An exclusive Chinese restaurant, for example, serve foods such as abalone (a large marine snail, only the feet, about the size of a fist, is served) which can cost $ 50 or more per plate.

But it is the preparation that makes these foods so expensive, it’s just the price of the commodity. Many more ordinary Chinese dishes do not cost much more in Chinese restaurants are first class in the classroom easier.

ea is preferred by the Chinese as a drink during all meals less by choice, but to cleanse the palate of an old plate before proceeding to the next. And proclaimed by the Tourism Association of Hong Kong in their official guide, “the Chinese do not ruin the tea with exotic substances such as milk, sugar or lemon.”

An addition to the typical names of Chinese restaurants is Garden. Usually, Chinese restaurants are designated as Class Gardens are better.