Shanghai cuisine
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| "Shanghai cuisine" | |||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 上海菜 or 滬菜 | ||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 上海菜 or 沪菜 | ||||||
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Shanghai cuisine (上海菜), also known as Hu cai (沪菜, pinyin: hù cài) is a popular style of Chinese cuisine. The city of Shanghai itself does not have a separate and unique cuisine of its own, but modifies those of the surrounding provinces, is Jiangsu and Zhejiang coastal provinces. What can be called Shanghai cuisine is epitomized by the use of alcohol. Fish, crab, chicken are "drunken" with spirits and are briskly cooked/steamed or served raw. Salted meats and preserved vegetables are also commonly used to adjuntify the dish.
The use of sugar is common in Shanghainese cuisine, especially when used in combination with soy sauce. Non-natives tend to have difficulty identifying this usage of sugar and are often surprised when told of the "secret ingredient". The most notable dish of this type of cooking is "sweet and sour spare ribs" ("tangcu xiaopai" (糖醋小排) in Shanghainese). "Red cooking" （红烧） is a popular style of stewing meats and vegetables associated with Shanghai.
"Beggar's Chicken" is a legendary dish of a southern origin, called "jiaohua ji" （叫花鸡） in Mandarin, wrapped in lotus leaves and covered in clay. Though usually prepared in ovens, the original and historic preparation involved cooking in the ground. The lion's head meatball （狮子头） and Shanghai-style nian gao （粘糕） are also uniquely Shanghainese, as are Shanghai fried noodles, a regional variant of chow mein that is made with Shanghai-style thick noodle. Lime-and-ginger-flavoured thousand-year eggs （皮蛋） and stinky tofu （臭豆腐） are other popular Shanghainese food items.
Facing the East China Sea, seafood in Shanghai is very popular. However, due to its location among the rivers, lakes, and canals of the Yangtze Delta, locals favor freshwater produce just as much as saltwater products like crabs, oysters, and seaweed. The most notable local delicacy is Shanghai hairy crab （上海毛蟹）.
Shanghainese people are known to eat in delicate portions (which makes them a target of mockery from other Chinese), and hence the servings are usually quite small. For example, notable buns from Shanghai such as the xiaolong mantou （小笼馒头） (known as xiaolongbao （小笼包） in Mandarin) and the shengjian mantou （生煎馒头） are usually about four centimetres in diameter, much smaller than the typical baozi （包子） or mantou （馒头） elsewhere.
Breakfast
Shanghainese people do not usually spend too much time on having breakfast, so breakfast in Shanghai is pretty simple. Shanghainese people are used to grabbing some food in small snack stores or having a bowl of pao fan (泡饭 | rice in soup or water) with pickled cucumbers, pickled vegetables or a salty duck egg at home.
- Sheng Jian Bao ("Sangjibo" - in Shanghainese)
Breakfast is commonly bought from corner stalls which sells pork buns, for the best xiaolongbao (small steamer bun). These stalls also sell other types of buns, such as Shengjian mantou (生煎饅頭, literally "fried bun") and Guo Tie （锅贴） (fried jiaozi （饺子）), all eaten dipped in black vinegar. And "luo bo si bing" (萝卜丝饼，radish-strips-stuffing pancake) is also delicious. A typical breakfast combination is youtiao （油条）, a dough-like food that is deep fried in oil until crisp and is eaten in all parts of China, wrapped in thick pancake, accompanied by soy milk. One can also tear a loaf of youtiao into pieces and put them into soy milk to eat.
- Xiao Long Bao
A notable Shanghai delicacy is the Xiao Long Bao, sometimes known as Shanghai Dumplings in English-speaking countries [1] Xiao Long Bao, or "small steamer bun" (literally translated) as mentioned above, is a type of steamed bun that is filled with pork (most commonly found) or minced crab, and soup. Although it appears delicate, a good xiao long bao is able to hold in the soup until the xiao long bao is bitten. They are steamed in bamboo baskets and served with black vinegar and in some places, shredded ginger. A common way of eating the Xiao Long Bao is to bite the top off, suck all the soup, then dipping it in vinegar before eating.
- "Four Heavenly Kings"
The most well-known foods for breakfast are the “Four Heavenly Kings” (四大金刚), which include da bing (大饼) (Chinese pancake), youtiao (deep-fried dough stick), ci fan tuan （糍饭团） (steamed sticky rice ball) and soy milk.
Among “Four Heavenly Kings”, ci fan tuan belongs to typical Shanghai food.[citation needed] Ci fan tuan is made of warm steamed sticky rice. Shanghainese people like putting sugar and youtiao inside steamed sticky rice. People also put salty duck egg yolk, rousong （肉松） (crushed dried pork) or other stuffings in ci fan tuan.
Main courses
- Da Zha Xie
Chinese mitten crab (Da Zha Xie (大闸蟹) is a hairy crab found in the Yangcheng Lake. It is normally consumed during Winter (September to November every year). The crabs are tied with ropes/strings, placed in bamboo containers, steamed and served.
- Crispy chicken
Crispy chicken is made by first boiling the body of a chicken until its flesh is tender, then roasting it for long periods of time or until the skin goes dry and crispy.
- Congshao crucian carp
This is rather involved and complex preparation for the common crucian carp. The dish, congshao jiyu (蔥燒鯽魚, lit. scallion stewed crucian carp), requires long hours for preparation since the fish needs to be soaked in vinegar, and then deep-fried, stewed for a long prolonged period, and cooled to make the fish tender enough to consume together with all its bones. Due to the complexity of its preparation and the difficulty in perfecting it, the dish was sometimes used by families as a test when recruiting a cook.[2]
See also
References
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (August 2011) |
- ^ English recipe for "Shanghai Dumplings" accessdate = 2009-09-10
- ^ Lee, Jesse (2008), 上海味兒, 旗林文化, ISBN 978-986-6655-14-2
External links
- china.org.cn Top 10 most famous Shanghai snacks September 12, 2011