Fukienese cuisine

[SobaAddict70]

Since my own family hails from the province of Fukien (by way of the Philippines), I was wondering if you could please differentiate (sp) the nuances (if any) between Cantonese and Fukienese cuisine. Chinatown used to be the inhabited mostly by Cantonese, but now the threshold of admittance is giving way to increasing numbers of people from Fukien province. I should note that this is not an area of knowledge I am particularly knowledgeable about.

Also, do you know of or can you recommend any places with noteworthy Fukien dishes or chefs?

Thanks in advance.

SA

Edited December 2, 2002 by SobaAddict70 (log)

[eatingwitheddie]

Since my own family hails from the province of Fukien (by way of the Philippines), I was wondering if you could please differentiate (sp) the nuances (if any) between Cantonese and Fukienese cuisine.  Chinatown used to be the inhabited mostly by Cantonese, but now the threshold of admittance is giving way to increasing numbers of people from Fukien province.  I should note that this is not an area of knowledge I am particularly knowledgeable about.

Also, do you know of or can you recommend any places with noteworthy Fukien dishes or chefs?

Thanks in advance.

SA

This is a subject where my knowledge is extremely limited.

Many years ago we had a wonderful Fukien restaurant on Division St. It was called Foo Joy. It is long gone unfortunately.

There has been a large influx of Fukien immigrants in recent years. East Broadway is the center of this community in NY's Chinatown and there are a number of Fukien style restaurants there. They tend to be quite modest possibly because the elements of the Fukien community who've moved here are on the lower end of the economic scale.

Being on the coast Fukien has been known for its seafood dishes. There are particular preparations that are indigenous. The most famous of these are made with 'red wine' sauce. In fact these are dishes made with rice wine lees - the leftover fermented sweet rice which is taken from the bottom of the fermentation barrel.

Does anyone out there have any thoughts/suggestions/information? I'd be interested.

ED

[Bux]

Foo Joy. I'm not sure how we stumbled into it, or why, the first time. I liked it a lot although present memories are dim now. I seem to recall steamed bread or buns that many people ate in lieu of, or in addition to, rice. It was a simple down to earth place that served diners of modest means, but the food was both delicious and different. If it's reincarnated anywhere, I'd love to know as well. If a Fukien restaurant were to post here, they'd have a ready audience.

[Toby]

This is information gathered from several Chinese cookbooks that have sections about Fujian cuisine.

Aside from the use of red wine sediment paste, Kenneth Lo mentions the Fujianese use of "Swallow Skin" -- a thin dough-skin with a high meat content, as a wrapping for food which is then steamed or cooked in soups. Soups are a specialty; Fuzhou soups are noted for the special way of making broth -- after preparing broth in the usual way, the carcase of a fresh chicken is chopped into very fine pieces and added to the broth, along with some fresh shrimp heads and a small amount of dried shrimp to simmer together for about 15 minutes before the broth is strained. Lo gives recipes for Fujian Shredded Swallow-Skin Meat-Ball Soup; Braised Chicken in Wine Sediment Paste; Quick-Fried Sliced Chicken Breast with Sea Clams in Wine Sediment Paste; and Crisp-Fried Pork Chops in Wine Sediment Paste with Peppers.

In Eileen Yin-Fei Lo's The Chinese Kitchen, she gives a detailed description and recipes for what she calls the "ultimate feast in a land of feasts, among a people who dearly love festive foods and the traditions that occasion them." The dish is called "Buddha Jumps Over the Wall" (Fat Tiu Cheung) and comes from Fuzhou, in Fujian province. It's a very labor intensive dish, takes two days to prepare , and can contain as many as 30 different main ingredients. She describes it as a kind of "giant pot-au-feu," but much more complex. The traditional way of serving it is in a feast with five accompanying side dishes (some recipes are included). Supposedly the name indicates that even though the Buddha was a vegetarian, the smells of this dish would be so enchanting, that the Buddha would even jump a wall to taste it.

The main dish contains shark's fin, abalone, dry scallops, quail eggs, bamboo shoots, a chicken, a duck, pork feet, lamb filet, fresh ham, cured ham, fish lips, sea cucumber, fish stomach, pork tendon, pork stomach, duck gizzards, dried black mushrooms, Chinese turnips, carrots, scallions and lots of different seasonings. The ingredients all seem to be prepared separately and then combined in layers between bamboo or lotus leaves for the final simmering in broth. The side dishes are snow pea shoots with steamed mushrooms; choi sum with yunnan ham; mustard green stems in sweet mustard sauce; lotus root with pickled peach sauce.

[Toby]

More information about Fujian cuisine. In Chinese Gastronomy, a detailed recipe for Popia: The Great Pot, a specialty of Amoy. (Amoy is the hometown of the authors, Hsia Ju Lin and Tsuifeng Lin, and there's a long section of Fujian cooking in the book.) Popia consists of three parts; the first is a great pot of filling (bean curd, shrimp, bamboo shoots, scallions, pork tenderloin, snow peas, seasonings) which are first sauteed and then placed in a large pot and cooked together over low heat for up to 4 hours, so that the ingredients "cook in their own juices, achieving perfection of taste." The second part of the meal are thin crepes made out of flour and water; the third part are various side dishes which complete the flavor: blanched bean sprouts, blanched chinese chives, dried and toasted seaweed, egg slivers, dried deep-fried flatfish, toasted peanuts, chinese parsley, and relishes (hot red mustard, yellow mustard, Hoisin sauce and plum sauce, all eaten with scallion brushes).

A much simpler recipe in Chinese Gastronomy that I used to cook a lot is called "Rich Glutinous Rice." It's essentially the filling in nor mai fan (glutinous rice wrapped in lotus leaves) cooked in a pot, using dried shrimp, pork, dried Chinese mushrooms, and roast duck or roast chicken if desired, cooked with Chinese sticky rice (shorter grained and more sticky than Thai sticky rice).

[SobaAddict70]

Simple is relative, I suppose.

Thanks, Toby and Ed.

[annchang]

The best Fujiam -Taiwanese cuisine restaurant in Taiwan -Mingfou, which has been recommend in e-gullet under Taipei title before. Chef A-ming's cooking is among one of the best in Taiwan, and after dining in Mingfou, there will two to three day you feel everythin is tasteless. Highly recommend.

Ann

[eatingwitheddie]

The best Fujiam -Taiwanese cuisine restaurant in Taiwan -Mingfou, which has been recommend in e-gullet under Taipei title before. Chef A-ming's cooking is among one of the best in Taiwan, and after dining in Mingfou, there will two to three day you feel everythin is tasteless. Highly recommend.

Ann

OK, I'm ready to go out for dinner in Taipei!

Ed