Various Chinese cuisines

[Shalmanese]

What are the flavorings "typical" of Manchurian cookery? What type of cooking vessels were traditionally used? Prefered meats and vegetables? Are there any fermented sauces, bean pastes for instance? Is the food spicy? Pickled dishes? How is a Manchurian table set, everything served together? What are the components of a meal, rice, soup, pickle, protein dish?

looking forward to some responses.

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Cooking vessels at home, I can't think of anything offhand that you can't buy at a western store. Possibly, in some villages, there were communal pieces of equipment that are pretty esoteric. The only one I can think of is a giant flat griddle about 2 ft wide for making paper thin cakes made of corn.

Meats, definately pork, Chicken and lamb less so and beef very rarely. The explaination given to me was that beef was muslim food and the ethnic chinese didn't eat it.

Manchurian food seems to rely a lot on pickling the same as a lot of cultures in that climate. Pickled cabbage is a big one, nearly every home used to have a big clay cabbage fermenter although I've heard they've officially banned home production after a spate of food poisoning although it's not really tightly enforced. Pickled cucumber, watermelon rind, garlic, bamboo shoots etc. They are usually eaten with congee in the morning or with rice at dinner.

At my grandmothers place, the typical meal would comprise of 2 courses, first, a variety of cold meats and pickled vegtables and nuts would be set out on the table with hot rice and people would nibble and talk while grandma cooked. Once dinner was ready, the cold food was taken off and the hot food put on. There wasn't any soup course but occasionally, soup would be on the table.

[chengb02]

What are the flavorings "typical" of Manchurian cookery? What type of cooking vessels were traditionally used? Prefered meats and vegetables? Are there any fermented sauces, bean pastes for instance? Is the food spicy? Pickled dishes? How is a Manchurian table set, everything served together? What are the components of a meal, rice, soup, pickle, protein dish?

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Dongbei food is typically more "heavy" then other cuisines, in many ways. It is "heavier" with flavors and also with kinds of dishes, usually a lot of "casserole" type dishes with thick sauces. Typically, there will be noodles or mantou instead of rice at the meal. Obviously, the main cooking tool is a wok and there isn't anything that is used that is out of the ordinary with other parts of China. As was mentioned, there are typically a number of pickled dishes that are served. One of the most common "Dongbei foods" are of course jiao zi. While they are popular all over the country, Dongbei jiaozi are considered especially famous.

As for manchu foods, ugh, I'm really going to have to go back to the memory banks. Hehe, through all of my returns back to Shenyang to visit relatives and numerous tours of the Shenyang Gugong, I have a faint feeling in the back of my head about reading something about Manchu foods, but can't recall it now. I think its really hard to say because the Manchus of today are really no different from Chinese. Everyone knows the Man-Han Imperial cuisine, but I'm not sure how much is known (or if anyone cares) what a "common" Manchu would eat on an everyday basis.

Edited March 8, 2005 by chengb02 (log)

[touaregsand]

but I'm not sure how much is known (or if anyone cares) what a "common" Manchu would eat on an everyday basis.

I'm interested in what a common Manchu would eat on an everyday basis. But then again I'm a nobody.

[touaregsand]

Pickled cabbage is a big one, nearly every home used to have a big clay cabbage fermenter although I've heard they've officially banned home production after a spate of food poisoning although it's not really tightly enforced. Pickled cucumber, watermelon rind, garlic, bamboo shoots etc. They are usually eaten with congee in the morning or with rice at dinner.

How is the pickled cabbage seasoned? What type of cabbage is used?

[Shalmanese]

Shredded cabbages are placed in brine, covered and then left for a few weeks. It uses the same chemical process as saurkraut. The brine is re-used getting more and more complex flavouring until you do something wrong and you get a mold infection. Then you have to toss it out and start again.

This is what was typically served when I went back home:

Breakfast:

Big steaming pots of congee with various picked vegtables(not cabbage) and fish floss.

Big bowls of soy milk

Hard boiled eggs with soy dipping sauce.

Lunch:

A cold vegtable salad

A cold meat salad

Maybe some left overs from the night before

Dinner:

Hot Rice

Various pickles, nuts etc to munch on.

A soup of some sort.

3 - 4 dishes

Some recipes:

Pickled cabbage soup

Make a soup base by stir frying some spring onions in oil until soft, then putting in 1 tbsp of dark soy and letting cook for 5 seconds, just until you can smell the sugars caremalising.

Top with boiling water

Add pickled cabbage and simmer for 10 minutes

Meanwhile, very thinly slice some pork and soak some vermicelli in warm water

Add the vermicelli and pork, turn off the heat and let the residual heat cook the pork.

Pork, beans & potato

Cut some nice fatty pork into 1 inch cubes and marinate in a mixture of cornflour, dark soy, salt & 5 spice powder.

Stir fry pork until brown and set aside.

saute some onions, ginger & garlic and then add beans and stir fry until the beans are green.

Add back the pork and deglaze with a very small water.

cook covered, stirring occasionally for about 1 hour, the important part is to make sure that the beans are steaming, not boiling.

Add some roughly chopped potatos in and cook until tender.

Add a cornflour slurry until the liquid is of sauce consistency, adjust seasoning.

Serve with rice.

"Hong Shao" fish

Descale, gut and clean a white fleshed fish like red snapper.

Make several slits into the fish and run over with a mixture of salt & 5 spice powder.

dredge both sides with flour.

Fry for about 3 mins on both sides in a large wok.

Add some ginger & spring onions and let them cook for a few seconds.

Add a mixture of chinese rice wine vinegar and sugar and put the lid on and let it steam until done.

I don't know how representative that is of Manchu cuisine but those are some of my families traditional recipes.

[chengb02]

but I'm not sure how much is known (or if anyone cares) what a "common" Manchu would eat on an everyday basis.

I'm interested in what a common Manchu would eat on an everyday basis. But then again I'm a nobody.

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Hehe, sorry about that...Its just that, to my knowledge, scholarship on this subject is lacking at best. When the discussion turns to Manchus, the focus is typically on what the ruling class ate, as that became the Qing dynasty and the creation of Man/Han Imperial cuisine. Today's members of the Manchu minority are basically indistinguishable from Han Chinese, including in their eating habits, so this sort of study would be looking at history and almost nobody, even Manchus still read or speak Manchu, making scholarly studies of this even more difficult.

[mflo]

Thanks for the welcome. So, to start it off, i am going to have a slight introduction to my ethnic cuisine. Before we can taste the food, we must understand the origin...

There are many names to this wonderful and special cuisine that was created from the merger of two distinctively different cultures. You may heard it before or taste it before in some other names like "Peranakan Cuisine", "Straits Chinese Cuisine" or the most common "Nyonya Food / Cuisine".

Note: It is always called Nyonya food, never Baba food or Nyonya & Baba food because the tradtion is that ONLY the nyonya cooks. Never the Baba. So, its a special of the ladies of Peranakan. Not for the men.

The Fukinese / Hokkien people venture out during the late Tang dynasty to cultivate other lands and became traders. They usually ply the coast of China and what we known in modern day as Southern Vietnam, called Champa. From there, they venture into Siam and to the Malay Peninsula and Java.

When overseas trade was outlawed in the Later Ming and Qing dynasties, many of these traders settled permanently throughout SEA.

Peranakan is the term to describe to Chinese who settled in Southeast Asia. They married the local malays and adopted the way of livings of the locals.

The oldest settlement of Peranakan is from Melacca. If you visit Melacca today, you can still see a lot of the old Peranakan charm along the Jonker area. And also of course, in Penang.

So from Melacca, because of trade under East India Company, Peranakan community back then was a very strong trade community. Being a Peranakan usually equates to being rich and educated. Sir Francis Light started a new settlement in Penang while Sir Stamford Raffles started another in Singapore.

So, until today, when you say Peranakan, there will be only 3 types. Singaporean Peranakan, Penang Peranakan and Melaccan Peranakan. But, we are still known as Straits Chinese, irregardless of which community you originated from.

We speak a mixture of Malay and Hokkien. Which we called the "Baba Hokkien". Our attire and jewelry are greatly influenced by the Malays, but to not losing our chinese identity, we still maintain Chinse "Taoism" traditions and beliefs.

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Pls have some feedback on how i should continue this... I hope i pique enough curiosity about my culture.

Edited September 9, 2005 by mflo (log)

[Makan King]

Welcome! Which Peranakan culture do you hail from - Malacca, Penang or Singapore?

I love Peranakan cuisine. I think it's rich, robust and complex. I also like the exacting emphasis on taste as well as texture.

You could talk more about the strict standards that the Peranakan matriarchs insist upon in their kitchens, eg. everything done by hand just so, the many hours of hand-stirring to make a pot of kaya (coconut egg jam), the hand-pounding of spices and nuts and herbs etc.

What are your favorite dishes?

I would also like to hear more about the customs and traditions. There is such a wealth of culture to be explored!

[Tepee]

Would also love to hear about the (subtle) culinary differences between the different groups of Peranakans. Tks.

[mflo]

hey thanks for the feedbacks.

Let's see...

I am well, a rojak nyonya. My grandmother is a Medanese Straits Chinese who speaks hokchu and married a melaccan baba who only speaks baba hokkien. My mother was only a half nyonya from her mother side. My dad, beside loving nyonya food, have no other peranakan identity left. too modernised..

My favourite Nyonya dish? Oh Wow... too many!!!

Penang laksa.

lor bak.

most types of nyonya kuihs (pastries and cakes), Sri Muka being my fav and onde-onde.

bubur cha cha

assam pedas

Sambal petai.

rempah hnh chee (fried fish stuffed with sambal paste)

ince kabin (nyonya fried chicken)

and many many more.....

i'll have a brief one on customs and traditions. lol. now you guys have set me thinking.

Yes. we do have strict standards when it comes to our cooking. That has not changed. I am particular about my nyonya food. That's why, it is very difficult to find very good nyonya restaurant. Most of the time they cannot match the standard of home cooked nyonya food.

We have a lot of "pantang" (rules and regulations, taboos) when cooking and even when not cooking.

So many things we cant do or say when you cook certain stuffs, if not, the food wont turn out right or like how during certain occassions we must have this or that to throw away bad luck or to invite good luck, how some food can only be eaten in certain occasion (like funeral) cannot be eaten any other time. And of course during major occassions like funeral and chinese new year, the order of the food that we eat, and what dish goes with what. Well, we are particular about that. (with my grandmother anyway... )

as for subtle differences? hmmm....

as far as i am concern, most penang nyonya food are more sourish based. And they have a lot of "kerabu" styled dishes due to the influences of the Thais cause they are quite near to Thailand. Overall, in Penang nyonya dishes, you can see a lot of dishes that have that hint of Thai in them.

While for Melaccan nyonya food, we uses more spices, herbs, alot of pandan leaves and flowers like "bunga telang" in our cooking.

As for the Singaporeans, I can't really say, since I've only been here for two years and I have not really discover great nyonya food here yet. Probably because too busy working. But one thing I can say though, their style is more light, not so spicy and some of the ingredients are different. For instance, for the laksa, rather than uses "lye fun" they uses thick rice vermicelli instead. It just makes such a difference to the laksa. Not that nice in my opinion. Lye fun is smooth and chewy, while the thick vermicelli comes off grainy due to the rice starch. just not the same...

ok... beside the customs and traditions, i think a glossary of nyonya ingredients will be good before embarking on recipes and cooking. ya?

[Pan]

I look forward to more posts on this thread.

There have been at least two other relevant threads:

Typical Nyonya altar food, with great pictures by yunnermeier.

"Nyonya cuisine, a traditional fusion food"

[Pan]

mflo, how do your parents communicate? In Malay?

Bubur cacak is a favorite of mine from my days in a Malay village in Terengganu, where most every woman cooked it.

I'd love to hear more about Peranakan food-related pantang. You might want to post about those in either this thread or this one, with a link here. Parenthetically, my mother, an anthropologist, wrote about and did research on Terengganu Malay pantang, especially those related to pregnancy, childbirth, and the period 40 days and 40 nights after childbirth.

[Tepee]

Thanks, mflo, from a nyonya food fan. We've been known to travel to Penang and Malacca at the slightest excuse just for a solid nyonya fix.

[Shiewie]

Welcome mflo! Am more familiar with Penang Nyonya food than Melaka or S'pore Nyonya as one of my grans was a Penang Nyonya.

Am enjoying your posts and am looking forward to more .

[Dejah]

What a great way to start my morning...and weekend...another food world to explore! Keep it coming, mflo. Pictures to titillate too please.

As we are nearing Moon Festifval, some traditional thoughts about festival foods would be greatly appreciated, along with recipes of course.

[alycemoy]

sounds so yummy!

Laksa is so good. I'd love to learn how to make good Penang laksa....

[Ben Hong]

For another aspect of the history of the Chinese traders in the Straits Region read the book "1421", by Gavin Menzies. Even if only 1/2 of what he says is true, it would still be an astounding story.

I have only experienced Malaysia and S'pore three times, and I must say that the lasting memory was mainly about the food (what were you thinking??). The techniques that I encountered were basically Chinese, but my, what interesting and amazing fusions and combinations they do with ingredients. *drool,* slobber*

[mflo]

Alycemoy, dont worry, a good laksa recipe will come your way very soon. and i will describe in detail on the dos and dont of making a good penang laksa as well. it was those one dish that i can relish passing down my infos on cause i've been through trial and error with it.

pan: my mum passed away when i was real young, so i grew up with my grandmother. Our family (included extended) communicate in English and our patois, the "Baba Hokkien", which is a mixture of English, Malay and Hokkien mixed together. and Also some splatter of Hokchu, because thats my grandmother's mother tongue.

pan, i have to correct ur pronounciation on bubur chacha. When I first saw the post, for a moment i had no idea what it was. Cacak actually sounds like lizard. u had me scared for a moment... usually their either pronounced it Cha-cha or char-char. The chinese with their mangled malay will pronounced it "jaja" hehe...

Sometime, people ask me if i were ever tired of nyonya food. Actually, I dont. I am proud of my heritage and am never sick of eating them. Even after facing them over and over again.... but it is very fattening..... and high cholestrol....

I hope i can include pics as well. But as a chef, with busy working hours, i hardly went home to visit my hometown. So, i'll see what i can do...

I cant really descibe much about festivals, except we have several big ones like Chun Jik (Lunar New Year) & Chap Goh Meh (15th Night), Cheng Beng (prayers to ancestors), this which i hardly participate because I am a Roman Catholic, and I don't like all those prayers thingy, cause it is not about my religion. That is another subject all together, best left alone . We also celebrate the Dumpling festival. I remember when I was young, I would relish helping my grandmother prepare the ingredients for the dumplings. She was very particular about the rice, I remember she will spread them out in these huge metal tray and make us (the grandchildren) pick the rice for her. You have to thoroughly seperate the glutinous rice from the normal rice and those that she considered "bad". If not, the end product of the dumpling will not achieve the "holding" quality that she wanted. Can understand so far?

Then, we also celebrate the Hungry Ghost month. With more food and prayers....

Mooncake festival / Lantern festival. With more food and prayers and mooncake. When I was young, my grandmother will only buy mooncake from this lady that lives about 3 street away from us. She makes these fantastic tau sar & lotus paste mixed baked mooncake with a very fragrant crust. Half the time, i'll just eat the crust and throw away the filling Seriously, nobody makes it like her anymore.

After the mooncake festival, another big occasion in our family will be the Giu Ong Ya ( Nine Emperor) Birthday. I dunno why they called it Nine Emperor, but it is to actually celebrate the birth of the Jade Emperor.

Then there is one of my favourite, the Winder festival, or we called it the "Tang jek". Because this is the time i get to eat homemade glutinous rice ball!!!!! yummy... I eat tons of these. Just simply love them. The plain rice balls without any filling and served in a pandan and ginger flavoured gula melaka syrup....

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Then, there will be of course, Nyonya weddings and funerals.....

Hmm, we ALWAYS serve meatball porridge made from pork during the wake.

and during mourning, we can only wear white, dark blue or black. and our typical colourful bowls and stuffs, we change them all to this plain dark blue and white instead...

Ok, i'll stop here first. cant think of anything else. good night

[Pan]

[...]pan, i have to correct ur pronounciation on bubur chacha. When I first saw the post, for a moment i had no idea what it was. Cacak actually sounds like lizard.[...]

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That's cicak (gecko). I've seen it written as "cacak" on menus sometimes. Besides, my pronunciation is Terengganu-style, though I have to say that I can't remember people distinguishing between different kinds of bubur there. Most every time I had bubur there, it was what others call "cacak," "caca," whatever. (Hmmm...If the real spelling is "cacar" that would end up being "chachaa" or "chaCHO" in Terengganu/Kelantan Malay. I'll have to tell you sometime about my pronunciation of "lokan.")

We also celebrate the Dumpling festival. I remember when I was young, I would relish helping my grandmother prepare the ingredients for the dumplings. She was very particular about the rice, I remember she will spread them out in these huge metal tray and make us (the grandchildren) pick the rice for her. You have to thoroughly seperate the glutinous rice from the normal rice and those that she considered "bad". If not, the end product of the dumpling will not achieve the "holding" quality that she wanted. Can understand so far?

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Yeah, but feel free to elaborate when you have time.

After the mooncake festival, another big occasion in our family will be the Giu Ong Ya ( Nine Emperor) Birthday. I dunno why they called it Nine Emperor, but it is to actually celebrate the birth of the Jade Emperor.

Then there is one of my favourite, the Winder festival, or we called it the  "Tang jek". Because this is the time i get to eat homemade glutinous rice ball!!!!! yummy... I eat tons of these. Just simply love them. The plain rice balls without any filling and served in a pandan and ginger flavoured gula melaka syrup....

~~~~

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I love gula melaka! One dessert I really enjoyed during my last trip to Malaysia was Sago Gula Melaka. I don't think I ever had a chance to have it when I was living in Malaysia in the mid 70s, because they didn't make it in the coffee house that had a block of ice in the bin in the village(no 24-hour electricity, so no refrigeration in those days) and I didn't come across such a dessert during my time in KL or other places.

One question: You mentioned that you are a busy chef and don't get to go back to your home town much. What town did you grow up in?

[hzrt8w]

I just read this 3-year old post about Cantonese food by Toby. Very nicely written for those who have not read it:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...ndpost&p=124374

[Gastro888]

Very wow. Thanks for the post Toby. And best of all, being a 2.5 generation descendant from a small village outside Toi San (keywords: VERY SMALL VILLAGE), I can affirm what Toby's posted as being the truth with good translations too ...

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My friend visited Toisan this summer. It ain't no small village anymore! They have two highways now - one east/west and one north/south.

Wah, so fancy-lah!

A fellow village-ite.

[sheetz]

My friend visited Toisan this summer.  It ain't no small village anymore!  They have two highways now - one east/west and one north/south.

Wah, so fancy-lah! 

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Times do change. It wasn't that long ago that my parents visited a "well-to-do" cousin who had not one, but TWO bicycles!

[Ce'nedra]

Ok I was about to create a thread on the Manchu cuisine and home style cooking but found this instead woohoo!

It looks like this thread kind of died...

Anyway, there may be a reason as to why there is not much mention or knowledge in this particular cuisine. It's said that quite alot of the North-eastern Chinese regional dishes are in fact of Manchu origin. I'm not sure how reliable this piece of information is, but if it's true, that could explain why nobody really talks of Manchu food -it's pretty much integrated into the local cuisine and is no longer differentiated?

Btw, I also found this in wiki ( )

Another distinct feature that separates Manchurian cuisine from other Chinese cuisines is to serve fresh raw vegetables and raw seafood in coastal areas.

It'd be awesome if there were some Manchu recipes (in English)!

[Ce'nedra]

HEY! Remember this?! http://xyscyxs.mofcom.gov.cn/upload/proimage/2606.jpg

I'm sure everyone (every Chinese that is) has had this before -my whole life I never knew it's name and just found out it's called Sachima.

Well, apparently it's a Manchu sweet snack! Aha! And I've been eating this for ages (since I was a child) -very interesting to finally discover it's origins

The name 'sachima' is also in the Manchurian language -which doesn't surprise me because it definately doesn't sound very Chinese (mainstream Han Chinese anyway).

Btw, something else interesting I found (not exactly Manchu but could possibly be related):

Liaoning Cuisine, developed on the basis of Shandong Cuisine, is well known for its unique style. It integrates the quintessence of imperial dishes that spread far and wide among folks and rare dishes of various ethnic groups in China. Thanks to meticulously selected materials and highly skilled preparations, Liaoning Cuisine is well known for its unique colors, aromas and tastes and is spoken highly by Chinese and foreign gourmets.

Edited October 4, 2007 by Ce'nedra (log)

[hzrt8w]

Is Manchurian cuisine very close to modern day Korean food?

When we toured Beijing a few years ago, we were treated with a "so-called" Imperial feast (touristy thing), which was supposed to be based on the imperial dishes in the Ching dynasty. It was my impression that the setting and the food were very close to Korean banchans - many small dishes, a little bit of this and a little bit of that.