4 Dishes Every Chinese Food Lover Should Know

Chinese cuisine has long been famous around the world, from dishes with flavors dating back centuries to simple ones that stay in your memory after just one taste. Today, let's look at the 4 dishes people have voted the most quintessentially Chinese.

1. Dim sum

Dim sum is often lovingly described as the very essence of Chinese cuisine. Made with care and precision by highly skilled hands, dim sum has delicate flavors, eye-catching shapes and appealing colors, and it has won the hearts of everyone who loves Chinese food.

2. Longevity noodles

With such a beautiful and meaningful name, this dish is probably already familiar to us. A bowl of very long noodles, crafted with great care at every step and served in a rich, flavorful broth. Longevity noodles are traditionally served at festivals, Lunar New Year, elders' birthday celebrations and birthdays as a wish for a long and healthy life. They are delicious served with roast duck or char siu.

3. Buddha Jumps Over the Wall

This is the celebrated braised dish of Fuzhou (Fujian, China), created in the late Qing dynasty. It is made from around 30 premium ingredients such as abalone, sea cucumber, shark fin, fish maw, scallops, chicken and mushrooms, slow-cooked in Shaoxing wine following a very elaborate process. The dish is popular around the world, including in Britain, Japan and Vietnam, but its flavor has been adapted to suit local tastes and no longer keeps the original taste of the Qing dynasty.

4. Peking duck

If Buddha Jumps Over the Wall is the pride of Fujian, Peking duck is the pride of the capital. This roast duck dates back to the Yuan dynasty, was refined in the Ming imperial kitchens and followed the court to Beijing. The duck is inflated to separate the skin, brushed with maltose syrup and roasted in an oven until the skin is crisp and glossy and the meat tender and fragrant, then usually wrapped in thin pancakes with scallions, cucumber and sweet bean sauce.

These four dishes certainly don't cover the full, colorful variety of Chinese cuisine, but they hold an important place in the hearts of Chinese people and of the wider world. When people talk about Chinese food, they talk about dim sum, longevity noodles and more - each with its own flavor, and all of them have contributed greatly to the fame of Chinese cuisine.

Source: compiled