Hui Cuisine Delights: Explore Anhui’s Authentic Dishes
Hui cuisine overview🍮
Hui cuisine, also known as Anhui cuisine, is one of the Eight Great Cuisines of China. According to the Standardized System of Hui Cuisine, the scope of traditional Hui cuisine has been expanded. It now officially encompasses Huinan cuisine, Wanjiang cuisine, Hefei cuisine, Huainan cuisine, and Wanbei cuisine, with Huinan cuisine, represented by Huizhou local dishes, considered the core and origin of Hui cuisine.
Huinan flavor, rooted in Huizhou specialties, serves as the mainstream branch. It draws on local ingredients and traditional folk cooking methods, while also absorbing techniques from other regional cuisines. These dishes are characterized primarily by their salty and umami flavors. Hui cuisine, with its profound cultural heritage, is one of China’s most renowned culinary traditions. Its main features include a focus on savory tastes, highlighting the natural flavors of ingredients, mastery of cooking heat, and an emphasis on food therapy. Common cooking techniques include braising, stewing, simmering, steaming, and smoking.
*Anhui Cuisine: Spicy Chicken Feet.
*Anhui Cuisine: Earth Pot Chicken.
Development History of Hui Cuisine📌
Hui cuisine is a brilliant gem in the treasure trove of Chinese culinary culture. It originated in She County, at the foot of the Yellow Mountains (ancient Huizhou), and was originally a local mountain flavor. According to the Huizhou Gazetteer, during the Southern Song Dynasty, Emperor Gaozong asked the scholar Wang Zao about the “flavors of She,” to which Wang Zao replied, “Oxtail and raccoon in the snow, tortoise from sandy ground.” Before the Song Dynasty, Huizhou was known as Shezhou; in 1121, during the third year of Emperor Huizong’s Xuanhe era, it was renamed Huizhou with its administrative seat in She County.
The prosperity of commerce in ancient Huizhou contributed to the rise of Hui cuisine. The town of Tunxi, located along the Xin’an River, became a distribution center for famous teas such as Qihong and Tunlu, as well as local products like Huizhou ink and She inkstones. Some renowned chefs specializing in Hui cuisine also moved to Tunxi, leading to the local rise of Hui culinary culture. Wealthy Huizhou merchants gradually adopted the principle of “never skimping on delicacy, never settling for coarse preparation,” which objectively encouraged improvements and innovations in cooking techniques and fostered a generation of highly skilled Hui chefs, further promoting the development of Hui cuisine.
Over time, influenced by different regional cuisines, some styles spread across provinces, while several coexisted within the same province. Through long-term interaction, various styles permeated one another, adopting strengths and minimizing weaknesses. Beyond their distinctive regional characteristics, they also developed shared traits. The name “Hui cuisine” originates from Huizhou; it flourished with the rise of Huizhou merchants and declined with their fall. As Huizhou merchants expanded their influence outward, their culinary tastes, together with those of the local gentry, helped popularize Hui cuisine.
*Anhui Cuisine: Pork Belly in Golden Broth.
*Anhui Cuisine: Stinky Mandarin Fish.
Scope of Hui Cuisine🎗
Huinan-style dishes are characterized by rich, savory flavors that preserve the natural taste of ingredients. Wanjiang-style dishes are mildly sweet and savory, with a tender and refreshing texture. Wanbei-style dishes feature slightly spicy, savory flavors with a crisp and full-bodied texture. Hefei-style dishes have a moderate savory taste and a strong, fragrant sauce, while Huainan-style dishes are savory, aromatic, slightly spicy, and smooth with a rich flavor. Throughout history, the Jianghuai region has been renowned for its diverse and lasting culinary specialties.
The picturesque landscapes of Huizhou, the iconic white walls and black-tiled architecture, and the legendary Huizhou merchants who valued Confucian ideals and integrity—all of these elements, along with the abundant natural resources and profound cultural heritage of ancient Huizhou, inspired the formation of local tastes. Unique dishes such as stinky mandarin fish, Mao tofu, and Dao Ban Xiang are highly distinctive and easily recognizable, becoming typical representatives of local flavors. Ancient Huizhou cuisine is an integral part of Huizhou culture, and for many, Hui cuisine is synonymous with ancient Huizhou cuisine.
“Undoubtedly, ancient Huizhou made a historic contribution to the formation and development of Hui cuisine. However, over time, the concept of Hui cuisine has expanded and now refers to Anhui cuisine as a whole,” explained Ma Bangshan, Vice President of the Anhui Culinary Association. In the 1980s, publications such as China Famous Recipes (Anhui Flavor), issued by the former Ministry of Commerce’s Food Service Bureau, noted that “Anhui cuisine, also known as Hui cuisine.” In 2021, the Ministry of Commerce’s Department of Trade in Services included in Chinese Culinary Collection (Anhui section) that Hui cuisine “is represented by ancient Huizhou dishes and composed of five major styles.
Characteristics of Hui Cuisine📒
Ingredients and Sourcing
Hui cuisine emphasizes the use of local ingredients, with freshness as its hallmark. The Anhui region is rich in mountain delicacies, wild game, freshwater seafood, and poultry, allowing chefs to highlight local flavors while ensuring ingredients are fresh and lively. Cooking techniques in Hui cuisine pay meticulous attention to heat control, adjusting high, medium, or low heat according to the texture of the ingredients and the desired flavor of the finished dish. Braised and stewed dishes are particularly refined, achieving a perfect balance of intensity and subtlety.
While techniques such as stir-frying, quick frying, deep-frying, braising, stewing, boiling, roasting, and simmering each have their merits, Hui cuisine is especially renowned for braising, stewing, smoking, and steaming. Hui cuisine also emphasizes natural, nourishing ingredients. The region’s climate is mild, with moderate rainfall and distinct seasons, providing abundant high-quality produce and wild delicacies. Huizhou is famous for its tea, bamboo shoots, shiitake mushrooms, black fungus, chestnuts, yam, and wild delicacies such as rock chicken, rock fish, rock mushrooms, softshell turtle, and eagles’ turtles. World-renowned products such as Qihong tea and Tunlu tea are iconic local specialties.
Key Features
Hui cuisine specializes in braising, stewing, and steaming, while stir-fried and quick-fried dishes are less common. It tends to use rich oil, deep colors, and precise heat control. Following the traditional Chinese concept of “medicine and food share the same origin,” Hui cuisine emphasizes nutritional benefits, making food therapy a defining characteristic. Red-braising is a prominent category in Hui cuisine, with the “red” derived from caramelized sugar, requiring strict control of heat. Stir-frying typically uses home-pressed rapeseed oil, with wood as fuel—charcoal for slow gentle heat, twigs for rapid high heat, and wood blocks for sustained low heat—demonstrating careful attention to cooking techniques.
*Anhui Cuisine: Garlic Shrimp.
*Anhui Cuisine: Braised Pork Belly.
Classic Dishes of Hui Cuisine🍱
Historically, Hui cuisine featured five to six hundred varieties of dishes. Through selection, refinement, and innovation, the cuisine today includes more than 3,000 old and new varieties. Some of the most representative dishes include pickled mandarin fish (stinky mandarin fish), Wenzheng mountain bamboo shoots, Huizhou Mao tofu, Huizhou steamed chicken, Hu’s One-Pot Dish, Wuwei smoked duck, Maofeng smoked shad, stir-fried shredded shrimp, Fuli Ji roast chicken, Li Hongzhang assorted stew, Sanhe crispy duck, Lord Bao fish, Wu Wang tribute goose, shepherd’s purse dumplings, Wang Yixing roast duck, Bagong Mountain tofu, milk-braised fat carp, clear broth white jade dumplings, and Huai King fish braised with tofu.
Over time, hundreds of new dishes have been developed, such as Family Harmony Pot, Phoenix Returns to the Nest, Stir-Fried Eel Paste, Yangmei Meatballs, Sandy Ground Crucian Carp, Silver Sprout Mountain Chicken, Red-Braised Sliced Fish, Five-Color Hydrangea, Three-Shrimp Tofu, Jade Shrimp, Red-Braised Roast, Fermented Bean Curd Fried Pork, Snowy Red Plum, Fire-Roasted Bamboo Shoots, Squirrel-Shaped Yellow Croaker, and Claypot Duck Wontons.
Cooking Techniques of Hui Cuisine🥠
The cooking techniques of Hui cuisine encompass knife skills, heat control, and operational methods. The emphasis on precise heat control has long been a hallmark of Hui culinary tradition. Its unique expertise is particularly evident in braised, stewed, smoked, and steamed dishes. Mastery of different fire techniques for different dishes is an important measure of a Hui chef’s skill and is the fundamental means by which Hui cuisine achieves its signature textures—crispy, tender, fragrant, and fresh.
Hui cuisine commonly employs over 50 specific techniques across roughly 20 categories. Among these, the methods that best exemplify the distinctive characteristics of Hui cuisine include “Hua Shao” (gentle braising), red-braising, clear stewing, and raw smoking.