Yunnan recently announced the fourth batch of provincial-level, cultural heritage list of food, including many eye-catching dishes.
Brown Sugar
Qiaojia Small Bowl Brown Sugar is also called “bowl sugar" by local people and is produced in the area along Jinsha River in Qiaojia County. It has been made from selected sugar cane in a traditional process since the late Qing Dynasty and ranks highly in the domestic market.
Qiaojia Small Bowl Brown Sugar is the result of 18 working processes and firewood. The plain small bowl has a good-looking sugar colour: translucent reddish-yellow. The cane sugar fragrance lingers and the sugar melts immediately in your mouth, with a rich and mellow taste.
It retains the nutritional content of natural sugar cane, plus multiple trace elements that are beneficial for physical health, thus it is known as "Orient Chocolate.”
Jianshui Steam Pot Chicken
Jianshui Steam Pot Chicken has a long history and reputation. It’s been a popular dish in southern Yunnan since as early as the Emperor Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty.
"Fire makes sweet malt" - these words are fitting for the cooking of steam pot chicken. It is created by firstly cleaning and cutting the chicken into pieces (about 5 - 10 cm), before putting them into a steam pot (no water). Then you add some onion, ginger and salt.
Fill a pan with boiled water and then place the steam pot inside and seal the edge. Steam it for 2.5-3 hours and then it is ready to serve. The steam pot chicken cooked in this way is original, and the taste is super delicious.
You can taste a special flavour, if you add some Chinese matrimony-vine, shiitake mushroom, Chinese angelica and pilose asiabell root, forming the "nutritious steam pot chicken.”
Among the tens of thousands of cooking utensils, Jianshui people use a steam pot that is oblate with a trumpet-shaped steam import at the bottom connecting with a conical tube nozzle that goes straight to the top central part of the pot, and a well-sealed pot lid, forming a unique shape.
Waterless Rice Noodle
Waterless Rice Noodle is a special local snack in Yunnan. There are various cooking methods and among the most famous are Qujin Steamed Waterless Rice Noodle and Weishan Steak Waterless Rice Noodle.
The main raw material for Qujin Waterless Rice Noodle is the local quality paddy rice, which is made into rice blocks and cut into noodles. In the past, the cutting process was done manually but is now performed by machine. The flavouring and the ingredients are simple and rich, and the method is elegant.
Fresh leeks and mung bean sprouts are served with homemade soy sauce and carefully roasted meat sauce, which is boiled with spices, refined salt and white sugar. The meat sauce is made from fresh hind leg pork. Chop the pork into the sauce and stir fry with shiitake mushrooms, adding some souse Chinese sauerkraut and oil hot pepper (known as chili oil in some northern areas of China). Then the sweet-smelling Waterless Rice Noodle is ready to serve.
Lijiang Baba
Lijiang Baba is a special local food for Naxi people. It has a long history and was recorded as early as the Ming Dynasty in "Xu Xiake's Travel Notes.”
It has a nice appearance, flavour and taste. The main raw materials are the fine wheat produced in Lijiang, where water flows down from the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.
To make it, combine the wheat and water to form a dough, wipe vegetable oil on a marble flagstone, roll the dough to flat and into thin slices, spill some ham tips or white sugar, coil it and put both ends into the middle and press it with sesame and walnut kernel inside the coiled slices. Use a flat pan and low heat to roast it until it shows a colour of golden yellow.
Dried Beef
In Yunnan, Han people are good at making ham and bacon, and Hui people are good at producing dried beef. Dried beef is a special local food made of fresh beef and salted through multiple processes.
Yunnan Xundian Dried Beef enjoys a good reputation around the country for fresh flesh, good looking appearance and delicious taste. The entry of "Dried Beef" in the "China Hui Dictionary" states that: "Dried Beef - a special food for Yunnan Hui people, and Xundian produces the best ones."
Dried beef has various making methods, and the most common ones are deep-fried and stir-fried. Deep-fried dried beef is the most common. If you want to chew it longer, choose the tender deep-frying ones, and if you want crispy ones, choose the longer deep-frying ones.
In addition, the dried beef pairs well with many other ingredients, such as green pepper, dried chili, and can be stir fried with some Yunnan wild mushroom such as bolete, which is absolutely a unique food in Yunnan.