The atlas · A cuisine · Fujian province, south-eastern China

Fujian

Also Min, Hokkien, Min cuisine
One of Chinese cooking's regional kitchens · all 13 side by side

The cooking of China's south-eastern coast: clear soups, seafood, the sweet-sour red of fermented rice lees, and the street food the Hokkien carried across Asia.

Where it comes from

Fujian is mountains running down to a long, broken coast, and its cooking comes from both: seafood and dried seafood, mushrooms and bamboo shoots, and a great many soups — it's often said that a Fujian meal can't do without one. Min cuisine is counted among China's eight great regional cooking traditions.

It isn't one kitchen. Fuzhou, in the north, cooks lighter and sweeter, seasons with fish sauce and colours with red wine lees; Minnan, the south around Xiamen, Quanzhou and Zhangzhou, is bolder, with shacha sauce and a street-food habit. Quanzhou was one of the world's great ports in the Song and Yuan dynasties, and the coast has traded across the sea ever since.

From the seventeenth century on, Hokkien speakers from the Minnan coast settled Taiwan and much of South-East Asia. Their food went with them — popiah, oyster omelette, bak chang — so that much of what's called Taiwanese, Singaporean or Penang street food began here.

Where in it

  1. FuzhouThe provincial capital on the Min river, whose cooking is the lighter, sweeter, soupier side of Fujian: red lees, fish sauce, filled fish balls and the banquet soup Buddha jumps over the wall.Buddha jumps over the wallFuzhou fish ballsLychee porkRed wine lees chicken
  2. XiamenAn island port on the Minnan coast and a street-food town: shacha noodles, sweet peanut soup, and popiah rolled at the stall.Shacha noodlesSweet peanut soupPopiah
  3. QuanzhouThe great medieval port the Arabs called Zaitun, now a quieter city of temples and snack shops, known for its meat zongzi and its spring rolls.Bak changPopiah
  4. Zhangzhou and the Minnan coastThe farmland and fishing coast of southern Fujian, where oysters are farmed along the shore — and the oyster omelette, eaten from here to Taiwan and Singapore, is everyday food.Oyster omelette

How it cooks

Soups
Clear, carefully made broths at nearly every meal, from the everyday to the banquet's Buddha jumps over the wall.
Red lees (hóngzāo)
The red, winey residue of fermented rice, used to marinate, braise and colour — Fuzhou's signature.
Sweet and sour
A gentle sweetness balanced with vinegar, as in lychee pork — lighter than the Cantonese kind.
Knife work
Cross-hatching and fine slicing so meat and squid curl, cook evenly and hold a sauce.
Starch batters
Sweet potato starch in fish balls and omelettes, for a clear, springy, slightly chewy bite.

Always in the kitchen

light soyfish saucered wine leesred yeast riceshacha sauceShaoxing winesweet potato starchlardrock sugardried scallopsdried shrimpdried shiitakegarlicgingerspring onionoolong tea

Cook from it

Tonight, with what's good in October

Its classics

FujianBuddha jumps over the wallA banquet soup of abalone, sea cucumber, fish maw, scallops, meats and mushrooms, sealed in a jar with rice wine and simmered for hours.No one here has made it yetFujianFuzhou fish ballsSmooth, springy balls of fish paste with a juicy pork filling, served in a light broth.No one here has made it yetFujianLychee porkCross-scored pieces of pork, fried until they curl up like lychees, in a glossy red sweet-and-sour sauce with water chestnuts.No one here has made it yetFujianRed wine lees chickenChicken braised with red wine lees, ginger and rice wine until it turns a deep rosy red — sweet, winey and warming.No one here has made it yetFujianOyster omeletteSmall oysters fried in a sweet potato starch batter with eggs — crisp in places, soft and gooey in others.No one here has made it yetFujianPopiahA soft, paper-thin wheat crêpe rolled round a filling of braised vegetables, egg, prawn and crushed peanuts.No one here has made it yetFujianSweet peanut soupPeeled peanuts simmered until they're soft enough to melt, in a light, sweet, milky-looking broth.No one here has made it yetFujianShacha noodlesYellow noodles in a rich, orange, peanutty broth of shacha sauce, topped with your choice of seafood, offal and tofu.No one here has made it yetFujianBak changA pyramid of soy-darkened sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaves round braised pork belly, mushroom, chestnut and salted egg yolk.No one here has made it yet

Cooked here

No one here has cooked Fujian yet.