The Four Great Chinese Dishes: Which Four Dishes Are They? Have You Ever Tried These Famous Dishes?
China’s Four Famous Dishes – West Tongue, Gui Chicken, Diaohū Tofu, ZhaoJun Duck.
1West Tongue
There is a type of snack in West’s hometown called ‘West Tongue’. The pastry chefs use the ‘suspension-pouring’ technique to make a water-ground powder from glutinous rice flour, then mix it with glutinous rice flour to create a filling of dates, walnuts, osmanthus flowers, Chinese plums, and ten other fruits. This filling is pressed into a tongue-shaped mold and can be boiled in soup or fried in oil. This snack has a color like the moon, is sweet and refreshing.
There is also a soup made with shellfish, such as sea clams or sand clams, which was given the name ‘West Tongue’. Legend has it that during Emperor Xuanzong’s eastward journey to Laoshan Mountain, the chef made this soup for him, and Emperor Xuanzong exclaimed that it was incredibly delicious. This clearly shows the dish’s exceptional flavor.
The soup is rich in gravy, smooth in texture, and has a delicious, fresh flavor, earning it the reputation of ‘the freshest in the world’.
2Gui Chicken
This dish was created by a famous Shanghai chef. It uses plump, tender hens as the main ingredient, with wine as the seasoning. After cooking, the aroma of wine is rich and delicious, intoxicating. It’s called ‘Gui Chicken’.
There is also ‘Gui Chicken’ in Xi’an. It uses chicken breast, chopped scallions, (liquor), and mushrooms as the filling for dumplings. The dumplings resemble full ears of wheat, with thin skins and tender fillings, which are both fresh and not greasy. Gui Chicken has exceptionally fresh meat, combining the tenderness of domestic chickens with the robustness of wild chickens, and the deliciousness of birds. It’s considered an ideal nutritious and restorative dish, earning it the praise of ‘the finest chicken in the country’.
Professor Xin Jixi of Sun Yat-sen University praised: ‘Gui Chicken’s quality, deliciousness and elegance are indistinguishable from Peacock!’.
