Sichuan (Chuan) Cuisine

Authentic Chuan cuisine is represented by the dishes of Chengdu in Sichuan Province and Chongqing. It attaches importance to material choice and is particular about specifications. The side dishes distinguished by different colors have a clear distinction between primary and secondary priority, thus being bright-colored and harmonious. It is characterized by sourness, sweetness, numbness, spiciness, fragrance, heavy oil and thick flavor. Placing an emphasis on seasoning, it can't go without chilies, pepper and Chinese red pepper as well as fresh ginger. It wins universal praise for its hotness and numbness, which are rare in other local dishes. These together develop the unique flavor of Chuan cuisine; which enjoys a good reputation as cuisine that is "one dish with one flavor and one hundred dishes with one hundred flavors".

Its cooking methods include baking, sautéing, dry-sautéing and steaming. Chuan cuisine is good at combining flavors and often has thick gravy. Based on the five flavors of saltiness, sweetness, numbness, spiciness and sourness, all kinds of seasonings are added, which cooperate with each other and develop into twenty three compound flavors of all sorts, such as home-style, salty and fresh, like-fish flavor, litchi flavor and bizarre flavor, as well as many others.

Representative dishes:
    Kung pao chicken
    Tea smoked duck
    Chongqing spicy deep-fried chicken
    Twice cooked pork
    Boiled beef in hot sauce
    Mapo dofu (spicy bean curd)
    Fried sliced pork meat with spicy sauce
    Bangbang chicken
    Lantern shadow beef
    Husband and wife’s pork lung slices
    Fish with bean sauce
    Sichuan hotpot