The raw materials of Anhui cuisine are inexhaustible because of their rich resources and excellent texture. Anhui is located in the hinterland of East China, with mild climate and moderate rainfall, four distinct seasons and abundant products. The mountainous areas in southern Anhui and Dabie Mountains are rich in tea, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, auricularia, chestnuts, yams and pheasants, stone fish, tremella, soft-shelled turtles, eagle turtles and civets, and the famous "Qihong" and "Tunlu" are world-famous Anhui specialties. The Yangtze River, Huaihe River and Chaohu Lake are important freshwater fish producing areas in China, which provide abundant aquatic resources such as fish, shrimp, crab, turtle, water chestnut, lotus root, lotus root and clam for Anhui cuisine. Among them, Yangtze River shad, Huaihe River fat king fish, Chaohu whitebait, hairy crabs, etc. are all prestigious table treasures; The vast Huaibei Plain, fertile Jianghuai and Jiangnan polder areas are rich in all kinds of grain, oil, fruits and vegetables, livestock and eggs, such as Dangshan crisp pear, Xiaoxian grape, Guoyang dried moss, Dahe Toona sinensis bud, Xuancheng candied dates, Anqing soybean paste, etc., which have long been well-known at home and abroad, providing a good material basis for the formation and development of Huizhou cuisine.
There are more than 1000 traditional varieties of Anhui cuisine, and its flavor includes the characteristics of three local dishes: southern Anhui, along the Yangtze River and along the Huaihe River. Southern Anhui, represented by Huizhou cuisine, is the mainstream and origin of Huizhou cuisine. Its main feature is that it likes to use ham as a seasoning, and it is fresh with rock sugar. It is good at maintaining the original taste and true taste of raw materials, and its taste is mainly salty, fresh and fragrant, but it is not sweet with sugar. The flavor along the Yangtze River is popular in Wuhu, Anqing and Chaohu. It is good at cooking seafood and poultry, paying attention to knife skills, paying attention to shapes and colors, being good at seasoning with sugar, and being good at cooking, stewing, steaming and smoking. Its dishes are refreshing, crisp and mellow. The dishes along the Huaihe River are represented by the local dishes in Bengbu, Suxian and Fuyang in the Yellow River valley. They are good at cooking techniques such as burning, frying and frying, and love to season and match colors with wanluo and pepper. Their flavor features are salty, fresh, crisp, slightly spicy, refreshing and rarely flavored with sugar.
Its overall style is: elegant and simple, original flavor, crisp, tender, fragrant and fresh, with appropriate shades, and it has the characteristics of strict material selection, unique pyrotechnics, paying attention to food supplement, paying attention to the original taste, diverse dishes, and the similarities between North and South Xian Yi.
The cooking techniques of Huizhou cuisine, including knife-cutting, heat-curing and operation techniques, have always been a fine tradition, and its uniqueness is mainly reflected in the kung fu dishes that are good at cooking, stewing, smoking and steaming. The use of different fire-control techniques in different dishes is an important symbol of the attainments of Huizhou chefs, and it is also the basic means for Huizhou cuisine to form a unique style of crisp, tender, fragrant and fresh. There are about 50 cooking techniques commonly used in Anhui cuisine in 20 categories.
After nearly a thousand years of development, Anhui cuisine not only has a large number of famous dishes and delicious dishes, but also has a number of famous restaurants. Such as Huangshan Anhui Cuisine Hall, Huaishang Restaurant, Hefei Hotel, Xiaoyao Restaurant, Luzhou Roast Duck Restaurant and Overseas Chinese Hotel in Hefei; Jinshan Hotel and Huaihe Restaurant in Bengbu; Tongqinglou, Geng Fuxing, Ma Yixing (Hui) Restaurant, Jinghu Restaurant and Rich Restaurant in Wuhu; Anqing's Beijing-Tianjin Restaurant, Xinxing Restaurant and Jiangwanchun Cake Noodle Shop; Shanghai restaurant in Huaibei; Tongle restaurant in Tongling; Tunxi Anhui Cuisine Hall in Huangshan; Phoenix Restaurant in Fuyang and Northern Anhui Restaurant in Bozhou; The Wangping Building of Quanjiao, etc.
Famous dishes are:
Fuliji roast chicken ham stewed turtle marinated fresh mandarin fish ham stewed whip bamboo shoot snow winter roasted pheasant braised civet milk fat king fish Mao Feng smoked shad raw chicken.