Jiangmu Duck
Stir fry the muscovy duck with sesame oil and then add mature ginger and rice wine to have it cooked. It smells appetizing and tastes sweet and spicy. It clears the liver and nourishes the lungs, tonifies the stomach and spleen, accelerate circulation of blood, and dispels the cold.
Oyster Omelet
Choose small oysters which would be tasty. Next, mix and blend oyster, garlic sprouts, Chinese chives and sweet potato flour, spread out the mixture onto the fryer when the oil is hot, and then have both sides of the cake well fried. For better taste, also spread egg liquid and get all ingredients well fried. Before serving, spread some pepper and put some coriander. When eating, dip into mustard and chilli sauce. Delicious.
Dried Longyan
Tong'an of Xiamen is one of top six places of production of longyan in China. Now it has over one hundred kinds with the plant area of 30,000,000 square meters, and the produced longyan is sold at home and abroad. The longyan produced in Tong'an has large granule, thin peel, thick flesh, juicy, sweet and refreshing. It is used to be the tribute for the emperor in the past and now is the fruit popular among tourists from home and abroad who are eager to purchase.
Dried Meat Floss
The dried meat floss, dried meat slice, diced meat and dried meat of Gulangyu are well- known souvenirs. The dried meat floss melts in the mouth, the dried meat slice becomes paste in the mouth with fragrance and sweet; the diced meat and dried meat are bite- resistant, chew- resistant and taste- resistant, go well with wine and well match the tea when getting together with relatives and friends.
Orange Pastry
The orange pastry is a kind of snack of people in Xiamen during their childhood. The appearance is as smooth as jade, glossy and exquisite. It tastes soft and chew- resistant, smells fragrant and refreshing. It sells well in various places and is famous at home and abroad.
Pasty
The pasty is a kind of traditional pastry popular home and abroad and is one of traditional food of Southern Fujian. The pasty is crispy and sticky, cool and tasty, sweet but not greasy, soft and smooth. The pasty has many flavors and the traditional pasty includes sweet kind with green bean paste and salty kind with diced meat.
Peanut Crisp
The peanut crisp is also called peanut candy which is made of high- quality peanut kernel, white granulated sugar and malt sugar by hand. It is crispy and fragrant, melts in the mouth, and is sweet but not greasy. The old people in Xiamen like eating the peanut crisp when drinking tea and someone may use the peanut crisp as the filling of the pastry.
Vegetarian Dishes in South Putuo Temple
The South Putuo Temple is also well known for its 40 vegetarian dishes, of which the main ingredients are rice and noodles, beans, vegetables, mushroom and edible fungus. The vegetarian food made in South Putuo Temple is superior of its shape, color, flavor and taste. Each dish has its own unique flavor and is of unique shape. Elegant names are also brought to the dishes such as “Half-moon at the River Bottom” and “Golden Lotus in South Sea”.
Seafood in Xiamen
Xiamen cuisine is noted for seafood such as garoupa, yellow croakers, red crab and local squid. Such dishes were considered as traditional Xiamen cuisine since the Qing Dynasty.
The ingredients must be fresh in cooling the seafood dishes. It is better to cook them immediately when you get them from the market. At the restaurant, customers can pick out live seafood, and pass them to the chef for a freshly prepared dish.
Baobin (Spring Roll)
Baobin is also called spring roll. It is a common practice for the local people to have Baobin when Chinese New Year, Qingming Festival or Festival in March comes. There are two main components of “Baobing”, the skin made mostly from the fine flour and fillings made from precooked ingredients such as fried pork, fried tofu silk, shrimp, oysters as well as the sliced bamboo shoots, carrot, cabbage and fresh garlic. Those deep-fried ingredients are wrapped fully in the shape of bamboo tube. You can dip the Baobing in chili sauce or the mashed garlic to make it more flavorful.
Maci (Glutinous Rice Cake)
Maci is a kind of glutinous rice cake, inside which are the peanut powder and white sugar. Let the wrapped glutinous cake roll on a thin layer of black sesame powder, the Maci will be done. There is a stall called “Yecheng’s House” at the crossroad of Longtou Road and Fujian Road. It is a family making Maci for generations and has gain a reputation. People in Gulang Island call it “Wu’s Maci” with great affection. Each Maci costs only one yuan and sometimes you might have to queue in line.
Sweet Peanut Soup
The ingredients of sweet peanut soup are simple, but its cooking is quite complex. Firstly, using the boiled water to soak the peanut, and then peel the peanut skin. After that, cook the peanut by the pressure cooker. When the peanut is cooked thoroughly, put sugar into the cooker and continue to cook it until the peanuts are completely soft. You can enjoy the sweet peanut soup together with deep fried dough sticks, deep-fried jujube, fried leek dumplings, meat buns, sweet buns and fried glutinous rice, etc. The most famous peanut soup must be in Huang Zehe at Zhongshan Road (a famous snacks store in Xiamen).
Tusun Jelly
Tusun Jelly is a well-known Chinese style cookie of Xiamen. Sea worm, literary called "sipunculid", is a kind of worm found in muddy seabed. Before the cooking, the sea worm should be washed to remove the guts and sands thoroughly. When the worm is cooked tenderly, the pectin of it mixes with water and finally become a kind of jelly. It is extremely refreshing and tasty.
Sweet Pie
The sweet pie is one of the typical desserts in Xiamen. The main ingredients are mung beans with, white sugar and fine flour. Take a piece of the pie into your mouth, it tastes sweet but not greasy, and it is extremely tasty and refreshing. The Gulang Island Pie and Wangji Pie in Xiamen are the best places to taste the sweet pie.
Shrimp Noodle
Firstly, wash the shrimp thoroughly and peel the shell and head from the shrimp. Then, place the crushed shrimp head and shell in a cookware with some water to make the shrimp soup. After that, remove the dregs from the soup by filtering, and you will see a surface layer of crimson shrimp oil with a fragrance overflowing. Secondly, put the peeled shrimp to the soup for cooking and take it out to the bowl ready for use. Mix the shrimp soup and pork soup, served with salt and monosodium glutamate as seasoning. Thirdly, place the noodle together with bean sprouts, leek, crown daisy (or coriander) to the boiled water. Then take those cooked ingredients out and put them into the bowl. Finally, add the cooked pork slices, peeled shrimp and pork oil to the noodle, drizzled with the hot shrimp soup and seasoned with the garlic, a shrimp noodle is come to completion.
Tong'an wrapped Pork
Tong’an wrapped pork is a local cuisine of typical Xiamen flavor. Its cooking procedure is as follows: Firstly, choose a chunk of hock that weight about 2 kilos and wrap it in the square gauze. Then fry the pork with an amount of lard in the pan, serving with soy sauce, white sugar, monosodium glutamate, rice wine and star anise as seasonings. After that, braise the pork for 2.5 hours together with black mushroom, lotus seeds, shrimps, dried oyster etc.
Shacha Noodle（Noodle with Satay Sause）
As a traditional famous Xiamen dish, the Shacha noodle (noodle with satay sause) is found everywhere at the streets of Xiamen. It is famous for its cheap price as well as the flavorful spicy satay which are not only rich in nutrition, but good for appetite, body metabolism and dispelling endogenous wind and cold.
"Shacha" is a transliteration of Malay language originating from Southeast Asia. It is a seasoning which made of sesame seeds, crushed onion and garlic, herb, peanut oil, shrimp sauce and chili powder, etc. it is called “Shacha spicy” because it is in taste of slight spicy. According to the saying of the famous gastronome Yang Jibo, the spicy sauce was introduced to Xiamen by the returned overseas Chinese Mr. Chen Youxiang. Based on the overseas study for years, Chen developed the cooking methods of spicy satay to make its own specialty before founding the "Seasoning Store of Chen Youxiang". He increases his seasoning to more than twenty kinds. Besides the sauce type, Chen also developed the powder type for better preserved and carry. His cooking has reached such a high degree of excellent that even the overseas compatriots are fond of his seasonings.
The cooking of Shacha noodle is quite simple. Just cook the noodle in boiled for a few seconds, take them out and pour the thick spicy satay soup into the bowl of noodles while they are still hot, a bowl of rich-flavored satay noodles will come to completion. When cooking the Shacha pork noodle or Shacha beef noodle, the meet should be cut into thin slices. The marriage of some mungbean sprout or other vegetables will result in a savory taste that you’ll yearn for.
