Hakka Cuisine

Hakka Cuisine 客家菜

Together with Guangzhou and Chaozhou cuisines, Hakka cuisine makes up the top three local cuisines of Cantonese cuisine, and is a general term of the local food, particularly in Meizhou. And Meizhou is the largest settlement and cultural center of Hakka people, which is called the world's Hakka capital. It breeds the famous distinctive Hakka food.

Early ancestors of Hakka people lived in an uncivilized place where they had to struggle with heaven and human beings. Life instability and the rugged environment gave early ancestors of Hakka people the indomitable to survive; therefore, in the diet of Hakka people, there is a distinct awareness of health care.

The materials of Hakka Cuisine are wild, domestic and natural, and the materials are cut into big chunks so as not to destroy the nutrients and fibers of food.

In terms of cooking methods, Hakka Cuisine is often boiled, simmered and stewed, and as to food matching, medicinal materials are preferably used to regulate Yin and Yang (阴 and 阳, refer to traditional Chinese medicine, part4), and the variety of food is adjusted according to season.

Rick Cake 米糕

Due to the shortage of flour, Hakka people who moved and settled down in Meizhou couldn't continue various categories of wheaten food culture on Central Plains, while they took local conditions into account and made colorful rice food with locally abundant rice.

Hakka people call all the desserts made of rice "rice cake." If we are walking on the street of Meizhou, we can see shops selling Hakka snacks here and there. The cate of different shapes and different colors are all made of rice milk.

The rice cake made of fermented rice milk is called Fermented Rice Cake (发饭). Because it has the same pronunciation with 发财 (fa1 cai2, getting rich), Hakka people endowed it with a good wish of getting rich. On all holidays and joyous days, Hakka people eat Fermented Rice Cake.

Qingming-Festival Rice Cake 

There are tens of categories of rice cakes of Hakka people. Apart from the close connection to traditions of the Spring Festival, rice cakes also play an essential role in the 24 Solar Terms periods. Almost every season and the fortnightly period have its corresponding rice cake.

Making food according to season and solar terms is a way of Hakka people's keeping good health and a feather of Hakka food as well.

During every Qingming Festival, Hakka people living in Meizhou and Guangdong will gather various medicinal herbs. They will wash the medicinal herbs clean mill them into juice, and then mix the juice of sticky flour it makes a special kind of food.

Mix the juice of wild herbs with sticky rice powder, then shape them into sticky rice balls with flower module tools and steam them, and then the delicious Hakka snack is finished. Hakka people name the snack Qingming-Festival Rice Cake which is a kind of seasonal food that only can be enjoyed around the Qingming Festival.

Stuffed Bean Curd 酿豆腐

The formation of Hakka food flavor is with that of Hakka nationality. As the Hakka dialect keeps archaic rhyme of Zhongzhou, the Hakka food in Meizhou as well maintains the traditional Chinese custom and culture on central plains.

The famous Hakka dish, Stuffed Bean Curd (tofu), is a kind of dish created by Hakka people under a particular environment to meet both mental and taste needs.

"Stuff 酿" is a verb of the Hakka dialect. It means putting fillings inside. Stuffed Bean Curd is the bean curd with fillings inside.

Stuffed Bean Curd is the dumping from northern nationalities when moving here, and is made into the shape of dumpling. When they came to the south, since there was no wheat to make flour, to memorize ancestors, they substituted dumplings with bean curd and made Stuffed Bean Curd into the shape of dumplings.

For thousands of years in the area of Central Plains, the dumpling has served as New Year's food. This was spread and became a custom passed down till today. After Hakka people moved southward to Guangdong, due to the shortage of flour in the south of the Five Ridges, where rice was the staple food, it was difficult for them to preserve this custom, so they used local materials. They used pork and vegetables as fillings and cut bean curd into triangle-shape as a wrapper, then such kind of bean curd dumpling was made.

No matter by steaming or boiling, frying or cooking, on holidays, you can always find a tray of Stuffed Bean Curd on the table of Hakka people. In this way, they follow the culture of central plains and express homesickness.

Chicken stewed in Niang Wine 娘酒炖鸡

Chicken stewed in Niang Wine of Hakka people cooked with chicken, minced ginger and Niang (娘 mom) Wine is a famous nutritious and health-preserving Hakka dish.

Hakka people think that chicken stewed Niang Wine is warm-natured and thus can dispel cold and dampness. It is not only a famous dish for the banquet but also a necessity to Hakka women's post-partum nourishment.

The locals say that if there is the smell of chicken stewed in Niang Wine coming out from a house in a village, it is very probable that there is a newly born baby in the family.

It is passed down from their ancestors.

All women began to have chicken stewed in Niang Wine since the first day after gave birth, they'll have more breast milk after eating this.

Hakka people believe that the function of chicken stewed in Niang Wine mainly comes from Niang Wine, so the family has to start preparing Niang Wine the first day they get to know that the woman is pregnant in the family.

However, well-brewed Niang Wine cannot be drunk by lying-in women directly. Ginger spliced, radix codonopsitis, black beans, and other medicinal must be added. The wine is then simmered with wood dust or rice straws for three days and three nights so that the moisture of the wine can completely volatilize.

Only Niang Wine thus brewed can strengthen the middle burner and replenish Qi and dispel cold and dampness.

Niang Wine 娘酒

Niang Wine of Hakka people is a kind of glutinous rice wine and is said to have a history of a thousand years. Almost every Hakka woman is an expert in making this glutinous rice wine. The reason why this glutinous rice wine is called Niang (mom) Wine is that it is a praise for diligent Hakka women who are clever in mind and skillful in hand.

How to cook Chicken stewed in Niang Wine

1, Cooked glutinous rice

2, Spread glutinous rice evenly to cool it

3, When the temperature has dropped, it can be added into Saccharomyces cerevisiae for fermentation

4. After the rice is added to Saccharomyces cerevisiae, we need to stir it continuously to make sure that glutinous rice and Saccharomyces cerevisiae can have complete contact.

5. After stirring glutinous rice put the mixed glutinous rice into wine jars that have been prepared earlier. Press compact glutinous rice after ensuring that Saccharomyces cerevisiae and glutinous rice are evenly mixed.

6, One day, after 24 hours, there will be a little wine in it.

7. After a week, it will be full of wine in the jars.

Salt Baked Chicken 盐焗鸡

There are various methods to cook Chinese food. Most of them are commonly used by various schools of the major cuisines. However, Hakka people have their way to cook; that is "salt-baked 盐焗." It's said that this kind of cooking method was formed during the migration of ancient Hakka ancestors. As in the old days of southward migration.

Hakka ancestors were always invaded by other nationalities and felt hard to settle down; they had to move from one place to another. During the migration, it's hard to carry alive poultry. Thus ancient Hakka people killed the poultry and stored their meat in salt packets. When they arrived at the destination, the salted chicken that they stored eased not only the food shortage but also nourished bodies. After settling down, Hakka people optimized the way for cooking salted chicken. Gradually, it became today's famous Hakka food.

How to cook the Salt Baked Chicken

To cook this dish well, the first is to pay attention to choosing chicken. We usually use the Hakka people domesticated chicken named Yellow Hair Chicken; its meat is tender and tastes better. Then,

1, Grind the ginger into powder, mix them with salt and gourmet powder, smear them on the Yellow Hair Chicken and wrap the whole chicken with paper. The top two layers should be the tissue-paper which is light and breathable. The bottom layer should be the local coarse paper produced locally.

About the paper, the first one is mainly to prevent the water from coming out of the chicken. And the second one is used to prevent the salt and water outside from going into the paper. (As the chicken has been salted, it has had a taste. Once the saltwater goes inside, the chicken will be too salty and could not be eaten.)

2. After wrapping the chicken, we should fry the salt. We need the coarse salt.

We should stir-fry the salt again and again with high heat till its surface smokes, and its color becomes grey from white. Till then, it's almost done.

3. Take half of the coarse salt that has been heated by stir-fried into the paper-wrapped chicken. And pour the other into the pot again. Put the whole chicken inside that. And heat the pot with soft fire. And after over an hour, the salt-baked chicken is done.

Meanwhile, the first dish in the banquet is usually chicken. Because in Chinese, chicken (鸡 ji1) sounds like luck (吉ji2), which means good luck for the feast.

Hakka people

Hakka ancestors who suffered a lot from chaos and migration carried on the cultural worship for Yuan (园, yuan2, round, reunion, etc.) of the Chinese nation, and vividly and incisively showed this mindset and complex of Yuan. Not only did they build their houses in round shapes, and name them round-dragon houses. They even made their food in circular shapes. Various kinds of round food are a special view on the dining table of Hakka people.

The life of Hakka people glorifies Yuan sings of Yuan and expects reunions.

The annual ancestor worship during Qingming Festival is also a great reunion of Hakka people. When those overseas Chinese who have been away from their hometown sit together with their family members in their ancestral house, tasting the delicious food of their hometown, they can also feel the historical trace of this ethnic group in it.