Cantonese ( Yuet ) cuisine or Guangzhou cuisine comes from Guangdong Province in Southern China. Of all the regional varieties of Chinese cuisine, Cantonese is renowned both inside and outside China. It enjoys great prestige among the eight great traditions of Chinese cuisine.

1. Guangdong dishes originated in Lingnan. Historically, Guangzhou was a key port for China's international trade. As the economy developed, so did the food culture. Guangdong cooking was embraced incessantly without sacrificing its own feature. Guangdong has many overseas Chinese, who have brought back cooking techniques from other countries, resulting in the famous Guangdong style.
   

What are the characteristics of Cantonese cuisine?

With the advantages of all delicacies from all over the country, Guangdong Cuisine has gradually formed its own characteristics - using a wide variety of ingredients, offering food of all tastes, shapes and colors, good at changing, and serving light food in summer and autumn, and strong and mellow food in winter and spring. It emphasizes flavors which are clear but not light, refreshing but not common, tender but not crude, and shiny but not oily. Guangdong Cuisine features sour, bitter, spicy and delicious tastes with a clear and fragrant smell. Guangdong

snacks are peculiar about ingredients, some sweet and some salty, enjoying the reputation of "100 kinds of snacks having 100 tastes and 100 shapes."

Guangdong cuisine has three branches: Guangzhou, Chaozhou and Dongjiang. Guangdong cuisine dominated by Guangzhou style is becoming increasingly popular across the country.

China. Prepared with high-quality materials, and varied ingredients, Guangzhou Cuisine is composed of light, delicious, refreshing and nutritious dishes with sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, salty and delicious tastes. Many dishes are good to the people‘s health.

Chaozhou food is similar to Fujian cuisine because Chaozhou neighbors Fujian Province. It stresses seafood and many dishes are served in soup. Its flavors are thick, delicious, and sweet. Cooks like to use fish sauce, hot sauce and red vinegar.

Dongjiang Hakka Cuisine which are popular in Heyuan region, are known as Hakka Cuisine. Fat, salty and well done, many dishes of Hakka Cuisine can help nourish yin, qi and the kidney, reduce heat, clear the lung, brighten the eyes, and improve the skin. Famous dishes include Dongjiang Salted Chicken, Dongjiang Bean Curd with Filling, Salty and Fragrant Chicken, Crystal Duck, Mandarin Fish in Soup, Steamed Chicken, Beef Set Meal, Delicacies from Xingang Lake, in addition to local refreshments, such as Bawanghua Rice Noodles, and Niujin Cake.

What are the typical cooking techniques possessed by Guangdong Cuisine?

The most characteristic cooking methods of Guangdong Cuisine are cooking in wine, cooking in salt, baking in a pan, and soft – frying.

away from the bottom. Place a cup of rose wine between the pigeons, then put the bowl inside an iron pot and heat the pot until the pigeons are well done. Half a cup of wine will remain without the slightest smell of wine, but the pigeons will have acquired an appealing fragrance of rose wine.

Cooking in salt means the preserved ingredient (a whole chicken, for example) is buried in heated salt until it is well done. The most famous of these dishes is Salt – Cooked Chicken from Dongjiang.

Baking in a pan means the ingredients are put in an iron pan with a cast iron lid. The pan is covered with a red – hot cast – iron lid and heated until the dish is done. A typical dish of this type is baked egg.

There are so many delicious dishes and snack in Cantonese cuisine that amounts to 2000 kinds. Here just list some of them.

Fried Bean Curd
Fresh Shrimps
Baiyun Pig's Trotters

Roast Piglet with Crisp Skin
Dongjiang Salted Chicken
Refreshing Beef Balls
Taiye Chicken