Provenance Technique Library

Hakka people — Meixian, Guangdong Province Techniques

2 techniques from Hakka people — Meixian, Guangdong Province cuisine

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Hakka people — Meixian, Guangdong Province

Cantonese Preserved Mustard Greens (Mei Cai) — Drying and Applications

Hakka people — Meixian, Guangdong Province

Mei cai (梅菜) — preserved mustard greens — is a Hakka and Cantonese pantry staple: mustard greens are salted, sun-dried, and then fermented slightly to produce a savoury, slightly sweet, deeply umami preserved vegetable. Inky dark in colour. Primary use: mei cai kou rou (steamed pork belly with mei cai) — the osmotic relationship between pork fat and dried vegetable creates extraordinary flavour exchange.

Chinese — Cantonese/Hakka — Preserved Vegetable foundational →

Hakka Salt-Baked Chicken (Yan Ju Ji) — Earth Oven Tradition

Hakka people — Meixian, Guangdong Province

Yan ju ji (盐焗鸡) — salt-baked chicken — is the defining Hakka dish, originating from preservation needs of the Hakka people (a historically migrating Han Chinese subgroup). The whole chicken is rubbed with salt and sand ginger (sha jiang), wrapped in paper, buried in hot sand salt in a wok, and baked by indirect heat from the surrounding salt for 30+ minutes. The result is intensely aromatic, silky, concentrated.

Chinese — Hakka — Preservation Cooking foundational →