| Shanghai dish is also called Hu dish. It is one of the main Chinese local dish systems and a system with the color of an international city. It has a history of more than 400 years, and is the youngest one in Chinese dish systems. It develops with the development of the city. It is not only influenced by local dishes all over the country, but also has a strong Shanghai local flavor.
The traditional dish is called Benbang dish. It appeared and developed during the years between Jiajing of Ming Dynasty to Kangxi of Qing Dynasty, following the course of prospering of the place. Benbang dishes often use heavy oil and red thick sauce. Their colors are usually red and shiny. They are good at pickling in wine and cooking methods like baking, stewing, steaming, deep-frying, stir-frying, frying. In the middle of 19th century, Shanghai became a foreign trading port. The prosperity of economy and culture stimulated the development of drinking and eating industry. In the later part of 19th century, Benbang dish bettered and developed its local flavored dishes, transplanted and improved dishes from other places, and formed a complex flavor structure and cooking style and technique norms. Shanghai dish is formed based on this. Its features are: various flavors, including many home local flavors and famous dishes of other dish systems; various levels, which can satisfy different demands of the citizens. The cooking of Shanghai dish stresses careful selection of materials and fine knifeship. It began to use methods as steaming with an airtight pot, smoking, grills, iron plate, string roasting, etc. They also enrich the traditional techniques. It is good at using condiments and keeping the original flavors of the materials. It has the features of being fresh, smooth and crispy. On shapes, it stresses natural beauty and pursues simplicity and elegance.
Like Chuan, Yue and Jing dish, Shanghai dish also has an important part which cannot be ignored, that is, its snacks. Shanghai snacks are of many varieties, and the prices are not high. There exists much food with novel flavors, such as zongzi (a pyramid-shaped dumpling made of glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves), tangyuan, pickled river snails, cat ears (name of a kind of cookie).
The famous Shanghai Benbang restaurants are: Shanghai Lao Restaurant, Lao Zhengxing Restaurant, Peace Restaurant, Gongdelin Greens Store and Qiaojiazha Food Store, etc.
Do you smell the delicious dish in below?
Fried eggs with whitebait
Crab meat with shrimp
Butterfly fish marinated in wine
Chicken marinated in wine
Braised whole duck with taro
Braised pork slices, cucumber and bamboo shoots slices
Duck with Chinese caterpillar fungus wrapped in cellophane
Duck with sunflower
Spareribs with spicy salt
Pickled fresh bamboo shoots
Fried bamboo shoots and mushroom
Five-colored pastry in boat shape
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