Hakka · People · — · Meixian, · Guangdong · Province Techniques

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.

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.