Cured Meats

The methods of this class are salting, air-drying and smoking, to make meat and fish keep longer and take on a particular flavour. In smoking, the smoke colours the food and adds fragrance, and it also helps preservation.

Each branch has its own meaning. Ham is made from the hind leg of an animal, mostly the pig, by salting, air-drying and fermenting, and some hams are also smoked; hams are often named for where they are made. Cured pork and sausage are pork products salted, air-dried or smoked in winter; cured pork is called larou because it is cured in the twelfth lunar month, salt leads the curing ingredients, and Guangdong often adds soy sauce, wine and white sugar. Dried jerky is dried meat made by air-drying or drying over heat, and beef jerky is one kind. Smoked foods are chiefly smoked meat, smoked fish and smoked chicken and duck, with firewood, rice and the like commonly used as the smoking material. Salted fish is fish that has been salted, sun-dried or cured.

Styles of cured meat differ from place to place, some saltier, some sweeter, some with a smoky taste: in Guangdong cured pork is mostly air-dried, and in Sichuan, Hunan, Chongqing, Guizhou and Jiangxi it is mostly smoked. One salted fish of Taishan in Guangdong is made by packing fish in layers in coarse salt and then drying them in sun and wind; it is steamed before eating, often with ginger and scallions. One smoked duck of Sanming in Fujian is cured, braised and then smoked over rice.

Braised and sauced cooked meats are meat products cooked and flavoured in sauce or braising broth and ready to eat, such as Dezhou braised chicken and Nanjing salted duck. They are not made mainly by air-drying or smoking, and so form a class of their own.