Shacha sauce
Shacha is a savoury, granular Fujian, Teochew and Taiwanese condiment of oil, garlic, shallot and dried seafood, often sold as Chinese barbecue sauce.
China
Recipes by the places recorded in their sources.
China
Elevated risk
Soy–black-vinegar dumpling dip
An untested small-batch soy and Zhenjiang black-vinegar dip with ginger and sesame oil, adapted as a modern accompaniment for dumplings or cooked vegetables.
Raw ginger-scallion oil
A raw Cantonese-style condiment of minced scallions, fresh ginger, vegetable oil and salt; it is mixed without heating and serves eight.
Cooked ginger-scallion oil with chilli
A Cantonese condiment of ginger, garlic, scallion and fresh chilli fried slowly in oil and seasoned with soy sauce, sugar, wine and salt, served over roast meats and poached chicken.
Chinese-American sweet-and-sour sauce
A smooth, tomato-based sweet-and-sour sauce of sugar, vinegar, tomato paste and soy sauce, thickened with starch for dipping or coating; it is not the sauce on Hangzhou's sweet-and-sour ribs.
Yongchun aged vinegar
Dark Fujian rice vinegar: glutinous rice and red Monascus koji make a red rice wine, liquid acetification turns it to vinegar, and it ages at least three years.
Yuba (soy milk skin)
The protein-lipid film that forms on hot soy milk, lifted sheet by sheet from a wide shallow pan; eaten fresh, or dried for later use.
High risk
Suān zhǎ ròu (酸鲊肉)
A Tujia sour pork preparation documented in southeastern Chongqing. Its rice-flour pork method is distinct from the wider suān ròu forms; a sixth-century pork-zha text is an earlier attestation, not proof of direct continuity.
High risk
Yúlù
Yúlù is a Chinese fish sauce, a liquid drawn from salted fish, shrimp or fish-processing material after a long natural maturation, most associated with coastal southeastern production.
Soy milk (duyu)
A Korean-style soy drink of cooked whole soybeans blended with cold water, sesame and salt and served at once; tofu-making soy milk is a different, filtered milk.
Sichuan paocai
Sichuan paocai is a family of vegetables, most often radish, fermented by lactic-acid bacteria in a salted, spiced brine in a water-sealed pottery jar, with mature brine kept and reused.
Jiangyou (Chinese soy sauce)
Jiangyou is the Chinese soy sauce family, an umbrella term for light, dark and seasoned sauces made by two main process families: high-salt liquid-state and low-salt solid-state brewing.
Jianbing with a Wheat Batter and Crispy Noodles
A four-serving home adaptation of jianbing: thin wheat batter cooked with egg, spring onion and sesame, then folded around crisp fried noodles and sauce.
Dongbei suancai
Napa cabbage fermented in a salt brine in Northeast China, traditionally in large ceramic or glass jars, until it turns sour.
Chu hou sauce (Cantonese fermented soybean braising paste)
Chu hou is a sweet, savoury Cantonese paste of fermented soybeans, fermented bean curd, garlic, ginger and sesame, used mainly to braise meat.
Fresh Firm Tofu
Fresh firm tofu is made by coagulating cooked soybean milk, then draining and pressing the curds into a sliceable block. This version follows a published nigari method and traces tofu’s varied, contested history.
Tibetan chang
A 2005 Tibetan account describes cooked barley mixed with changdzi, fermented as moist grain, then steeped in water for an alcoholic drink. Grain and water amounts, starter dose and a verified safety endpoint are absent.
Elevated risk
Sufu (fermented bean curd)
Sufu, or furu, is Chinese fermented tofu: bean curd is salted and ripened, often after a mould stage, into a soft, creamy, intensely savoury condiment.
High risk
Red Mucor-ripened sufu
Red sufu is tofu grown with an identified Mucor racemosus mould, salted, seasoned with red pepper and zanthoxylum, then matured under brine for 180 days.
Bacterial-type douchi
A Chinese fermented soybean condiment in which Bacillus-led bacteria, not moulds, drive the fermentation. Documented in Zunyi, Guizhou, and kept separate from mould-led douchi.
Zhenjiang Black Vinegar
Zhenjiang black vinegar is a Chinese glutinous-rice vinegar made by mixed-culture fermentation, solid-state acetification, roasted-rice extraction and ageing, giving a dark, savoury, mildly sweet condiment.
Tianjin Duliu mature vinegar
Tianjin grain vinegar of millet and sorghum made with daqu: liquid alcoholic fermentation, two-layer solid-state acetification, and at least three years of outdoor ageing of the grain mash.
Jiuniang (sweet fermented glutinous rice)
Chinese sweet fermented glutinous rice: steamed rice and a mixed jiuqu starter, where mould enzymes release sugar and yeast makes a little alcohol, eaten with its sweet liquid.
Beijing Sesame-Paste Shaobing
A Beijing-style yeast dough is layered with seasoned sesame paste, sealed into small buns, briefly pan-fried, seeded, and baked.
Hoisin sauce
A thick, dark, sweet-salty Chinese condiment built on fermented soybean paste. This page gives one quick home version and records how commercial formulas differ.
Mucor-type douchi
A Chinese fermented soybean condiment from Chongqing and Sichuan, made by growing Mucor-type mould on cooked beans, then salting and maturing them into dark, savoury, soft beans with a concentrated aroma.
Hua juan
Hua juan are layered wheat rolls shaped into knots and steamed. This version folds scallions and five-spice between the dough layers and makes eight savory buns.
Mantou (The Woks of Life all-purpose dough)
Plain wheat mantou made with yeast and baking powder, then proofed and steamed in a lined basket.
Lotus-leaf buns (unfilled folded steamed buns)
These twelve Chinese lotus-leaf buns are folded wheat-dough pockets steamed empty for filling after cooking. The recipe uses yeast, a little baking soda and cornstarch; it does not include the assembled gua bao sandwich or its fillings.
Baiji mo (Bai ji mo)
This Shaanxi-associated yeast flatbread uses a simple water dough, coiled shaping and a skillet bake. It is the bread used in roujiamo, not the filled meat dish.
Elevated risk
Suan cai
Chinese cabbage or mustard greens salted and held under a weight until lactic fermentation turns them sour; northeastern and southern China keep distinct traditions of it.
Cornmeal mantou
A Chinese cornmeal mantou made with wheat flour, cornmeal, water and yeast. The dough rises until doubled, is shaped into ten rounds, proofed briefly and steamed.
Tingmo
A Tibetan steamed bread made from rolled layers of yeast dough. This egg-free version follows the Taste Tibet method.
Musalais
Musalais is a fermented grape drink documented among Uyghur producers in A’wati, southern Xinjiang. A studied process combines grape juice and heated pomace extract before spontaneous fermentation.
Shanghai da bing
Shanghai breakfast flatbreads layered with butter, scallion and pepper, then topped with sesame and baked.
Youtiao
Youtiao are Chinese breakfast crullers made from soft baking-powder dough, chilled overnight, stretched into paired strips and fried until light golden.
Shanghai Scallion Pancakes (Cong You Bing)
Bill Leung’s Shanghai-style scallion pancakes layer soft wheat dough with scallions and an oil-flour paste, then fry and finish in the oven.
Char Siu Bao (Wei Guo’s 14-bun recipe)
Fourteen fluffy steamed buns filled with cooked char siu and a thickened oyster-soy sauce.
Elevated risk
Roasted sesame sauce for noodles or hot pot
An untested sesame-paste sauce with soy, black vinegar, sugar, sesame oil and garlic, drafted for hot-pot dipping or noodles.
Salt-brined green chiles, pao-lajiao style
Whole green chiles are blanched briefly, then fermented in 3% salt brine with sake in a modern Japanese presentation of a wider Asian preparation.
Tarag (Mongolian yoghurt)
Tarag is a traditional Mongolian fermented milk made by culturing heated cow, yak, sheep or goat milk with a retained starter into a sour, softly set or drinkable yoghurt.
High risk
Low-salt Aspergillus douchi
This controlled study protocol makes Aspergillus koji from soybeans and then ferments it with 4% salt. It uses a 150 g jar batch and a defined moisture target; the research method is not a validated home process.