What delicious food is there in Huizhou?

Fermented rice cake is a ceremonial pastry widely popular in Huizhou yet rarely sold in regular markets. Red food coloring is added during production, and each cake is steamed into a huge round loaf, hence its other name – Big Red Fermented Rice Cake. Its bright red color symbolizes joy, and its name carries auspicious meanings, making it a must-have festive treat for all life celebrations including weddings, birthdays and baby showers to boost the merry atmosphere.

It is made purely from glutinous non-sticky rice mixed with sugar and baking powder or cake starter. Extra large bamboo steamers are used for steaming; the fluffier the cake rises, the happier the host family will be. After rituals, the giant cake is cut into small pieces as return gifts for guests or handed out to neighbors, so everyone can share the joy and blessings.

Dog meat is favored across most regions in southeast China, with diverse cooking methods developed over time. Among them, Huizhou locals love clay pot dog meat the most. The dog meat is first stir-fried thoroughly with assorted spices and seasonings, then simmered slowly for hours in an earthen clay pot with broth, aged dried tangerine peel from Guangdong and old ginger.

As a local saying goes: "Once dog meat simmers three times, even immortals cannot resist its temptation." While cooking, rich aromatic fumes fill the air, whetting people’s appetites instantly.

Pronounced "Lian Xiao" in the Huizhou dialect, Lian cake is a pastry exclusively used for traditional rituals. Local customs dictate red Lian cakes for happy occasions and white ones for funerals. When a baby turns one month old, the maternal grandmother prepares red Lian cakes for celebration. After a bride and groom’s wedding visit to the bride’s family, the bride’s parents serve red Lian cakes as a return gift. Red Lian cakes are also steamed for the Guanyin worship gatherings held on traditional festivals.

Lian cake is generally made with four parts glutinous rice and six parts regular rice. The rice flours are blended with water and cake starter, then shaped into flat cakes and steamed. Red Lian cake gets its bright hue from red food coloring mixed into the rice batter.

Together with salt-baked chicken and stuffed tofu, this dish forms the "Three Treasures of Huizhou". It uses premium mustard green cores from Tuqiao in Hengli Town and high-quality streaky pork. The pork undergoes boiling, deep-frying, braising and steaming before being coated with thickened original sauce. The meat turns tender, richly fragrant, fatty yet non-greasy, with a subtle sweet undertone amid its savory taste.

Legend says when Su Dongpo was exiled to Huizhou, he taught local chefs to adapt Hangzhou’s Dongpo pork recipe by pairing it with Huizhou’s authentic preserved mustard greens (those from Aipi are the most genuine), creating this iconic dish.

Stuffed tofu originates from the Central Plains tradition of making dumplings. Since wheat cannot grow in Lingnan, migrants from northern China created stuffed tofu as a dumpling substitute for festivals.

Tender Dongjiang tofu is cut into blocks roughly 5 cm long, 4 cm wide and 2.5 cm thick. A filling of minced pork, fish and dried shrimp is mixed with egg, green onion and flatfish, then stuffed into small hollow pits carved in each tofu block. The stuffed tofu is pan-fried until golden brown, simmered in a clay pot with superior broth and seasonings over medium heat, darkened with dark soy sauce, and garnished with chopped green onion and minced flatfish to finish.

A Huizhou custom requires the maternal grandmother to make sand rice cakes to distribute among relatives and neighbors to celebrate a baby’s half-month birth milestone.

The cake batter is blended from 30% regular rice flour and 70% glutinous rice flour, mixed with white sugar, sifted fine and steamed, then cut into two-inch square chunks. Soft and tasty, it is a favorite snack among local children. In olden days, vendors carried the steaming cake trays balanced on their heads while wandering ancient streets selling the pastry, forming a classic old-town scene.

Alongside salt-baked chicken, the eight-treasure stuffed whole duck is hailed as one of the "Two Peerless Dishes" of Dongjiang Cuisine. Its stuffing consists of glutinous rice, shiitake mushrooms, lotus seeds, dried shrimp, squid, diced meat and salted duck eggs, packed tightly inside a whole duck. The duck is blanched, stewed and steamed in sequence, yielding a strongly aromatic, silky and tender delicacy.

A signature classic of Dongjiang cuisine with a history spanning over 300 years, salt-baked chicken is said to derive from the practice of storing cooked chicken in salt at the Huiyang salt fields along the Dongjiang River. When local salt merchants hosted banquets, chefs experimented with baking chicken in salt, gradually perfecting an elaborate, complete cooking technique.

Though many variations exist today, the traditional recipe remains the most popular. It features crispy skin, silky meat, fragrant bones and deep concentrated flavor. When served, the chicken pieces must be rearranged on the plate to restore the original shape of a whole chicken