• Sichuan Cuisine (Chuan Cuisine): spicy and bold, using lots of chili, garlic, ginger and peanuts.
Sichuan Cuisine is the most widely served cuisine in China. The dishes of Sichuan Cuisine are famous for their hot and spicy flavor. An outstanding facet of Sichuan dishes is the delicate use of pepper or chili. The ingredients used are great in variety, including poultry, pork, beef, fish, vegetables and tofu. The methods of cooking vary according to the texture required. Fast-frying is the most widely used cooking method.
Sichuan Cuisine wins universal praise for its hotness, sourness and numbness it produces, which are rare in other regional cuisines. These together sum up the unique flavor of Chuan Cuisine, which enjoys a good reputation as a cuisine that is "one dish with one flavor and one hundred dishes with one hundred flavors". Its cooking methods include baking, sautéing, dry-sautéing and steaming. Chuan Cuisine has good combinations of flavors and often has thick gravy.
Although, Chuan Cuisine is served at every corner of the world, the most authentic Sichuan food is still to be found at its hometowns: Chengdu and Chongqing.