Chongqing's Morning Flavors: "Five Greats"
Chongqing breakfast features the "Five Greats", which include Soy Milk, Fried Dough Sticks, Fried Glutinous Rice Cakes, Glutinous Rice Balls and Oily Tea.
Soy Milk and Fried Dough Sticks
Sweet Soy Milk is a very popular traditional Chinese beverage, especially during breakfast. It is made from yellow soybeans and goes through the processes of soaking, grinding, boiling, and straining.
deep-fried dough sticks is often dipped into the soy milk, which softens the dough stick and allows it to absorb some of the soy milk's flavor. This creates a unique eating experience where the youtiao becomes a vehicle for the soy milk.
Fried Glutinous Rice Cakes
Rice cake pieces are typically shaped into flat forms and then deep-fried in hot oil until golden brown. The exterior is crispy, while the interior remains soft and glutinous, offering a unique contrast in texture. The fried rice cake pieces retain the characteristic stickiness of glutinous rice. In Chongqing, rice cake pieces often contain Sichuan pepper, giving them a distinctive flavor.
Fried Glutinous Rice Cakes
The outer layer of the glutinous rice ball is coated with a thick layer of yellow bean powder, emitting a rich bean aroma. The inner layer is made of glutinous rice, which has a soft and glutinous texture with good stickiness and elasticity. When you bite into it, you can feel the distinctive chewy texture of the glutinous rice. It usually contains one or several segments of deep-fried dough sticks (youtiao), which have a crispy outer skin and a fluffy interior, forming a striking contrast to the softness of the glutinous rice. The addition of the dough sticks enriches the layers of texture in the entire glutinous rice ball.
Oily Tea
Despite having "tea" in its name, it is not actually a tea beverage but rather a porridge-like dish based on rice flour. It is made from a rice flour paste and saozi. Saozi is a type of fried noodle that is typically cut into small pieces and added to the youtea.
Saucy Pork Bun
The main feature of saucy meat buns is their unique filling – saucy meat. This filling is typically made from pork that has been marinated with special soy sauce, sugar, five-spice powder, and various other seasonings, resulting in tender and flavorful meat with a rich, savory aroma. The exterior of the bun is soft, while the filling is juicy and savory-sweet, with an aromatic sauce permeating throughout.
In contrast, Fresh Pork Bun have a simpler filling, primarily consisting of fresh pork, which may be seasoned with scallions, ginger, and other condiments to enhance the flavor.