Cuisine from the Land of Fish and Rice, from steamed aubergine to Shanghai fried rice

Spending the last two decades travelling around China, Fuchsia Dunlop’s latest cookbook, Land of Fish and Rice, which is the name given to the Lower Yangtze region – an area defined as being directly south of the Yangtze River.

The region, which today is known for its modern metropolis of Shanghai, has been recognised as the Land of Fish and Rice since ancient times. Local cooks have benefited from its plentiful produce, making it an area renowned for its delicacies and beauty.

She was captured by the area's gastronomic capital Yangzhou, with its gentle way of life and its glorious cuisine.

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At dinner time, people loiter on the pavement outside a tiny, ordinary-looking townhouse in a tree-lined lane of Shanghai’s former French Concession, waiting for a table at one of the city’s most adored local restaurants. For more than 20 years, the chefs at Old Jesse have been turning out mouthwatering renditions of Shanghainese cuisine, from stir-fried green soybeans with pickled greens to boned pig’s trotters with 'eight-treasure' stuffing. This recipe is based on one of their simplest appetisers, a sweet-sour, garlicky salad that’s quick to make and a refreshing contrast to richer dishes. If you don’t have the mellow brown rice vinegar they use at the restaurant, balsamic vinegar would make a good substitute.

The common Chinese name for cucumber is 'yellow squash’ (huang gua), which is why you will often find it served in Zhejiang province as one of the traditional ‘five yellows’ at the Dragon Boat Festival of the fifth lunar month (the other ‘yellow’ foods might include yellow croaker, ‘yellow’ paddy eels, salted duck-egg yolks and Shaoxing ‘yellow wine’).

1 cucumber (about 375g)
½ tsp salt 
1½ tbsp caster sugar 
2 tbsp finely chopped garlic 
1 tbsp Chinkiang vinegar
1 tsp light soy sauce 

Trim both ends off the cucumber and lay it across your chopping board. Use the flat side of a Chinese cleaver or a rolling pin to smack it gently several times, turning it each time, to break it open and loosen the flesh without smashing it to smithereens. Cut the cucumber in half lengthways, then into two or three long strips. Lay the strips parallel and cut them into bite-sized pieces. Add the salt, mix well and leave in a colander for at least 10 minutes to drain. Drain off as much of the liquid that has emerged from the cucumber as possible. Add the sugar and set it aside for a minute or two until it dissolves, then add the rest of the ingredients, stir well and serve.

Slippery cucumber salad: This is a dish taught to me by chef Sun Fugen in Suzhou. Cut the cucumber into thin slices and leave in the salt for several hours, then squeeze out as much water as possible. Add caster sugar to taste, some finely chopped garlic and a little sliced pickled chilli. The longer salting gives the cucumber an intriguing texture: floppy, yet crisp.

Cucumber with sweet fermented sauce dip: Cut the cucumber into batons and serve with sweet fermented sauce dip (see page 333). At the Dragon Well Manor restaurant in Hangzhou, this is the way they serve their whole baby cucumbers: crisp, delicate and picked earlier the same day.

This Shanghainese appetiser is absurdly easy to make and wondrously satisfying. Steaming brings out a gentle, unfamiliar side to a vegetable that is more commonly fried, baked or grilled, and, simple as they are, the seasonings taste sublime. Use Mediterranean aubergines or, if you can find them, the slender purple Chinese variety. I was introduced to this recipe by my Shanghainese friend Jason Li.

500g aubergines 
2 tbsp light soy sauce 
1 tsp Chinkiang vinegar
¼ tsp sugar
1 tbsp finely chopped garlic
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh ginger
1½ tbsp thinly sliced spring onions, green parts only
2 tbsp cooking oil

Cut the aubergines lengthways into 1cm slices, then cut these into 1cm strips. Cut the strips into bite-sized lengths and pile them into a bowl that will fit inside your steamer basket. Place the bowl in the steamer basket and steam over a high flame for 20 minutes, until tender. Combine the soy sauce, vinegar and sugar in a small bowl.

Shortly before you wish to serve them, pile the aubergines in a serving dish and top them with the garlic, ginger and spring onion. Heat the oil in a seasoned wok or saucepan over a high flame until it is very hot. Carefully ladle the hot oil over the garlic, ginger and spring onions – it should produce a dramatic sizzle. Pour over the soy sauce mixture. Stir the seasonings gently into the aubergines and serve.

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In a backstreet not far from Nanjing Road in the heart of Shanghai, there’s a small diner that serves one of the most delicious versions of this classic local rice dish I’ve tasted. The plump, glossy rice, studded with salt pork, threaded with the bright green of pak choy, is irresistible. Everyone eats it, in the Chinese manner, with a bowl of broth to refresh the palate (a simple stock with sliced spring onion greens will do). This is my version of their recipe, which includes red onion and shiitake mushrooms. This dish is usually made with short-grain white rice – Japanese sushi rice is what I use at home – but it will also taste delicious with long-grain Thai fragrant rice. For the most sizzlingly delicious results, use lard as your cooking oil. Feel free to vary the quantities of pork or vegetables as you please. Spinach may be used as a substitute for the pak choy.

Another traditional way to make this dish is to begin by frying the salt pork and greens, preferably in lard, then add raw washed rice and water. Bring to the boil, then cover and slow cook, as in the recipe for plain white rice.

4 dried shiitake mushrooms
½ small red onion
100g streaky salt pork, pancetta or un-smoked bacon
275g green pak choy (3–4 heads)
600g cooked and cooled sushi rice (300g when raw)
2 tbsp cooking oil, preferably lard
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh ginger
1 tsp sesame oil
Salt and ground white pepper

Cover the shiitake mushrooms in boiling water and leave to soak for half an hour. Finely chop the onion. Remove any rind from the pork and chop it into dice. Remove the mushroom stalks and dice the caps. Chop the green pak choy a little more coarsely than the other ingredients. Break the rice up into small clumps to make stir-frying easier.

Heat the cooking oil in a seasoned wok over a medium flame. Add the pork and onion and stir-fry gently until the onion is tender and the pork has released its oil and is fragrant but not browned. Add the mushrooms and ginger, turn up the heat to high and stir-fry briefly until fragrant.

Tip in the rice and stir-fry over a high heat, breaking it up as you go. When the rice is piping hot and smells delicious, season with salt and pepper. (If you are eating the rice as a main meal, it will need to be saltier than if you are eating it with other dishes.) Add the pak choy and continue to stir-fry until the vegetable is piping hot and just cooked. Remove from the heat, stir in the sesame oil and serve.

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Vegetarian version: Vegetarians can simply omit the meat in either the main recipe or its variation to make simple cai fan (‘vegetable rice’) – although Chinese cooks would still tend to stir-fry the rice with lard to enhance its fragrance.

Land of Fish and Rice, published by Bloomsbury, £26, Hardback. Photography © Yuki Sugiura