Secret ingredients in your Chinese food

For the readers who are not Chinese, ever wonder how some of the Chinese food gets its flavors from? Well, the Chinese have historically been very analytical when it comes to eating. Some of the techniques are very creative and imparts a great deal of flavor to the food. One of the most popular techniques is drying certain ingredients in order to concentrate the flavor. Then these ingredients are typically used in soups and other dishes.

When I was in Hong Kong this past month, I took the liberty of taking pictures of some of these ingredients. Please be forewarn that if you see these pictures, you may never look at your seafood special the same again!

Some dried shrimp


Some roots


Dried Oysters, very flavorful.


Shark fin. Actually imparts very little flavor, but it is damn expensive.


I am not even sure what these are. Looks like dried lizards



Some squid and shrimp being dried on a street somewhere in Kowloon.