Step into a small workshop in Nangan's Siwei Village and a vat of dark-red hongzao fills the air with the mellow fragrance of rice wine and red yeast. The owner is immersing chunks of chicken into the vat. From Hongzao Chicken Soup and Hongzao Fried Rice to Deep-Fried Hongzao Eel, hongzao is the most recognizable element in Matsu cuisine — almost every household has its own recipe, and without hongzao there is no true Matsu flavor.
What Is Hongzao
Hongzao is the fermented lees left behind after brewing Fuzhou-style aged rice wine (red yeast rice wine). It is made from glutinous rice inoculated with red yeast mold (Monascus), dark red in color with a gentle wine aroma that is both slightly sweet and slightly sour. The people of Fuzhou transformed this brewing byproduct into a prized condiment — used to marinate meat, enrich soups, and stir-fry rice — giving food its distinctive wine-red hue and a deep, mellow wine fragrance. Matsu inherited the Fuzhou culinary tradition: the archipelago brews a great deal of aged rice wine, so hongzao is naturally abundant and has become a kitchen staple in virtually every home.
Representative dishes include Hongzao Chicken (chicken marinated in hongzao, then simmered into soup or braised — a must in postpartum recovery meals), Hongzao Eel (eel sections coated in hongzao and deep-fried until the outside is crisp and the inside tender, with a wine fragrance), and Hongzao Pork (pork marinated in hongzao, then pan-fried or braised). In the Lienchiang County government's promotion of home-cooking culture, hongzao dishes are cited as Matsu's most recognizable culinary symbol; each mother's ratio of ingredients differs slightly, yielding a unique flavor in every household.
How to Eat It Like a Local
Local Know-How
Verified Third-Party Endorsements (Sponsorship Filtered)
- The National Cultural Memory Bank records Hongzao Chicken Soup as a Matsu postpartum recovery tradition and Deep-Fried Hongzao Eel as a representative New Year dish.
- The Lienchiang County government's specialty food culture lists Hongzao Chicken, Hongzao Eel, and Hongzao Fried Rice as representative Matsu home-cooking dishes.
- Long-established local hongzao workshops in Nangan, such as Lin Yihe Workshop, have maintained family-inherited brewing methods for years.
Visiting Tips
- Each workshop's hongzao recipe is different — try at least 2–3 to compare variations in sweetness, acidity, and wine-fragrance balance.
- Because hongzao dishes contain alcohol lees, pregnant women and children are advised to confirm the alcohol content before eating.
- Ready-made hongzao from workshops is available vacuum-packed to take home and cook with — more economical than eating finished dishes at a restaurant, and it lets you recreate the Matsu flavor yourself.
Data compiled from the Lienchiang County Tourism Bureau, Matsu Distillery, and a large volume of public reviews; sponsored content has been filtered out. Photos will be replaced with the channel's exclusive footage after Dio's on-site shoot.