In central Shandong, there is a traditional food before the Spring Festival, the so-called crispy rice, which is to put a variety of ingredients in a large pot and stew slowly until the food is tender. The kind of food is optional, depending on the kind of raw materials. Pork ribs, pork belly, crucian carp and hairtail can be used as meat dishes, and lotus root slices, kelp, Chinese cabbage and bean skin can be used as raw materials. In principle, meat dishes provide oil, while vegetarian dishes are soft but not rotten. It can be fat but not greasy, and it melts in the mouth.
Mix white sugar, balsamic vinegar and soy sauce into a bowl of sauce, add onion and ginger, and stack layers of meat together. Without water, the crispy vegetables are cooked for 2 hours on low heat. The sauce makes the vegetables fragrant and the vinegar makes the meat tender. The cooked food is not in a hurry to eat immediately, and it tastes more saturated after being left overnight. Just as many people have the impression that the thick red sauce is black, the crispy pot inherits this tradition of Shandong cuisine, and a pot of black is a delicious representative with slag value.
Because it takes a long time to stew the ingredients in the cauldron, it is not easy to stew them dry or even paste them off. A large pot can eat many meals, and the cold in winter provides good conditions for food preservation. The off-season in winter provides time for waiting patiently for the taste of slow stew to separate out. In addition, the busy year before the Spring Festival provides a perfect reason for crispy rice as a prelude to the Spring Festival. So the crispy pot has become the representative of the taste of new year's dishes.
Although the appearance of pressure cooker shortens the cooking time and the appearance of refrigerator prolongs the storage time of food, the practice and preservation of crispy pot are much simpler and it seems that it can be made at any time. But the taste of crispy pot still belongs to the taste of that year, and it was not remembered until the Spring Festival.
02 Fan Jun bazi meat
Crispy rice is very popular in Zibo, in the middle of Shandong province. In other places in Shandong, similar snacks are rice in Jining and bazi meat in Jinan. Western food can be called braised pork belly, kelp and cabbage. Similar to a crispy pot, pork belly is fat but not greasy, and soy sauce forces out the charming taste of pork.
When many people arrive in Jinan, they will be frightened by Jinan's supper when they are full of food and drink. After all, they just wanted to have a snack in the middle of the night to sober up, but they met popular meat on the roadside. The midnight snack in old Jinan is so domineering. After enjoying the lanterns in Qianfo Mountain, when the butcher shop opened.
Two pieces of meat, two pieces of kelp, two pieces of pepper, a bowl of rice and a bowl of broth are poured on it, instantly stirring the taste buds on the tip of the tongue. It's just that my lips and teeth touch naked fat in the middle of the night, but it doesn't hinder the love of Jinan people.
Jining's rice is exactly the same as Jinan's bazi meat, but Jining's rice is more of a snack with an elegant name. Compared with Jinan's rough meat and midnight snack, the sensory contrast is more distinct.
A kind of food, after taking root and sprouting in a place, may derive many similar practices and names, although different, but all roads lead to the same goal. Just like a small sapling, after many years, it will bear countless children and grandchildren, with similar leaves year after year and different years.