Henan cuisine

Henan province has a long cultural history and is one of the main cradles of ancient Chinese civilization, with rich cultural heritage. From Xia, Shang and Northern Song Dynasties, many dynasties established Henan as their capital, with Luoyang as the "ancient capital of nine dynasties" in the west, Zhengzhou as the capital of Xia, Shang, Western Zhou, Spring and Autumn and Warring States five times in the middle, and Kaifeng as the "seven dynasties" in the east. The long and glorious history has not only left us rich cultural relics and historic sites, but also left us splendid cultural wealth. Henan cuisine is one of them.

Among the historical relics unearthed in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, there are cooking utensils used in the early Neolithic period. In the murals of Han tombs in Dahuting, Xinmi, there are vivid images of cooking fish, cook the meat, killing chickens and geese. Yi Yin, the ancestor of Chinese cooking, was born in Henan, and the earliest banquet in history was held in Henan. Since the catering system of the Zhou Dynasty was initially formed, in the Northern Song Dynasty, Henan cuisine had developed into a palace-style Henan cuisine system with five characteristics: color, aroma, taste, shape and dishes. Later, Henan cuisine gradually spread to other provinces, in Beijing, Tianjin, Shenyang, Shanghai, Nanjing, Xi 'an, Jinan, Lanzhou and Nanjing.

In the long-term cooking practice, the chefs in Henan Province have summed up many valuable experiences, such as "carp eats one foot, crucian carp eats eight inches", "chicken eats well, fish eats ten", and "whip eel and horseshoe turtle are eaten in March and April every year". In terms of knife work, Henan cuisine has the traditional skills of "cutting must be neat, slices must be uniform, the solution must be over half, and chopping is not chaotic". The kitchen cutting of Henan cuisine is different, and it has all the multi-functional functions of "cutting the middle pieces before cutting, chopping the back and smashing the garlic". In addition, Henan cuisine has a long-term head-matching, a large head-matching and a small head-matching, which is known as the traditional habit of watching the dishes with the head.

"singing opera, cooking soup" is a dialect in Henan province, which shows that Henan cuisine is very particular about making soup. In making soup, we must "wash it twice, put it in the pot twice and skim it twice". When you need high-grade clear soup, you need to add other raw materials to cover and chase it, so that it can reach the bottom when it is clear, white when it is thick, mellow in taste and thick in lips.

there are more than 51 cooking methods of Henan cuisine. Grilled, roasted, fried, stir-fried, fried and baked have their own characteristics, and the scallion and pepper are unique and concave. Among them, grilled vegetables are more unique, and they are known as "the grilled vegetables are not sticky, and the soup is sticky". In addition, when frying vegetables in Henan, it is often used with strong fire, hot pot and cold oil, which is quick to operate, crisp and tender in texture and milky white in juice color. "Baked noodles with yellow river carp in sweet and sour sauce", "fried three non-sticky", "shredded osmanthus" and "sweet and sour carp" are famous Henan dishes with a long history, which are still well-known and praised by Chinese and foreign people.

-----------. From Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, through the continuous enrichment and development of Qin, Han, Sui and Tang dynasties, a relatively complete system and various flavor schools have been formed in the Northern Song Dynasty. Such as palace cuisine, official cuisine, hair-room cuisine and temple cuisine. It is recognized as one of the eight earliest cuisines in China. There are more than 6,111 famous delicacies, and there are more than 51 cooking techniques, especially the grilling technique, which can be called a contract. It is known as "the grilled vegetables are not sticky, and the soup is sticky".

grilled vegetables in Henan cuisine are prepared by killing the processed raw materials with boiled water, laying them neatly and beautifully on a special bamboo grate according to various patterns, putting them into the pot, adding broth and seasoning, and adding lard for a long time, so that the soup and oil can be completely integrated and fully absorbed by the raw materials, thus achieving the special requirement of "using oil but not oil". The dishes made are beautiful in shape, mellow in taste, thick but not greasy, and are a wonderful flower in the authentic Henan cuisine family, so they are widely praised by celebrities and poets in past dynasties. For example, in the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, the popular "Roast Mutton with Winter Cuisine" was listed in four restaurants in Kaifeng, Kyoto. It is a delicious, soft, mellow, nutritious and elegant Henan dish, which has been circulated for thousands of years. Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty and Empress Dowager Cixi returned to Kaifeng, which coincided with the 66th birthday of Empress Dowager Cixi. At the birthday banquet held in Kaifeng, there was a traditional famous dish, "Braised shark's fin with white sauce". After tasting it, Empress Dowager Cixi praised it all the time and gave it to the chauffeur to share the delicious food. In 1923, Kang Youwei, a university student, came to Kaifeng for a study tour, and the adherents of the Qing Dynasty gave a banquet for Kang Youwei. Huang Runsheng, a famous chef from Changyuan, carefully prepared "Fried and grilled herring head and tail", which was crisp and tender, fragrant and palatable, and made Kang Xueshi amazed. That is to say, the story of cooking herring in the fifth period of the Han Dynasty was presented with four characters: "Boiled mackerel with taste"; Because the rest of the fun was unfinished, he wrote on a folding fan "I know myself in the sea, my younger brother Kang Youwei" and presented it to Huang Runsheng, a kitchen stove. Since then, this well-known quilt has enjoyed a long-standing reputation as "exotic flavor". In 1931s, "Grilled Fish Lips", one of the famous shops in the town of "Henan Restaurant" in Nanjing, was put on the market. The juice was thick, white, plump, tender, fresh, mellow and refreshing, and it was fragrant all over the water towns in the south of the Yangtze River. During the Republic of China, the "Liangyuan Henan Restaurant" in Shanghai and the "Houdefu" which specializes in Henan cuisine all over the country mostly served grilled dishes as the head dishes or large dishes of high-end banquets, which were widely welcomed by diners from all walks of life.

according to different raw materials and different requirements, different cooking methods should be adopted for cooking Henan cuisine. Generally speaking, it can be divided into white grilled, red grilled, fried grilled, fried grilled, steamed grilled, etc., with varied techniques and different tastes. This paper introduces several representative grilled vegetables for readers' reference.

Braised shark's fin

Ingredients: 1111 grams of shark's fin in water; 2 pieces of ham, water-soaked mushrooms and water-soaked winter bamboo shoots, 4 pieces of chicken breast and 4 pieces of rib meat; 2.5g of monosodium glutamate, 151g of big oil, 11g of cooking wine, 15g of salt water, 15g of gouache and 511g of white soup.

Method:

(1) Tear the preliminarily processed shark fin into batches. Place the pot mat on a ten-inch plate, and place the ham, mushrooms and winter bamboo shoots on the pot mat. Then spread the root of the shark fin into a circle, and the rest are at the bottom. Cover the chicken breast, drumsticks and sliced meat on it and buckle it with a plate.

(2) Put the pot on high heat, add 1.25g of big oil, add white soup and a little salt, put the pot mat with shark fin in the pot, bring it to a boil, remove the plate and lid, hold the pot mat with a colander and put it in the plate. Concentrate the remaining juice in the pot and pour it on the shark's fin. Serve.

characteristics: milky white and shiny, soft and rotten wing meat, mellow taste.

Braised tripe with milk soup

Ingredients: 1,111 grams of braised tripe with water; 11 grams of gouache, 111 grams of cabbage; 151g of big oil, 11g of salt water, 2.5g of monosodium glutamate, 15g of cooking wine, 15g of ginger juice and 611g of white soup.

Method:

(1) The wide belly is changed into large pieces with a length of 5.5 cm, a thickness of 1.5 cm and a width of 3 cm, and spread on the pot mat. Shop in the middle first, then shop on both sides, and the rest at the bottom, so the shop can be buckled with a plate.

(2) Put the pot on the fire, add the big oil and white soup, add the salt water, cooking wine and monosodium glutamate, and put it into the paved pot mat. When the soup boils, put the pot on a small fire and cook it for ten minutes. When the juice is milky and thick, remove the plate, hold the pot mat with a colander and put it in the griddle. Blanch the cabbage with boiling water and put it around the wide belly.

(3) Boil the remaining juice in the pot, pour it into the running water evenly, and serve.

characteristics: fresh and delicious, soft and mellow.

China's culinary art is a unique contribution to the world culture, and its extremely rich and colorful contents and exquisite production techniques can't be compared with those of any civilized developed country in the world. China is a country with a vast territory and a long history. Due to different conditions, many different fashions have formed in the culinary arts, that is, different styles and schools in different regions. Henan cuisine has its own color and fragrance in various schools of modern China cooking art, so it must have its place in discussing China's recipes. The reason why a region's cooking can develop into a unique artistic genre is closely related to various conditions such as economy, society and history. In the long feudal society, cooking art was originally developed to satisfy the material enjoyment of the upper class such as the court, nobles, dignitaries and wealthy businessmen. In a big city, there are many families of "Daiying", which is the most suitable social environment for developing cooking art in feudal society. Judging from the social conditions pointed out above, Luoyang and Kaifeng in Henan Province should be two important cities with relatively developed ancient culinary arts. The cooking techniques in Luoyang court in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty had a great influence on later generations, and the cooking techniques in Luoyang in the Han Dynasty were improved day by day. However, Luoyang lost its position as the national political center after the war in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. After that, after Cao Wei, Western Jin Dynasty and Northern Wei Dynasty, Luoyang was prosperous again. Kaifeng area is located in the eastern Henan plain, with convenient transportation, especially the benefit of water transportation to communicate with the south of the Yangtze River. Therefore, since the Five Dynasties, the political center began to shift to Kaifeng. In the Northern Song Dynasty, Kaifeng became the capital of the whole country and flourished unprecedentedly. Where a city can become a political center for a long time and maintain economic prosperity, the culinary arts will develop. Therefore, in 168, the Ninth Emperor of the Northern Song Dynasty, Kaifeng, Kyoto was once one of the most prosperous cities in the world. There are many restaurants in the city. Only the "Seventy-two" stores operate hundreds of dishes, including chicken, fish, cattle, sheep and delicacies. There are more than 41 cooking techniques such as frying, frying, cooking, frying, frying, burning, cooking, cooking, honey, freezing and sugar.

All kinds of dishes are matched with fine porcelain tableware, which is as bright as a mirror, as thin as paper and as loud as a chime, making Henan cuisine a system with complete varieties, excellent color, fragrance, taste, shape and utensils. For example, the prosperity of Bianjing was the favorable social condition for Fan Lou to become a very famous restaurant at that time. However, after the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty, Hangzhou replaced Bianjing and became the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty. Not only did it have a relatively developed handicraft economy, but most people in the upper class lived a life of drunkenness, making Hangzhou a central city that laid stress on feasting and pleasure, completely inheriting the social atmosphere of Kaifeng in the Song Huizong era. As a poem says, "When will the singing and dancing in the West Lake stop?"? The warm wind made the tourists drunk and made Hangzhou Bianzhou. " Since the Six Dynasties, the economic center of China moved to the south of the Yangtze River, so after the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, Kaifeng's economic conditions could not be compared with the important cities in the south of the Yangtze River. It is impossible for a hungry society to develop colorful cooking art, and it is impossible for a society that only meets the conditions of food and clothing. Therefore, in recent hundreds of years, the most developed areas of cooking art in China are along the Yangtze River and along the coast, especially industrial and commercial cities such as Guangzhou, Yangzhou, Shanghai, Suzhou and Hangzhou, rather than economically backward inland cities. It seems that only Beijing, Chengdu, Chongqing, etc. are the cities in the Mainland where the culinary arts continue to develop. China is a great country with a vast territory, a long history, unbalanced economic development, and different product conditions and customs, which determines that the dishes in different provinces have different flavors and characteristics. However, with the development of society and the evolution of history, the different flavors and cooking techniques of dishes in various provinces and regions are always interacting, communicating, evolving and merging with each other, forming a variety of schools of national cuisine, and often as a result of communication and integration, a number of large and influential systems have emerged in the country. This truth is probably one of the main laws for the continuous development of China's culinary arts, and it still has lively vitality today, which will play an important role in the development of dishes in various parts of China in the future. At present, the Ministry of Commerce and China Financial and Economic Publishing House have compiled multi-volume "China's Famous Cookbook", taking Henan cuisine as a sub-volume, which I think is very insightful. Henan cuisine, abbreviated as Henan cuisine, was developed on the basis of Kaifeng cuisine in the Northern Song Dynasty. In the 1951s, Henan Province will be moved from Kaifeng to Zhengzhou, becoming the political, cultural and educational center of Henan, and at the same time rapidly developing into a new light industrial city dominated by textiles, while Luoyang will be a heavy industrial city. At present, in the Central Plains, Zhengzhou, Kaifeng and Luoyang are the key places representing Henan culinary arts. After the Northern Song Dynasty, the national political center shifted, which restricted the development of Henan cuisine, but after all, Henan cuisine had an influential history, with its own distinctive characteristics and unique flavor. In the field of culinary arts, any well-known and unique genre is formed through long-term mentoring, long-term absorption and integration, and continuous creation and inheritance. Henan is located in the Central Plains, and there are many famous historical cities. It is only natural that Henan cuisine with unique flavor is formed here. What is the unique flavor (that is, its style) of Henan cuisine? Generally speaking, it can be summarized as four sentences: strict selection of materials, fine knife work, attention to soup making, moderate quality and taste. First, Henan cuisine has a wide range of materials and exquisite selection of materials, emphasizing the selection of fresh raw materials in season. In the long-term cooking practice, Henan chefs have summed up many valuable experiences in selecting ingredients and put them into proverbs. For example, "Carp eats one foot, crucian carp eats eight inches", "Chicken eats cooked grain, fish eats ten", "eel and horseshoe turtle are whipped every year in March and April" and so on. Henan cuisine can be divided into perennial and four seasons, large and small, which is known as the tradition of "watching the dishes with the heads". Careful selection of ingredients is not only convenient for cutting and cooking, but also makes the dishes have elegant colors, appropriate ingredients, always fresh and never tired of tasting. Secondly, in knife work, Henan chefs have the traditional technique of "cutting neatly, slicing evenly, solving halfway, cutting without chaos"; The kitchen knife is also unique because of its multiple functions of "cutting the middle piece before cutting, smashing mud on the back of the knife and smashing garlic". The silk cut by the famous Henan cuisine teacher is thin enough to thread a needle; The film produced is thin enough to reflect words. The skill of using saber is superb. The "three crisps" in Henan cuisine, which takes the belly head and the liver of chicken gizzards as raw materials, is difficult to complete unless you have advanced knife skills. Third, "singing opera cavity, chef's soup." Through this mantra, which is popular in Henan cuisine, we can see that Henan cuisine pays attention to making soup. Soups of Henan cuisine are usually divided into head soup, white soup, hairy soup and clear soup. The raw materials for making soup must be "washed twice, cooked twice and skimmed twice". If you need high-grade clear soup, you need to apply other raw materials, or "set" or "chase". Make sure to achieve: clear is the bottom, thick is milky white, fragrant is hanging on the lips, cool but not greasy. "Chicken with lotus lotus in clear soup" and "Stewed belly with milk soup" are the models of authentic Henan cuisine. "Luoyang Water Mat" is a 24-course dish. Caicai brings soup but soup is different. It can be said that it is well-changed and has endless elegance. Fourth, Henan cuisine is exquisite in fire, meticulous in cooking and especially good at seasoning. Although there are more than 51 cooking techniques of Henan cuisine, such as grilling, roasting, frying, stir-frying, frying and frying, all have their own uses, but no matter which technique is used, we must strive to achieve "moderate cooking" and make the dishes have a moderate texture. In seasoning, "blending must be even", light but not thin, salty but not heavy, and a variety of condiments are used to destroy the special taste, smooth the abnormal taste, enhance the fragrance, hide the salt taste and set the taste; All kinds of flavors are beneficial and harmful properly, and the shade is moderate, so that the dishes are harmonious with five flavors and moderate in quality and taste. If you have special requirements for singleness, you should also adjust it properly and never overdo it, which is called "Qiaotou". At the same time, the service mode of "prepare other small materials and help yourself" is adopted to meet the needs of different diners. Further reflects the strong adaptability of Henan cuisine, "all around"