Cooking dishes need to be seasoned, seasoning can create the flavor characteristics of the dishes, can remove some of the raw materials dry, fishy, trespassing, stink, mildew and other tastes, reflecting the normal good taste, can make the raw materials of the light and tasteless, delicious, after seasoning, more colorful and fragrant for the dishes, and beautify the appearance. Speaking of flavor, generally refers to salty, sweet, sour, fresh, spicy, fragrant, etc. [7].
Salty, the king of the five flavors. Our customary salty as the main flavor, it is the main flavor dishes into taste, cooking other flavors of the dishes can not be separated from the salty flavor. For example, sweet and sour dishes also need to add a little salty, in order to cook a delicious taste, but too much saltiness will affect the taste of the dishes, but also hinder the health of the human body.
Sweet, popular flavor type. It is another main flavor in cooking. The main flavorings are various types of sugar, such as white sugar, granulated sugar, brown sugar, rock sugar, honey, sweet jam, sugar cane juice and so on. Sweetness in addition to increase the sugar content of the dishes, but also to increase the fresh flavor, to remove the fishy and greasy, ease the irritation of the spicy taste and so on.
Sour flavor, used appropriately can stimulate the appetite, increase appetite, and has the role of deodorization and detoxification, provide refreshment and decomposition of calcium in the raw materials. Commonly used acidifier is vinegar.
Fresh flavor, refers to the fresh taste, is a variety of delicious dishes indispensable to the main flavor type. Fresh flavor substances are mainly some amino acids, nucleotides, succinic acid and so on. These ingredients are mainly found in livestock, aquatic products, mushrooms and other raw materials. The main condiment is monosodium glutamate (MSG), in addition to soy sauce, tempeh and other condiments also have a certain degree of fresh flavor.
Spicy is the flavor used in the main dishes of Hunan and Sichuan cuisines among the eight major cuisines of China. Spicy flavor is more stimulating, and has the effect of increasing aroma, relieving greasiness, suppressing odors, and increasing appetite. The main spicy condiments are chili sauce, chili powder, pepper, ginger sugar and so on. But the spicy flavor should not be too heavy, otherwise it will affect the freshness of the dishes and other flavors.
Aroma, a kind of flavor. Fragrance can make the dishes have an aromatic odor, stimulate the appetite, but also has the role of the pressure fishy putty. The main flavorings are cooking wine (mostly yellow wine), small onions, garlic, cilantro, sesame paste, sesame oil, wine lees, osmanthus, osmanthus sauce, flavorings, and cinnamon, fennel, cumin, peppercorns, five-spice powder.
Compound seasoning and the formation of dish flavor
With the continuous progress of seasoning technology, the use of chemical properties of seasoning, clever combination, a single flavor into a composite flavor, while closely integrated with other factors of cooking (especially the use of heating means), modulation of changes in the subtle, palatable variety of composite flavors is increasingly becoming a key technology for the formation of the flavor of the dishes [8].
The combination of taste is more elaborate, endless changes, "a hundred dishes, a hundred flavors" of Sichuan cuisine, in the combination of flavor can be said to be the first. It is mainly by the combination of flavor changes. For example, sweet and sour flavor and lychee flavor, the former taste sweet and sour taste, aftertaste savory; the latter taste sweet and sour like lychee, savory in which. The tone is to highlight the sweet and sour flavor, the seasonings used are sugar, vinegar, soy sauce, salt ginger, onion, garlic, the change lies in the number of sugar and acid difference, the former sugar amount is large, the latter vinegar amount is large. Again, such as the performance of different levels, different styles of spicy each flavor, respectively, with bubble chili pepper, dried chili peppers, chili pepper, chili oil, Pixian bean paste, etc., although they are stained with a spicy word, but the combination of other seasonings with the effect of the combination of other seasonings is not the same, so there is the appearance of the red oil flavor type, hot and spicy flavor type, hot and sour flavor type, fish flavor type, strange flavor type, homemade flavor type [9].
Specification of cuisine flavoring
The soul of cuisine is taste. To achieve the established flavor quality of dishes, whether single or compound seasoning, one of the keys is the use of seasoning techniques, that is, the standardization of dish seasoning [10].
Chinese cuisine seasoning pay attention to the standard, what dishes with what seasoning, what dishes with how much seasoning, what dishes in what season with what seasoning, etc., there are certain standards. Is a dish in the whole cooking process, there are basic seasoning, decisive seasoning, auxiliary seasoning three standardized procedures. From their respective roles, the basic seasoning is the first stage of seasoning, its main purpose is to make the raw materials first have a basic taste, and lift part of the fishy trespassing odor, the specific method is the use of refined salt, monosodium glutamate, vinegar, wine, onion and ginger juice, pepper water, soy sauce, soy sauce, wine, sugar and other seasonings, the need to cook the raw materials for the dishes and soak a little bit, suitable for frying (frying), bursting, stir-frying, burning, steaming, baking and other cooking techniques. It is suitable for frying, stir-frying, stir-frying, broiling, steaming and roasting. Decisive seasoning is the second stage of seasoning, that is, in the process of dish production at the appropriate time, the seasoning input, which is the decisive role of the stereotypes of seasoning, most of the taste of the dishes are determined by the seasoning stage, especially some of the need for rapid development of dishes, such as oil burst conch, oil burst clams, oil burst tripe nuts, braised conch, spicy popping fish, etc., the decisive seasoning is to achieve the established flavor quality of the The key. Auxiliary seasoning is the third stage of seasoning, mainly to make up for the first and second stage of the lack of seasoning, increase the flavor of the dish. This stage of seasoning is suitable for the heating process is not enough seasoning dishes, or in the heating process can not be seasoned before and during the heating process of some dishes, such as Shandong's deep-fried sea crabs need to bring sesame oil, rice vinegar, ginger and rice, braised sausage need to bring the tiger sauce, as well as popular north and south of the Yangtze River with seasoning to eat all kinds of dishes are examples of auxiliary seasoning.
China's cuisine flavor and seasoning standardization discussion
Looking at China's eight major cuisines, dishes seasoned with a variety of different characteristics. On the Sichuan flavor "fish flavor flavor", the formation of the "fish flavor", and even abroad has formed a "foreign" fish flavor.
Why do Chinese dishes change their flavor when they arrive in the world? This has a direct link with the people who make the food and the techniques learned, and at the same time with the flavor of our dishes are not uniform regulations as a standard. KFC" in all countries of the world is a flavor characteristics, because "KFC" has entered a standardized era, perhaps this standard is to make "KFC" popular in the world! The reason for this is that the standard is what makes KFC popular all over the world.
"Seasoned according to everyone's tastes and preferences", of course, is reasonable, but always seasoned according to other people's tastes, which there is what their own characteristics can be said? In the case of KFC, who says that KFC has become a Chinese flavor? I think its success is just as a Chinese saying goes "all changes do not depart from its originality", this "originality" is a standard and the scale of the problem, and our dishes just lack such "originality". This "zong" is a question of standards and scales, and our dishes lack such a "zong". Scientific standardization, flavor research and analysis, is not unfeasible. Because of the attributes of taste, but only a hundred kinds of single-flavor taste is only a few categories (sweet, sour, bitter, spicy, salty, fresh and fragrant, etc.), and more than two kinds of prominent composite taste is also more than four dozen kinds. With scientific standards to measure the flavor of Chinese cuisine at the present time is a feasible and very meaningful thing, the results of its research will be fully demonstrated: which flavor and which flavor composite ratio is the best, with how much the number of standards can produce the best flavor effect, which dishes in different temperatures, seasons to give the most perfect enjoyment of the flavor, which seasoning and which combination of the main ingredients is more suitable, more scientific, more nutritious.
These are the most common flavors in the world.
Therefore, how to scientify and standardize the flavor and seasoning of our dishes is a very promising and research direction in the field of food flavor and food seasoning in the future.