Traditionally, Jiangsu cuisine, Shandong cuisine, Sichuan cuisine and Guangdong cuisine are called the four major cuisines in China, which are mainly composed of Jinling cuisine, Huaiyang cuisine, Suzhou cuisine and Xuhai cuisine, but Huaiyang cuisine is usually the representative cuisine.

Huaiyang cuisine is the general name of the flavor dishes in Huai' an, Yangzhou and Zhenjiang, and Huai is Huai cuisine, represented by Huai' an. "Yang" means Yang cuisine, represented by Yangzhou and Zhenjiang.

Huaiyang cuisine rarely uses delicacies, while famous dishes are mostly local ordinary raw materials, which are neither condescending nor bland. No matter how to choose materials, knife work and seasoning, they are all well-behaved, meticulous and exquisite, and emphasize charm. Huaiyang cuisine is like writing poems and painting, and has a strong China traditional culture.

Huaiyang cuisine not only has the fresh, tender and crisp characteristics of southern cuisine, but also combines the salty, color and strong characteristics of northern cuisine, forming its own characteristic flavor with moderate saltiness and sweetness. Because Huaiyang cuisine takes fresh products as raw materials, it pursues lightness in seasoning and can better highlight the original taste of raw materials.

The raw materials of Huaiyang cuisine are mainly fresh, which also provides a material basis for being good at stewing in cooking and paying attention to the original flavor in seasoning. Almost every dish in Huaiyang cuisine has strict requirements on the selection of raw materials, and at the same time, it also allows the characteristics of raw materials to be fully played when making dishes.

Among the four major cuisines, Huaiyang cuisine has the finest knife work. A square stem with a thickness of 2 cm can be divided into 31 slices. A tender piece of bean curd can be cut into "Wensi bean curd" with fine knife work, skillful arrangement and accurate color matching, which makes Huaiyang cuisine like a finely carved handicraft.

When it comes to Huaiyang cuisine, how can we not mention its famous dish "Lion Head"? This nationally famous Jiangnan dish is definitely a classic.

crab powder lion

raw materials:

peeled pork belly 1111 grams, crab powder 51 grams, 6 Chinese cabbage leaves, 12 green cabbage hearts, 5 grams of onion and 5 grams of ginger rice each.

seasoning:

3g of pepper, 11g of salt, 5g of monosodium glutamate, 11g of chicken powder, 311g of broth, 751g of chicken soup and 5g of cooking wine.

Practice:

1. Chop pork belly into pomegranate rice granules, add onion, ginger rice, pepper, cooking wine, monosodium glutamate, salt and broth and stir well.

2. Take the casserole and put it into the Chinese cabbage, add chicken soup to adjust the taste, bring it to a boil on fire, make the meat stuffing into balls as big as eggs, put it into the casserole, coat it with crab powder, cover it with Chinese cabbage leaves, and stew for 3 hours.

Technical description:

Traditional lion head dishes should be like the head of a stone lion in a classical garden in China, with bumps and bumps. That's because fat diced meat and lean diced meat have different deformation degrees after being stewed in soup for a long time. If you put it in a small bowl, shake it carefully and put it on the table, the lion's head should shake slightly in the bowl, and its shape is like a lion's head throwing water.

to be a successful lion's head, you should have both mellow and fresh meat. Although the entrance to the lion's head is salty and fresh, it can return a long aftertaste from the root of the tongue after eating it. Of course, the selection of materials and workmanship for lion's head is also very particular. We should take the pork belly of black-skinned local pigs and choose six fat and four thin. But now the pork on the market is all feed pigs. Pork belly must take the hard pork belly above the ribs, and the number of layers of pork belly should reach more than six. Below five layers, it can't be called pork belly, and the meat flavor is not enough. After the meat is taken, it has to be separated into pieces, roughly shredded and finely diced, the size of which is like pomegranate rice. The key is that it can't be ground with a meat grinder or chopped with a knife. It can only be eaten by the shops in the restaurant. The lion's head in the true sense is delicious without a knife.

To make a lion's head, you should not only pay attention to knife skills and skills, but also learn how to work hard and cook. Because the meat is all cut out, it doesn't have the sticky taste of a meat grinder, which melts at the first sip after reaching the entrance. You can't put eggs, raw flour and the like here. If you want to hold this pile of disunited meat into a ball, you need to work hard. After adding seasonings and soup, this ball of meat is like. Never use a gentle small fire here, and the noodle soup should always be in a state of opening and closing, otherwise the lion's head will become rice soup when the fire is large, and it will be heated for more than 4 hours, so don't worry. The real admirable kung fu of lion's head is still in seasoning, and it must be strengthened with broth. Broth, that is, the soup from pork leg bone, old hen, old goose, ham and other materials hung by slow fire for more than 8 hours, is the source of the umami flavor of the lion's head. Bone is the base of soup, chicken is fresh, and goose is fragrant. All three are the souls of soup stock, and their tastes are different, so naturally they rarely have layers.

Note:

The lion's head with crab powder is a famous dish in Zhenjiang. Its main raw materials are crab meat and meatballs made of minced pork (commonly known as "chopped meat" in Zhenjiang). There are many ways to cook it, such as stewing it, boiling it in water, frying it first and then braising it, frying it first and then stewing it with other foods, and steaming it with glutinous rice. Zhenjiang cuts meat, and the ingredients vary from season to season. In early spring, mussels went on the market, and mussels cut meat; Before and after the Qingming Festival, spring bamboo shoots and bud bamboo shoots went on the market, making bamboo shoots to stew and chop meat; In summer, there is meat chop; In autumn, the crab is fattened to make stewed or braised crab powder lion head; In winter, use winter bamboo shoots and chicken as bamboo shoots to stew lion's head or chicken to stew and chop meat. Small green vegetables and pea seedlings in winter are very good and can also be used as a foil. In spring and autumn, you can also cook fish and chop meat. If you don't add crabs to the meat, you can add more shrimp seeds. Pay attention to knife skills when cutting meat, and cut it finely and roughly. It is necessary to choose pork ribs and pork belly with fine fertilizer to achieve the effect of tenderness and meat flavor.

stewed crab powder lion's head should be stewed in a casserole. When it is ripe, serve it while it is hot, and before the lid is removed, the fragrance will already spread all over the table. When the lid of the pot is removed, only the leaves of vegetables are covered in the pot. When the leaves of vegetables are removed, a big meatball is like a jade inlaid coral, and the steaming heat emits bursts of meat, crab and vegetables.

salted duck

ingredients:

one duck leg, a little ginger, garlic and onion.

Seasoning:

Appropriate amounts of salt, cooking wine, star anise, pepper and fennel

Practice:

1. There are three key points to wash the duck leg to make it taste quickly: first, dry the duck leg with kitchen paper; Second, use toothpicks to make holes in duck meat and skin; The third is to wipe the duck leg with hot salt, remember to rub it with your hands.

2. Stir-fry the salt, pepper and fennel in a dry pan until the salt turns yellow, and the fragrance can be saved for use.

3. Put the salted duck leg in a container, cover it or refrigerate it with plastic wrap for more than 24 hours (24-48 hours is appropriate), and pour out the salted water every half day.

4. Wash the salt and pepper particles on the duck legs with water, put cold water into the pot, and add ginger and garlic slices and onion knots to cook.

5. Add 2 tablespoons of cooking wine after the water boils, and turn to low heat for about 21 minutes.

6. Take it out, cool it thoroughly, and then cut it into pieces and put it on a plate.

Cooking skills:

1. It is better to have a whole duck and a thin duck.

2. When frying the pepper and salt, stir-fry it on medium and small fire until the salt changes color slightly and the fragrance is saved.

3. There is a principle of applying salt. The shorter the time, the more salt should be applied, and the more time, the thinner the salt can be.