Although Suzhou people like sweetness is a dietary habit since ancient times, but the flavor of the Suzhou-style dishes can not be so single. Suzhou cuisine has never been known for its use of spices, but that doesn't mean it doesn't use them.
In Suzhou, there is a kind of marinated cooked dishes called "爊货", which is a kind of "Suzhou-style" flavor is not too strong, non-mainstream Lai Pin. The goods in the appearance of shiny color, tender meat, sweet and fresh flavor, aroma attractive, meat crispy but not rotten, oil but not greasy, after eating the teeth and lips, let a person drooling. This dish is not recently developed new dishes, but Changshu, Xiangcheng District and other suburbs of Suzhou has long been passed down for many years of traditional cuisine.
In Suzhou, Changshu junction of Xinzhuang Town, Yang Yuan community is not busy and lively bridge, there is a named Ming Sheng wild old store of cooked food store. This is a husband and wife store, the master named Pu Mingsheng, wearing a pair of glasses, close to the age of old age. The store is a self-built two-story new-style building on the street. Upstairs is the bedroom, below the first floor store, the front store after the workshop.
Yang Yuan and even the surrounding people know that this old store from the mid-eighties on the purchase of goods cooked vegetables. Ming Sheng's wife is called Zhai A Hui, specializing in the store responsible for selling, and occasionally his son and daughter-in-law will come from the city to help, looking after the store business.
In his 30s, Ming Sheng began to follow his grandfather to learn to do the production of goods technology, the production of goods is more in line with the public's tastes, popular and sought after, in the hands of Ming Sheng, the fame has gradually played out.
For more than thirty years, his goods in this Xinzhuang town and the surrounding townships are known to women and children, even to the Xinzhuang township working outsiders also rushed over to buy a taste. Anyone who has bought and tasted his goods, all appreciated that Ming Sheng's goods are authentic in flavor, distinctive, and unique in Suzhou City.
Every time I pass by Yangyuan, I always love to go to Ming Sheng's store to buy quail goods. Because of the convenience of buying and eating the goods, go back and do not have to fry more vegetables, by the way, drink two cups of cooked vegetables with small wine, quite comfortable. Buy more often, and the boss's wife, A Hui familiar, said all the townspeople. Every time you go, the boss's wife A Hui said hello, one to two, each other are familiar with.
Yangyuan goods have more than a hundred years of history, according to the old generation of people talk, the 1980s, this Yangyuan was still the town of the establishment of a few of the goods cooked food store opened one after another, and now Yangyuan **** there are eight goods store. Some of them even opened up online stores to sell Yangyuan quail goods to all over the country.
"爊" is explained in the dictionary as "simmering over a gentle fire", which can be translated as "boiling". But in the Suzhou dialect, "爊" and "simmering" both pronunciation and meaning are completely different, obviously can not be equated." 爊" in Suzhou is a special term, refers to this unique flavor of the brine products.
The practice of the goods and brine products is very similar, the focus is on its spices, spices are the soul of the goods. Yang Yuan goods using traditional technology, adding cloves, cinnamon, cinnamon, Angelica dahurica, cinnamon, star anise, cardamom, sannai and other more than 10 kinds of natural spices, according to the proportion of the mixture into a gauze bag, and yellow wine, vegetable oil with the "old soup", full of pots of incense depends on the exclusive secret package of materials.
A pot of dark red marinade, looks like a pot of Chinese medicine, just blended marinade will be with a strong smell of Chinese herbs, far from being able to smell the rich aroma. Each store has a different spice recipe, and each family has its own exclusive recipe, which is never to be shared. Many stores keep their own old marinades, and every kind of meat that has been cooked leaves a delicious mark in the broth.
Between the slow fire, the chicken, duck, goose in the pot gradually fade excess fat, into the essence of Chinese herbs and spices, shrinking the body of every inch of the deep hidden delicious. The cooked vegetables out of the skin color does not add soy sauce, but the oil is yellow and shiny, fragrant, eat up tender and not rotten, rich and fat, hand to leave the aftertaste for a long time, showing the subtle charm of Jiangnan.
Yang Yuan in the goods, a few vegetarian, in addition to geese, chickens and ducks and other poultry, as well as pork, pig's ear, pig claws are in the pot of "regulars". There are ten main varieties, namely: goose, chicken, duck, rabbit, chicken claw, goose paw, pig's head, pig's trotters, beef, quail and so on. A variety of pungent aroma of fresh brine, sub-species stored in the screen window cabinets, every day now in the now sold, sold out of the door, the customer ate every day is a fresh loan.
In the Yang Yuan quail flavor in the most classic than the quail goose, and even in the minds of many people "quail" is equivalent to "quail goose". Goose is tougher than chicken, easier to taste than pork and beef, and the ratio of fat and lean meat is just right, which is the most suitable for the production of goods.
爊 goose selection of the goose is also very concerned about the general weight of five or six pounds, fat and thin to be uniform, thin, not enough grease, flavor out of the way; fat, the aroma is enough, the meat head to eat on the fatigue.
When the old goose meets the pot, when nostalgia meets food, these shuttle between heaven and earth, flowing in the mouth and tongue, rolling in the soup within the fire of the whimsical, for us to build exclusive delicious at the same time, in an invisible way also created a touching "Yangyuan flavor", gradually become a representative of Changshu, Suzhou people in the heart of the food specialties, and become a representative of Changshu, Suzhou people. It has become a representative gourmet specialty in the minds of Changshu and Suzhou people, and an old brand in the memory of Changshu and Suzhou catering.
As transportation information becomes more and more developed and the population flows, the food that was originally popular only in a small area at the junction of Changshu and Suzhou has gradually been known and loved by the people around as well as the new citizens from outside, and has become the favorite of many diners. At the same time, with the development of logistics, Yangyuan Jiaojiao is also gradually out of Changshu, out of Suzhou, to the country.
The local food card of Yangyuan Jieguo has been winning high recognition from diners for its unique Jieguo process and excellent reputation for its pure taste. People in Xinzhuang, eat Yangyuan Jieguo, has become a lingering nostalgic complex. Regardless of how history has changed, mention this "Yangyuan goods" this business card, we can not help but be touched by the magic of man and nature, life and food tacit understanding.
The accent is easy to change, the memory will fade, but only the experience between the lips and teeth, a lifetime: only under the tongue, but on the heart. The goods are dense with the taste of the river, the taste of wind and rain, the taste of time and space, the taste of human feelings, the taste of memory ......
All the flavors are real at the moment, the current flow of water. Suzhou suburbs of various counties and towns have subtle differences, and speak with the same accent, although the same are Suzhou dialect, but every few dozen miles, or even separated by a river, the accent will be different, Suzhou food culture of the pluralism can be seen from this.