Tasty yanduxian
In the south, salty taste represents the ritual feeling of spring in many people's hearts.
Pickled fresh is a seasonal dish in Shanghai and other places in spring, and the famous dish "pickled fresh bamboo shoots" is listed. The reason why this dish is in season is that a large number of bamboo shoots are on the market at this time, and the ingredients are easy to get and fresh.
In addition to bamboo shoots, fresh meat and bacon are also ingredients for making kimchi. Gourmet Wang Zengqi wrote in "Carnivores Can't be frivolous" that bacon is a Shanghai dish, "bacon and fresh meat stew flat-pointed bamboo shoots together", and "salted" bacon; "Fresh" is not only fresh bamboo shoots and fresh meat, but also points out the unique salty taste of this soup. As for "Benedict", it has two meanings. One is the cooking method, that is, simmering with small fire; Second, onomatopoeia, meat and bamboo shoots are slowly stewed in the soup, bubbling and making a "Benedict" sound, which is quite lively and fragrant.
Xianxian was originally a home-cooked dish in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. People in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces are famous for their gentle and exquisite life, and even their home cooking is delicious. People in Hangzhou like to call it "Xian Xian", and Huaiyang area is called "Stewed Xian". The rise of salty food in Shanghai was in the 1930s, when the market in Shanghai was very prosperous and there were many restaurants. Some local restaurants have improved the salty taste on the basis of farm dishes, which became an instant hit.
Although the raw materials required for pickling fresh potatoes are few, the requirements for quality are extremely high.
Bamboo shoots are one of the freshest foods. Fresh bamboo shoots are sweet, but the umami flavor will not overwhelm other ingredients, and it can also absorb the flavor of other ingredients. Therefore, among all the candied fruits, bamboo shoots are the best.
Bamboo shoots are distributed all over the south of the Yangtze River and are produced in Anhui, Jiangsu, Shanghai and Zhejiang, but Zhejiang is the most important of these four places. Yellow mud bamboo shoots in western Zhejiang are the best bamboo shoots in Zhejiang, such as the famous bamboo towns of Anji and Deqing, and the surrounding mountainous areas are rich in yellow mud bamboo shoots. Yellow mud bamboo shoots are actually bamboo shoots that grow in yellow mud and are about to break out of the ground. It tastes crisp and tender after coming out, with a slightly sweet aftertaste and the most delicious taste. In fact, there are many varieties of bamboo shoots, among which Phyllostachys praecox is the main early-maturing variety and Phyllostachys rubra is the late-maturing variety.
After the spring bamboo shoots are dug out, they will lose their color and taste in two or three days, so they are usually stewed at night and pickled fresh. In Anji and other places, farmers dug bamboo shoots in the mountains early in the morning, sold them in the market around 10, loaded them into cars and sent them to Shanghai or Hangzhou, and just arrived at the local vegetable market in the afternoon. Therefore, fresh bamboo shoots of the day can often be bought in the vegetable market at night. If you buy it early in the morning, you are likely to buy bamboo shoots overnight. The variety and freshness of bamboo shoots determine the success or failure of a pot of kimchi.
Let's talk about meat. Bacon should be marinated for a month and dried three or four times. In the past, many people killed pigs and made bacon during the Chinese New Year because it was not well preserved. More than a month later, it coincides with the listing of bamboo shoots, which is the season to eat salty and fresh. In curing fresh meat, the function of cured meat is not only to increase the salty taste, but also to increase the freshness. All the pickled fresh meat is stored in the snow and slowly released during the stew.
Fresh meat needs pork belly, fat meat is too greasy, lean meat is too firewood, and pork belly is just right. But exquisite people rarely need to make a bacon with four kinds of meat. Fresh meat has pork belly and small ribs, and bacon has salty small ribs and salty trotters. Collagen in pig's trotters can make soup thicker. In addition, these people don't even need salt and monosodium glutamate except for adding a little cooking wine. What they want is a natural and pure taste.
In fact, this can be played according to your own preferences, which is also the significance of this dish. After all, spring should be inclusive.
Chi ri Luo Fei
Every spring, the lakes in China, especially those in the south, float a ray of delicious snails from the bottom of the lake, together with rivers such as fresh fish and shrimp, depicting the lightness of spring in detail.
Spring is the best time to eat snails. Snails that wake up from dormancy crawl out of the soil, and most of them are fleshy and fat.
The first step of snail cooking is to soak it in clear water with salt or oil for half a day, then slowly spit sand in the shade, and then cut off its tail.
How to eat snails next depends entirely on the tastes of diners.
In Jiangnan, it is very common to fry snails with spring leeks. Snail meat picked out with a toothpick, washed with flour and salt, and fried with leek powder in oil. It is made of spring leek fried with snail meat, which is the same as the "two delicious dishes" in spring and becomes a rare spring snack. Pay attention to the heat when frying snails. It's too raw and fishy if the fire is not enough. After the fire, the meat will get old and not delicious.
What is the beauty of eating snails? Pay attention to the force of your mouth when twisting snails. The secret lies in "stability, accuracy and reality". Only a short distance force can be used to twist. Almost all southerners are experts in eating snails: they don't need chopsticks, they can hold snails firmly with only three fingers. In one bite, fresh and tender snail meat is enough to kill a plate.
Although my hands are full of soup, my mouth is full of relish. After eating snails, this delicious soup cannot be wasted. Pour some snail soup into the rice and stir it again. It's still delicious
In Suzhou, Jiangsu, drained snails are served with garlic cloves, millet peppers and green onions. Add beer to the red oil in the hot pot, simmer it, and when it is cooked, put sugar out of the pot. It is a plate of snails with sauce and bright soup. Boiled snails are wrapped in meatballs in soup, which can be called miniature cans. So Suzhou people also call snails "canned meat".
Compared with the exquisite and elegant Huaiyang cuisine, the color of the sauce-fried snails with thick oil red sauce is slightly saturated, and the fresh snails in the soup are the most authentic Huaiyang characteristics. Peel a preserved egg, cut a few pieces of bacon, peel a spring bamboo shoot, roll the soup out with a big fire, then throw it into the washed snail and let it soak the soup in the rolling milky white soup.
People in Wuxi are more particular about eating snails. Remove the tender snail meat, mix it with pork, chop it into minced meat together, and then put it into the snail shell and stir fry. If it's not enough, Xinghua people also provide another way to eat it-after removing the snail meat, stew it with goose meat and make it into roasted goose with snails. The tenderness of snail meat is accompanied by the fragrance of goose meat, and it is delicious and enjoyable with the unique sauce of Xinghua people-water pepper.
Hangzhou people have a saying that "snails are full of love, but they don't do it on stage" and "snails drink too much and never stop in their last life", which shows their love for snails. Bad snails are indispensable. After the snails are cooked, cover them directly with distiller's grains and put them in the refrigerator for several hours before eating. Squeeze hard, the cold snail meat slides into the mouth, crisp and refreshing, with a faint bouquet, which really makes people want to stop.
And eating snails is not fashionable in Guangxi. The plump, delicate and compact snail has changed its shape in the hands of Guangxi people. In particular, the famous Liuzhou snail powder has attracted curious tongues from all walks of life across the country.
In fact, there are no snails in Liuzhou snail powder, but there are snails everywhere. The crispy stone snail is dissolved in bone soup after being cooked by fire and becomes invisible. Then, put ivory rice noodles, golden crispy fried yuba, refreshing sour bamboo shoots and vegetables into your arms, and let out bursts of hot air, releasing a very recognizable aroma. If you match a bottle of iced soybean milk made in Liuzhou at this time, it will be the most authentic Liuzhou fireworks.
Snails growing in Erhai Lake from Guangxi in the west are big and thick, and the most common way to eat them is to cook them with the most common Paha dishes in Yunnan. Add mint leaves, sour bamboo shoots, bacon, spicy pig skin and other ingredients, and then pour a spoonful of old tofu water to remove the fishy smell, which is very Yunnan flavor.
Other areas like to stew snails in chicken soup. Drop the washed snail into chicken soup and cook it with ginger slices, medlar and red dates. In the hot paste made of thick soup and fresh snail meat, it brings people a vibrant spring-like taste.
Fang Chun Xia Huan
The east wind blew all night, and it rained all night. Fish and shrimp grew in the new water in the river. Shrimp is common all year round, but it must be in spring for the first time.
Buying half a catty of river shrimp and bringing a handful of leeks is a spring delicacy that can only be met but not sought after. Leek gives off a strong umami flavor, which is very sweet and tender. It's delicious with fried shrimp in the river. The beauty of river shrimp is small and beautiful, with thin shell and elastic flesh. Wash and drain first, oil, stir-fry ginger and garlic until fragrant, then stir-fry with leek, and add a little salt to soy sauce. The appearance is bright and the spring is strong.
This cooking method is between frying and frying, making it light green. Shrimp shells are crisp and tender, with sweet and moist meat and moderate firmness. Set off its leek, fresh and fragrant. Eating and drinking are all wonderful things.
There are crispy shrimp, wrapped in a thin layer of egg paste, fried crispy, with salt and pepper. Put it on your head as soon as you eat it, listening to the light sound of "squeaking" and still chewing in your mouth.
Suzhou Biluochun tea juice with fresh hand-peeled shrimp is light and delicious, elegant and fragrant.
Biluochun is one of the top ten famous teas in China. Putting the second tea into the dish not only swept away the usual fishy smell of Xianjiang, but also added a wisp of tea fragrance for no reason. Fresh and tender after the entrance, very layered.
As for the recipe of fried shrimp, the writer Lin recorded his experience in "Diet Notes": the ingredients should be fresh, and never shell the shrimp before listing. When you take them home, wash them with the shells under the tap, then peel, drain and peel them; Stir-fried shrimps should not be too heavy, nor should they be stirred back and forth repeatedly, so as not to damage the appearance of shrimps.
Boiled shrimps with snails need one more process than usual, that is, after the first frying, remove the shrimps and drain them. After that, reset the wok to the big fire, pour the shrimps back into the wok again, boil Biluochun tea juice, turn the wok over several times, take it out and put it on the plate, and finally sprinkle with drained tender tea leaves. The fried shrimps are crisp and tasty, and there is a strong fragrance between milky white and light green.
Cleaning, re-frying, stir-frying, and making shrimps coarse and fine can do no harm. It's delicious in itself, so what are the constraints on production?
(Wang Ning comprehensive finishing)
China Food News (April 65438+May 06, 2022)
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