When I was a child, there was a state-run hotel at the gate of our supply and marketing cooperative compound. The chef's surname was Zhang. While cooking, you can also make fried dough sticks, egg buns and roast chicken.
The restaurant blackened by Wuqi, with four walls stained with oil smoke and two cauldrons for cooking, is not a good sanitary environment, but it can make people memorable.
Because the ingredients are limited, the dishes are not rich, but they have the characteristics of hometown dishes. I like Zhang Chu's diced chicken with mushrooms, shredded chicken with silver buds and glass balls best. He can make a unique taste with the simplest ingredients.
Coloured glass balls are cold dishes and beets. Take apples or bananas as the core, change the knife into a slightly round shape and wrap a layer of paste around them. Then put it in an oil pan and fry until golden brown, take it out and cool it, and then put it in another pot to cook. When the sugar solution becomes bigger and the silk pulled out with chopsticks becomes hard, put the fried fruit pieces into the pot and stir fry quickly, and then take out the fried fruit pieces when the sugar solution is completely wrapped. After cooling, the sugar shell is reddish, crystal clear and as beautiful as glass, so it is called glass ball. The slightly transparent shell is wrapped in a slightly soft core, and the bite is crisp and audible, and the sugar residue melts in the mouth, which is really delicious.
The practice of colored glaze is similar to drawing, except that the sugar of drawing is soft and sticky, and chopsticks need to be dipped in water; The glass is hard and sugary, so it doesn't need to be dipped in water. They are only a few minutes apart, but they taste very different.
I have searched this dish and there is little information about it. It must be just my hometown food, not very well known.
Zhang Chu's skill in cooking sugar is perfect, and the glazed balls made are sweet, hard and crisp, which are quite distinctive.
After the market opened in the mid-1990s, Zhang Chu contracted a state-run restaurant. At first, he mainly focused on his specialty dishes, and there were many repeat customers. A guest comes from a nearby resident. He often calls to order a table of dishes, and his daughter is responsible for delivering them. His daughter is several years older than me. When she was fifteen or sixteen, she was tall and strong. At first glance, she can keep up with nutrition since she was a child. This has a lot to do with Zhang Chu working in state-run hotels for decades. After graduating from junior high school, she stopped studying and helped in a restaurant in Zhang Chu. When she delivered the dishes, she held a bicycle handle in one hand and a box containing four dishes in the other. She rides steadily and quickly, and has the strength to operate the bicycle.
Later, when Zhang Chu was old, the restaurant was handed over to his son Zhang.
In recent years, when I returned to the old supply and marketing cooperative, the original state-run hotel became the "Zhang Chu Hotel". I went in to savor the taste of the New Year, only to find that the menu had been changed to stewed stupid chicken, stewed ribs, fried hairtail, fish-flavored shredded pork, moo Shu pork, spicy chicken and other main courses. The place where the big stove is used is full of people.
After Zhang took over the hotel, he adjusted the dishes, expanded the facade and served as a wedding banquet. I asked why I didn't cook those specialties. Chef Zhang said, take shredded chicken with silver buds as an example. Pinching bean sprouts takes too much time and can't sell at a high price. Not cost-effective, and time-consuming and laborious. If you don't master the temperature when cooking sugar, a pot of sugar will be wasted.
Since the year I moved out of the supply and marketing cooperative, I haven't had a chance to eat Zhang Chu's glazed meatballs. What others do is always almost interesting.
He should be an octogenarian by now. May he live a long and healthy life.