Mengshan covers Pingyi, Mengyin, Feixian and Yinan, in which Feixian has the largest area. There are many springs and dense vegetation on the mountain, including honeysuckle, Polygonum multiflorum, forsythia, Gynostemma pentaphyllum, platycodon grandiflorum, lily, purslane, lily and other Chinese herbal medicines and wild vegetables, which are rich in forage resources. Sheep raising in Feixian County has a history of hundreds of years. Every household in the northern mountainous area keeps sheep, ranging from three to five to more than a dozen or twenty. They adopt pure natural grazing methods, let them eat freely, or give them to shepherds to graze on the mountains. Shepherds are mostly elderly men, carrying bedrolls and waving whips to drive the sheep, trekking in the depths of Mengshan Mountain, sometimes going home once every few days or even ten days.
Sheep are pure herbivores. Especially black goats, pay special attention to eating grass and eat fresh and clean grass up the mountain; As long as it has been trampled, it is too dirty to eat, let alone contaminated by chemical fertilizers and pesticides. According to Muslims, "all birds that eat grain and animals that eat grass are good-natured and edible." Modern medical research also draws the conclusion that "food affects temperament". The reason why mutton tastes delicious is precisely because sheep are pure herbivores. It is a typical organic food, because it eats herbs when it is hungry and drinks mountain springs when it is thirsty. Therefore, some people call Mengshan black goat "Baicaodan".
There is a folk custom of "eating sheep" in Feixian County. In dog days, people like to eat sheep, especially children. It is said that they can prevent and treat all diseases by drinking whole sheep soup. The local folk song says "June 6th, eat mutton". Every year, the sixth day of the sixth lunar month is the day for every household to eat blessed sheep. At this time, just after the wheat harvest, the farming is a little idle, and people who have just finished the busy season in three summers, some slaughter sheep by themselves, and some slaughter sheep in partnership to celebrate the good years and treat themselves by the way. Every household is delicious and full of the joy of harvest. Mutton is hot, which is originally a good tonic for preventing cold and warming the stomach in winter. Feixian people like to enjoy it in dog days. It seems unreasonable, but in fact it has profound scientific truth. The reason is that in midsummer, there is accumulated heat in the human body, which is easy to get sick; On a hot day, drinking hot mutton soup with spicy condiments such as pepper and coriander can stimulate people to sweat a lot, expel accumulated heat in the body and release toxins in the body. This is the truth of Chinese medicine "fighting poison with poison".
Sheep are all treasures, and the therapeutic value is quite high. Mutton is rich in nutrition, with protein 1 1. 1%, and its calorie is higher than that of beef. The fat content is 28.8%, only half of that of pork; It also contains minerals such as phosphorus and iron, and nutrients such as vitamin B and vitamin A, which can benefit essence and blood and help Yuanyang. It has always been a good product for nourishing and strengthening yang, so the herbal medicine says that mutton can be better than ginseng and astragalus. Sheep kidney can tonify kidney and help yang, and produce lean brain. Sheep's belly (sheep's stomach) can replenish deficiency and benefit the spleen and stomach. Its heart nourishes the heart, its lung nourishes the lung, and its liver nourishes the liver. Even sheep bones are rich in calcium phosphate, calcium carbonate, collagen and other ingredients, which have the effect of tonifying kidney and strengthening tendons.
Sheep produce very little meat. Li Yu's Essay in Qing Dynasty said: "It is difficult to settle accounts after several trials. When it is half-cooked 100 kg, there is only 20 kg left, and the back is only a paragraph. " It means: A 100 golden sheep cuts 50 Jin of raw meat, and only 20 Jin remains after cooking. Mutton loses a lot, but it is also the most satisfying, because it is easy to swell when eaten in the stomach. When eating mutton, you must leave room in your stomach. Don't eat too much, it will hurt the spleen and stomach.
There are many ways to make mutton dishes. The Muslim Whole Sheep Recipe records 280 practices, including steaming, boiling, frying, frying, smoking, stewing, stewing, rinsing, mixing and frying. The raw material is mainly mutton, with sheep whip and sheep liver, and other internal organs are rarely used. It seems that it's just a folk way to eat soup, and you can't eat noodles. In fact, the most scientific and reasonable cooking method is whole lamb soup. Mutton soup was called "mutton soup" in ancient times. Soup, mixed with five flavors. In Twenty Years of Zuo Gong, there is a saying that "harmony is like soup". Zheng Xuan notes: "He who is harmonious with soup has five flavors and the fish is hot and restrained, so the sum of food depends on human nature." In a sense, Hehe soup is the ultimate in exquisiteness and delicacy. Whole sheep is soup, which won the essence of seasoning from ancestors.
For the whole sheep in the cauldron, it is best to raise it for about 3-4 years, move in the mountains all the year round and weigh more than 80 kg. The ram that "hits" (destroys testicles) is the best.
The key to cauldron whole sheep is the word "all". The mutton, bones, viscera, blood, head, hoof, tail and whip of sheep are cooked in one pot, which is good in color, fragrance and taste, fresh and delicious, rich in soup, nutritious and nourishing, so it has the reputation of ginseng in meat.
After the mutton is slaughtered, it is cut into large pieces, washed clean, and the internal organs are scalded, scraped and washed to make it clean and odorless. When cooking, first add water to the pot, and when the water boils, add the sheep skeleton, mutton and internal organs, cook with strong fire, skim the blood foam, and then add seasonings such as Radix Angelicae Dahuricae, Flos Caryophylli, Pericarpium Citri Tangerinae, Cortex Cinnamomi, Fructus Tsaoko, Fructus Amomi, Fructus Amomi, Rhizoma Zingiberis Recens and Fructus Zanthoxyli to remove fishy smell and enhance flavor. When it is ripe to nine, take out the sheep bones and chop up the mutton, internal organs, sheep blood, etc. Return to the pot and serve on a small fire. When eating, you can add seasonings such as salt, vinegar, monosodium glutamate, coriander, Chili powder and pepper according to your personal taste. The staple food is hard food such as pot stickers and baked cards.
Fei county cauldron whole sheep, the production is quite particular: use earthen stoves, cauldrons, not small pots; Use spring water instead of tap water; Use firewood instead of coal stoves and liquefied gas stoves. Eating sheep is generally the most suitable in autumn, because goats are fat and tender after being raised in spring and summer, and the meat quality after slaughter is pure and delicious. The agricultural proverb says "dogs in March, sheep in April and beef in May cannot be tasted", which means that April in the lunar calendar is the estrus mating period of goats, and mutton has the lowest nutritional value.
To taste whole mutton soup, the most important words are "fresh" and "whole". The so-called "fresh" means that sheep must be slaughtered and cooked now. If stored or frozen the next day, the taste will be greatly reduced; The whole lamb soup made should also be eaten while it is hot. If it is cooled and reheated, the taste will be greatly inferior. The so-called "whole" means mutton, sheep liver, sheep lung, sheep belly, sheep intestines, sheep blood, sheep head, sheep hoof, sheep bones and so on. Put it all in the pot, and the whole mutton soup made in this way is the purest and most delicious.
Some people don't like mutton because it smells bad. In fact, the smell of mutton proves that sheep are big sheep, mountain goats and authentic black goats. It is this fragrance that contains the nutritional value of mutton. If you don't smell mutton, it's not called mutton. No taste, no taste.
At present, there are more than 200 restaurants specializing in whole lamb soup in Feixian County, and there are also many restaurants in Linyi, Jinan and Beijing. Feixian whole lamb soup went out of Feixian and went to the whole country.
Yimeng first supplement, Feixian cauldron whole sheep.