After eating Chaoshan beef meatballs, all the other meatballs are dregs. Do you think Chaoshan only has beef balls? No, no, no, beef balls are just one of many balls in Chaoshan. Besides common pork balls, there are pork belly balls, seaweed balls, beef balls, fish balls, cuttlefish balls, goose eggs, chicken balls and shrimp balls. Even the cat meatballs, dog meatballs and rabbit meatballs are cooked.

Undoubtedly, the most popular is beef balls. Where are the cows in Chaoshan, and where are there no cows? How can Chaoshan beef balls be played like this? And it's delicious ! !

About 100 years ago, most farmers raised cattle. When the commodity economy was not very developed, the surplus raw beef could not be preserved for a long time, so the Hakka people chopped up the beef, squeezed it into balls with salt and cooked it, and gradually became a local snack.

At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, most of the vendors selling beef balls were Hakkas, who carried small burdens and peddled along the streets in the old city of Shantou and Chaoshan area.

Especially in the evening, from the Bajiaoting of Handi Road to the Hanjiang area behind Zhongshan Park (now around Shantou Small Park), there are often ferry boats with a small lamp hanging from the bow, which sells food taken late at night for Chaoshan cargo ships parked there and specializes in making beef balls.

Smart Chaoshan people saw that Hakka beef balls were very distinctive and introduced them to "transplant". However, Chaoshan people did not simply copy the recipe of Hakka beef balls, but tried their best to make the characteristics of chaoshan beef meatball.

For example, Hakka people beat beef with a kitchen knife on the back, and Chaoshan people use two special iron bars, each weighing about 1.5 kg, and the cross section is square or triangular. Cut the beef into strips along the meat line and put it on the chopping block. Take two big iron bars in your hand, open the bow left and right, and beat them repeatedly until the beef is beaten into a paste.

Chaoshan people make beef balls more strictly and attentively than Hakka people in the selection of materials and technology. As the raw material of beef balls, select high-quality meat from the legs, chest, back, buttocks and other parts of cattle, and remove the fascia above.

Defeat takes effort.

In order not to cut the fiber, the taste is more elastic and crisp.

Mixing must be sufficient.

In order to make chewing gum taste better and more delicate.

Twist the pulp and squeeze the pills out of your thumb and forefinger with your fist.

Scoop it into a warm water basin, simmer it, and you can get out of the pot.

And this basket of beef balls

The test is decades of hand-eye kung fu.

From meat selection to pill making.

Every detail needs to be carefully controlled by the master.

Stephen Chow, a master of Hong Kong Wulitou, introduced beef balls into film and television creation. As soon as "Gourmet" was broadcast, it immediately became popular all over the country. Many tourists come here to try it, but many people don't know that its prototype is Shantou beef balls (beef tendon balls). Hong Kong, a gourmet city, has greatly promoted the spread of the reputation of beef balls, thus making chaoshan beef meatball famous at home and abroad. Today, although many places are imitating beef balls, the local products of Chaoshan are still authentic in the food industry.