as we all know, dried abalone is made with "sugar heart" as the top grade, but how to make "sugar heart" abalone may not be known to many people. Today, Red Kitchen. com specially compiled this "Sugar Heart" abalone production for the reference of chefs. Please have a look.
what is "sugar heart"?
"candy heart" refers to the dried abalone, which is boiled until the central part is sticky and soft, and the central part of abalone is in a non-condensable semi-liquid state. When it is eaten, it is soft and tough, with a soft candy-like taste, and every bite has a little feeling of sticking to teeth, just like rice cakes.
abalone must have a sugar heart to be the top grade, and to understand the sugar heart, we should first start with dried abalone.
To make candied abalone, it needs to be dried for many times. Fresh abalone has no candied heart. And dried abalone can be divided into dried abalone and dried abalone with sugar heart. Dried abalone with sugar heart is dark brown in color, with rich sugar flavor (converted from part of protein of fresh abalone itself) and abalone fragrance; Raw and dried abalone is light in color and grayish yellow. When you smell it, there is only a faint abalone fragrance, which is easy to distinguish.
A layer of white frost will appear on the surface of dried abalone with dried sugar heart when it is stored for a period of time, which is caused by the protein of abalone, which not only does not damage the quality of abalone, but is one of the important signs of top-grade abalone.
Dried abalone with sugar heart has different drying techniques, but the material selection is the same: fresh and large abalone must be selected, and it is difficult for small abalone to process decent dried abalone with sugar heart; The stale abalone, because of its protein necrosis, can't be processed into candied abalone. The same 1 kg fresh abalone is processed into dried abalone, and the dried abalone with sugar heart is about 9% of the raw dried abalone, so when we make dried abalone with sugar heart in water, we will find that its volume is larger than that of raw dried abalone, which is one of the reasons why dried abalone with sugar heart is expensive.
Dried abalone with sugar heart will develop the taste of abalone to the peak, that is, "more fragrant and smooth". The reason is that dried abalone with sugar heart has sugar flavor. When diners cut abalone with a knife, the sugar flavor first volatilizes the aroma of abalone, so the abalone flavor is stronger, and the diners smell it and have a great appetite.
However, it is impossible to cook abalone with sugar in it, such as African abalone and Suhe abalone in the Philippines. Therefore, in order to understand how the sugar center is produced, we must first understand the principle of dried abalone: abalone meat is thick, and after the outer layer is air-dried, it forms a protective layer, so that bacteria cannot invade, and its interior will not rot. On the contrary, because its interior has not been completely dried, it will gradually organize itself to dissolve and form a sugar center during storage.
The meat of dried abalone is hard and the texture is tight, so it can protect and breed the sugar heart inside. But similarly, it is difficult to induce the candied abalone. Although ordinary soaking can soak other seafood, it is of little effect when used on candied dried abalone.
how to choose dried abalone?
How to choose dried abalone is very important. First of all, it depends on whether the abalone is dry enough, whether there is enough butter, whether the bead edge is complete or not, whether the abalone is big or not.
Use a light cannon to see if the abalone is airtight. If there are black spots in the middle, it must be dead abalone, which is hard to soften.
smell it later. Good abalone has a slight abalone smell. You must never buy stinky abalone. Especially if the abalone stinks, merchants usually put the abalone in the refrigerator. If you see a merchant taking abalone out of the refrigerator, you must wait until the abalone reaches room temperature before smelling it carefully with your nose. If it smells bad, don't buy it. Because merchants rarely air-dry abalone thoroughly, and in order not to reduce the weight as much as possible, they will also seal it with plastic bags for preservation. This kind of abalone is easy to smell fishy.
When choosing abalone, we should also understand the problem of "head count". The so-called "head count" means how many abalones there are in a catty, and that's how many. For example, if there are 1 abalones in a catty, that's 1 abalones.
and the bigger the abalone, the smaller the number of abalone, the higher the price. But this is a little different for South African abalone, which is the most expensive with 8-1 heads. Besides, the bigger or smaller abalone is, the cheaper it is.
how to make dried abalone?
There are many kinds of dried abalone in the market, such as abalone from Australia, abalone from South Africa, abalone from Japan, abalone from Japan and so on. When processing all kinds of abalone, the soaking time should be determined according to its quality and dry humidity.
There are two methods to swell dried abalone: alkaline puffing and water puffing.
Alkali puffing is one of the methods often used to swell dried abalone. However, after alkaline hair, the alkaline taste of abalone is not easy to rinse clean, the nutritional components of abalone will be destroyed to a certain extent, and the delicacy of abalone will also be reduced, and the taste of finished dishes will be poor. Therefore, it is best not to use alkaline hair method to swell dried abalone.
compared with this, it is more favorable to use water to swell dried abalone. Because the method of water boiling is simple and easy to operate, it can make abalone fully absorb water, make the fish soft and full, and the shape is not rotten, and it will not destroy the nutritional components of abalone, nor affect the delicacy of abalone, and the finished dish has a good taste.
Below, the method of drying abalone with water is introduced:
1. Put the dried abalone into a bucket, soak it in warm water at 3℃ for about 3 days, and don't move. When it's almost done, just hold it between your fingers, and feel a little soft. Don't change the water when soaking, the purpose is to let the abalone's own odor into the water and let the abalone spontaneously lose its body. There are places where the weather is cold. Don't soak them in cold water. It is difficult to soak them in cold water.
2. Take the abalone soaked in Microsoft out and rinse it for about 1 hour, then use a small brush or toothbrush to clean the fur, fine sand and black film along the edge of the abalone, then dig up the dirty things in the abalone head by hand, modify the round edge of the abalone heart with scissors, and then rinse it for half an hour.
3. Put the washed abalone into a bucket, first bake it at 5 degrees water temperature for 1 hours, then take it out and rinse it for half an hour, then put it back into the bucket and soak it at 8 degrees water temperature for 1 hours, then take it out and rinse it, then put bamboo swallows on the bottom of the bucket with a small bucket, put the abalone in, bake it at 9 degrees water temperature for 1 hours, and then pour it out and rinse it. If there are black spots on abalone, you can put a little hydrogen peroxide, so that abalone will be white. There are also abalone. If the snack is still hard, you can put a little powder in 9-degree water to soften the abalone.
The super abalone, such as 3-4 netted abalone, will take at least 7 days, and its technological process is as follows:
1. Abalone should be dried in the hot sun for 5-8 hours before it is made, so that it can better absorb water during the making process.
2. firstly, brush the dried abalone to remove the dust on its surface, then soak it in cold water for 48 hours, then take it out, cut off the abalones' pedicels and intestines, then brush the abalones' pillows and bodies with a toothbrush (be careful not to use too much force to keep the shape of the abalones), and then put it in ice water to continue soaking (changing water repeatedly for 3-4 times during this period).
3. Soak the abalone soaked in ice water with purified water, Guangdong rice wine and Shanghai white rice vinegar for another 1 hours. After it is thawed, fire to heat the water, and then bake it for 3-4 hours.
4. Put the soaked abalone in a big sand pot, put 9-degree hot water (without abalone), 3-5 pieces of ginger and 2 ml of carved wine until it is slightly boiled, turn off the fire after 3 minutes, seal and soak for 8 hours until the water cools naturally, then change the hot water and bake for 3-4 hours, and then take it out for inspection. At this time, the abalone has become soft.
5. Add half a bucket of maltose and 2 tablespoons of Golden Lion Syrup in warm water, then soak for 7-8 hours, and take out the abalone when it is completely soft and elastic.
Boil abalone
1. Chop the old hen, red meat, pork chops, pork belly, two pork hands, 25g pig skin and 25g chicken feet, and remove the claw tips. The raw material ratio is 3: 1: 1: 1.
2. Rinse the above raw materials for 3 hours, then boil them in a pot with cold water and strong fire, skim off the floating foam, cook for about 18-2 minutes, and take out the raw materials (in the process of flying water, use toothpicks to prick the meat constantly, so that the blood is easy to seep out and the raw materials are easier to fly through), shower, wash and control the water, then fry the raw materials until they are golden brown, and take them out for later use.
3. Soak the 1-year-old Jinhua ham (Luzhou-flavor) in warm water for 2 hours, then wash it clean, cut off the carrion and pig's feet on the ham surface, then cut the ham into pieces weighing 2 grams, add onion ginger and Huadiao wine to steam it for 2 hours, and then fry it for later use.
4. Wash the casserole, fix the bamboo mat with bamboo sticks, put it into the bottom of the casserole, and then put the fried old chicken and steak neatly on the bamboo mat.
5. Add abalone (separate the soft abalone from the hard abalone, put the soft abalone on the bottom, and put the soft abalone on the top) and the rest of the fried meat (if there are a lot of raw materials in the pot, you can clamp the abalone with a bamboo mat and fasten the edge with a bamboo stick to prevent the abalone from escaping, and then discharge the abalone in layers, remember to put it in the middle and upper layers of the sand pot to avoid sticking to the pot).
6. Add the old chicken broth and bring it to a boil with high fire. After changing it to low fire for 1 hours, pick out the meat in the pot, then add ham, oyster sauce, crystal sugar, soy sauce (or sugar color) and fried onion ginger to adjust the color, simmer for 6 hours until the juice is slightly collected, soak the abalone with concentrated abalone juice overnight, cool it thoroughly, take it out and soak it in cold abalone juice.
7. finally, collect the abalone juice for 15 minutes, cool it thoroughly, wrap it with plastic wrap, and put it in a fresh-keeping cabinet at 5-6 degrees Celsius.
The key parts that should be paid attention to during the operation:
1. Choose abalone well, and pay attention to the time and water temperature when sending it;
2. The abalone juice should be stewed with strong aroma;
3. When abalone is served, it should be boiled thoroughly and fried on both sides.