Pingyuan tofu
Characteristics of plain old tofu: white and bright. Tender but not loose, oily but not greasy, spicy but not choking. The oil is clear but not light. It smells of meat but not fishy. When put into a bowl, tofu is like snow and jade, halogen is like tortoise shell amber, red and white, red and white. The aroma of food is tangy.
historical development
When Liu Bei was working as a county magistrate in the plain in the Han Dynasty, one morning in winter, Liu Guanzhang returned from practicing martial arts, and saw 128 women crying in the street, asking why. He replied: The family was poor, making tofu for a living, playing yesterday, and losing the bean bag cloth (a tool for making tofu). Today, he only made bean brains, but his father was anxious and beat them. Liu Guanzhang pitied his family's poverty, and took money from them, so he added clear sauce (now soy sauce) to eat bean brain, which made him happy. He thought it was delicious food, so he called it "plain old tofu". Continue to this day. After thousands of years of operation, the production technology of plain old tofu is more and more unique.
"In the Qing Dynasty, Emperor Qianlong went down to the south of the Yangtze River and passed by the Dezhou Plain to eat old tofu. On the spot, he ordered the man who made old tofu to enter the palace and joined the chef" Tofu Gang ". Old tofu took root in Beijing and was named "Beijing Old Tofu". The real old tofu is still from Shandong Plain. According to the descendants of the people who entered the palace at the beginning, at that time, they were afraid to use all the secret recipes for fear of being sorry for their ancestors. In this way, "Hundred Odes on Food in the Old Capital" also praised Beijing's old tofu: "Cloudy skin and flowers are different in appearance, and when you fall asleep after throwing a book, you look like a beautiful woman who is half-aged, and you can still be coquettish." It means: "Old tofu is slightly harder than tofu brain, but the shape is the same. Tofu brain is like a young girl, and old tofu is like a semi-old beauty. "It is humorous.
Production method
Traditional plain old tofu production: bean selection, water selection, pulp filtration, preparation (plain old tofu generally does not use gypsum), pulping, and point brain. This process is almost the same everywhere. The uniqueness of plain old tofu lies in: water is the water in the deep well beside the Yellow River; Of course, you should order tofu with brine.
The subtlety of plain people's old tofu lies in its halogen and oil, and its preparation method is unique and quite skillful. Add soy sauce, refined salt and water to the brine, add more than a dozen seasonings such as onion, pepper, star anise, fennel, clove, cinnamon and ginger, and then add the old duck and a kind of shredded pork (the old man said he forgot what shredded pork) to boil. Boil the oil with high-quality cottonseed oil on warm fire to remove oil foam and impurities; After a few hours, add onions, sweet sauce, pepper, fennel and other seasonings. In addition, prepare Chili oil cooked with high-quality Chili peppers. When the ingredients are in a bowl, put a small amount of chicken essence (generally no coriander). Put the bean curd slices into a bowl with a flat spoon, and add halogen and oil.
affect
In the plain, some residents basically have old tofu as their breakfast, which is delicious and affordable. Perhaps for people in other places, plain old tofu is no different from other tofu brains (which means he hasn't eaten it). But it has a very special feeling for the plain people. How many wanderers (including overseas Chinese) drink a bowl of plain old tofu first when they return from ancient times.