In China's classic literary work A Dream of Red Mansions, food and beauty always complement each other.

In a Dream of Red Mansions, the beauties are all stunners, and most of the cakes are rare.

However, these delicious foods, which were originally only visible in Zhong Ming Ding's restaurant, can now be made and enjoyed at home!

Let's take a look at the cakes in the Red Chamber!

The eighth story of A Dream of Red Mansions: Baoyu asked Qingwen again, "I had breakfast in that mansion today, and I thought you liked it. I told Grandma Zhen that I only kept it for the evening and asked someone to deliver it. Can you eat it?"

In the Qing Dynasty, there were several ways to make steamed buns with bean curd skin:

First, the bean curd skin wrapped the stuffing, such as 4% off a paper bag, made into a square bag, sealed with egg white, and steamed in a cage;

2. Cut the rotten skin into small pieces, wrap it into a bag, close it with hemp thread, steam and shape it, and then remove the hemp thread. There are also tofu chopped, mixed with condiments as stuffing, and steamed noodles.

Look at the name "steamed stuffed bun with bean curd skin", which seems to be the former rather than the latter. Tofu skin steamed stuffed bun was also a tribute in Qing dynasty, and it was found in the archives of imperial meals in Qing palace.

The eleventh episode of A Dream of Red Mansions: (Qin Keqing) Yesterday, the old lady rewarded me with a yam cake filled with jujube paste, but I ate two pieces. < Span class="correct" data-src= "Inverted image" data-words= "Inverted image" data-origin-sentence= "Inverted image." "=" Data-target-sentence = "Inverted image." > It's like a chemical move. "

It takes time to make jujube paste yam cake.

1. Wash the red dates, soak them in warm water, steam them for one hour, peel them, and stir-fry them with oil (peanut oil or lard) and white sugar into jujube paste for later use.

2. Wash and steam yam for one hour, then peel it, grind it into mud, add flour (glutinous rice flour+stem rice flour), lard, sugar and water, and steam for another 3 minutes.

thirdly, oil is applied to the mold, and yam paste, jujube paste and yam paste are put in order, and then they are poured out and steamed for several minutes, thus forming a nourishing dessert.

The thirty-seventh story of A Dream of Red Mansions: When Aroma heard about it, she brought two small boxes of shredded silk. First, she opened one, which contained two kinds of fresh fruits, Hong Ling and the head of a chicken, and the other one was a new chestnut powder cake steamed with sweet-scented osmanthus sugar.

In the south, it has always been the habit to stir-fry chestnuts to make cakes. "Chestnut cakes are shelled with chestnuts." "Suiyuan Food List" also said: "Boiled chestnuts are extremely bad, and pure glutinous rice flour with sugar is used as a cake and steamed. Add melon seeds and pine nuts. This snack is also called "Double Ninth Snack" in Suiyuan Food List, which is the food eaten on the Double Ninth Festival in the lunar calendar.

Compared with the above two cases, adding osmanthus when making cakes is a "steamed chestnut powder cake with osmanthus sugar".

in the thirty-ninth episode of A Dream of Red Mansions, the old woman came back with a box and said, "The second wife said that she told grandma and the girls not to make jokes and beg for food. In this box are the water chestnut cakes and chicken oil rolls sent by my uncle and wife just now for grandma and girls. "

Lingfen cake was a famous food in the south of Qing Dynasty.

The Qing Dynasty's Tiaodingji recorded Yangzhou's method: "The old water chestnut meat is dried and grinded into powder, and it is divided into three parts with glutinous rice flour, foreign sugar and steamed with printed cakes, and the color is extremely white and moist."

if glutinous rice is not added, it will appear faint purple.

water caltrop has the function of invigorating the middle energizer, and The Compendium Addendum states that it can "replenish the spleen and stomach, strengthen the feet and knees, strengthen the strength and benefit qi, promote water circulation, remove summer heat and detoxify".

Chicken oil roll is a rolled dish, which tastes like steamed pasta in a cage. Chicken oil roll is more delicious.

Chicken oil is not only an excellent condiment, but also has certain medical and health benefits. Eating chicken oil often can make hair grow oily and shiny, and this light grows from the inside, which is much better than the scalp oil medicine rubbed on the outside.

according to the analysis of folk customs of southerners, my uncle and wife should kill silky fowl before giving it as a "gift".

Black-bone chicken enters the kidney meridian, which greatly supplements women, and southerners advocate it. Neijing says: "The kidney governs the bone, and its prosperity is in the hair." Kidney qi can replenish and moisten the hair.

At the same time, black-bone chicken can also treat gynecological diseases, which is completely opposite to Xifeng's disease.

the 41st time of A Dream of Red Mansions: This box contains the same lotus root starch sweet-scented osmanthus cake

Both lotus root starch and sweet-scented osmanthus sugar are famous specialties in Hangzhou, so this is an exquisite cake with Jiangnan flavor.

The Addendum to Compendium of Materia Medica says: "In winter, dig up the old lotus root, pound the juice into powder, dry it, slice it with a knife, and eat it as white as a crane feather. Mix well with cold water first, and then rush in with boiling water, that is, it condenses like glue and is as lovely as ruby. Adding sugar cream to eat can greatly nourish the stomach and produce fluid. "

lotus root starch is not suitable for steaming cakes alone, and it is usually mixed with flour or rice flour, and flavored with white sugar and sweet osmanthus or candied fruit.

For specific methods, please refer to water chestnut cake, yam cake and chestnut cake.

A Dream of Red Mansions: As I said this, I saw a box sent by the fruit of the Liu family. Xiaoyan then uncovered ... and a plate of four cream puffs.

To make a crispy roll of cream: 1. Boil the milk, pour it into a basin and cover it with cloth to cool; Second, at this time, a layer of skin is formed. Carefully pick up the milk skin and put it on oiled paper to absorb water. 3. Mix pine nut powder, sweet-scented osmanthus juice (sweet-scented osmanthus flowers with milk) and white sugar into stuffing, and press hawthorn cake into stuffing (wash hawthorn with water, pour it into a pot and cook it; 4. Take the hawthorn out of the pot and smash it into the basket. Pour the hawthorn paste into the basin and stir in the alum water and syrup. 5. Finally, after stirring evenly, pour it into another container and cool it to form the hawthorn cake. 6. Spread the two kinds of stuffing on the milk skin from top to bottom, then roll it up to the middle from left to right, and slice it to serve.

The drinks, sweets, refreshments, dishes, soups and banquet dishes written in A Dream of Red Mansions are mostly fine, representing the highest level of food at that time, giving people the feeling of cooking gold and jade.

more importantly, Cao Xueqin always combines the origin of raw materials, cooking techniques, living habits, folk customs, etiquette system and historical anecdotes when writing about these food and drink lives? Therefore, it endows diet with cultural form and connotation, and shows an elegant and poetic lifestyle.