a: permanently.

There are two kinds of bittern. One is bittern used to make tofu, which originated in the Warring States Period or before. The second is the brine for cooking cooked food. The two kinds of brine have the same effect, and this question should be about the brine of cooked food.

Brine is called in different places. My hometown is called bittern soup, and its container is called bittern soup jar. Braised soup is mainly used to cook meat, followed by tofu. Because it tastes very mellow and delicious, stewed products are deeply loved by people, regardless of north and south, and there are few things that they don't like. The long-standing pot-stewed dish is really the brightest pearl in the splendid Chinese food culture.

There is a classic story in brine culture, which is about roast chicken in Daokou, Henan. According to local records, Daokou Roast Chicken was founded in the 18th year of Qing Shunzhi (1661), and it was tepid for more than 1 years, so it was naturally not famous. It was in the fifty-second year of Qianlong (1787) that the successor of roast chicken was Zhang Bing, and he met Liu Yi, the royal chef, who taught the secret of palace cuisine: "If you want to roast chicken, add eight ingredients and soup stock." The eight ingredients are dried tangerine peel, cinnamon, cardamom, galangal, clove, Amomum villosum, Amomum tsaoko and angelica dahurica, and the soup stock is the old soup of boiled chicken. Every time you cook a pot of chicken, you must add the last soup, and so on, the more you cook, the more fragrant it is, and the older the better. From then on, the business began to flourish, and it was out of control. Zhang Bing also renamed his roast chicken shop "Yixing Zhang", which means "Friendship and Prosperity". My Lao Zhang's roast chicken shop was prospered by my friend Liu Yi, the chef!

In the long-term development process of brine, because of the different tastes and habits in different places, the spice formula has also changed a lot, but they are all added on the basis of the above eight spices. Taking this opportunity, I would like to talk about my experience in using and managing brine for your reference.

first, the use of brine. There are three basic principles that must not be violated, otherwise the brine will be bad.

one is that "meat and vegetables are separated, and vegetarian dishes are not put in the can". That is, meat and vegetarian dishes should be marinated separately, and vegetarian dishes can't be put directly into the marinated soup pot, but marinated in another pot, just add some old soup, and after cooking, discard the soup. Vegetarian brine is mainly bean products.

the second is "blanch water before bittern". All meat should be blanched before marinating, otherwise the fishy smell of the material will be directly integrated into the old soup, which will not only destroy the brine ecology, but also affect the taste and destroy a can of old brine.

three are "let it cool before eating". All marinated cooking materials should be taken out if they can't be cooked, and must be taken out after cooling. This is because the marinated materials are generally large pieces. After the marinated materials are cooked and turned off, the temperature of the brine is gradually reduced. Remember, you can't pick up the goods without turning off the fire, otherwise the taste will be scarce and the meat will be firewood.

second, brine management. There are also three basic principles, which cannot be violated and offenders will be bad.

one is "winter is long and summer is short". Old brine soup is rich in various nutrients of animals, which people like to eat, but bacteria like to eat more, and it will rot if it is not careful. When not in use, it should be boiled once a day for sterilization in summer and once a week at the lowest in winter. Even if the refrigerator is big enough to fit in the jar, it should be boiled once a week in summer.

the second is "keep clean". After each use, it should be filtered to remove impurities and excess oil slick from minced meat. There are many kinds of filtration methods. As a domestic brine tank, the capacity is not large. After the materials are cooled and taken out, when the bottom of the sundries is chaotic, the old brine is poured out, the sticky impurities at the bottom of the tank are thrown away, and the excess floating oil is skimmed and boiled for storage.

three "regular feeding". It is the custom in my hometown to add new spice bags and throw away the old ones after using the general brine for five times. As for water, sugar and soy sauce, add them at any time according to actual needs.

I'm afraid the answer to this question will scare you to death. How long do you think a pot of brine can last? Ten years and eight years? Or decades? As a matter of fact, in many places, people who do pot-stewed dishes use old pot-stewed dishes handed down from family. What is family heirloom? It is possible that the pot of brine has been used for decades. So don't underestimate the pot-stewed food sellers outside, because people have a deep family history. So, it's hard for me to say how long a pot of brine can last, but in my opinion, if things are integrated, it won't be a problem to use it for 5 years if it is well maintained. But it takes a lot of time and energy to raise brine, which is not suitable for your own home.

For many people, the food outside is always better than the food cooked at home. The same is true of brine. Why is the brine sold outside delicious? That's how many years others have been processing. Besides, all kinds of spices used by people scare you to death. I am a food lover, but I can't recognize all those spices. I won't say what is so common about anise cinnamon. It's amazing that you can recognize all the words such as cardamom, Chuanxiong, Pogostemon, and Radix Angelicae Pubescentis. Not to mention Radix Saposhnikoviae, Radix Angelicae Dahuricae, Radix Aucklandiae, Herba Asari, Radix Bupleuri and Fructus Amomi! So you say, can you make such delicious brine at home?

In fact, eating at home means paying attention to safety, hygiene and romance. Isn't it romantic to spread a table mat and have an ordinary meal for two people? If there is a child, a family of three, and everyone occupies a corner of the table, what a warm picture. Right?

So, how long can bittern last at most? Maybe the bittern sold at your door is older than you. Many people also want to make brine in their own homes. In fact, as mentioned above, it is unrealistic, it takes a lot of time and experience, and if you are not careful, you may lose all your efforts, invest more, produce less, and it is not worthwhile.

As long as the brine has not deteriorated, it can be used for a long time. The key is how to keep the brine from deteriorating.

There are different ways to make brine according to different places, and there are different ways to keep brine. For example, in some places, brine is colored with soy sauce, red rice and sugar besides spices. These are different from sauce brine and white brine. Today, I will focus on sharing my experience with you. I have been working as a chef in Chengdu for nearly 4 years, and I have been interested in braised dishes and white brine in Sichuan cuisine. Because the more foods marinated in bittern, the longer the bittern is, and the higher the content of disodium nucleotide in bittern, it is a natural freshener that can make food more delicious, that is, the longer the bittern is, the more valuable it is.

attention should be paid to the following aspects when keeping brine: pretreatment should be carried out according to the characteristics of raw materials before marinating food, and the taste should be marinated first (the specific raw materials can be divided into no salt and added salt according to their characteristics, for example, duck intestines are not added with salt, because salt will make them lose water, and salted duck intestines will not be crisp, tender and refreshing);

Soaking water: Soaking water can remove some blood and froth from raw materials. This process does not include all food raw materials, mainly such as pork liver, pork tripe, and fragrant tripe (urine bag). After soaking in water, such as pork tripe, it should be scraped and cleaned before being marinated, while most fresh marinated foods can be marinated with brine after being cleaned, such as pig's head. After the raw materials are marinated, they are boiled with large fire to remove floating foam, and then marinated with small fire (for meat raw materials). As the saying goes, "porridge is cooked with large fire and quack with small fire" (quack means meat).

in the process of marinating, observe the color, salt taste, fragrance, supplementary spices, sugar color, salt and water, ginger and onion in the brine according to the requirements of the dishes, and add cooking wine (white wine can also be added). After all the food is marinated, fish out the residue in the brine, including ginger and onion. Turn off the fire after boiling the brine, do not touch the brine, do not stick raw water, do not cover the brine tightly, and do a good job of preventing insects. If you don't use it every day, you must boil it once a day. If it's too troublesome, put the brine (cold) in a basin or food bag and freeze it in the refrigerator. When you use it, take it out to thaw and boil it.

I added that I didn't add monosodium glutamate chicken essence, which is because I always add No.2 material. No.2 material is a mixture of yeast extract and ingredients in proportion. Yeast extract is a green food raw material extracted by biotechnology.

I'm glad to answer this question. I'm a Qian Duoduo delicacy who loves to share braised dishes.

Brine can be used for a long time if it is well preserved. Generally, famous brine dishes will exaggerate that their own brine is a century-old brine. Therefore, it is no problem that brine can be reused many times.

Although brine can be used for so long, it can only be used if it is well preserved. If it is not well preserved, the brine will be useless.

how to preserve and maintain brine? There are detailed explanations in my previous Q&A, and you can go and have a look if you want to know. Today, I also talk about how to preserve it.

1: Pottery should be used to pack brine, but metal utensils should not be used to pack brine after the brine is marinated, otherwise the salt substances in brine will react with metals to make the brine taste bad, so the brine should be packed in pottery.

2: Don't have too much oil slick on the brine. There is a layer of oil slick on the brine. If there is too much oil slick, it will make the brine difficult to cool, and it will stink when it is heated to death. It will be moldy for a long time. If there is no oil slick, it will be easy to oxidize and deteriorate, so a thin layer of oil slick on the brine is better.

3: Boil the brine regularly all year round. Everyone knows that if you want to boil the brine in summer, it will not be cooked regularly in spring, autumn and winter, but it will be boiled all year round.

4: Impurities should be filtered out of brine, and meat residues and spices should be filtered out with gauze after marinating to prevent these deterioration from affecting brine.

5: When the brine is not used for a long time, boil it, cool it, pack it with pottery, seal the mouth with plastic wrap, and freeze it in the refrigerator.

I only know that the brine is made of various spices, such as ginger, onion, light soy sauce, rock sugar and so on. The longer the brine is cooked, the more fragrant it will be, and the stewed food has a unique flavor.

Brine is properly maintained and can be used continuously. Now some shops call it century-old soup, and I think there are more gimmicks. As we all know, private enterprises in new China are allowed to operate privately only after the reform and opening up. Where did you get the century-old soup? However, the centuries-old soup has its existence and possibility in history. Apart from these, I have used bittern here for 15 years. As far as my personal experience is concerned, as long as it is properly maintained and used correctly, the bittern is more fragrant and can be used continuously for a long time.

I have also answered some questions about the use and maintenance of brine in previous Q&A, and now I will make a brief summary:

First, we should lay a good foundation when mixing brine for the first time, and the brine must be made of pig bone, keel, coccyx, old chicken and old duck pot as the bottom, without soy sauce and fried crystal sugar. The spices are soaked in water for 1 hour to remove the "astringent" smell, and ginger, garlic and onion are fried in yellow and fried dry.

second, the required marinated ingredients must be thoroughly boiled in white water and rinsed before they can be marinated in the pot, so as not to pollute the brine with blood foam.

3. When marinating, keep the bittern in a state that it seems to open, turn off the fire when the bittern product reaches the required taste, and let the bittern product soak in the bittern. First, it is convenient to taste. Second, the marinated bittern product has a positive and moist color, and it is not easy to air dry and change color after taking out of the pot. Why turn off the fire before the halogen products meet the halogen requirements? Because there is still a high temperature after the brine is turned off, it will further mature the brine products.

4. Keep boiling once a day, twice in summer, turn off the fire after boiling (don't keep boiling on a big fire to avoid the brine from muddy, sticky, black and wasting), and don't stir or fall into raw water. After several times of marinating, the material package should be changed, and the sugar color should be fried according to the situation, and the marinated soup should be added when it is less.

The above are just some basic knowledge, specific operation and a lot of knowledge and skills. If you study and study more, you will gradually grasp the mystery.

I have a say in this. When I was a child, I sold stewed vegetables at home. As long as I keep adding Chinese herbal medicine spices instead of chemical fragrant crystals, filtering impurities, adding salt and fried sugar juice, the brine will increase or decrease with the weather, adding water and adjusting it when it increases, and discarding the brine with many impurities at the bottom. When the brine is to be stored for a period of time, you must burn enough salt and new spices. It is important to put a layer of oil on it, and then put it in a big earthen jar. You must never move it in the middle, and then it can be left for a year or two. When you use it next time, you must throw away the moldy oil on it and boil it with the brine below to adjust it. This is called old brine. Others must give a big red envelope if they want to do brine business and find mother and child water!

As long as the brine is well kept, it can be eaten all the time. The color, salinity, fragrance or quantity of brine must be checked every time after the raw materials are marinated, and seasonings should be added at any time to ensure the quality of brine. In addition, in order to ensure the cleanliness of brine, impurities must be filtered after each brine; If there is too much grease attached to the surface of brine, some should be removed; Every time the raw materials are marinated, the brine must be boiled before being preserved; Brine that has not been used for a long time should also be taken out regularly for boiling treatment, so that it can be preserved for a long time.

Xiang Lu Wei is to marinate all kinds of raw materials in the prepared brine, so that the raw materials have a unique flavor. The flavor of bittern mainly comes from spices. There are many kinds of bittern, and there are differences in bittern in different regions. Commonly used bittern includes: home-cooked bittern, white bittern, Sichuan bittern and Chaozhou bittern. 2. The proportion of spices in brine is very important. Many restaurants have developed secret recipes based on long-term practice to make their own brine unique. Spice bags should be added to brine frequently to keep the aroma of brine. 3. The formula of brine is different. Take 5, grams of fresh soup as an example, the spices and proportions that can be added are: 2 grams of coriander, ginger and star anise, 5 grams of onion, carrot, pepper and red rice, 1 grams of celery, ginger and onion, 2 grams of tsaoko, 15 grams of cinnamon and licorice, and 1 grams of clove, Amomum villosum and kaempferia. 4. To make brine, fresh soup should be used to boil pig bones, ox bones, chicken bones, old chickens, chicken feet, old ducks, scallops and Jinhua ham together.

scope of application: marinated pork knuckles, ribs, viscera, ducks, geese, eggs, bean products, kelp, etc.

representative dishes: marinated assorted dishes, marinated duck eggs and marinated ribs

The amount of sugar color can be determined according to the marinated food. For example, pork intestines, pork bellies, etc., less sugar color should be added, and chicken wings and pig's trotters should be added more. Brine should be filtered every day to remove residue, boil and cover for safekeeping. Bittern with rabbit head and fat intestines should be separated from other raw materials, and salt should be added when the salt taste is not enough. If the rabbit head is too raked, it will not form and the flower kernel should not be too broken.

Repeated use of brine is the legendary soup stock. Since it is an old soup, the more it is used repeatedly, the more mellow it tastes, and the smell of brine is by no means something that can be adjusted by the seasoning of the new soup. <