The most delicious food in China is the Cantonese people. They eat everything, flying in the sky and running underground. But it is said that Suzhou people are the most elegant in eating. Suzhou is a classical and elegant place, and Suzhou people attach great importance to eating noodles. Noodles are the staple food of Suzhou people. It is said that the free Su-style noodle soup in Suzhou is the best. Let’s find out.
Suzhou is famous for its exquisite cuisine. As a staple food, pasta is usually more important in the north than in the south, but in Suzhou, people often eat pasta as breakfast and enjoy it. What Suzhou people value is not the noodles themselves, but the soup and special toppings inside. They are not even willing to settle for the soup below.
The old people in Suzhou only love a mouthful of noodle soup. Soup is not the first bowl of soup, but the first pot of water used to cook noodles. Whoever arrives first will get the first bowl of noodles from the noodle shop that day. Suzhou writer Lu described a special image in his novel "Gourmet": "A thousand bowls of noodles and a pot of soup. If there are a thousand bowls of noodles, the noodle soup will be mushy, and the noodles will not be so refreshing and smooth. It smells like noodle soup. "At four or five o'clock in the morning, the noodle shop chef prepared the soup and toppings. At six o'clock, the customer who had taken the first sip of noodle soup pushed in the door. It can be said that a bowl of noodles makes a morning!
Soup is the soul of a bowl of Su-style noodles. The clear soup color is the highest state of Soviet-style noodles. The soup here is called "hanging" rather than burning, which is intended to bring out the natural flavor of the food. To sip a good soup, you need to stew it for at least a day with ingredients such as pork, ham, native chicken, fish head, and eel bones.
Brine is a combination of spices and seasonings that really determines the direction of the soup. The secret marinade recipe is often prepared by the noodle shop owner himself, and it is also the foundation of a noodle shop. Su-style noodles are divided into red soup and white soup. The difference is that soy sauce and sugar are added to the red soup. The color of the soup is deep red like amber, and the taste is salty and sweet. The white soup does not add soy sauce and sugar, and the clear soup is seasoned with rice grains and garlic leaves.
When eating pasta, you have to pay attention to whether it is covered or crossed, whether it is green, whether it is wide or tight. When pouring, place the toppings directly on the surface, and when crossing the bridge, place the toppings on a small plate. If it's green, add more garlic leaves; if it's green, don't add it. Wide soup means more soup, tight soup means less soup.
Features of Su-style noodle soup:
The toppings of noodle soup are very particular, and not all dishes can be used as toppings.
One of the characteristics is the freshness of the ingredients. The toppings of Soviet-style noodles must be fresh, except for pickles, which are mostly fried fish, crispy meat, etc., and are processed into semi-finished products in advance. Pickled foods such as salted chicken, salted fish, and soy sauce meat cannot be used as toppings.
The second one is characterized by fresh river and pig offal. River fresh food, mainly shrimp. There are fried shrimp, shredded shrimp and pickled shrimp. Offal, including fried kidney, fried pork liver, and fried tripe. There are also shrimps with internal organs, such as fried kidneys with shrimps and fried belly with shrimps. In addition, Su-style noodles have the classic "double-topped noodles", and the standard is fried fish and crispy meat. The most classic Soviet-style noodles are shrimp eel and shredded shrimp eel. Shredded eel must be fried, it is elastic and the meat is fresh and tender, which is a test of skill.
Third, the toppings must be fried. Su-style noodles have a large pot with boiling water, but only one bowl of noodles is put in at a time and cooked for a minute or even dozens of seconds. Toppings must be fried in a bowl. A noodle shop usually has thirty or forty kinds of toppings, and the chef cannot sustain it without some skills.
More toppings. Take the menu of Yu Xingji, a time-honored noodle restaurant in Suzhou, as an example. The toppings include: vegetarian bread, fried shredded pork, shredded cabbage, fried eel with shrimp, beef, three delicacies, as well as pork liver, assorted shrimp, crab powder, and raw fried eel back. Waiting for the freshly fried toppings.