One of Yunnan's famous dishes: What is the cuisine of steamed chicken?

As a famous dish in Yunnan, steamed chicken has been circulated among the people in southern Yunnan as early as 2000 years ago. Steamed chicken is named because it is steamed in a steamer. With chicken cooking, it has the conditioning effect of nourishing the body, enriching the blood, strengthening the spleen and appetizing. Then do you know what kind of cuisine steamed chicken is? How did the steamed chicken come from? This issue of China's food culture takes you to understand the culture of steamed chicken.

Steamed pot chicken belongs to Caicai system in Yunnan.

As early as the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, steamed chicken was popular in southern Yunnan. According to legend, it was invented by Yang Li, the chef of Fudeju in Lin 'an Prefecture (now Jianshui County). That year, when the emperor visited Jian 'an, the magistrate issued a notice asking for delicacies to please the son of heaven, and the selected one was rewarded with 50 taels of silver.

Yang Li's family was poor, and his mother was seriously ill. In order to get a big reward, he integrated the local methods of eating hot pot and steaming steamed bread, created a steamer, and climbed to the top of the swallow cave to collect bird's nest regardless of his life, hoping to be a bird's nest steamer chicken. Unexpectedly, the boiler was stolen, and Yang Li was asked about the crime of deceiving the monarch and wanted to behead him. Fortunately, the emperor asked the truth to avoid Yang Li's death, and renamed Fudeju "Yang Li Steamed Chicken". From then on, the steam pot chicken became famous and became a famous dish in central Yunnan. At that time, the practice of steamed chicken was very simple, but the taste was very mellow.

Production method

The tableware for steaming steamed chicken should be made of earthenware steamer built with water. Jianshui Steam Pot is simple in appearance and unique in structure. Its belly is flat and round, and there is a hollow tube in the middle. Steam enters the pot along this tube, and after being cooled by the pot cover, it becomes water drops into the pot and becomes chicken soup. After two or three hours, the meat will be ready to eat, the chicken pieces will be fresh and tender, and the soup will be sweet.

For cooking steam pot chicken, local native chicken should be selected, and the chicken is too big, too small, too fat, too thin, too fat, and the thin man is fishy. It is best to use tender hens that just laid eggs or cocks that just started to crow. The ingredients are very simple, only a few slices of ginger, a few shallots, a little pepper and refined salt. When eating, you should pick up the onion and ginger, leaving only its taste fishy, fresh and palatable.

I don't know when it started, and I can't find out who it is. The rare medicinal materials "Sanqi", "Cordyceps" and "Gastrodia", which are special in Yunnan, are added to the steam pot chicken, which makes the chicken soup more nutritious, and has the functions of moistening the lungs and tonifying the kidney. It has obvious curative effect on coronary heart disease and asthenia and anemia, and becomes a nourishing delicacy. Since then, the reputation of steamed chicken has become more and more prosperous, and foreigners who come to Kunming must have a taste before they rest. In recent years, there are more and more chicken dishes cooked by steam pot in Yunnan, including more than a dozen kinds of chicken dishes, such as "Chongcao Steam Pot Chicken", "Ginseng Steam Pot Chicken" and "Tianqi Steam Pot Chicken", which are not only delicious food, but also top-grade food therapy.

Steamed chicken practice

Food preparation

A chicken of various types (according to taste preferences) requires moderate fat and thin, and it is best to kill it immediately; According to the size of the boiler, the weight shall be cut and put into the boiler, and the depth shall not exceed 1/2 to 2/3. A little onion and ginger. Optional: Dictyophora dictyophora, Xuanwei ham, etc., and other ingredients can be matched according to your preference. If you are dietetic, you can prepare some herbs such as Cordyceps, Gastrodia elata, Notoginseng, etc.

Production step

1, cut the chicken into 3cm cubes, slice the ginger, cut the whole onion into two sections, and pat it loose with the back of a knife. Take out the chicken oil for later use.

2, chicken pieces into the pot, washed and squeezed.

3. Put it into a boiler. If it is accompanied by ingredients (such as Xuanwei ham) that determine the basic taste and need to be steamed for a long time to taste, put them together. Onion ginger, appropriate amount of chicken oil and finally spread.

4. Boil a pot of water, and sit the boiler on the boiler. If there is air leakage at the joint between the boiler and the boiler, use a paste. Cover the steam pot.

5. Check once every 10 minute. If there is more soup in the boiler, it means that the chicken is not dried (the distillation can't be so fast). Take it out and repeat step 2. Pour out the sewage from the chicken and wash the boiler again.

6. Start the long-term distillation process, and the soup produced by distillation will increase little by little (no need to check again). If the boiler is small, check whether the boiler is dry and replenish it.

7. According to the size of the pot, it can be prepared within 2-4 hours, which is subject to the amount of soup and the corresponding number of people in the pot.

8. If it is served with Dictyophora dictyophora or similar ingredients, it should be put in about half an hour before the pot is cooked (see the last paragraph of the notice for the timing).

9. If you eat it for the second time, try not to touch the chicken; You can add some leftover chicken oil from the first time.