Nanjing salted duck has a long history and accumulated rich production experience. The salted duck skin produced is white and tender, fat but not greasy, fragrant and delicious, and has the characteristics of fragrance, crispness and tenderness. Before and after the Mid-Autumn Festival, the salted duck made in the blooming season of osmanthus has the best color and taste, and it is called osmanthus duck.
Sweet-scented osmanthus duck is a famous specialty in Nanjing, which has a long reputation and has been fragrant for more than 2500 years. This duck skin is white and tender, fat but not greasy, fragrant and delicious, with the characteristics of fragrant, crisp and tender. The salted duck around the Mid-Autumn Festival has the best color and taste every year, because the duck is made in the blooming season of osmanthus, so it is called "Sweet-scented osmanthus duck".
"White Door Recipe" records: "In August in Jinling, salted duck was the most famous, and everyone thought there was osmanthus fragrance in the meat." Sweet-scented osmanthus duck is "clear and purposeful, and can't get tired of eating for a long time", which is a good wine. On holidays or weekdays, it seems to have become a secular etiquette for visitors from home to go out and buy a bowl of osmanthus duck.
Nanjing, located in the south of the Yangtze River, enjoys natural advantages in keeping duck fat warm and making duck gizzards. As early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there was a record of Jinling people building land to raise ducks. It can be seen that domestic ducks have been cultivated for thousands of years. There was a folk song in the Ming Dynasty: "Ancient Academy, Glass Pagoda, dark black Forging, Salted Duck". The ancient academy refers to imperial academy, the largest national university at that time; The glazed pagoda refers to the Great Baoen Temple Pagoda, known as the miracle of the world at that time, and the dark black forging refers to the famous specialty of Nanjing, namely the black brocade, and the little salted duck was juxtaposed among them, which shows the status of salted duck in Nanjing people's minds at that time. People in Nanjing eat ducks in a variety of ways. During the Six Dynasties, there were already several duck dishes such as roast duck and salted duck on the table of emperors, and Zhu Yuanzhang, the Ming Taizu, "eclipsed a roast duck".
Salted duck is one of the best products of traditional food culture in China. The duck skin is white and tender, fat but not greasy, delicious, fragrant, crisp and tender. The protein content of salted duck duck meat is 16%~25%, and the fat is 6%~7.5%. It is a high-protein and low-fat food with comprehensive amino acids. In addition, it also contains calcium, phosphorus, iron, thiamine, nuclear xanthic acid, nicotinic acid, VA, VD and VE, which are very beneficial to human body, so it is deeply loved by consumers.
Salted duck is very suitable for people who are weak and tired, because duck meat can play a role in enriching blood. Its dietotherapy effect is also obvious, especially for women with dry skin, who can often drink some duck soup. The osmanthus duck soup, not only has the elegant fragrance of osmanthus, but also has the delicious mellow duck meat, which can whiten the skin, preserve health and moisten dryness, and promote the production of body fluid.
The traditional Nanjing salted duck requires "cooked salt rubbing, old marinating, dry blowing and full cooking". The so-called cooked salt rubbing refers to frying salt in the pickling process, because frying salt can enhance penetration, kill thermophilic bacteria in salt and increase flavor. The so-called old brine recovery, salted duck curing uses the combination of dry pickling and re-brine, and the brine used in re-brine can be divided into new brine and old brine. The new brine is cooked with fried salt and spices; Old bittern refers to the bittern produced after repeated re-bittern boiling. Theoretically, with the increase of the number of re-marinating, more and more soluble substances in raw duck are dissolved in the marinade, and finally the product is fresh, mellow and unique. Traditional salted duck processing places great emphasis on the quality of old brine, believing that the older the old brine, the better, and often regards century-old brine as a treasure.