Turtledove in the sky, loach on the ground

"Turtledove in the sky, Misgurnus anguillicaudatus on the ground" is a compliment to the taste and meat quality of Misgurnus anguillicaudatus, while the title of "Ginseng in Water" is an affirmation of its nutritional value.

If you want to say how to eat loach, maybe the whole country will have the same answer: loach tofu soup.

Cantonese loach bean curd soup tastes the clearest.

Speaking of loach tofu soup, we have to start with a traditional famous dish, "loach drills tofu."

According to legend, in Miaojie in Zhoukou Circle, there was a fisherman who fished shrimp for a living all the year round. He often catches some loaches. Accustomed to the usual practice, he bought tofu and ginger onions to cook. Because the loach is too small, put the whole loach in the pot, put the tofu in the whole pot, add ginger and onion, cover the pot and stew. A few minutes later, I found that all the loaches got into the tofu, leaving only their tails outside.

This method quickly spread among the people, and took an interesting name "Misgurnus drilling tofu". It is said that this dish is very popular in Cantonese cuisine, Huaiyang cuisine and Shandong cuisine.

Although later generations found that this "loach drilling tofu" was just a rumor, because loach basically didn't drill tofu in hot pot, the practice of making soup with loach and tofu was handed down.

Among them, the Cantonese-style "loach bean curd soup" we are going to talk about today is also one of them.

In fact, adding the word "Cantonese style" in front of this "loach tofu soup" is to highlight the difference between it and the "loach tofu soup" with other local flavors.

Eastern Hubei, Henan, Jiangxi and many other regions have their own local characteristics of "loach soup", and the unique Cantonese-style "loach soup" is characterized by not frying loach, but also cooking it with clear water, with less oil and salt, no garlic or less garlic, and sometimes mixed with coriander and other materials, which makes the dishes fresh, fragrant and tender.

Guangdong-style "Misgurnus anguillicaudatus and Tofu Soup" retains the essence of a large number of clear soup Guangdong Soup, especially in flavor, and inherits the characteristics of Guangdong-style "Rubai Soup" and "Tofu Soup", which can show the fresh and tender flavor characteristics of Misgurnus anguillicaudatus very intuitively. Moreover, there are not many practices of loach in Cantonese cuisine. Apart from salt and pepper, it is mainly soup, among which tofu is the most common, as well as yam and pueraria lobata.

So, why is loach tofu the most popular?

Tofu can be refreshed quickly.

If you start with loach, the most intuitive feeling is definitely "slippery". In fact, it is precisely because of the "slipperiness" of loach that it has the earthy smell.

Therefore, from the cooking principle, loach is not suitable for matching with light-tasting ingredients. However, in Cantonese cuisine, loach is often mixed with ingredients with little odor, and the lighter the taste, the more popular it is.

The reason for this opposite practice may be "in order to more purely reflect the umami flavor".

When tofu, yam, kudzu root and other ingredients are mixed with loach in soup, there is generally no mixed taste to cover up the original taste of loach, so both the earthy smell and umami taste of loach can be reflected to a greater extent.

But this desperate practice is actually prepared by many chefs when dealing with loach: for its earthy smell, it is difficult to wash it with water because of the body fluids from the surface of loach, so when washing loach, the chef often sprinkles a handful of salt, then covers the lid and lets the loach jump around in the pot until it dies, then boils the pot and rubs the loach with salt.

In this way, it is not a big problem to cook clear soup with loach.

Therefore, highlighting the umami taste of loach has become the first factor that chefs should consider when cooking. As Cantonese chefs are used to interpreting dishes in fresh ways, they will try to use ingredients with mild taste and certain refreshing effect as a collocation.

Among them, yam and pueraria lobata have similar characters, both of which are mainly starch, which has a certain fresh aggregation effect; Tofu, on the other hand, is a refined bean product, and its amino acids can be precipitated in large quantities, which is easier to combine with the nutrients of loach to form a richer flavor.

In fact, the advantage of loach with tofu is that when cooking soup, tofu can quickly make loach more delicious because of its short cooking time. Yam, kudzuvine root and other ingredients are best cooked with loach, so that its nutrients can slowly separate out and make loach sweeter and sweeter.

The collocation between ingredients is not the best, depending on the practice and flavor requirements.

Graphic | Feng Ruijun

Editing and typesetting | Some South