"It's raining, it's closing time, and Little Balazi is having a meeting..." Accompanied by this babbling nursery rhyme, serving a bowl of simple and hearty Yangzhou egg fried rice is a really long-lasting aftertaste.
I fell in love with egg fried rice a few years after leaving Yangzhou.
I still remember that I went to watch Zhou Xingxing's "The God of Cookery" with a bunch of buddies in the university dormitory. I immediately remembered the bowl of "ecstasy rice" that made the female judges touch their "stomach" and ask themselves - "Why do I cry?"
——The simplest egg fried rice has the richest human words.
"With a hundred thousand guan on the waist, I rode a crane down to Yangzhou." Some people say that without this egg fried rice, which is suitable for both the poor and the expensive, the romance of Yangzhou would have lost three points.
A bowl of rice not only has the function of quenching hunger, but also is a super test paper for studying the art of food.
It is said that in the past, when a wealthy family tested a chef who came to apply for a job, they did not test him on how to cook delicacies from the mountains and seas, large fish and meat, but tested his skill in egg fried rice.
For this reason, Yuan Mei, a writer and gourmet in the Qing Dynasty, said: "The taste of rice is better than all other flavors. If you know the taste and find good rice, you don't need to use vegetables." The integration of food is a unique and interesting calling card of Yangzhou cooking.
It inherits the tradition of "Fu Nao" and "Fu Mu" among the "Eight Treasures" of the Zhou Dynasty. In the "Shi Jing", there is "Yue State Food Broken Golden Rice", which is the ancestor of Yangzhou Egg Fried Rice.
It is said that there are two "brother versions" of Yangzhou egg fried rice. One is the "broken gold rice" made by Yang Su. The eggs are fried into thin strands and mixed into the rice grains. The slender egg strands cannot be compared with the other.
Each grain of rice must be coated with a certain amount of oil, making it slightly transparent and looking like broken gold; one is the fried rice called "gold wrapped with silver" that Empress Dowager Cixi likes.
It is required that the egg liquid must be evenly wrapped around each grain of rice. The rice should be fried until the grains are distinct and the color is like fried gold. Each grain must be "golden on the outside and jade on the inside."
Yangzhou egg fried rice is simply an art: firstly, the rice must be good, choose the best white indica rice or new white japonica rice; secondly, it must be washed well, rub it with your hands, so that the water can drain out of the basket, and it will turn into clear water without returning to the beige color.
; Third, make good use of fire. Put the rice in boiling water. First, cook it with high fire until the rice is swollen and stretched, then change to a low fire to make the rice gradually dry out. Then simmer until it is glossy and moist. After taking off the fire, use a rice spoon to break it into granules to prevent it from sticking.
; Fourth, it must be mixed with water and properly dried and moistened...it must be prevented from being burnt when frying, and famous porcelain should be used when serving it. Youdao is "delicious food and beautiful utensils."
These steps have left aside the key "speculators", which really corresponds to Yuan Mei's saying that "porridge and rice are the basics, and the remaining vegetables are the last. The basic principle is the Tao."
A few years ago, "Egg Fried Rice" by Taiwanese singer Yu Chengqing was popular in video stores on the street: Hey, egg fried rice is the easiest and most difficult. The rice has to be separated into grains and still has to be coated with eggs; Hey, egg fried rice is the easiest and most difficult.
, if the iron pot is not turned fast enough, the sign will be damaged... It is said that it has become the signature song of Yangzhou fried rice, setting off a trend of fried rice in the fashion industry.
Later, unfortunately, it was "recruited" by the fast food industry in various places and was reduced to packaged and produced refrigerated food. This "egg fried rice" was no longer the same "egg fried rice" that was so popular in the standard Manchu-Han banquet.
Fortunately, in 2002, the Yangzhou Culinary Association issued the "Yangzhou Fried Rice Standard", which can be regarded as a rescue.
When I went to Yangzhou in the spring, I ordered a bowl of egg fried rice at a small restaurant on Guangling Road. The little girl in charge asked me if I wanted egg fried rice or Yangzhou fried rice. This confused me and I jokingly said, Yangzhou fried rice is not egg fried rice.
?
What's the difference!
The little girl said seriously: "It's different. Egg fried rice only has eggs, but Yangzhou fried rice has many things, including ham, green beans..." It seemed that the technical standards were quite effective, so I quickly stopped and said, I want a bowl.
Yangzhou egg fried rice.