Enhance the umami flavor.
Representative dishes: stewed beef with potatoes and stewed mushrooms with chicken. Yun Orfila, a famous popular science writer and a doctor majoring in food engineering in the Department of Agriculture and Biology of Purdue University, told the reporter of Life Times that inosine and guanylic acid in food can not only produce umami flavor, but also have a "synergistic effect" with glutamic acid. When they are used at the same time, the umami taste produced is far greater than that when they are used alone. Potatoes contain more glutamate, while beef not only contains glutamate, but also contains many inosine and guanylate. Cooked together, it tastes fresher. And if you cook radish with beef, you can only rely on beef to produce umami flavor. Similarly, mushrooms (especially shiitake mushrooms) are rich in guanylic acid, and chicken is rich in inosinic acid. During cooking, they all release free sodium glutamate, which will produce an insoluble strong fragrance.
Improve the taste and taste.
Representative dishes: stewed pork ribs with papaya and stewed mutton with radish. The beauty of ingredients collocation lies in its better taste and mouthfeel. Li Huiming, a professor of nutrition at Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, explained that taking stewed pork ribs with papaya as an example, papaya contains a special enzyme-papain, which is the main component of tender meat powder, and can hydrolyze protein, a macromolecule of animal meat, into small peptides or amino acids, which not only improves the utilization rate of protein, but also makes the meat tender. The smell of mutton is unacceptable to many people. Cooking it with radish can not only neutralize the warmth of mutton, but also relieve boredom and remove the smell of mutton.
Promote nutrient absorption.
Representative dishes: baked tofu with catfish and fried fungus with green pepper. No food is nutritionally perfect. Different ingredients can not only complement each other in nutrition, but also promote the absorption of some nutrients. Tofu contains less methionine and higher phenylalanine, while fish is just the opposite. Together, they can supplement amino acids well. More importantly, tofu contains a lot of calcium, and the rich vitamin D in fish can enhance the body's absorption of calcium. Therefore, cooking tofu with catfish is a good home-cooked dish for calcium supplementation. In addition, vitamin C can promote the absorption of iron. Therefore, fried auricularia auricula with green pepper is a classic iron-supplementing dish.
Reduce harmful substances.
Representative dishes: braised pork with plum vegetables and fried bacon with green peppers. Cholesterol and saturated fatty acids in fat make many people flinch, and dietary fiber can help cholesterol excrete from human body and reduce the harm of saturated fatty acids to human body. Braised pork with plum vegetables and braised pork ribs with soybeans conform to this nutritional principle. Nitrite reacts with protein decomposition products under acidic conditions, which easily produces nitrosamine carcinogens, and vitamin C is the most effective substance to inhibit the transformation of nitrite into nitrosamine. Therefore, although bacon contains more nitrite, if it is cooked with foods rich in vitamin C, it will reduce the production of harmful substances, and its typical representative is fried bacon with green peppers.