among numerous oral accounts, there is a halal market near changshou road (that is, Penguin's office). Every Friday, there are booths full of smoke and shouts. Mutton kebabs, hand-grabbed rice, naan, baked buns, and all kinds of dried fruits, candied fruit and snacks … Every time I visit, there are surprises.
At noon one day, Penguin King came to this magical market for food again.
When I passed a stall, I found many people queuing in front of a mysterious dessert. The rectangular baking tray was stuffed with a whole milky soft cake, and the surface was screened with a thin layer of fine powder. Looking closely at the cross section, this thick guy was divided into many fine layers.
The little brother who sells cakes quickly cuts into pieces, boxes and weighs them with a spatula. Because there are so many people waiting, he moves as quickly as an assembly line.
"Excuse me, what's the name of this cake?" A: "Napaliyong, it's delicious."
Although Penguinjun's stomach was full of mutton pilaf, steamed buns and roast lamb loin, he didn't resist the temptation of "delicious" this time, so he let my little brother cut two pieces.
Well, the soft center melts like cream, and the pastry in the middle is a little tough. The whole thing is still soft, and it slides into the stomach without biting, and the layering is particularly full-much like the hybrid between lady M (a kind of thousand-layer crepe) in online celebrity, new york and French Napoleon.
Lady M (left) vsMille-Feuille (right)
Before I recovered from my intoxication, a friend asked me, Er, why does the name "Napoli Yong" sound so similar to "Napoleon"?
Open Baidu and enter Na Pariyong. It turns out that this dessert is a regular program of many restaurants in Xinjiang! Some netizens said that they had eaten in Xinjiang restaurant and noticed that its English translation was napoleon.
Oh, Xinjiang actually has its own Napoleon? ! So, Napoleon in Xinjiang, is he ... related to that kind of thousand-layer noble dessert from France, which is famous for its complexity? (Mille-Feuille, French for thousand layers, English for Napoleon)
We turned all the Chinese search engines upside down and found nothing, so we decided to look for experienced Xinjiang aborigines to explore.
Life experience entanglement: Xinjiang dessert?
With the shouting of Xinjiang Penguin in the circle of friends in the office, Penguin Jun was lucky enough to hook up with an old driver who knew this dessert well.
chatting with an old driver, it suddenly dawned on me: it turns out that Napaliyong is not a "traditional Xinjiang dessert" at all ...
In fact, Napaliyong has only been in China for seven years, and it was first shown at the 21 World Expo Food Exhibition, which was the result of the exchange between Yeri Xiali, a chain Xinjiang restaurant in Shanghai, and the National Pavilion of Uzbekistan.
So, as a close neighbor of Xinjiang, Uzbekistan is the only thoroughfare of the Silk Road and a member of the former Soviet Union. Presumably, the earliest life experience of Na Pariyong has something to do with geography.
Later, while studying French Napoleon, Penguin discovered a kind of Napoleon called наполеон? Russian version of.
it first appeared in the 19th century, and became famous in 1912 when Russia celebrated the centenary celebration of its victory over France. The structure of наполеон Melaleuca was taken from the Grand Armé e led by Napoleon, and the white powder sprinkled on the cake was a symbol of helping the Russian army.
This iconic dessert of the former Soviet Union with a strong patriotic color is Napoli Yong!
Napoli Yong in Yeri Xiali
After the World Expo, Yeri Xiali successfully obtained Napoli Yong's recipe and applied for a patent for making this kind of cake through the opportunity of communication. Seeing that Napaliyong is similar to western-style dessert and has the potential of national characteristics, they invested a lot of money and promoted it as a signboard.
then napaliyong really got angry.
The pastry chef who left Yeri Xiali either found another place, or simply went out and opened a small workshop to supply this kind of pastry to other restaurants in Xinjiang. In the blink of an eye, Na Parriyong quickly opened a branch in Shanghai.
Surprisingly, it took Napaliyong only a few short years to succeed, from the inadaptability of consumers when they first came into contact with it, to the word-of-mouth by diners, and now to the fact that she has rushed out of the magic capital and been misinformed as "traditional Xinjiang cakes" everywhere.
After going deep into the kitchen, the delicious food comes from this way.
The crispy skin is not as light as lady M's cream, nor as thin as a feather as Napoleon's. Goose King only knows that Napaliyong is delicious, but he is really at a loss as to what the stuffing and crispy skin in the middle are made of.
out of curiosity, we went straight to the back kitchen of Yerishali and asked the most experienced pastry chef how to make this dessert.
When I entered the kitchen, a giant blender boomed: the chef's machine for making bread was not half as big as it, and something like a mixture of eggs and flour was stirred at high speed in the basin.
Master Wang, who makes cakes, explained that the filling being stirred is Napaliyong's creamy filling, and before stirring, eggs, butter, flour and sugar should be mixed, steamed completely in a steamer, and then whipped for at least 3 minutes to get a soft and smooth texture.
The chopping board at the other end was covered with a crispy skin full of air holes. The master gently pressed it with his hand and made a crisp "click" sound.
"Unlike the French pastry, which needs to be folded and rolled, our pastry is quite easy to make. It doesn't have so many layers, but it's quite delicious." Master Wang said that to make this crispy skin, roll out the eggs, butter and flour in proportion and evenly, and then bake them in the oven until they are golden and crisp.
while speaking, she skillfully picked up a scraper and spread a layer of creamy stuffing on the crispy skin. Smoothing, and then laying the next one, this operation has to be repeated several times.
Master Wang keeps stressing that the butter and sugar used in the Uzbek version of "Napaliyong" are too strong!
"When we improved the formula, we lost at least half of the butter and sugar. People over there are big and like sweet and oily food, but we have to adapt to the tastes of city people ... Originally, they had to put 8 pieces of butter in a whole plate of cake, who can eat it? "
in order to standardize the size and height, they also unified napaliyong into a "standardized seven-layer pastry": seven layers, which means that from bottom to top, the pastry filled with milk should be stacked seven times.
seven floors are paved, sprinkled with "snowflakes", and then frozen in the refrigerator for 4 hours. After taking it out, Napaliyong is what you see.
by the way, napaliyong softened at room temperature is much more delicious than the one just taken out of the refrigerator.
compared with French Napoleon, who wins?
If you still don't quite understand the difference between French Napoleon's craft and it, I'll give you a step diagram, which is easy to understand:
Therefore, the routes they take are different. French Napoleon sells complicated craftsmanship and layered taste, and you can label it "exquisite" and "advanced"; Relatively speaking, Napaliyong was born in a barbarian, and his practice was a lot simpler, but with unambiguous materials, he did not lose the style of excellent West Point.
compared with the French Napoleon, which is forced to stand tall and ask for fifty or sixty yuan a piece, the price of this Russian version of Napoleon is close to the people with the saved manpower. The price of a small piece in 6 yuan starts at $4 per serving, and you can pack $2 for a single order to take away.
Yeri Xiali vs Xinjiang Market, Na Pariyong's "Orthodox" Debate
Na Pariyong, who came from different schools, has different shapes and tastes:
The masters who went out from Yeri Xiali later formed their own schools. Compared with the "seven floors" in Yeri's version, Napaliyong on Macau Road has more floors and is denser. It is also heard that many Xinjiang restaurants in the market only have four to five floors in order to save costs.
For the first time, I ate the amazing Napaliyong in Xinjiang market, but Penguin Jun never met it again. After that, every time I visited the Xinjiang market, my little brother's diced pieces were very casual, and the crispy skin was hard and waxy, and sometimes even slightly tasted of raw flour. Moreover, in Xinjiang market, two pieces of Napaliyong cost me 4 yuan, and the price is almost equal to that of cutting cakes.
in comparison, the "seven-layer" with stable length, width and height looks more beautiful, and it can maintain the crispy and soft taste for a long time.
On the other hand, there is a premise that can't be ignored in the debate about which Napaliyong is "more authentic": Napaliyong is not the only snack that has spread from the west to the east and is mistaken for "traditional Xinjiang cuisine".
Just like another dessert we had in the restaurant that day, "Bahalawa" made of walnuts, raisins, pastry and a lot of icing, its name in the Middle East is Baklava, which was also a sweet food slowly introduced to Xinjiang through the Silk Road, and it has its own form in many Eurasian countries. For another example, the flat bread in the Middle East and the Naan you have eaten can be traced back to a family ...
Baharava and Naan
The food with stories will always derive various forms in the process of spreading and evolution, and no school can be called a real original creator. Even after applying for a patent, Napaliyong still thrives in Xinjiang restaurants under various flower names.
In any case, from the emotional point of view, it's hard to say that it's a bad thing that a group of minority foods with exotic characteristics can stand in modern cities, thus being accepted by consumers and passed down in a new way.
what's more, without competition, there will be no progress. In the hot air of "Melaleuca Cake" in the past two years, Yeri Xiali is preparing to expand Napaliyong's product line. The first new taste to test the water is a square Melaleuca with a large piece of durian pulp in the stuffing and pieces of almonds on the top. It has just been launched in Yioulai store near Disney and will soon appear in other stores.
durian has a fine texture, and then it is mixed with steamed stuffing, which makes it full of fragrance and adds lightness. Durian lovers naturally admire it, but some with conservative tastes may stay away.
In the future, perhaps other desserts will be introduced to China to replace Napoli Yong and become a new generation of legends to satisfy the increasingly picky taste buds of diners, which is unpredictable.
in the final analysis, in this fast-paced society, perhaps only innovation itself can truly stand the test of time.
Wen | Judy
Tu | Xin Yue, one person
Photography | Pei Xuan