Goats in Wadian Town, Linquan County have become famous in recent years. With the local goat food culture festival held for three consecutive years, the goat food in Wadian has become the favorite of many diners. Roast whole sheep, cold mutton trotters, mutton soup, sheep liver soup, sheep heart-lung soup, braised sheep keel, braised lamb chops and mutton jiaozi are often unforgettable.
Wadian goats can be divided into two categories, one is Huanghuai goat, an excellent goat variety in the Central Plains, and the other is a hybrid of Huanghuai goat and Boer goat in South Africa, which has the characteristics of strong reproduction, fast growth, large size and good meat quality. The two goats are tender and nutritious. Because goats mainly eat weeds, sweet potato seedlings and wheat bran, it can be said that it is a green natural food, and diners can rest assured to eat it.
Roast whole sheep is the first specialty of Wadian goat dish. Before 2009, there should be no roasted whole sheep in the tile shop. At the goat food festival in July of that year, a businessman in Henan showed off the equipment for roasting whole sheep here, that is, there was a charcoal fire below and a big clip driven by electricity or manpower above, and a slaughtered whole sheep with its head removed was slowly cooked in the big clip. In the process of roasting, the chef should constantly brush oil and season the mutton, just like kebabs, to ensure that the meat is cooked, tender and delicious, and not burnt. It is said that before roasting, the body has been soaked in seasoning water for several hours and roasted for more than an hour. In this way, the delicious roast whole lamb is presented to the guests. After roasting the whole sheep, I saw that the mutton was golden and attractive, and the overflowing aroma was almost mouth watering. Roast whole sheep looks good, so it needs to be separated by hand or knife, otherwise it is very difficult to clamp meat with chopsticks. Some generous guests put on disposable plastic gloves that have already been prepared, and divided the roast whole lamb into many small pieces for everyone to eat. The whole banquet was full of festive atmosphere, and everyone was intoxicated with the labor pleasure of "doing it yourself and having plenty of food and clothing" and the delicious happiness of tasting roast whole sheep. Roast whole sheep is crispy outside and crispy inside. It tastes chewy outside, just like chewing beef jerky. The meat inside is tender, giving off heat and aroma, which is very convenient to eat. A roast whole sheep is generally more than 20 kilograms. It is not a problem for each diners to eat more than one kilogram of mutton. A person with a big belly can eat two or three kilograms of roast whole sheep until he can't eat any more. No one can resist the attraction of food!
Roast whole sheep used to be a traditional dish for Xinjiang ethnic minorities to entertain foreign guests and VIPs. Now, it is a blessing for ordinary people to spend more than 300 yuan on a good meal. After July 2009, Xuji Hotel in Wadian Town took the lead in learning and making roast whole sheep, and many diners came to taste it. In addition, some hotels in Linquan County also ordered roast whole sheep from Xuji Hotel and delivered them to the county town in time by means of transportation. Almost all Linquan people regard eating roast whole sheep as their wish.
The sheep food in Wadian is not just roast whole sheep. Since ancient times, mutton soup in Wadian and surrounding Jiangzhai and Miaocha has been deeply loved by the masses. There are two kinds of mutton soup in tile shop: light mutton soup and salty mutton soup. Light mutton soup keeps its original taste without adding a little salt, while salty mutton soup has a heavy taste because of adding salt and other ingredients. Today, both flavors have their own fans. Compared with mutton, mutton soup is more nutritious and suitable for all ages, especially in cold winter. Drinking a big bowl of hot mutton soup can make you warm up and energetic immediately. The local people in the tile shop are simple, and the mutton soup is genuine and will not be adulterated. Mutton soup with rich aroma and delicious taste often attracts businessmen coming and going from the tile shop. Every time they go to the tile shop, they drink several bowls of mutton soup. There are three kinds of mutton soup in Wadian: directly boiled mutton, fried mutton after thickening with starch and flour, and directly boiled mutton after thickening. These three kinds of mutton soup have their own flavors and characteristics. The first kind is characterized by maintaining the fresh flavor of mutton, while the latter two kinds cover up the original flavor of mutton to some extent, so some people who don't like mutton can eat some.
There are two kinds of processed sheep's hoofs in Wadian town: hot sheep's hoof and cold sheep's hoof, and cold sheep's hoof is more popular. Cooked cold mutton hoof tastes very hard and elastic. To enjoy such delicious food, you need to have good teeth and developed facial muscles, otherwise you can't bite off the muscles on the sheep's hoof. Sometimes, in order to eat a little muscle in the middle of the sheep's hoof, diners need to break the curled-up sheep's hoof. If they are not careful, sheep's claws will touch their faces, leaving a little greasy, and diners will quickly wipe it off with their hands. This may be the price they have to pay to enjoy the food. Sheep's hoof, like pig's hoof and donkey's hoof, has little fat, and is colloid tissue rich in collagen. Diners don't worry about getting fat because they eat too much fat.
For example, roast whole sheep, mutton soup and cold mutton hoof in Wadian, mutton liver soup, sheep heart-lung soup, braised mutton keel, braised lamb chops, braised mutton and mutton jiaozi in Wadian are all delicious foods that people can't finish eating. As the saying goes, eating mutton in winter competes with ginseng, and eating mutton in spring, summer and autumn can also strengthen the body. Compendium of Materia Medica records that mutton warms the middle warmer, tonifies the deficiency, tonifies the middle warmer, benefits the qi, stimulates the appetite, strengthens the body and benefits the kidney. Nowadays, Wadian goat food is being loved by more and more people with its unique characteristics.