To be honest, there is no permanent C seat on my family’s New Year’s Eve dinner table. There is only a hundred flowers blooming, and the rain and dew are all wet. If I insist on choosing a C seat, it can only be the chicken soup that must be placed in the middle of the round table because it is served with the casserole. .

Secret Chicken Soup

On New Year’s Eve, when the family wants to celebrate the new year, my mother will kill the chickens she has raised for a year. This chicken's mission is quite important. After being used as a sacrifice to thank heaven and earth, it also has to be sacrificed in our family's five internal organs temple, but it is considered a worthy death.

My chicken stew does not require complicated ingredients, just home-raised chickens, soaked mushrooms, some ginger, garlic, and an appropriate amount of rice wine. The rice wine is homemade red yeast rice wine

When I saw the chicken soup, I thought it was very particular to cook it in a casserole. Put the prepared chicken into the casserole, put the soaked mushrooms into the casserole, and then add ginger. , garlic, and pour a small amount of rice wine. Bring to a boil over high heat, then turn to low heat and simmer slowly for about an hour. Add salt to taste before taking it out of the pot, and the chicken soup is ready to drink.

But my chicken soup is more labor-intensive and time-consuming. In order to make delicious chicken soup, when I was still in high school, my dad bought an oversized iron bucket and transformed it into a movable wood stove. This wood-fired stove is my father’s favorite work. After all, this kind of firewood stove was not sold on Moubao at that time, and my uncle and uncle were very envious of my father’s firewood stove.

Similar to this kind of wood-fired stove

My family’s secret chicken soup is made by my father based on the cooking method of Dongyang Crock Pot Chicken. Put salt in the large iron pot of the wood-burning stove, then put tiles on the bottom of the pot, then put in a casserole filled with chicken and ingredients, then flip up another iron pot, first use a strong fire to bring it to a boil, and then simmer it slowly. It needs to be simmered for at least 4 hours.

The bowl of chicken soup is simmered for about 4 hours without direct contact with fire. The iron pot is turned upside down to seal the aroma of the chicken in the pot, so that the aroma of the chicken cannot "escape".

The skin of the native chicken stewed in this way is rich in collagen. When you open the casserole, you will see a layer of yellow chicken fat on the surface of the chicken soup. Leaving aside this layer, the chicken soup underneath is extremely clear, and the stewed chicken is so tender that it can fall off the bones with just a slight stir.

On weekdays, my father rarely makes chicken soup. When I come home, he always asks my mother to kill chickens and make soup for me. It takes half a day to get a bowl of chicken soup into my hands. .

This labor-consuming and time-consuming pot of chicken soup on New Year’s Eve can be said to occupy the C seat of the dining table, and it can also be regarded as a New Year flavor that I will never forget.

In fact, there is also a C position in the cold dishes. The C position of the cold dishes on the New Year’s Eve dinner table is also white-cut mutton.

White-cut mutton

There are many regions across the country that taste delicious mutton. Most of them are local sheep with good breeds, such as Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, and Xinjiang Tan sheep. , Shaanxi and other places.

But in Yiwu, a city that does not raise sheep, there is a dish of plain mutton on the New Year’s Eve dinner table, and most families will serve it. It is an indispensable dish in my family.

If northerners eat sheep in a bold and wanton way, then southerners eat mutton in a meticulous and truth-seeking way.

What’s more, in Yiwu, compared to cooking techniques such as roasting, stewing, and rinsing, Yiwu people prefer to cut their mutton in plain, keeping its original shape, flavor, and color, and enjoying the beauty of the mutton itself.

In Yiwu, white-cut mutton is only eaten in winter. It was rarely tasted in daily life in the past. It will inevitably appear in banquets at any time in winter. It is a delicacy that emphasizes the sense of seasonal rituals.

According to the "Compendium of Materia Medica": mutton has the effects of "warming the middle and tonifying deficiency, appetizing and strengthening, nourishing kidney qi, nourishing the liver and improving eyesight, strengthening the spleen and stomach, nourishing the lungs and qi"

Mutton is warm in nature. Eating mutton frequently in winter can not only increase body heat and resist the cold, but also increase digestive enzymes, protect the stomach wall, and help the spleen and stomach digest. It is a top nutritional supplement in winter.

The white-cut mutton in Yiwu is the best in Buddhist temples. People in Yiwu say that "mutton wine is so beautiful that you become an immortal". There is also a saying that "going to Buddhist temples and not eating mutton is a waste of time."

After seeing this, there must be friends who don’t like to eat mutton and feel that mutton is fishy, ??let alone the method of cutting it in plain.

However, Yiwu white-cut mutton, while maintaining the original flavor of mutton, has no mutton smell at all. It is white in color, tender in texture, strong in texture, firm and tight, and has a delicious color and mellow taste.

Mr. Ye, who was born in northern Jiangsu, also said that his hometown also has white-cut mutton, but the skin and flesh of the white-cut mutton in his hometown often separate and the meat is dry. After eating the white-cut mutton from Yiwu, he would compare it with his father every time he had a drink, which caused a momentary quarrel between father and son.

The dipping sauce for plain mutton is also very simple, soy sauce or soy sauce and vinegar, no more is needed. Sure enough, high-end ingredients only require the simplest cooking method, and delicious food does not require complicated condiments.

The preparation of white-cut mutton follows ancient methods: water, large pot, firewood and simmering for several hours.