Zhangpu meat round
November 3 (Fujian Daily reporter Huang Rufei Xiao Zhenping correspondent Hong Jincheng text / photo) Zhangpu County is located in the south of Zhangzhou City, the local people love to eat meat balls. After a century of development, Zhangpu meat circle has become one of the most famous local delicacies, and its production skills have been listed in the Zhangzhou Municipal Intangible Cultural Heritage, and the application for geographical indications has been launched. There are hundreds of meat round processing points, workshops, meat round swing shops, catering shops, etc. in the county, forming a rich people's industry with an output value of tens of millions of yuan and driving the employment of thousands of people.
Delicious taste
Meat balls are home-cooked snacks that appear frequently on the table of Minnan people. There is not much record of the origin of the meat ball in ancient books, but some people think that it is similar to an ancient dish called "pounding zhen".
The "Suiyuan Food Menu" written by the famous Qing Dynasty literary scholar Yuan Ming describes 326 kinds of northern and southern dishes that were popular between the 14th century and the 18th century, and there are records of the production of southern meat balls.
Zhangzhou people love to eat meat balls, of which Zhangpu people are the most serious, dry eating meat round skewers, accompanied by rice with meat ball soup, noodles and meat round noodles. The "Food Customs" of the "Chronicle of Zhangpu County" has a record of "meat round".
The "Zhangzhou Famous Products" compiled by the Zhangzhou Fangzhi Office further records the "Zhangpu Meat Circle": Zhangpu meatballs mainly include pork balls and beef balls. Both have the characteristics of fine production, soft and crisp and elastic, delicious and fragrant, and are one of the traditional snacks in Zhangpu County. Since ancient times, Zhangpu pork balls have been fresh lean pork with residual temperature as the main ingredient, mashed pork with artificial special mallets, and then mixed with fresh starch and other ingredients, refined into balls with a diameter of about 2 cm using traditional production processes, and cooked in the pot until eight ripe is the finished meatballs. When patronized, simply boil the meatballs in boiling water for 3 to 5 minutes, scooping up the soup and adding the seasonings.
"As a special snack in Zhangpu County, Zhangpu meat balls have a history of more than 100 years and began to flourish at the end of the Qing Dynasty." Wang Yuanlin, 52 years old this year, is a native of Yingshan Village, Sui'an Town, Zhangpu County, and the inheritor of the craftsmanship of making Zhangpu Meat Circle, a municipal intangible cultural heritage in Zhangzhou. He introduced that there is also a little-known legend about Zhangpu meat balls. According to legend, in the Qing Dynasty, a local scholar who went to Beijing to take the exam, his mother was worried about the hunger and cold on his way to Beijing, and hoped that he would be able to get the title of the gold list and return to his hometown for a reunion, so he beat the pork into mud and made it into a circle, so that the children could carry it with them to Beijing to catch the exam. The Hokkien dialect "meat circle" and "reunion" are harmonious, meaning "reunion round round" or "round full", and are also produced in Zhangpu, and later "Zhangpu meat circle" gradually sounded.
Stick to the ingenuity
"To make Zhangpu meat balls, the most important ones are two procedures. First of all, the pork must be slaughtered within two hours, can retain moisture, the protein has not yet solidified, and it is better to have the leg meat after the end; secondly, the pork must be repeatedly pounded to make the fibers of the pork fully softened and ensure the elasticity of the taste. Wang Yuanlin revealed that as for the ingredients, a little local Zhangpu sweet potato powder, salt and homemade fish sauce juice should be added appropriately, and no other condiments are needed. The meat puree and the condiment are thoroughly stirred to become a meat pulp, and the viscosity of the meat pulp depends on experience. At this time, grasp the appropriate amount of meat pulp with your hand, hold five fingers into a funnel-shaped fist, thumb and index finger as the mouth of the meat paste, squeeze other fingers, so that the meat pulp rolls out between the thumb and index finger, and immediately and quickly tighten the thumb and index finger, so that the rolled out meat pulp into a circle.
To make meat balls, you need to prepare two pots of water. The water temperature is also very exquisite, one pot is about 40 degrees Celsius, and one pot is about 80 degrees Celsius. The squeezed meat balls are first placed in a pot of 40 degrees Celsius water to set, and then slowly cooked in 80 degrees Celsius water. "This can not only keep the original taste of the meat balls as much as possible, but also make the meat balls elastic and delicious." Wang Yuanlin said.
For more than 10 years, the hand-made skills passed down from generation to generation have gradually been replaced by machines. Originally, pork was mashed by hand instead of fresh meat cuts and ice cubes crushed and beaten with meatball machines to speed up production efficiency. But when Wang Yuanlin has time, he will still beat it by hand, "some familiar old customers like handmade meat balls."
"Although there are many devices that replace labor, manual production is not abandoned." Liu Weicheng, the person in charge of "Chuncheng Meat Circle", a long-established meat circle shop in Zhangpu, which has been operating for more than 20 years, also demonstrated the practice of Q bomb meat balls on the spot. He said that with the help of modern production equipment, a larger scale of meat ball production has been realized, but for the control of raw materials and the control of the production process, he has personally done it, and still insists on beating the meat puree every day, in order to continue to pass on the craft left by the ancestors, but also to protect the authentic flavor of "Zhangpu meat balls".
Innovative development
"I can sell more than 100 pounds of meat balls a day, and the business is not bad." Since learning the meat circle making skills from Wang Yuanlin a few years ago, Zhao Zongjie, 36 years old, has opened a meat circle shop in a farmer's market in Zhangpu County, processing and selling meat balls every day.
"In the past few years, there have been dozens of apprentices I have taught, and they have all opened meat dumpling processing shops, and some have also accepted apprentices, and it is not difficult to find them in the streets and alleys of Zhangpu." Wang Yuanlin said happily.
Meat dumplings in Zhangpu have a very extensive mass base, three meals a day, wedding feasts, temple fairs, and festivals in the New Year... Meat balls are indispensable. When the demand is large, many people will buy dozens of pounds of fresh pork for master processing.
"It is estimated that there are no less than 100 meat round processing plants and workshops in the county, and no less than 1,000 practitioners." The products not only sell well in the local area, but also sell to Quanzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou and many other cities in the province. Many people rely on it to obtain stable happiness. Wang Yuanlin said triumphantly.
"Try to develop towards standardized and large-scale production." This is the voice of some people in the industry.
A few years ago, in order to meet the market demand, Wang Yuanlin expanded the scale of production, built a four-story processing plant, introduced various types of machines suitable for cutting meat, grinding meat, beating, cooking, cooling, packaging and other different links, and registered a company specializing in the production of meat products such as meat balls. The company can produce thousands of pounds of meat balls every day, and gradually become popular in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Yunnan provinces and cities, with an annual output value of more than 10 million yuan.
After several generations of skill inheritance, Liu Weicheng and his wife, who have opened the store for more than 20 years, founded the "Spring City Meat Circle" company and began to move towards large-scale production. In addition to the traditional original Zhangpu meat balls, it also tries to produce celery meat balls, heart meat balls, etc., and develops e-commerce live broadcasts. In the 100 live broadcasts of goods in Zhangpu County held in June this year, as a long-established brand in Zhangpu, "Spring City Meat Circle" sold hundreds of kilograms in a single game.
"I am contacting some large meat circle producers to prepare for the establishment of industry organizations such as the Meat Circle Association, introducing industry standards and protecting authentic flavors." Wang Yuanlin is full of ambition, hoping to use this platform to make the Zhangpu meat circle industry stronger and bigger, expand the sales radius through online channels such as e-commerce, live broadcasting and cold chain logistics, and let Zhangpu meat circles fly into more distant people's homes.
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Wang Yuanlin is handcrafting Zhangpu meat balls.
The master is pounding the meat paste.
Source: Southeast Net