Not every foreigner who comes to live in Guangzhou will fall in love with the white cut chicken, but the understanding of the phrase "chicken has a chicken flavor" and the acceptance of the white cut chicken are themselves the process of integration into the city. White cut chicken is to Guangzhou, just as lamb skewers are to Urumqi, and hot pot is to Chongqing. This city label has a variety of meteorological conditions, and it is divided into three parts by Guangfu white cut chicken, Hainan Wenchang chicken and Zhanjiang white cut chicken.
I heard that Guangzhou people have an obsession, as soon as they see a good chicken, they dare to do something else and will scold, and they can only do white cut chicken. On the first day in Guangzhou, we went to Xiaomei Street, a street with a length of less than 200 meters, which is a magical existence, not only gathering a variety of cantonese roasted pork stalls such as roast goose, roast suckling pigeon, white cut chicken, etc., casually walking into a small shop, you can also buy liquor and craft beer from all over the world. We sat in front of a small shop on Xiaomei Street, eating white cut chicken and drinking whiskey.
To tell the truth, I have only lived in Shenzhen for a year, but I have heard that Guangzhou people love to cook soup and love to eat strange wild animals, and I don't know that they love to eat chicken the most. Chickens in Canton in the hinterland of the Pearl River Delta have a covering effect. For Lao Guang, eating chicken is not simply eating chicken, the first thing to eat is culture. In traditional Chinese culture, the chicken is a "bird of virtue", and it is recorded in the "Han Poetry Biography" written by the Han Dynasty: "The chicken has five virtues: the one who wears the crown on the head, Wen Ye; the one who fights at foot; the one who fights in front of the enemy, the one who dares to fight, the brave; the one who sees the food and calls for each other, ren ye; the one who keeps vigil and does not lose, the letter also." ”
Qu Dajun wrote in the "Guangdong Xinyu" that "the chicken is Jiyang", "The land of Lingnan Yangming is the home of the chicken", and he believes that Lingnan is simply the ideal habitat for the chickens where Yang Qi accumulates. When the ancient Yue people diluted the witchcraft of chicken bone divination, chicken became a favorite delicacy of Lingnan people. "No chicken, no banquet" and "chicken has a hundred flavors" are two sentences that Guangzhou people often hang on their lips. According to statistics, in traditional Cantonese cuisine, chicken is used as a raw material, accounting for one-fifth.
Among the many ways to eat chicken, white cut chicken is undoubtedly the first choice. This goes back to the old adage: "Chicken smells like chicken, fish tastes like fish." "I wasn't cold to this sentence at first, chicken is not chicken, is there anything else you can eat?" However, for all those who come to Live in Guangzhou from other places, the understanding of this sentence, or the acceptance of white cut chicken, is itself the process of integrating into Guangzhou life.
A day later, I was chatting with a local taxi driver, and as soon as I heard that we were looking for white cut chicken, the master immediately gushed: "Chicken with more than 3 pounds of hair and about 2 pounds after chopping is the best to make white cut chicken." Chickens that are too big will be used to beat pots. Wenchang chicken, Qingyuan ma chicken, Zhanjiang chicken, Longmen bearded chicken, a variety of chickens, it depends on how you do it. The first is to control the heat, and the second is the time of the bubble, which is very particular about kung fu. Many places have white cut chicken, the most important is the chicken breed, I have eaten once, three pounds of chicken sold for 150 yuan, really is a chicken, go out to find food, feed it rice bran at night, that chicken is really delicious! "Sure enough, every Lao Guang is an unpredictable chicken taster." After saying this, the driver master smacked his lips again, and even said, "It's really delicious, it's not easy to eat now!" ”
Guangzhou white cut chicken can be roughly divided into three major genres: Guangfu white cut chicken, Hainan Wenchang chicken, Zhanjiang white cut chicken. The traditional Guangfu white cut chicken mostly uses Qingyuan ma chicken, similar to Wenchang chicken, white cut chicken mainly uses hens, and Zhanjiang white cut chicken uses mule rooster, also known as castrated chicken, thread chicken.
Behind different chicken breeds, it means different feeding methods, growth cycles, different soaking times, and even different food pairings. The common delicious point is the phrase "chicken has chicken flavor" that needs to be "eaten with a thousand chickens to know the taste".
After we checked in at the hotel on Tenth Fu Road, we found that we were staying next to the Wenchang Branch of Guangzhou Restaurant, which was once known as the "first restaurant in Guangzhou". This old restaurant, which was opened in 1935, has historically produced several provincial and Hong Kong celebrity chefs such as "Southern Chef King" Zhong Quan, "Wing King" Wu Luan, and "World Chef King" Liang Xian. To eat the most authentic Cantonese white cut chicken, this is naturally the best choice.
Guangzhou Restaurant
At about 9 a.m., when we stepped into this three-story restaurant, we were still infected by its strong life atmosphere. This time is the time for Guangzhou people to drink morning tea, the stairs come and go are all the guys who run the hall, the halls upstairs and downstairs are almost full, and there are garden-style pavilions in the middle of the restaurant.
Chef Ruan Yingdong, the head of the roasting department of Guangzhou Restaurant, is an authentic Guangzhou native, who entered the Guangzhou restaurant in 1991, running up and down the building to selling vegetables, to the transfer of cooked food in the cooked food room (replaced by others when resting), and then to the small master of the early preparation, the master of the roasting department, and the director of the roasting department, and has been in the industry for nearly 30 years.
The traditional Cantonese white cut chicken is also called fragrant chicken. Master Ruan told me that they chose the best "Phoenix phoenix" among the Qingyuan ma chickens. The hen with a feeding cycle of about 150 days has just begun to lay eggs, is not old or tender, and the chicken is strong and smooth, which is most suitable for white cutting.
When I threw out the topic of "walking chicken", which is the concern of all chicken lovers, Master Ruan told me very frankly that in the current widespread large-scale breeding environment, it is difficult to find chickens, "When we first entered the industry, it was easy to find chickens 20 years ago." However, leaving aside the warmth of animal protectionists and the nostalgia of taste, it seems that the effect on flavor is not necessarily too deified. For white cut chickens, the advantages of tight chicken meat can often be achieved through the feeding cycle, feeding food and including post-production details, to achieve similar results.
"The flavor of Cantonese-style white-cut chicken is generally smooth and smooth, and the bones are flavorful." Achieving this standard is not as easy as it seems. "Easy to learn and difficult to refine", for most people, it is not difficult to achieve 80 points, it is difficult to achieve 90 points or even higher points, and the difficulty lies in the extreme control of details.
Cantonese-style white cut chicken, soaked chicken in soup. The soup is made by boiling pork bones and lean pork for more than two hours. The boiled soup is also called white brine. Every day before soaking the chicken, add a packet containing spices such as star anise, fragrant leaves, licorice, sand ginger and so on to soak into the flavor, and then remove it. Writing this, I can't help but think of the view of Shunde celebrity chef Tan Yongqiang, who does not agree with the use of soup to soak chicken: "Now the white cut chicken is soaked with soup, but the soup affects the taste of the chicken itself, and how much effort people use to raise the chicken to get that taste, so the authentic white cut chicken does not want anything, it is soaked in clean water." ”
However, Master Nguyen told me that he learned this from his master in the past, and the taste of the soup mainly played a role in removing fishy freshness, and did not cover up the original taste of chicken.
After the white brine is boiled, the chicken is tied up with water weeds and immersed. The choice of aquatic weeds instead of iron hooks is also due to the need to protect the appearance. Like the general process of making white cut chicken, Master Ruan lifts the chicken up three times during the dipping process, but is quite particular in the time interval: "Just soaking it will lift the chicken once, let the hot water fill the chicken's chest cavity and then flow out, to ensure that the inside and outside are heated evenly; after soaking for 10 minutes, it will be mentioned again; the third time, it is about 5 minutes before it feels fast cooked." At this time, press the thigh of the chicken with your hand, judge the maturity of the chicken according to the degree of contraction of the chicken, if some small cooked, take it out first, the big one is not cooked enough, and then soak it for a while. ”
The entire soaking process takes about 25 minutes. Turn on a low heat during the soaking process to keep the water temperature at about 95 degrees Celsius, which seems to be unopened. How to judge the specific water temperature? Master Nguyen pointed to the small blisters that occasionally appeared on the surface of the water and said to me, "We call it "shrimp eye water" here, and the bubbles are the same size as the eyes of ordinary shrimp. ”
In the past, when the master taught Ruan Yingdong, he would also let them feel the change in weight when they came out of the pot before the chicken, in general, after killing the chicken 2.5 to 2.8 pounds, there will be about 10% loss when soaked. The traditional white cut chicken requires that after it is leached, there is blood in the thigh bone, representing the ultimate grasp of the newly mature heat. However, for the sake of health and safety, they are now fully cooked, and occasionally encounter some old diners, who will be picky: "There is no blood on the bones, firewood!" ”
After the chicken is soaked, it should first be washed with purified room temperature water to remove the grease, and then soaked in flavored water for about half an hour. This step is also called "super-cold", and the flavored water is usually added to the package similar to the spices placed in the white brine but with a heavier taste, and the water temperature is cooled to about 15 degrees Celsius with a special machine. "Too cold" is important for the taste of Cantonese white cut chicken and the crispness of the chicken skin.
For white cut chicken, what kind of dipping sauce to use is related to different genres of eating. The standard dipping sauce for Cantonese white cut chicken is a plate of garlic and green onions made with peanut oil and salt and sugar. When I picked up the chopsticks and ate a piece of white cut chicken, although I had not yet appreciated what chicken tasted, the smooth and tender taste experience was quite obvious. It should also be emphasized that for a northerner who has not yet integrated into local life, the dipping sauce is really important to further dissolve the fishy smell that chicken may have.
Over the decades, the fuel in the kitchen has changed, from coal to natural gas; the way chickens are fed; some of the details of the production of white-cut chickens have also changed, in addition to being more cooked than before, the old soup and flavored water that the masters demanded at that time are now changed once a week.
Eating chicken in a restaurant does not mean that you can't eat traditional Cantonese-style white cut chicken anywhere else. It is very likely that in a small shop in a street in Guangzhou, there will also be new discoveries.
Wenchang chicken, because of its excellent breed, was very popular in Guangzhou after 1936. It is said that when Song Ziwen, then minister of finance of the Republic of China, returned to visit his family in Wenchang, Hainan Province, in 1936, he was surprised by the delicious taste of Wenchang chicken and brought it back to Guangzhou for a group of officials to taste. The Song sisters also have a special love for Wenchang chicken, after the Song family's publicity, Wenchang chicken has since gone out of Hainan and gone all the way to Guangzhou and even Singapore and other Nanyang regions.
Different from the Cantonese white cut chicken method, Wenchang chicken is boiled in heavy brine, and a pot of brine is generally changed once every three or four days. It is said that because the umami taste of Wenchang chicken itself is enough, it does not need to be soaked in soup. After the water boils, lift the chicken's neck, immerse it in the water and lift it again, three times in a row, and then press it with a fence, not to let the chicken float. Turn off the heat and soak for 25 to 30 minutes, if the number of chickens soaked at a time is large, sometimes a small fire will be opened, the temperature is basically maintained at 72 to 75 degrees Celsius, the high chicken will be soaked, and the low chicken is not cooked.
After soaking, Wenchang chicken does not have a "too cold" link, brush a layer of chicken fat while hot, and then wait for its natural cooling, the purpose of brushing chicken fat is to prevent the chicken skin from shrinking and drying, affecting the taste. Wenchang chicken is the only chicken breed of the three chicken breeds that does not use excessive cold water. In the right breeding cycle, the meat of Wenchang chicken is not old and tender, the taste is smooth, and the chicken skin is crisp and the bones are very hard, which is different from Qingyuan Ma Chicken. The essence of the purpose of super-cold is to make the chicken skin crisp, and the Wenchang chicken skin itself with a growth period of 240 days has been crisp and refreshing, and naturally there is no need to be overcooled. Putting aside the breed differences, among several chickens, Wenchang chicken has the longest breeding cycle, which can also partly explain why it is highly sought after.
Compared with the other two schools of white cut chicken, Hainan Wenchang chicken has the most exquisite ingredients. Half an hour passed quickly, and when a plate of cut white cut chicken was served, we found that there were four dipping sauces at the same time: the traditional ginger dip; the degreasing and appetizing garlic and orange juice; the fresh and fragrant sand ginger soy sauce, and the refreshing slightly spicy green orange juice. Among these ingredients, small green oranges are simply the soul condiments of Hainan. I once had a trip around Hainan with a friend, and when I met a restaurant along the way, there was always a plate on the table that had been cut
Before, I once heard that Hainan Wenchang chicken is delicious, because it often eats coconut paste, Xue Song said with a smile: "Coconut paste can not give too much, the oil is very heavy, like people, you have to eat on time." "Feeding food, small green oranges, adding meals, sweet and sour, is indeed a good product for relieving and appetizing."
That time in Wenchang, we also ate Wenchang chicken with different methods such as white cut, coconut stew, and braised braised, but maybe because of my own taste preferences, or maybe the shop we went to was not authentic, in short, there was no particularly amazing feeling. However, in the face of the Wenchang chicken that has not long been out of the pot, we are quickly swept away by the wind and clouds, the kind of smooth and refreshing, accompanied by the double stimulation of peppers and green oranges, I dare to say, it can definitely arouse the appetite of most people.
Friends who are familiar with Guangdong cuisine know that there is a Zhanjiang white cut chicken street in Guangzhou's Tianhe District. Tianhe district is lined with high-rise buildings and many emerging business districts, including popular landmarks like Tianhe City. One night, I stumbled upon Tianhe City, still shocked by the crowds there. Tianhe District can be described as the epitome of Guangzhou's great development in the past 20 years, and it is interesting that as far as I later understand, Zhanjiang white cut chicken has also experienced a similar time clue in Guangzhou. In other words, Zhanjiang white cut chicken, like the new Guangzhou people, was the first to flourish in Tianhe District.
The first information we learned from a friend was that this street was in Skinny Dog Street, and we remembered the name in our heads. Step by step, I found that Skinny Dog Ridge Road is still more than a kilometer away from our target Yueken Road. Later, with the west gate arch of the former National Sun Yat-sen University towering at the intersection of Yueken Road, it was found.
Later, when reading the materials, I found that the gourmet Shen Hongfei had noticed this street in his book "Discovering Guangzhou Restaurants" published in 2001: "The area around Tianshan Road and Yueken Road in the eastern district of Guangzhou has become a street of castrated chickens, and there are nearly 20 restaurants specializing in castrated chickens. Castrated chicken is said to be a traditional Cantonese and Western cuisine, so the castrated chicken restaurants in this area are all opened by Zhanjiang people. Pay attention to a little, and will also use a variety of 'anpu chicken' as a solicitation. ”
However, walking into Yueken Road, I found that Zhanjiang Chicken Street has long ceased to be the grand occasion of the year, and we occasionally encounter zhanjiang chicken shops, but three or four. Among them, Ruiji Zhanjiang chicken rice, which hangs the sign of "the first chicken in western Guangdong", is very decent in scale. Walk in and ask, this store is the first batch of Zhanjiang chicken shops that opened in 1999. It is said that there used to be 18 shops on this street, large and small, all from Zhanjiang, but later due to business problems, it slowly closed down.
Why do Zhanjiang people gather here to open chicken shops? Originally, the Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Agricultural Reclamation was originally in Zhanjiang, and after moving here, many Zhanjiang people also followed, taking this group of people as the main diners, and gradually developed a street of Zhanjiang chickens. It dawned on me that it was no wonder that this road was called Yueken Road.
Ruiji's boss is a native of Zhanjiang, who was originally the director of a factory and opened a shop here after the factory closed. "Considering that the people of the Agricultural Reclamation Bureau are here, there was no Zhanjiang chicken in Guangzhou before, so we simply made Zhanjiang chicken according to Zhanjiang standards."
Compared with the other two kinds of chickens, the biggest feature of Zhanjiang white cut chicken is the use of castrated chickens. The breeding period of Zhanjiang castrated chickens is about 230 days. After the rooster is castrated, the chickens that originally develop normally become larger, and the general gross weight is about 6 kilograms, and there will be about 4 kilograms after slaughter, which is much larger than the Qingyuan hemp chicken and Wenchang chicken.
In addition to the large size of the castrated chicken, there is also a layer of fat under the skin, which is the most iconic place for the white cut chicken in Zhanjiang. In order to show this feature, Zhanjiang white cut chicken is not hung in the window after being done, but the butt is facing outward, generously allowing passers-by to glimpse the golden fat inside.
In order to show the fat in the abdominal cavity, shops selling white cut chicken in Zhanjiang all face the chicken butt outward
Like Qingyuan Ma Chicken, Zhanjiang Chicken is also boiled in soup with pork bones boiled for two or three hours. Because the chicken is relatively large, it is often necessary to lift the chicken four or five times, and then soak it at a water temperature of about 90 degrees Celsius for about 40 minutes. After soaking, it also needs to be super-cooled to ensure the coolness of the chicken skin. After passing the cold, like Wenchang chicken, brush a layer of peanut oil on the skin. Looking at the Zhanjiang chicken hanging in the back kitchen of the restaurant, it is easy to find that in addition to the huge size, the golden skin is also its distinctive sign.
The dipping sauce of Zhanjiang chicken is made with soy sauce, peanut oil and minced sand ginger. At the same time, it is often accompanied by a small plate of coriander. Sand ginger is the core dipping sauce of Zhanjiang chicken, it is said that the salty land in western Guangdong, the peanuts and sand ginger growing on it, the variety is superior, the growth is good.
The store usually sells sixty or seventy chickens every day, soaking them in the morning and afternoon. It was nearly noon, and the restaurant was quickly filled with people, with a plate of white cut chicken at almost every table. We also ordered a plate to taste, the taste is really special, the chicken skin is simply flexible, not simple crisp, it is indeed called "chicken is firm, the skin should be refreshing".
Leaving Yueken Road, we continued to turn around Tianhe District. In the Huachenghui Underground Food City on the central axis of Tianhe District, there is an Internet celebrity restaurant called "Big Dragon Phoenix Chicken Pot". According to manager Wu, who is in charge of restaurant management, they have combined chicken with the side stove and developed more than 50 ways to eat, the most popular of which are durian chicken pot and pork belly chicken pot. The diners here are mainly young people working in nearby office buildings, and apparently outside the white cut chicken, the new Guangzhou people in Tianhe District are still expanding the way chicken is eaten.