When it comes to the cooked meat that Beijingers love to eat in the hot summer, we must mention a long-established brand: Yuesheng Zhai. This shop specializing in halal beef and mutton was founded in 1775 and its full name is Yuesheng Jai Majia Old Shop. His most famous flagship store, on Qianmen Street, contrasts with the diagonal Qianmen buildings, revealing a deep cultural heritage of Beijing. A few years ago, Men Avenue has become more and more beautiful after transformation, in addition to the fashion blocks that young people like, Quanjude, Tongrentang, Yueshengzhai, all in one place, many time-honored brands are still the signboards of Qianmen Street, not only the Internet celebrities who come to Beijing to travel, but also let the old Beijingers continue to think about it.
To say that the moon is full of fasting, his family's spiced sauce lamb and sauce beef have been wafting at the front door for more than two hundred years. At that time, its founder Ma Qingrui worked as a temporary worker in the palace ceremonial department, and every time there was any sacrifice in the palace, Ma Qingrui's work depended on the offering table. This job did not pay much, but the lucky Ma Qingrui was rewarded with a whole sheep in a sacrifice. In addition to leaving a part for his family to eat, Ma Qingrui took the lamb to the market and sold it out quickly. This incident inspired his business mind, so he thought about selling beef and mutton.
Coincidentally, when he was working in the ceremonial department, he could often go in and out of the imperial dining room, and he learned the method of secretly making beef and mutton from the imperial kitchen, which made Ma Qingrui make up his mind to "go to the sea" to sell sauce mutton. Ma Qingrui, who was very business-minded and had "mixed" in the imperial dining room, put a small stall of sauced lamb in the alley outside the front door. That place was originally very popular, everyone heard that lao ma had learned the craft in the imperial dining room, and they all wanted to taste the taste of eating the emperor's meal, which is also an excellent product promotion IP today. Coupled with the fact that the old horse's sauce lamb was indeed delicious, the stalls soon became popular.
Therefore, the old Ma Suo rented a front door at the front door and opened a sauce and mutton shop. He took the beauty of "the moon and the moon flourished" and named the shop Yuesheng Zhai. Lao Ma also summed up a set of experiences, such as raw materials to choose the big white sheep produced in the west, and add a few Chinese herbs to the seasoning, and the lamb will be more delicious. To say that the old horse really did his best for the moon shengzhai: because the sheep in the west mouth are not easy to buy, he is raising sheep in the backyard; when buying spices, he has to run several pharmacies, one is to strive for excellence in raw materials, and the other is afraid that others will know what medicine is in his soup.
Later, Yueshengzhai added beef sauce, which is also finely crafted and famous. It is even more surprising that because his family's beef and mutton were done well, later the tributes sacrificed by the palace ceremonial department were changed to be purchased from Yueshengzhai and the imperial dining room also offered the sauced lamb of Yueshengzhai to Cixi Laofuye to enjoy. Who would have thought that the temporary workers who were responsible for watching the tributes would have such great ability, which can be called a model for young people to bravely start a business and strive to realize their dreams.
Lao Ma perfectly combined the imperial court meal and the folk secret recipe, and also in line with the theory of "medicine and food homology" in Chinese medicine, he added Chinese medicine to the spices, so that the stew increased the nourishing effect. In addition to the excellent selection of ingredients and no effort, the sauce meat of Yuesheng Zhai is delicious, and it is also because of the pot of old soup. Over the years, the pot of old soup in the moon has not been broken. You might be wondering, wouldn't the two-hundred-year-old soup stink long ago? In fact, Lao Ma and his descendants will cool the soup of the stew every day, skim off the oil flowers on it, leave only the cool soup, and sift it to remove impurities, and when the next day when the stew comes, put half a pot of old soup and half a pot of water, plus the best yellow sauce and various spices and Chinese medicinal materials, stew for six hours, and repeat the cycle, every day is such an operation, there is a legend of the moon fast. If nothing else, the next time you go to the front door of Beijing, don't forget to go to Yueshengzhai to buy two pounds of sauced lamb to taste, which is the biggest praise for the inheritance of the old brand.