Continue to Zhejiang self-driving tour, today's topic is delicious.
When I came to Huzhou City, I walked around the xinshi ancient town in Deqing County, and by the way, I ate some foods with local characteristics and very worth sharing, and 8 dishes "trapped" me in the same place for several days. In order to eat, don't go first.
【Xinshi Tea Cake】
It must first be said about this snack, because it is too... Unexpectedly.
There are old people and children on the car we have together, so when we see the hotel album, I am immediately attracted by this tea cake, this sweet soft feeling, very suitable for young and old to eat, two words without saying two plates. But I didn't expect it, I didn't expect it, this tea cake is actually... Meat stuffed.
According to "theory", the ruddy core should be filled with bean paste and date mud brown sugar...
Northerners generally don't wrap salty things into glutinous rice noodles, which is "illogical". In our inherent mindset, fresh meat with medium gluten flour is the "king" – we have never seen the operation of making "meat buns" with glutinous rice noodles.
How can it be stuffed with meat, can this be delicious?
But fortunately, the tea cake tastes good.
The "glutinous" of rice paste and the "mud" of meat filling neutralize each other, the taste is more exquisite than that of meat dumplings, the staying power is more fragrant than meat buns, and the outer "shell" also carries the silk of glutinous rice back to sweetness. Just this tea cake, let us see the brain hole and creativity of the jiangnan people, and the posture is raised.
The problem of sitting in a well and watching the sky is not good, and it must be changed. The old idea of standing still is outdated and wants to... Wisdom with ideas.
Pictured: Tea cake at the Deqing Hotel, xinshi people say such "not right"
Tea cake this snack is produced with the name of "the first pier in Jiangnan" in the Ming and Qing dynasties of Xinshi Ancient Town, and has a history of about 600 years. It is made from high-quality glutinous rice flour and steamed in a special pot with pork, bamboo shoots and jelly. It is an "upgraded version" of Jiangnan rice cake, but it is very close to the people: the soup of lard seeps into the skin of the rice cake, and the aroma is fragrant and particularly attractive.
The clerk said: This tea cake will "never be eaten again" when it leaves the new city ancient town, even if it is not in the surrounding Jiangnan ancient town of the same type. So I previously had a 2500-word article (Zhejiang Travelogue | A small piece of tea cake is a "history of the evolution of the water town" of the ancient town of Xinshi) to record it, and it will not be repeated.
Pictured: Tea cakes in the town, the new city people say that this shape is authentic
【Bream in shallot oil】
Bream is a type of river fresh that is widely present in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Its biggest feature is that it grows faster than the average fish: a "heartless, lungless" animal with a well-developed body and a simple mind.
As can be seen from the picture, the head of the bream is very small, and it is conceivable that it should be degraded into this because of the brain.com. There is a way is "stupid people have stupid fortune", this fish is a lack of heart eyes have a lack of heart eyes, so bream meat does not have that kind of "cunning" taste, a bite is a bite, tender, real.
The book says that eating more bream meat helps to replenish blood, but also can soften blood vessels, and then there is a high protein content of bream. But because it is too fat, the fat is also thick, especially the fat content of the internal organs is several times higher than that of the average fish, but the taste is really fragrant.
Bream in green onion oil is a "famous dish in Jiangnan", which is very common in the Yangtze River Delta and is relatively easy to get started. You only need to marinate for a moment, steam for seven or eight minutes to get out of the pot, pouring a soy sauce is a "big dish", the cost is not high.
In short, if you go to Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai next time, no matter which city you go to, when you don't know what to eat, close your eyes and order a bream.
【Crispy roast duck】
In the Yangtze River Delta, especially in northern Zhejiang and southern Jiangsu, this crispy roast duck is also "closed eyes" to order food. It is not only rich in nutrients, high in trace elements, but also has an adjustable taste.
We all know that roast duck is a "Beijing dish". Legend has it that Empress Dowager Cixi loved it so much that she overbearingly named it "Peking Duck". In fact, the Beijing roast duck method originated from the crispy roast duck in the Jiangnan region, which is a southern dish. Its skin is a "hard shell", crispy and crispy, but the meat inside is soft and easy to melt, fat and oily, but it is not greasy in the mouth, which is wonderful. It can also be seen from this practice that it is not like the craftsmanship of northerners.
Looking at northern cuisine, many of the operations of "both inside and outside" are the crafts of southern food and northern transmission. Overall, the approach is rough and rough, and it is rarely "chopped" in the subtleties. Many of the famous dishes in the north are called "chaotic stew", like stir-fry and sweet and sour, and the staple foods are steamed buns, large pullskins, fried sauce noodles, peppery soup, and pasted cakes. For example, there is a dish in Shandong called "mushu meat", listening to this name is very fine, in fact, it is an egg fungus cucumber fried in a pot, which is made by everyone.
For example, the famous Northeast cuisine "Pot Wrapped Meat", which was founded in the hands of the eight flags of Beijing, but if you think deeply, you will find that this chef is from a rich merchant's family, has known countless people in his life, and loves delicious cooking methods everywhere. He liked the taverns and tea houses along the canal the most because they were "the closest place to the south". In the end, it was a Jiangnan master who invented such a northern dish with a southern taste.
The Gangnam region has many lakes of ducks, which usually eat aquatic plants to grow up, and eat less small fish and shrimp and micro-animals. We all know that "vegetarians get hungry fast," and so do ducks. So in order to be able to eat a full meal, the water duck has become a duck that swims all day long, and the ducks keep swimming, rarely going to the shore... We don't know if we're full or not, but we're in a good body. Therefore, the meat of the duck in Jiangnan is honest and tendonic, and even the fat is clear and bright.
Empress Dowager Cixi, the old ladies, were particularly "things" and invented a "bun" way to eat roast duck meat wrapped in the dough skin with sweet noodle sauce and green onions. But in fact, in the Yangtze River Delta region, eating duck does not have so many "processes", simple and not ordinary.
【Braised pork】
This dish is an important discovery of my self-driving trip to Zhejiang along the way: there are many kinds of braised pork in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and the "braised pork" in each restaurant looks the same after it is served, and the ingredients are different. Therefore, braised pork is a popular dish, pork belly is fat and lean, versatile, and enjoyable.
China's "eight major cuisines" have their own presence, and every region, from a city to a village, has several unique methods about braised pork. Flipping through past photos, I have eaten no less than twenty kinds of braised pork on my travels in recent years.
The braised pork method here in Huzhou is generally more homely, there are few side dishes, very willing to give, but the taste is sweet, not my dish. However, it must be said that meat eaters (especially sweet lovers) have arrived in Zhejiang, and braised pork is a good "closed eye choice".
【New City Lamb】
This is another dish that "surprised" me.
Because I found that there is only one way to cook lamb in Xinshi Ancient Town: cut large pieces of sauce and roast it, and also carry a thick skin - you know, in the north, lamb is rarely boiled with skin. The lamb skin tastes so big, can it be delicious?
It turns out that a food that can be passed down for millennia must be delicious.
The color of the lamb in Xinshi sauce is dark red and uniform, the soup is very thick, the taste of the lamb is crispy and mushy, the bones are very loose, do not need to nibble, just need to chew, it is enough for the meat flavor to slowly melt in the mouth, there is no smell, very under the rice, not fat and not greasy.
Local friends told me that Xinshi sauce mutton originated in the Southern Song Dynasty, when there was a high-ranking official in the town, after he became the minister, he brought the "secret" of the palace sauce meat back to his hometown, and since then, this mutton has become a specialty of a town in Xinshi - even in Deqing, it is also a "rare thing", and it must be eaten in the town's old-fashioned restaurant to eat "authentic". So I previously had a 2500-word article (Xinshi Guzhen Sauce Lamb: A Thousand Years of History, The "Taste of the Court") to record it, and I will not repeat it.
In short: there are two "dishes that can never be eaten again after leaving the town", one is the new city tea cake, and the other is the new city sauce lamb. Please take out a small notebook and record it... Well, I'll write it down first.
【Meat stuffing screw】
Listening to the name gives people a very strange dish, in fact, it is a stew with screws and pork. Or rather, it's a pot pot.
Zhejiang people like to eat "pot", anything put into this pot, you can slowly boil in a small fire casserole. Until the nutrients in the food are "consumed" into the soup and water, served on the pot, and drunk thin. So you see, there is a reason why southerners look exquisite, people eat things with a lot of work, but it is easy to absorb, there is not so much burden. Metabolism is fast, so there are more thin people and fewer fat people.
Previously, on the self-driving tour of Zhejiang Central, there was a Jinhua barrel bone pot, as well as a shrimp meat pot in Tongxiang, which was a casserole stew made of several kinds of Chinese herbal medicine "combined". At first I called them "hot pots", but the locals repeatedly corrected me: it was a pot, not a pot. Because the pot is used to drink soup, only a small bowl, the nutrition is very comprehensive.
Later, I got used to it, in Zhejiang, but everyone who saw the "pot" products stewed out of the casserole were all health care series, which were very "valuable".
The meat stuffed screw pot contains collagen, beauty and beauty; field snail is a rich aquatic animal with trace elements, the content of protein and vitamins is also very high, plus seasonal vegetables are harmonized, versatile and perfect.
【Rice balls】
The word "粢" means "grain for sacrifice in ancient times." Extrapolating from this, it is a dish that is used to serve.
We also talked about it in the previous travelogue, the old new city (and most of the Huzhou people) attached great importance to the Qingming Festival, and paid special attention to the matter of worshiping the Buddha, and it was very common for ordinary people to be reluctant to eat what they were willing to eat but were willing to take it out to offer to the gods. Nowadays, the food of the "immortals" has entered the ordinary dinner table.
Rice is a traditional snack in Huzhou, and the main ingredient is actually glutinous rice. It looks sweet, in fact, stuffed with meat. The principle is to make a variety of fillings into sticky clumps, roll on the glutinous rice on the pot and steam, to make a beautiful and shiny appearance... Make offerings to "God."
Xinshi people say that in various urban areas and townships in Huzhou, the practice of rice dumplings is different, ranging from long to round. In addition, the filling added to the rice is also different from household to household, which can be sweet or salty. This kind of "rice ball" that we ate this time is a common practice on the local People's New Year's Festival dinner table, taking the meaning of "reunion round" and praying for good luck.
【Steamed bamboo shoots with bacon】
In the old days, the mountains were inconvenient to transport, the people lived in poverty, and most of the time they could not afford to eat meat, so they thought of a clever way: to marinate the meat in small pieces and make it into bacon, so that the meat would not be bad for a year. When spring comes, people will put the bacon and fresh spring shoots that have been placed for a winter together and steam them one by one, so that they can be eaten.
In the process of heating, the meat flavor will penetrate into the bamboo shoots, if you feel salty, add a little sugar to blend, salty and delicious, very rice, but also easy to get started. Whether you are good at cooking or not, you can easily and quickly complete a meal. Its principle is very simple, but the wisdom and mind of the ancestors contained in it are very profound.
Bacon steamed bamboo shoots are a seasonal dish and a great choice for tourists when traveling to Gangnam in spring. In addition: bamboo shoots are a must-order dish for travel to Zhejiang, no matter how to make it is delicious, crisp and tender, but also have to say that one side of the water and soil to raise a side of the food.
One dish: [Duck Ravioli]
In the Yangtze River Delta region, wontons are a common snack on the dinner table of ordinary people, which can also be called dim sum, which is made by every household. Generally, the ravioli filling will use the common meat, this duck wonton... It was the first time I had eaten it. People usually only see the presence of duck meat in snacks such as duck head, duck neck, duck gizzard, duck paw, etc., in addition to the fact that there are more roast ducks.
After consulting with the clerk, I learned that the meat filling of this duck wonton is actually based on pork, because the duck meat has a relatively large fishy taste and is usually not used for shallow processing, but is cooked by deep processing methods such as brine, sauce or soup. Therefore, the "duck" in this duck wonton is more of an old duck soup base. Duck soup is a good tonic, which coincides with the "pot" mentioned above. In the Jiangnan area, there is a saying that "eating wontons to taste soup", good wontons with good soup, this meal is considered neat.
The Zhejiang trip continues, we continue in the next article. Remember to pay attention, I remember to watch.
I am a big red sister, an anchor of the audio radio travel channel, a professional travel player, focusing on niche gameplay and sharing unpopular destinations. Travel is not an attitude, but life itself.