To the people of Fuzhou City, Fujian Province, the meat swallow, or Taiping swallow, they are all too familiar. Every New Year's Festival, especially when the family is reunited, a bowl of meat and swallow soup will appear on the dinner table. For the people of Fuzhou, the meaning of meat swallow is almost equivalent to that of northerners looking at dumplings.
But the meat swallow is a very common food, in the breakfast shop at the entrance of the community, on the shelves of the supermarket, in the old woman of the vegetable market, you can see the figure of the meat swallow. It is enough to show that the people of Fuzhou have taken the meat swallow as a part of their lives.
Many tourists come to Fuzhou and will taste a bowl of meat swallow. As one of the special snacks of Fuzhou, meat swallow will make many people feel familiar, but it is also a little strange. The reason is that the shape of the meat swallow is very similar to shaxian flat food, Sichuan scribe, and Guangdong wonton, but after eating it, it will feel different.
The reason for the difference in taste is the outer skin of the meat swallow. The skin of flat food, hand-picking, and wonton is mostly made of powder, while the skin of the meat swallow is made of lean meat. In other words, the inner filling of the meat swallow is meat, and the outer skin is also meat, which is a solid "meat wrapped meat".
The outer skin of the meat swallow should be made of the best lean pork hind legs, and the wooden hammer should be hammered into a puree. Think about the role played by Mo Wenwei in "God Eater", the picture of hammering and urine cow balls, and the skin of the meat swallow is hammered into meat paste in this way. After that, sweet potato flour, starch, etc. are added to the shape, and then cut into small squares as thin as paper, and the skin of the meat swallow is made.
Because the meat swallow skin is made of pure meat, so there are many lazy people's approach, that is, to buy back the meat swallow skin, cut into strips and cooked as noodles, boiled meat swallow in water, water can bring a umami taste, not to mention take the white soup boiled out of the pork barrel bone to cook meat swallow skin, fragrant to no!
The filling in the meat swallow is also to beat the pork into a meat paste and then wrap it into the skin. However, the practices of each household are slightly different. The most classic method is to hammer the fish, lean pork, and shrimp meat together into a meat paste, then add the water chestnut and eggs cut into small pieces, and then add cooking wine, monosodium glutamate and other seasoning.
The same thing is that the filling must be pounded out, because the texture of the beaten meat paste is a hundred times more delicate than the crushed or chopped meat paste, and the meat swallow made is small and exquisite, and after boiling, the small meat swallow is crystal clear, like bird's nest, shiny.
There are many ways to eat meat swallow, the common way to eat is to cook soup, plus pork bone soup together, the aroma of pork is fragrant, and neighbors around can smell the aroma of meat swallow. The steaming broth of meat and swallows is added with chives, and the heat stimulates the taste of chives, and a bowl of soup is swallowed and warmed.
You can also use the meat swallow as an ingredient for cooking noodles, when cooking noodles or cooking noodles, add a little meat swallow or meat swallow skin, and the bland and tasteless noodles can also become delicious, fragrant and fresh. Or put the meat swallow on the rice and steam it together, so that the meat swallow has the aroma of rice, and the rice also has the meat taste of the meat swallow, which is very good.
If you have been to The Seven Lanes of Sanfang in Fuzhou, you will first hear a regular sound of "rushing and rushing", and then see a master holding a hammer in both hands at the door of the meat swallow shop on the street, constantly hammering down the board. What the master is making is handmade meat swallow.
Because making meat swallow is very troublesome, it requires physical strength, endurance and experience, and a bowl of meat swallow can not sell much money, so not many people are willing to make this hot bowl of meat swallow soup now. If you have the opportunity to go to Fuzhou, don't miss this Fujian special snack.