Fuzhou, 19 May (Xinhuanet) -- Lin Jinlian's day's work begins at four or five o'clock in the morning. Rush to the market early to buy onions and meat, return to the store to start the stove, knead the dough, and then make cakes and paste the stove, and stay busy until more than 10 o'clock in the evening.
Making onion cakes is a manual work, and Lin Jinlian has insisted on it for 26 years. Every day, her small store sells more than 4,000 shallot cakes, during which her day is filled with back pain after work and the satisfaction of provoking diners' taste buds.
Yongtai shallot cake, also known as Yongtai onion meat cake, is one of the famous traditional dishes in the local area. The age of its production cannot be verified, but the characteristics of incorruptibility and taste have allowed it to be passed down from generation to generation in simple folk life. In 2018, Yongtai shallot cake making technology was successfully declared as the fifth batch of intangible cultural heritage representative projects in Fuzhou.
Lin Jinlian's ancestors once made a living by making light cakes, but in his father's generation, he broke the file. In the 90s of the last century, Lin Jinlian was laid off from the enterprise and forced to make a living and started again. After years of repeated baking, Lin Jinlian's shallot cake making skills have matured day by day, and the supply of shallot cakes has exceeded demand. During peak times, diners often line up at the entrance of the shop to wait for the scallion cake to come out.
Shallot cakes are delicious, but the ingredients used to make them are very common, mainly flour, chives, pork and sesame seeds. These ingredients are combined and pasted on the inner wall of the oven at 270 ° C, which is forced by the fire to produce an aroma and refreshing the heart. Especially the freshly baked shallot cake, the skin is brown, crisp, bite, the green onion and meat aroma remain between the lips and teeth, the aftertaste is endless.
Freshly baked shallot cake. Photo by Jiang Qiaoling, Xinhua Net
Wrapped in shallot cake. Photo by Jiang Qiaoling, Xinhua Net
Lin Jinlian spread a layer of sesame seeds on the bottom of the wrapped shallot cake. Photo by Jiang Qiaoling, Xinhua Net
Lin Jinlian is in the furnace, the temperature in the furnace is high, and the speed must be fast, otherwise it is easy to be burned. Photo by Jiang Qiaoling, Xinhua Net
The color gradient of the shallot cake on the hearth wall. Photo by Jiang Qiaoling, Xinhua Net
Every morning, Lin Jinlian would go to the market to buy green onions, and when she returned, she would pick up and wash them. Photo by Jiang Qiaoling, Xinhua Net
In the gap between the Lin Jinlian stickers, the clerk cuts the kneaded dough into strips and prepares to divide it into agents. Photo by Jiang Qiaoling, Xinhua Net
Pinch the agent. Photo by Jiang Qiaoling, Xinhua Net