Located in the south of Guangdong, the cuisine is everywhere, famous throughout the country, and is a "pilgrimage place" for many foodies.
Guangdong's ingredients are always the best choice of raw, fresh and seasonal. Each dish is made with a more cumbersome production process, paying attention to meat and vegetarian collocation and color and flavor. Because in the ordinary delicious, find the ultimate taste bud experience that you pursue.
If the south is a paradise for foodies, then the Chaoshan region must be a treasure that belongs to the old gourmets.
Shantou Old Street, everywhere you can see old shops selling seafood.
In the Chaoshan region, the sea eats the sea, and the most daily flavor here comes from the sea.
For example, the famous "fish rice": soak the fish in light salt water, and then cook the fish in high-concentration brine. The salt water promotes the release of sweetness from the fish to form a unique salty freshness.
The Chaoshan people use fish instead of rice, cook fish like cooking rice, and eat fish like eating, which shows the importance of its status in Chaoshan Province.
Specialty fish rice in chaoshan area.
Mention "fresh" in seafood, absolutely indispensable to the southern people's favorite scallops.
Among the many seafood, only scallops are not willing to be only supporting roles on the table, but have the ambition to dominate the table "C position"...
One of the overlords of the supper stall: steamed scallops with garlic vermicelli.
01 Guangdong people know the most about the "fresh" taste
The most authentic way to eat scallops in Guangdong is to make them into seafood - Yaozhu. After drying, it is called "dried scallops", while Cantonese people prefer to call it "Yaozhu", which is smooth and pleasant.
How can seafood recovered from the sea preserve its flavor for a long time?
At this time, salt and high temperature are the best choices for preserving food. People who used to live along the coast often dried river fresh, seafood or air-dried for preservation.
The dry goods that are often prepared in the kitchen of Guangdong family - Yaozhu.
When seafood is dehydrated, it can inhibit the growth of bacteria inside the food.
It can also promote the interaction of flavor factors to produce a completely different taste when the ingredients are fresh. Under the power of air drying, the life of food can be extended for a longer and longer time.
This is also one of the reasons why Guangdong people love to eat seafood.
All seafood can be dried.
As a seafood, Yaozhu does not grab the original taste of the ingredients, but also makes the food fresh and fragrant.
Therefore, it occupies a very high position in the kitchen in Guangdong, whether it is a tea house restaurant or an ordinary family, it is a must-have ingredient.
What makes scallops really catch fire must be supper stalls, which not only relieve the hunger on the mouth, but also fill the flesh. When it becomes a yao pillar, it is the soul in the depths of people's hearts that is cultivated.
At the supper stall, it is also the home of scallops.
The same kind of "fresh" has a hundred different ways to eat, rarely fresh and delicious, dry and dry flavor.
Scallops are born in water, even if they become Yaozhu after drying, they are still closest to water, and it can analyze the flavor in Yaozhu little by little and be absorbed by other ingredients.
Encountering the "soup and water" in the southern food culture, it attracts people's taste buds like a magnet. Not grabbing the original taste, but also in the southern people like to use ingredients to fresh pursuit.
Through the sun, you can better release the flavor of food.
After all, the soul is a thing in the bones, and it cannot be hidden, and Cantonese people eat white porridge and pursue "fresh".
The most common local way to eat is Yaozhu white porridge, which seems simple, but in fact, it hides real kung fu.
White rice and Yaozhu have been boiled and boiled, and the taste of the white porridge with little water is classified as soft and modest by the umami taste.
The soft glutinous taste of porridge rice is first served in the mouth, and the salty and umami taste of yaozhu is then emitted. The two are like glue on the tip of the tongue, and every bite is you have me, I have you.
The white porridge on the table is definitely not light.
Yaozhu pairs it with ingredients that taste bland and love to suck juice, and the flavor is even better.
For example, the garlic yao pillar is to first pour the pre-soaked yao pillar into the melon section, and then hang a thin layer of mustard, and steam it over a low heat.
When you eat it, the soft melon segments melt in one sip, and the juice has the salty taste of Yaozhu.
More advanced ways to eat are Yaozhu steamed water eggs, Yaozhu stewed loofah, Yaozhu shrimp rice vermicelli festival melon pot, Yaozhu chicken porridge, flower glue Yaozhu chicken soup... Wherever there is soup, there is a dojo in Yaozhu.
Cantonese garlic yao pillar, the entrance is fresh and sweet and juicy.
In the kitchen of cantonese people, one of the most common words of my mother is: "If the soup is fresh, put a few Yaozhu and drop them together." (If the soup should have an umami taste, put a few Yaozhu down to cook together)
Yaozhu lies in a seemingly inconspicuous corner of the kitchen, making the dishes fresh and colorful once they come in handy.
"Three days after eating, I feel that the chicken and shrimp are boring", even the ancients' praise for the delicious flavor of Yaozhu also came from this. One Yao pillar after another is basically the "white moonlight" in the hearts of Guangdong people.
02 The South, the indissoluble love affair with the sea
Every Cantonese who lives in the seafood version of "China on the Tip of the Tongue" has a seafood plot in their hearts.
It is often said that if you want to get to know a city, then the first stop can start with the local market. However, in Guangdong, it is recommended to change to a seafood shop.
The picture below is the most famous seafood street in Guangzhou, Yide Road.
Located in the middle of Guangzhou's downtown, this Qilou Old Street, in less than a kilometer, has loaded more than ten dried seafood markets and about 2,000 merchants, which are famous throughout the country for focusing on selling seafood.
During the festive season, people flock to buy seafood.
A long time ago, nearby people on the water brought the sea cargo salvaged that day to land here for sale.
Under the influence of this culture, seafood has also become a daily routine in the kitchen of Cantonese people.
The taste of dried seafood is different, even in cooking, almost completely different, each with its own advantages, and it is irreplaceable.
The selection of seafood is a top priority on the table.
Cantonese people, in particular, are adept at incorporating one or two seafoods into their dishes. Every soup ordered in Cantonese has the potential to completely subvert your understanding of "soup".
Boil bitter melon soup, will add octopus; boil corn carrot stick bone soup, will add Yaozhu;, boil watercress soup, will add mussels, oyster sauce; pot papaya soup, will add cuttlefish... Isn't that amazing?
In the soup, you can not put MSG, but you can't add without seafood. Otherwise, the whole pot of soup loses its "soul".
Dried oysters are called oysters.
Seafood, in the south, has long since transcended the existence of three meal limits.
If you want to become beautiful, in addition to masks, essences... There is also a cup of stewed chicken and snow clams, and you can also eat grilled dried squid and even a variety of dried fish specially for barbecue.
In short, where there is something to eat, there must be seafood.
Cantonese Yaozhu stewed chicken soup with flower glue.
It is not simple to change from a scallop to a yao pillar.
First selected by the workers, the shell is opened, the skirt is discarded and the ointment is discarded, and the "pillar" that experiences the essence of the waves is taken.
Rinse repeatedly with water to ensure that there are no impurities, put it into the pre-prepared brine and cook it quickly, and then "cross the cold river" (cold water) to quickly cool down the scallops, lock in the umami taste, and dilute the saltiness of the surface.
Then a large plate of drying, waiting for its natural air drying, drying until it is half dry, and then put into the oven to dry, this is complete.
Through the pickiness of the naked eye, the polishing of time, the contraction of daylight, the blazing of temperature...
Only when the six processes are in place can we keep the original flavor of the scallops and transform them into golden yao pillars to exert the flavor to the extreme.
A veritable "one grain of freshness".
Whether it is soup, stew or porridge, the number does not need to be large, a small handful can make the dish glow with an unparalleled taste, and eating more is not enough.
Yaozhu is very much like the personality of the southerners, shy on the outside and fiery on the inside. Only when they eat it does they know how delicate and rich their "heart" is.
It is both the food of the Southerners and the spiritual backbone of them.
As long as there is seafood, there is no problem that cannot be solved, such as when making soup, if one is not enough, then put a few more.
* After the WeChat revision, many people said that they could not find Guangzai, in order to receive the push for the first time, set Guangzai as a "star ★" bar~
Source: That city
Editor: Qian Chen
Proofreader: Wu Lin