Pearl balls, also known as pearl balls, originated in Dujiangyan, Sichuan, Sichuan dialect also known as "wine rice balls", wine rice is glutinous rice, pearl balls are actually another form of tangyuan: tangyuan is boiled in boiling water, pearl balls are steamed.
Sago pearl balls
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, there was a chef named Zhang Herong, who wrapped brown sugar sesame dumplings with a layer of steamed glutinous rice, and then steamed them for a few minutes on high heat to take them out, and the steamed tangyuan was full and round, crystal clear. Sweet and soft in taste, it is a must-have for feast desserts and is widely praised by diners.
Zhang Herong saw the market prospects of steamed tangyuan, made a desperate bet, became a seller, and his family went to the provincial city of Chengdu to break in, rented a shop in Huifu West Street (now Zhonglieci Street), and began to specialize in steamed tangyuan and eight treasure rice. Chengdu people are good at tasting, steamed tangyuan is competing to taste, after eating all feel and dragon copy hand, bell dumplings, Dan Dan noodles are very different, unique flavor. After word of mouth from customers, Zhang Herong's business quickly flourished.
Business is good, naturally to give the small shop a name, often come to the diners have Wen Mo thought of a name "pearl tangyuan", take its shape, shaped like a pearl; There are familiar with calligraphy and send the word banner, the "pearl round" sign is hung up, in a few days on the market, from more than four hundred a day to a thousand or not enough to sell, Zhang Herong can only apologize to the buyers every day: "Sorry Ha, tomorrow please come early." At this point, pearl balls have become famous and well-known.
Pearl balls
Zhang Herong is skillful and active in his thinking, and after tasting the business-rich Lai Tangyuan, he was inspired to successively add the flavor of pearl balls to black sesame seeds, red bean paste, jujube paste, osmanthus flowers, and preserves; The glutinous rice is changed to snow-white and rounded sago, and when steamed, it becomes more crystal clear and more pearl-like. Later, Zhang Herong also in accordance with the style of Ye Erzhu sweet and salty double taste, ingeniously added fresh meat, ham, golden hook, bacon and other salty pearl balls, sweet and tender glutinous, salty and fresh and plump, sweet and salty collocation, variety, free red and white fragrant tea when eating, degreasing and clearing, and was very popular with diners.
Salty pearl balls stuffed with meat
Zhang Herong not only pays attention to the quality of the dumplings, but also invests all his savings from years of operation into improving the decoration and tableware taste of the restaurant, celadon small bowls, black lacquer chopsticks, eight immortal tables, official hats and chairs, and the whole store is antique, clean and elegant. Later, the famous Sichuan general Xiong Kewu came to visit, tasted the pearl rounds and was very happy, praised the name, and rewarded Zhang Herong with a hundred oceans, this time, the upper echelons of the Military, Political, industrial and commercial circles in Sichuan set up banquets and friends, and they would send people to order pearl rounds, adding luster to their own banquets, the business was booming, and the pearl rounds also reached their peak.
Hubei and Jiangxi will make pearl balls
In 1956, a public-private partnership, Pearl Dumplings merged with "Yongxiang Sweet Shop", still using "Pearl Dumplings" as a signboard, at this time Zhang Herong was old, retired from success, the chef was his son and daughter-in-law, the business was still hot, and the tasters inside and outside the province were endless. In 1960, three years of natural disasters, shortage of materials, poor harvest of crops, cut off supply of raw materials, pearl balls in name only, switched to selling other snacks, and then quietly disappeared shortly thereafter. Until 1981, presided over by the third generation of Zhang Herong, Pearl Yuanzi reappeared in a classical building next to the Daci'en Temple on Dongfeng Road, renamed "Pearl Yuanzi Restaurant", in addition to the signature of the hand - Pearl Yuanzi, more than 40 kinds of flavor snacks were added, the first floor sold to entertain individual customers, and the second floor operated set menus and banquets. In 1990, Pearl Dumpling won the Gold Award for Famous Snacks, in 1992 it won the title of "Chengdu Famous Snack", and in 1995 it was awarded the "Chinese Time-honored Brand" famous store by the Ministry of Trade. However, after the 1990s, due to the development of the city, the quaint and elegant building was demolished and replaced by a high-rise building, and the pearl ball disappeared again, and it is nowhere to be found.
An old store of nearly a hundred years, after experiencing social changes and sinking several times, finally came to an end. However, this dish has not been lost, many businesses engaged in desserts rush to imitate, hotel restaurants are also innovative and improved, blooming everywhere in the country of Tianfu, although still to Chengdu's pearl balls as authentic, but also appeared a different flavor of pearl balls, and eventually formed the three main schools of Chuandong, Sichuan, folk, each with its own strengths, the taste is good.
Shaped like a pearl, it is full and round
Jiangxi, Hubei two provinces also have pearl balls, are mainly salty, Jiangxi people are mostly water chestnut fattened pork minced, seasoned after wrapping glutinous rice steamed, in addition to being able to taste the tenderness of pork, there is also the crispness of the water chestnut particles; Hubei is mostly fish, pork three seven open ratio mixed into filling, wrapped glutinous rice steamed, the finished product is fresh and sweet and not greasy. I used to sell pearl balls in my own small shop, according to the Hubei practice, although most of them are northern diners, but they are not uncomfortable because they are glutinous rice, but they are very popular. This is enough to show that whether it is Sichuan, Jiangxi or Hubei, or all over the country, the only criterion for measuring food is taste, and this snack, which has been repeatedly improved after the baptism of time, is the fusion of the wisdom and inspiration of the craftsmen, and is a model of seamless docking between local food cultures.
It is particularly worth mentioning that Mr. Zhang Zhongyou, a Sichuan cooking master known as Confucian chef, on the basis of the traditional pearl dumplings, skillfully integrated eight kinds of ingredients such as walnuts, peanuts, candied cherry, sugar winter melon, sesame seeds, ham, etc., and personally created the "Brewed Eight Treasure Pearl Dumplings", which directly raised this snack from the folk and a fireworks to the level of the exquisite banquet of the state banquet, and also made the pearl dumplings rejuvenated again and famous.