The chicken stewed mushrooms of the northeast people, the large plate chicken of the Xinjiang people, the spicy chicken of the Sichuan people, the Wenchang chicken of the Hainan people... Each region has its own representative chicken.
And Cantonese people are undoubtedly the people who stand at the top of the chain of chicken contempt: sand ginger chicken, soy sauce chicken, green onion oil chicken, bean sauce chicken, crystal chicken, flower carved chicken, three cups of chicken, fragrant concubine chicken, gel chicken... Cantonese people have countless ways to arrange a chicken clearly.
▲ Guangdong, also known as the big chicken leg province, the geographical shape looks like a chicken leg, which is destined to be the character of Guangdong people who love to eat.
In Guangdong, call a chicken
No chicken can get out of Guangdong alive.
The whole of Southern China and every province must pay tribute to Guangdong to meet the huge demand for chickens in Guangdong.
Festive worship? If "worship god and see the chicken", the Cantonese people waved their hands and did not worship; the New Year? Chinese New Year's Eve reunion chicken, the opening chicken of the second day of the New Year to understand... Chicken not only contracts all the important occasions of Cantonese people, but also two pieces of daily morning tea, and the standard must also be "steamed chicken claws with soy sauce".
▲ Steamed chicken feet in soy sauce, fried and steamed chicken feet, with the concocted soy sauce, soft and fragrant, a suck will shed the bone
In the film and television dramas in the Cantonese-speaking area, chickens are also seen everywhere.
"New Oolong Courtyard", "Tang Bohu Dian Qiu Xiang"... Chickens are deeply engraved in the minds of the people of every greater Guangdong region. If you want to understand Cantonese people, you must first learn to eat chicken like Cantonese people.
Go to Guangdong, how to elegantly and not be used as a mountain cannon to call a chicken?
If it is a daily chicken, it is simple.
Follow the queue of Lao Guang quietly waiting in front of the delicatessen, looking at the rows of salt-baked chicken, white cut chicken, first do not drool, wait for packing home and then the original form is not too late;
▲ Guangzhou delicatessen, roast chicken, white cut chicken is the standard of the delicatessen.
If it is a banquet, it is necessary to understand the saying "no chicken is no feast".
When necessary, it is also necessary to order a "yitou dish" with full cards and expressing auspicious wishes, such as dragon and phoenix Chengxiang, fire phoenix swallowing wings, yellow wine phoenix swallowing pigeons...
▲ Fire phoenix swallowing wings, that is, chicken pot wings, is often used to tease "rub a meal". Mr. Zhang Yi'an, a republic of China foodie, said: "The recipes in Cantonese restaurants often refer to chickens
For example, the "phoenix reincarnation" with an atmospheric mood and a magnificent scene is actually the pepper pork belly chicken of the Hakka family. However, the phoenix cast the wrong fetus and was wrapped in a whole pig's belly by the Cantonese.
▲ Pork belly chicken,
After simmering in a casserole dish for a few hours, the tender chicken can be seen again.
A pot of rich milky white broth, soaked in tender chicken and chewy pork belly, take a sip, and the warmth spreads in the body with the smell of pepper.
If the store has a heart, it will often be made into a pork belly chicken hot pot. After eating pork belly and chicken, pour some bamboo, beef balls and your favorite shabu-shabu, and at the end of the day, a pot rice can completely fill the empty stomach.
▲ Pork belly wrapped chicken, also known as phoenix reincarnation, is a necessary pre-dinner soup for banquets in Hakka areas of Guangdong. The soup is thick and clear, with a strong medicinal and peppery aroma.
But don't think that if you know when and on what occasions Cantonese people eat chicken, you think you understand them. Choosing a chicken of what flavor, so that Cantonese people feel that "chicken has a chicken flavor", is the most important rule for Guangdong people to eat chicken.
Prefer the original? Find white cut chicken, chicken in hot water to drag cooked but also "over the cold river", clear butter bright, smooth skin meat, is every Cantonese people love to eat the basic model;
▲ White cut chicken
Love tender taste? Looking for a sauna chicken, the chicken that has been deboned and thinly sliced retains the tender taste to the greatest extent in the steam of water;
▲ Sauna chicken, in fact, steamed chicken in separate water.
Love the rich sauce? Looking for chicken with bean sauce, he died peacefully in the moisture of Puning bean sauce, the soul of chaocai, but left a memory of sauce aroma...
▲ Puning bean sauce chicken,
Like sensory stimulation and chicken flavor? Find fun gelatin chicken. "Gel" is a sound word that describes the sound of baking, and Cantonese people collectively refer to dishes cooked directly in a casserole as "gel".
Without green onions, ginger, and garlic, these three are all ingredients that are defishy and fresh, and after being fried, the flavor substances are perfectly volatilized and penetrate into the chicken. Coupled with the store's special draft gel sauce, and the use of chives and shallots, the taste is simply wonderful...
▲ The gelatinous chicken looks too appetizing.
So, if you can't find a signature chicken at a Cantonese restaurant, you can call the boss and ask, "Will you make chicken?"
Why Cantonese people like to eat chicken so much
Cantonese people have taken advantage of the time and place in the matter of eating chicken.
Among the 27 kinds of local famous chickens in the country, Guangdong occupies three seats: "Qingyuan Ma Chicken, Huiyang Beard Chicken, Zhaoqing Apricot Blossom Chicken".
▲ The characteristics of Qingyuan chicken: tough skin, firm meat, easy to taste.
In addition to these, in the 180,000 square kilometers of land, each county and city running chickens everywhere are different, what Luoding Pavilion native chicken introduced from Guangxi, mountain breeding Xinyi Huaixiang chicken...
The white feathered chickens in the chicken world have become the most inferior race in Guangdong, and they are only wrapped in paste to make quick food to fill their hunger.
Even locally produced high-quality chicken has subtle differences in the eyes of Cantonese people.
Dipping, smoking, salting, stewing, hanging, steaming, gelling, shabu-shabu, brine, drunkenness... Summoning a group of Cantonese people from different regions,
There are countless ways to eat chicken, but there must be one in the Cantonese style: "Choose local chicken".
The tender and chewy taste of local chicken has captured countless Cantonese people, and Cantonese people have not treated local chicken badly, making it the most common but noble ingredient in Cantonese cuisine.
Only Cantonese people sincerely refer to chickens as "phoenixes", not only for the sake of good color, but also because of the lofty status of chickens in Cantonese cuisine: all broths are almost used chicken; all feasts, it is impossible to lack chickens.
▲ Flower glue chicken soup, "Suiyuan Food List" wrote: "Chicken is the most powerful, the vegetables rely on it, so let the head of the Yu clan, and with his poultry attached, as the Yu clan single." And chicken dishes
Although the white cut chicken is born in the city, it carries the highest imagination of Cantonese people for the original taste.
▲ White cut chicken,
A chef who can make white cut chicken has three or five years of skill, let alone three or five years. The steps of selecting chicken, soaking chicken, crossing the cold river, and hanging chicken are simple, but after completion, the chicken meat should be cooked and not rotten, and the chicken bones should be able to just see the blood.
▲ Dip chicken,
If you can use it to make white cut chicken, you must be a good chicken. Castrated Qingyuan walking chicken, Zhanjiang three yellow chicken is the best. The taste is slightly chai, but outsiders do not understand the beauty of it;
▲ The white cut chicken dipping sauce is preferably ginger minced, which is fishy and flavorful, but there are differences everywhere. The Hakka people love onion oil the most; and the Teochew people like to use clam mustard to eat both sea and land flavors;
"If a Cantonese restaurant is good, try white cut chicken."
The avenue is simple, and the most advanced Cantonese cuisine returns to the original and returns to the basics. It seems that many Cantonese people who went to sea to work hard in the early years have spent their lives returning to their hometowns and repairing their homes as their lifelong ideals.
Where is the best chicken in Guangdong?
If a county or city or even a traditional restaurant can't come up with a sign of chicken, it is impossible to gain a foothold in Guangdong.
"Ten miles of different days, a hundred miles of different chickens", probably said guangdong is not wrong.
Huizhou, salt baked chicken
▲ Salt-baked chicken
Huizhou produces salt, there are three salt farms in the Song Dynasty; there is no shortage of chickens, and the three yellow chickens that are all over the mountains are the best local chickens.
Locals who prefer "fat, salty, cooked and fragrant" naturally combine these two ingredients in the most eager way. The three yellow chickens are wrapped in oil paper and buried in boiling hot coarse salt, "baked", the oil paper adsorbs the grease, the coarse salt forces out the fresh flavor, the chicken skin is burnt, fragrant and crisp, and the chicken is tender, smooth and refreshing.
Guangzhou, Canton chicken soup
▲ Flower glue chicken soup, Cantonese people drink chicken soup a lot of tricks. Bamboo silk chicken is the most supplemental; millet chicken soup is beneficial to the stomach and intestines, moisturizing health; flexed head chicken soup, to remove cold phlegm, stop vomiting and warmth
Some people say, "Old Fire Beautiful Soup is the great health care of the Guangdong people's soul", then Old Fire Beautiful Chicken Soup is undoubtedly the highest level of this enjoyment.
Ejiao, coconut, red dates, chestnuts, lotus seeds, mustard fruit, white lentils, five-fingered peach... All the ingredients about "supplementation" and "health" can be related to chicken. In Guangdong, the warmest sentence is nothing more than: "Come back to dinner in the evening and cook chicken soup for you."
Huazhou, sesame oil chicken
▲ Huazhou sesame oil chicken, some people say that the sesame oil chicken is the pinnacle of white cut chicken.
Huazhou sesame oil chicken belongs to a branch of the white cut chicken.
Locals say that half of the successful sesame oil chicken relies on good chicken and the other half on sesame oil. Huazhou sesame oil does not have the thick turbidity of cooked oil that has been fried, but it has a special fragrance.
When cooking, add soy sauce and salt to the oil temperature of about 150 degrees, slowly ferment and bubble, and the aroma of the sesame oil juice alone is mouth-watering. Finally, drizzle with white cut chicken, the chicken aroma is instantly stimulated, the skin is crisp and the entrance is smooth.
Shunde, sauna chicken
▲ Sauna chicken,
Shunde, located in the hinterland of the Pearl River Delta formed by the alluvial rivers, is rich in resources and food, and the original team of "China on the Tip of the Tongue" specially filmed a "Taste of Shunde" for it.
In order to seek freshness, the Shunde people moved the pot to the diners. The verb "sauna" is used to reinterpret the ancient cooking technique "steam".
The top layer of the steamer is placed with slightly bitter lotus leaves or mulberry leaves, and a layer of chicken sliced and mixed with cordyceps flowers, tangerine peels, etc., allowing diners to enjoy the wonderful moment of changing from raw to cooked as soon as possible.
Chicken is the most common and home-cooked ingredient in Guangdong. But Cantonese people can make it vivid, and many times it also acts as a nostalgia for Cantonese people.
If a chicken has an afterlife, it will definitely want to be born again in Guangdong.