Old Chengdu sweet water surface
Walking to all corners of Chengdu, food is the most non-lacking, and snacks such as cold powder, cold cakes, dan dan noodles and so on in northern Sichuan are enough for diners to stop here. In Chengdu's traditional snacks, the "man" in Sichuan snacks should have a place.
The "manhood" in this Sichuan snack is the Chengdu cuisine we are going to introduce today - sweet water noodles.
▲ Sweet water surface
Why call it "manly"? That has to start with its own characteristics. The noodles on the sweet water surface are as thick as chopsticks, and the diameter is 0.7 cm square when cutting, which is a distinctive thick noodle.
In addition to the thick lines, strength and toughness are also important factors that make it have this title. As early as the 20th century, there was a famous bamboo branch lyric singing: "Go out for a long time to visit the tired bow shoes, three sisters and six aunts come together." The most favorite is to pull the sweet water surface by hand, chewing and sitting on the street. ”
The foodie radar is searching for locations
Where can you eat noodles that are already mouth-watering just by listening to the descriptions? Today Xiaohe brings a century-old brand of Chengdu Wenshu Monastery - Zhang Liang powder from Dongzikou.
This family has three words: "old shop", "old man", "old taste".
How did such a popular, time-honored signature dish come about? Take a look at it today!
Delicious reveals
01
— Kneading the dough —
Sweet water noodles are handmade, kneading the dough with a little salt to increase strength, adding water in batches, the ratio of flour to water is about 2:1.
The temperature of the water is also exquisite, and it is necessary to use about 45 degrees of warm water in winter to keep the temperature of the dough at about 30 ° C.
Knead the dough repeatedly so that the flour and water mix well.
Knead the dough three times, each time brushing a layer of cooked oil on the dough to prevent the moisture on the surface of the dough from evaporating, and each time waking up the dough is about half an hour.
In the process of kneading the dough, it is necessary to constantly tear and recombine, so that the noodles will be more powerful.
After kneading the dough three times, the rolling pin rolls out a large dough crust and cuts it into a noodle with a diameter of 0.7 cm square.
The cut noodles need to be rolled by hand.
02
— Boiled noodles —
Then put it in boiling water, cook until 3-5 minutes, just cut off the raw to fish up, because the sweet water surface is raw noodles, so it will be very strong and chewy to eat. The noodles also need to be brushed with a layer of cooked clear oil to allow them to cool naturally.
03
— Seasoning —
The distinctive thick noodles, wrapped in ingredients and eaten in the mouth, are quite chewy. The spices are a combination of spicy and sweet, and they do not suppress each other's taste. If noodles are the hallmark of this bowl of sweet water, then the copied sweet noodle sauce is its soul.
Prepare brown sugar, sanna, gardenia, coriander, cinnamon, star anise, grass fruit, red soy sauce, cumin, licorice, monk fruit, fragrant fruit, cloves, and grass.
The spice powder is made from dozens of different spices polished, is the source of the unique aroma of the sweet noodle sauce, stirred at any time in the pot with a spoon to avoid brown sugar paste, 15 minutes after filtering out impurities.
Under the red soy sauce, and finally pour in the fully dissolved corn starch, slowly stir and mix evenly, the whole process must not be stopped, must be stirred non-stop, to avoid corn starch heating agglomeration.
The boiled sweet noodle sauce is brownish red in color, strong in aroma, and very rich in entrance layers.
After the cooling noodles are thick and strong, more than a dozen kinds of seasonings are added in different proportions, and one person can hit more than 4,000 bowls of sweet water per day during the peak period of seasoning.
Sweet water noodles are coming!
"When you first enter it, you will feel slightly sweet, the more you chew it when you chew it, the more you chew it, the aroma of peppercorns is accompanied by a rich garlic flavor, this sweet with spicy, spicy with fragrant taste is really unforgettable, sweet, salty and spicy taste, and the strong taste of chewing teeth has never changed." That's what sweet water tastes like.
"Meticulousness can make a bowl of sweet water that has been passed down for a hundred years." What has changed is only time, but what has not changed is the taste of inheritance.
There are too many misunderstandings about Sichuan cuisine: Sichuan cuisine = hot pot?
There are even many people who think that Sichuan cuisine is a civilian cuisine, and it is difficult to climb the elegant hall.
To trace back to the true traditional Sichuan cuisine, it is not to stimulate the taste buds with crude spices or even artificial additives.
It is a traditional cuisine that is mild, richly seasoned, skilled and deeply culturally rich.
But these traditional delicacies are being forgotten by us...
In this era of rampant materialism, innovative and creative cuisine has swept the public table, and traditional cuisine is in the midst of a storm.
Those once glorious traditional Sichuan dishes have gradually faded from our sight due to complicated methods or rare ingredients.
Some of those old dishes have been handed down to this day, and the roots and veins of Chinese cuisine can be found from them;
Some are dusty in the old menu, turning into slowly yellowing photos in books and the taste of memories.....
Classics deserve attention
Tradition deserves to be followed
Craftsmanship deserves to be passed on
Traditional cuisine is fading away, showcasing "traditional Sichuan cuisine that is about to disappear"
We base ourselves on tradition and embrace culture, not to let traditional Sichuan cuisine become the past tense, to record and retain tradition with a camera, to show the heritage of old-school traditional Sichuan cuisine to subvert your perception of Sichuan cuisine
What will the food we be able to eat in ten years' time? Maybe there will be fewer and fewer authentic traditional delicacies... But there is always a group of people who, while adapting to the changes of the times, are adhering to the most essential traditional culture and carrying forward on the basis of inheritance.
将川菜的名字走出四川，发扬光大。 In order to protect and pass on, they had to make changes. This may sound a bit contradictory, but it is an immutable truth...
They know that food that is stacked by time will be more mellow.
Passing on this culinary ingenuity ~ preserving the essence of Sichuan cuisine ~ is the mission of craftsmen and us.
Traditional Sichuan cuisine should not be "shelved", inheritance and ingenuity do not conflict with this era, as long as it is done well enough, there will be a market and recognition.