More than half a month before the Mid-Autumn Festival, the sales of freshly baked Su-style mooncakes represented by fresh meat mooncakes in the Shanghai market have been rising steadily, and the single-day sales of multiple brands have exceeded 10,000. A number of production enterprises revealed that with the fame of "Seafood Meat Mooncake", the supply of fresh meat mooncakes has been extended to the whole year around the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the annual sales of a single store exceeded 1 million.
"The essence of fresh meat mooncakes is freshly baked Su-style mooncakes, but after the development of Shanghai food enterprises, the influence has exceeded many Varieties of Su-style Mooncakes, and even Suzhou people have come to Shanghai to buy this Kind of Su-style Mooncakes." Gao Kemin, executive vice president of the Shanghai Food Association, said. To some extent, the exploration of fresh meat mooncakes by Shanghai enterprises has given this traditional Chinese dim sum a new charm.
"Brand pie" and "baked pie" bring different tastes
Speaking of seafood meat mooncakes, it is indispensable to mention the Guangming Estate on Huaihai Middle Road. Before the Mid-Autumn Festival, there are always consumers who would rather wait for a few hours and try the fresh meat mooncakes here.
However, in terms of sales volume, the advantage of Cheong Kong Estate is not large, because it belongs to the "branding school": the mooncake blank is placed on a pan and burned. The master stirs two pieces of bamboo, flips them from time to time, and waits for the golden crispness on both sides of the mooncake to come out of the pot.
Here, 50 mooncakes in a pot, to be burned for thirty or forty minutes, now burned on sale, even if five or six pots are operated at the same time, the output is still limited, so there is a queue phenomenon. In the "baked pie" of freshly made mooncakes, the production efficiency is much higher.
The fresh meat mooncakes produced by Taikang, First Food, Xinya, Zhen lao dafang, etc. on the pedestrian street of East Nanjing Road all belong to the "baked pie". The sales of fresh meat mooncakes in these companies are among the best in the city, and the annual sales volume generally exceeds 1 million. Taking the real old house with the highest output as an example, during the peak period before the mid-autumn festival of the calendar, the sales of a single store in a single day exceeded 100,000. "Put the mooncake blanks in the oven and bake them, and you can bake 24 large plates and hundreds of them at a time." Cheng Chuanxi, head of production at the real old house, said.
The taste of freshly baked mooncakes in "branding" and "baking" is slightly different: the former has a crispy skin, while the latter has a softer skin. So, each has its own fans.
However, to "brand" well and "bake" to get in place, it is inseparable from the excellence of Shanghai enterprises.
Wang Jiasha's signature product, the fresh meat mooncake with squeezed vegetables, also belongs to the "branding pie", but this year's branding method is different from last year's. Liu Chongliang, the person in charge, said that the previous "branding" was similar to "frying", after pouring oil into the pan, put in the mooncake raw blank, fry over low heat, the outer skin is shiny and shiny, golden and crispy. This year's "baking" is more like "baking": the pan is brushed with a thin layer of oil, laid out the raw blank, add the pot lid to bake slowly, after more than 10 minutes, the lid is lifted, the mooncake is turned up and down with a small bamboo piece, and then baked for more than 10 minutes, then turned over, baked for a few minutes and then baked.
Why change "frying" to "baking"? The change in process is to adapt to the needs. "Today's consumers prefer less salt and less oil. Therefore, the same is the same as the branding, we tried various ways and chose the current 'baking', which can achieve the same crust effect, but reduce the amount of oil. Liu Chongliang said.
Similarly, "baking" is also exquisite. Ding Huijuan, head of the first food freshly baked mooncake counter, said that different ovens are heated differently, among which the oven that can heat 360 degrees has the best effect with the characteristics of uniform heating. At the same time, the operator needs to determine the baking time according to the composition of the filling, the moisture content and even the temperature and humidity on the baking day. First Foods' freshly baked mooncakes come in 10 flavors this year, each with a different baking time and temperature. The best sellers of the new flavors are the popcorn flavor and the cheese beef flavor, the former is filled with fruit, the baking temperature can not be too high, set to 180 ° C; the latter is solid, need to be baked at high temperature, set to 186 ° C.
"Chip grains and grains" are very exquisite
If "brand pie" and "baking pie" are the baking methods that consumers can see, then the crust and filling are the secrets in the production workshop of "Shanghai Su-style mooncake".
"Whether The Su-style mooncake is good or not, it comes down to two points: the skin and the filling. The skin should be layered and crisp, in Shanghainese, it is a bite to 'crumbs and grains', but it can not be too dry, it has a soft taste. "Jinchen Hotel is diagonally opposite Guangming Estate, and there are many old diners who comment that the fresh meat mooncakes here are better than those in Guangming Estate, and the hotel's head Pan Jiansheng modestly believes that each brand has different methods of making crusts and concocting fillings, so there are differences in taste and taste, and consumers also have personal preferences." "However, when you cut open the mooncakes that have just come out of the Jinchen Hotel, you can really see that the layers of the mooncake skins here are very clear.
The reporter further investigated and found that although the Su-style mooncake used puff pastry, the recipe of each puff pastry was different. For example, the puff pastry should be made of oil, some brands use lard, some use vegetarian oil, and some refer to the pastry method and add a little butter; even if the same lard is used, some use dry boiling method, some use water boiling method... The goal is the same – to make the baked puff pastry more fragrant.
Also, the water temperature of the noodles is exquisite. Many brands use cold water, while Old Shengchang uses 50 °C warm water, and the real old house uses boiling water. Xie Junbiao, director of new product research and development of Lao Shengchang, revealed the answer: the water temperature will affect the moisture content and wakeness of the crust, and eventually bring different tastes. Among them, the crust baked by cold water and noodles is relatively hard and crispy, and the crust made of warm water and boiling water and noodles is relatively fluffy.
The production of puff pastry is also exquisite, which can be roughly divided into several types such as "small bag crisp", "large bag puff pastry" and "mixed puff pastry". The so-called "small packet of puff pastry" is a layer of skin wrapped in a layer of puff pastry, flattened and repeatedly stacked to wake up, and then cut into pieces to make puff pastry. A "small bag of puff pastry", which can only be made for a few months of cake, is characterized by a distinct layer of puff pastry.
The "big puff pastry" is similar to the "small puff pastry" approach, except that the amount of dough and puff pastry is significantly increased. After a "large bag of puff pastry" is cut, the outer skin of dozens of months cake can be made, and the final puff pastry is formed with a higher water content, which meets the needs of some consumers for a soft taste.
As for the "mixed puff pastry", it is made by mixing the dough crust and the puff pastry together, and the final baked mooncake crust is also crispy, but it is unlikely to have the effect of "chip grains falling".
In the Shanghai freshly baked mooncake market, many up-and-comers began to rely on puff pastry to hit the market. This year, the rattan pepper beef flavor mooncake launched by Hema is not lowly evaluated on social platforms, in addition to the unique taste, the outer skin is also unique: sesame seeds, cumin and other spices are wrapped in puff pastry, consumers have not yet eaten the inner filling, they can smell the rich aroma.
Jin Ying, head of research and development at Hema Workshop, said that in recent years, the filling taste of freshly baked mooncakes has become more and more, but the crust is the same, and the crust and the filling complement each other, "The new flavor of rattan pepper beef comes from the Sichuan-style cold pot skewers that young people like, and there are sesame seeds and cumin in the cold pan skewers." Therefore, the new crust is very suitable for the new filling, and the crust innovation is a trend, not a 'pat on the head'. ”
"Traditional stuffing" is the most popular, and "innovative stuffing" is always on
Another reason why "Shanghai Freshly Baked Mooncake" is famous all over the country is that the filling has characteristics. Traditional Su-style mooncakes are mainly filled with bean paste, nuts and other vegetarian fillings, but the "Shanghai Su-style mooncakes" are represented by fresh meat mooncakes, and these years are even more daring to wrap anything into the mooncakes, and the taste is not bad.
Judging from the sales of major brands, fresh meat fillings are still the most popular, and the taste of different brands is different. Taikang's fresh meat mooncake is considered by many peers to be "very good taste", And Qian Guoqiang, director of Taikang Food Factory, was very happy to hear about it and took the initiative to share the know-how: "It all depends on 'ingenuity'." ”
Taikang was the first brand to use Eisen meat to make mooncake fillings. The cost of Aisen meat is much higher than other brands, but Qian Guoqiang said that this is determined after Taikang tried different pork brands, even if the cost has increased a lot in the past 20 years, it will not be replaced, "to maintain the stable quality of raw materials, in order to ensure the stability of our mooncake quality." "How much sauce, how much sugar, etc. are added to the filling, in each house is a "trade secret", can not be leaked; but Qian Guoqiang said, with "half frozen meat" seasoning, half the effort, "'semi-frozen meat' is not the hard state of the "frozen meat", with its own umami taste, after seasoning and baking, can fully reflect the original umami taste of pork, which is frozen meat can not reach." "In addition, the meat is stuffed with fat and lean, so that when the baking is complete, it is accompanied by soup.
The fresh meat mooncake in the Old House in the West End is also well received, and the meat is also delicious and soupy. Ni Jinhua, director of brand research and development, shared that this is also related to the baking method. The vegetarian filling of traditional Su-style mooncakes does not carry the broth, and the crust does not absorb the moisture in the filling, thus maintaining crunchiness. Fresh meat mooncakes are delicious with soup, but it is necessary to avoid the crust from absorbing the soup, which can be said to be contradictory. In order to solve this problem, in addition to adjusting the moisture content, they also tried a new baking method: after baking at high temperature, it was stored at a slightly lower temperature, so that a space was formed between the filling and the crust, and the water absorption rate of the crust was slowed down.
In addition to fresh meat filling, a variety of innovative fillings also make "Shanghai Su-style Mooncake" unique. Some of the new flavors are short-lived, but brands still enjoy it. Several brands have reported that the market for freshly baked mooncakes is highly homogenized, and if you want to stand out, you must dare to innovate.
This year, Xinya, First Foods and Hema have the most delicious freshly baked mooncakes, with about 10 of them. The reporter took stock and found that some of these flavors have been sold for several years, and some are new products this year, but there are similarities: from the perspective of raw materials, the market's acceptance of beef filling is not low, the first food and box horse have beef filling mooncakes, and the first food is the second year to push beef filling.
From the taste point of view, there is a market for "heavy taste" represented by rattan pepper, mustard, and durian. Xinya's rattan pepper fish mooncake is spicy but not spicy; Hema's mustard salmon has a special stimulus of mustard, but it is not "on the head", which was stopped last year by the epidemic and returned in the thousands of calls of users this year; and the sweet durian stuffing appeared on the menu of the first food and the box horse at the same time, and it is said that there are many middle-aged and elderly people among the buyers. Judging from the accessories, cheese is popular.
"As can be seen from these raw materials and tastes, the trend of freshly baked mooncakes is obvious, and companies naturally have to meet the needs of this part of consumers." Lu Yin, quality director and senior pastry chef of Xinya, said, "Judging from the market response, including new flavors like rattan pepper fish, although it sounds strange, because of repeated internal tests before, consumers will have 'real fragrance' feedback after purchase." This makes our innovations valuable. Ding Huijuan also said that capturing the elements that young people like is the basis for innovation, "the response is good to retain, the feedback is generally removed, this is the normal survival of the fittest, can not be because some tastes do not sell well and are not willing to innovate." Because the current classic is also the result of continuous attempts in that year. ”
Column Editor-in-Chief: Wu Weiqun Text Editor: Ren Chong
Source: Author: Ren Chong