Huaiyang vegetables are salty and sweet moderate, pay attention to the original taste, pay attention to the taste of peace, take the original taste of raw materials as the main body, supplemented by the moderate blending of the five flavors, and the slight use of spices, generally will not strongly highlight the taste of a condiment or use multiple compound seasoning, so as to achieve pure taste, different taste, and clear layers. Among them, sugar plays a special role in Huaiyang cuisine.
01 Flavor enhancement
In Huaiyang cuisine, salt is used to remove the light flavor and add freshness, and sugar is intended to return to the sweet and fresh. When making salty and fresh dishes, Huaiyang cuisine chefs always like to add a little sugar, while the sugared dishes cannot taste sweet, but the taste has undergone subtle changes, and it feels more mellow and layered in the mouth. For example, the salty and fresh flavor of the dish "snow vegetable meat shredded", when stir-fried to the pot with a little sugar, the taste will be much better than the unsweetened, this is because the snow vegetables have a little bitter taste, and the addition of sugar just plays a neutralizing role. In order to facilitate stir-frying, Huaiyang cuisine chefs sometimes mix a kind of flavored water based on salty and fresh food, which is composed of salt, monosodium glutamate, sugar and boiled water in a certain proportion. When stir-frying a salty and fresh dish, scoop the flavored water directly into the pot with a hand spoon, quickly drizzle it, and the sugar in the flavored water is used to increase the freshness and taste. Huaiyang famous point "jade roasted wheat" skin is thin and transparent, the filling is turquoise, and it is sweet and fragrant to eat. The method is to blanch the green vegetables in a pot of boiling water, fish them out and chop them, mix them with salt, sugar and cooked lard to form a filling, and then roll out the semi-cooked hot noodles into a thin skin, wrap them into a chrysanthemum shape, and decorate them with a little ham. This snack is made with white sugar to add flavor to make the filling taste oily and sweet.
02 Relieves sourness
When cooking dishes, adding an appropriate amount of sugar can relieve the sour taste. For example, when cooking vegetables with soy sauce, some of the sugar in the soy sauce is decomposed into a substance with a sour taste, and if you add some sugar, there is no sour taste. When making lion's head grits, Huaiyang chefs are accustomed to putting a little sugar, precisely to alleviate the acidity of pork and make the taste of pork tend to be perfect. When making the "fresh meat bun" meat filling, add an appropriate amount of white sugar, also to improve the freshness and de-souring, so that the taste of the bun is more mellow. Huaiyang cuisine in the sweet and sour taste of the dish is more, when doing sweet and sour dishes, the ratio of sugar and vinegar should be appropriate, so that the sweet and sour in the sweet and sour dish is moderate, not greasy, the taste is rich and delicate, will not make any kind of seasoning appear particularly abrupt. For example, the "sweet and sour ribs" of Huaiyang cuisine, its color is oily brown, it is not thick or light to eat, sweet and sour, the taste is peaceful, suitable for all ages. When making Huaiyang cold dish "sausage", a certain proportion of white sugar should also be added, this is because the Huaiyang area is riverside and the sea, the air humidity is large, and the sausages in winter are placed outside to dry naturally, and adding sugar can prevent the sausage from becoming sour due to humidity during the air drying process.
03 Pressure odor
When cooking dishes, Huaiyang cuisine chefs like to use sugar to suppress the peculiar smell, so that the taste of the dish is rich and more suitable for the public. For example, "fried fat sausage" is generally sweet and sour (customary called "small sweet and sour mouth", the proportion of sweet and sour is not heavy), and the use of sugar and vinegar is intended to balance the taste when cooking. When grilling striped fish, blue fish, yellow fish and other fresh seas, more sugar is used to cover up the fishy smell of fish, river mud, etc., such as "braised striped fish" is to add an appropriate amount of sugar in the braised process to remove the fishy smell. When roasting rabbit meat, mutton, beef, pig's head, old goose and other raw materials with a heavy fishy taste, adding an appropriate amount of sugar can go to the taste, such as "braised old goose" when adding a little sugar when starting the pot, you can suppress the smell of the goose, but you can only add a little, add more will lose the original taste of the goose. In addition, when making the cold dish "five-spice sauce beef", a small amount of sugar should also be added, which is intended to remove the cheeks and make the beef more palatable to eat cold.
04
In Huaiyang cuisine, it is indispensable to hook the mustache, and there are many techniques of the hook, the common ones are "wrapping the mustard", "paste", "flowing mustard", "glass mustard" and so on. In addition, there is a unique "tapestries" technique in Huaiyang cuisine, which does not rely on the powder to concentrate, but is formed naturally. When firing dishes rich in fat and protein, it is generally not hooked, but to the remaining soup, add sugar or rock sugar, and collect the juice over high heat, so that the color of the dish is bright and the taste is more rich and mellow. For example, the production of "braised river eel", is to burn the river eel meat until soft and rotten and one-third of the soup remains, add sugar to collect the juice, until the soup is viscous, tightly wrapped in the river eel, the color is bright, you can come out of the pot, the dish is thick as glue, smooth as lacquer, not rolled, not broken, rich and fragrant. In addition, when making some dishes with extremely fast cooking speed such as "fried river shrimp" and "sweet and sour crisp eel", it is also necessary to use sugar to form a self-made mustard, such as "sweet and sour crisp eel" is to pour the fried crisp eel into the thick marinade with soy sauce, cooking wine, salt, sugar, balsamic vinegar, etc. Together to quickly mix well, and drizzle sesame oil on the pot. Because the sugar plays a viscous role, the crisp eel with the sweet and sour marinade can be kept for a day without being soft, and the color will also remain bright, which is an effect that cannot be achieved by the starch hooking technique.
05 Coloring
In Huaiyang cuisine, coloring with sugar is widely used. The first is the sugar color, chefs are accustomed to using sugar to boil sugar color when making braised dishes, so that the cooked dishes are bright and good-looking, tempting appetite. It is best to use rock sugar to boil sugar, because the color of rock sugar is more red and bright, of course, white sugar and brown sugar can also be used. Boiling sugar color can be oil or water, oil heat transfer fast, has the role of lubricating the frying pan, boiled sugar color red and bright. The sugar color boiled out with water, due to the coking effect, is easy to stick to the bottom of the pot, and the sugar color that comes out of the boiling is easy to blacken. In addition, there is no need to worry about greasy when boiling sugar in oil, because during the frying process, the sugar and oil have a neutralizing reaction. When boiling sugar color, the most worrying thing is the temperature problem, the temperature is too high, so that the rock sugar is rapidly coking, resulting in a large number of foams, and these bubbles will be scorched and bitter when they encounter high temperatures. The general regular operation is to put cold oil into the pot, then add rock sugar, and add a little water, simmer over medium heat until the rock sugar melts, and if there is a little foaming, it should be changed to a low heat. It should be noted that the fire can not be too fierce, which will cause the icing sugar to become bitter and black; after switching to a small fire, it is necessary to use a spoon to stir continuously to reduce the temperature of the sugar liquid, so as to achieve "coking without carbonization"; wait until the sugar solution is turned over densely vesicles, and can be pulled, and then continue to boil until the color is golden red, and then quickly pour water into the water to mix well to get the sugar color. The second is used to color grilled and fried dishes. For example, "fork roast duck" should be brushed with caramel, blown dry and then baked to color, and the five-spice sauce chicken should also be brushed with a layer of caramel before frying, so that it can be fried to make a sauce red. The third is to smoke and color with sugar. That is, put white sugar or brown sugar and tea leaves, wood chips, pots, etc. into the pot to heat and smoke the dishes to achieve a bright red color on the surface of the dishes. For example, "smoked white fish" is to descale the gills of the white fish, dissect the abdomen to remove the internal organs and wash, use a dry cloth to absorb the water, shave a one-shaped flower knife, and then use pepper salt and MONOSG to marinate for 30 minutes after washing the surface, and spread the soy sauce and set aside. Put the ginger, pot, black tea, and sugar into the wrought iron pot, put the barbed wire, spread the green onion leaves, then place the white fish, cover and seal it tightly (the fish meat is required to be about 3 cm away from the lid), and then use a low heat until the yellow smoke turns into white smoke, remove the lid and spread the sesame oil, that is. In addition, when making some baking points, in order to make them bright red and tempting appetite, it is also necessary to use the smoking method, such as when making "diamond navel", it is necessary to smoke with brown sugar.