In addition to water and salt, no other condiments, and no dipping sauce, is such lamb delicious? Representatives of the public who participated in this year's Shanghai real estate quality lamb tasting and appraisal activities will tell you: delicious. This kind of cooking can best test the quality of lamb, whether there is a smell, whether it is soft enough, whether it is delicate, and whether it is self-aware.
The selected lamb comes from 12 cooperatives or enterprises engaged in mutton production in Shanghai, although the final awards are limited, but many citizens who participated in the blind test said that "boiled lamb" fully reflects the excellent quality of real estate lamb, and in terms of taste and taste, the products of each cooperative are difficult to distinguish, and can only be selected.
This is precisely the result that Shanghai hopes to achieve by promoting the structural reform of the agricultural supply side and promoting the development of the meat and sheep industry in the direction of high quality, high quality and high standards. The Shanghai Municipal Agricultural and Rural Committee said that Shanghai people eat mutton, no loss to the northwest, since the autumn, the real estate mutton concentrated on the market, quite popular in the market. Judging from last year's data, Shanghai consumes about 3 million meat sheep per year, while real estate meat sheep account for only 5%. In the market, white cut lamb, braised lamb, lamb haggis soup, etc., are very popular cooking methods for the public.
Chong understands that goats have value beyond "eating"
The amount of local meat and sheep breeding in Shanghai is not large, but Shanghainese people have hundreds of years of history of eating sheep, and there are great differences in lamb practices in different regions: Songjiang, Fengxian, Jinshan and other places in the south are usually boiled in white, and white-cut lamb pays attention to the original taste; Jiading, Baoshan and Chongming in the north prefer braised lamb with thick oil and red sauce. In Western restaurants, there are also fixed consumer groups for various types of lamb chops.
Why do Shanghainese love to eat sheep? Why are sheep eaten differently in different regions? Let's start with the Chongqing goat.
Chongming has been raising goats for more than a thousand years. According to historical records and folklore, when Chongming first formed a sandbar in the middle of the tide, poor farmers from Zhenjiang and Jurong went to the islands to herd cattle and sheep, and then farmed around the shore.
Chongming raises sheep, because it is found that in addition to eating sheep, there are other values, almost the whole body is a treasure: the "fine light front" hair of the neck is straight and elastic, which is a good raw material for making pens. A handful of "Fine Light Peak" hair plucked from the neck of a Chongqing goat can be sold for the same value as an ordinary goat. As early as the 1970s, "Fine Light Peak" sold well in Japan, Southeast Asia and other countries and regions, and was very famous in the international market. In addition, sheep horn can be used in medicine, sheep intestines can be used for medical sutures, sheep oil is the raw material of the fat industry, sheep hooves are efficient fertilizer, and internal organs are good feed for mink.
Therefore, at the end of the 1970s, Chongming was approved by the relevant departments of the central government and the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee as a national key foreign trade export base, and goats were listed as the first export projects. According to the "Liberation Daily" at the end of 1979, according to the plan at that time, "it is expected that by 1985, the number of Chongming goats will reach one million, and the export of wool will be exchanged for foreign exchange of 1.25 million US dollars, providing 1,000 tons of mutton for the market and increasing the income of members by more than 1.3 million yuan." In the 1970s and 1980s, Chongming goats were important export-earning products.
By the 1990s, the edible value of Chongming goats was further expanded. People found that Chongming goat and old baijiu are two treasures in Chongming's traditional native products, but because of the location in the ground, they are trapped on the island, making it difficult to taste even the downtown area of Shanghai, which is only a river away. As a result, Chongming goat breeding and finished product development were included in the municipal government's vegetable basket project, and lamb series foods such as red braised lamb, white cut lamb, and mutton cakes continued to enter the first food, Lianhua Supermarket, Agricultural, Industrial and Commercial Supermarket and other urban stores, making the delicious taste of Chongming goats spread farther and farther.
After entering the new century, Chongming goats have become an important development project in the restructuring of the agricultural industry. Animal husbandry scientific and technological personnel to carry out technical research, in addition to the implementation of Chongming local breeds to carry out the selection and breeding, but also from abroad to introduce excellent Boer sheep and Saneng sheep, cross-breeding to breed a new type of meat sheep breeds. At the same time, the government department has built a breeding sheep base to provide farmers with good seeds and guide farmers to use fish ponds, orchards, shore slopes, forest belts, etc. to implement natural stocking. In 2014, Shanghai set local standards for Chongming goats, which provided standard support for the sustainable development of this Shanghai specialty.
The standard points out that The standard states that the goat must be able to adapt to the humid and hot summer climate of Chongming Island, the dry and cold monsoon climate in winter, and have strong disease resistance, but also mature early, have a high reproductive rate and delicious meat. In addition, the hair on the ram's neck needs to be elastic. The standard stipulates that the adult ram of "Chongming Goat" produces 0.35 kg of hair, and the meat production performance (slaughter rate) of the first-year-old sheep is 46.3% to 48.5%.
Zhu Yong, head of the technology promotion section of the Shanghai Chongming Animal Disease Prevention and Control Center, also said that not all white goats are "Chongming goats", and there is a trick to identification: first look at the color, Chongming goats are pure white. Secondly, looking at the horn type, Masamune Chong understands that the goat has small horns and is backwards in an inverted figure-eight shape. Then look at the ears, and understand that the goat has small ears that stand up. Finally, Chongqing understands that the tail of the goat is very distinctive and naturally upwards. Overall, Chongming goats are medium to small, with adult rams about 35 kg and ewes about 30 kg.
Why do farmers like to eat lamb in the summer?
Another quite distinctive area of Shanghai for raising and eating sheep is Zhuangxing Town in Fengxian District. The history of sheep breeding in Zhuanghang can be traced back to the Yuan Dynasty. Zhuangxing has abundant rainfall and lush water and grass, which is very suitable for the growth of Zhuangxing grass goats that feed on grass. From the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty, most of the farmers in Zhuanghang Town kept a few sheep as an important food supplement for the locals.
In terms of eating habits, Zhuang Xing SanfuTian eating mutton is the biggest feature, which has been passed down for more than 100 years and has been selected as the intangible cultural heritage of Shanghai. Residents here not only eat lamb in the summer, but also generally eat lamb early. For example, Zhuangxing Town will hold the Fuyang Festival in the summer all these years, and local residents will go to the restaurant early in the morning, order a pot of shochu, eat a few plates of lamb, and must sweat to be refreshed.
It turns out that "eating lamb in the morning" has a lot to do with farming culture. A hundred years ago, locals ate hot meat at dawn to save enough calories to cope with a day's agricultural activities – in fact, many residents in the suburbs of Shanghai had the habit of eating meat in the morning. Nowadays, material abundance, people no longer have to rely on a bowl of meat in the morning to undertake a day's work, but this habit is still passed down.
As for the reason for eating lamb in the summer, it is believed that "a bowl of soup for the sheep does not need to be prescribed". Many people think that lamb is hot and not suitable for summer consumption, but there is actually a certain misunderstanding. In Chinese medicine, there is a saying that "spring and summer nourish the yang, autumn and winter nourish the yin", summer is the season when the yang qi is the most vigorous, and then the yang qi begins to gradually decay. Lamb has the therapeutic effect of warm supplementation, which can timely and effectively replenish the consumption in the body, which is more suitable for people with weak constitution. At the same time, there is heat accumulation in the human body, at this time eating lamb accompanied by shochu, sweating after eating, which can dispel the heat in the body and release toxins in the body. Therefore, xia ya mutton is both a delicacy and a medicinal food. Of course, Chinese medicine also reminds people with a hot constitution that it is not advisable to eat lamb in the summer.
The cooking method of Zhuangxing lamb is also very distinctive, the most traditional is white cut lamb, sheep four treasures and sheep's head soup. Among them, white cut lamb is the most authentic cooking method of Zhuangxing lamb, because white cut lamb can best reflect the original taste of lamb, and old diners who know the scriptures only need a small plate of fine salt, which is enough to feel the deliciousness of lamb. Delicious white-cut lamb is a test of cooking, as white-cut lamb cannot be made with spices and relies entirely on the experience of the spoonman. A well-known local chef revealed the secret that the white cut lamb "must use the soil stove, the bigger the soup, the better, the firewood should be added to the camphor wood, adding water must be boiling water, simmering for three and a half hours is the best, out of the pot to be placed on the taro leaf ..." In addition, the mutton fat will condense after cooling, the taste is easy to appear greasy, so the best time to taste the Zhuangxing lamb is when it is fresh out of the pot, when the cream is semi-dissolved, the most you can feel the fat of the lamb.
There are also good lambs in these places in Shanghai
In addition to Chongming and Fengxian, there are many areas in Shanghai with special lamb.
For example, Putuo has a history of more than 200 years and is really like mutton. According to the "Zhenru Zhenzhi", Zhenru mutton reached its peak during the Qianlong period, and there are more than 30 mutton restaurants in just one zhenru old street. Before the founding of New China, 6 mutton restaurants in the town, such as Zhao and Li, were the most famous. In 1958, 6 lamb houses were merged into one and named "Zhenru Lamb House". Zhenru mutton handicraft is also an intangible cultural heritage of Shanghai, which is divided into two types: white cut and braised. Among them, the white cut lamb method is very exquisite, there are more than a dozen before and after the process, each order can not be wrong, and pay attention to the "old soup": when the pot is placed, the oldest lamb is placed at the bottom, the internal organs are placed on the top; each time the soup of the lamb is cooked, the mutton oil should be preserved after skimming off, as the "old soup" is repeatedly cooked, and the more it is cooked, the more mellow it is... Although the braised lamb recipe is relatively close to now, the secret is a seasoning recipe composed of more than 10 kinds of ingredients.
For example, Songjiang has Zhangze mutton. It is said that Zhang Ze mutton is related to the famous General Of the Yuan Dynasty. He served as the supreme administrator of the Susongjia region and garrisoned the Funan district of Songjiang Province. Since Sha Tuo is a Mongolian and loves to eat mutton, a large number of goats are raised in the Songnan region for consumption, and gradually formed a lamb cooking technique with Jiangnan flavor.
In addition, Minhang's Shippo lamb is also famous. Shippo lamb is most distinctively braised. The exquisite shop will use refined lamb with rock sugar, American ginseng, red dates, fine soy sauce, etc., and simmer for 4 to 6 hours to make the lamb soft and tender, sweet and fragrant.
Shanghainese love to eat lamb, and the market is changing
Citizens love lamb, and the market changes in response. In order to further improve the level and scale of real estate meat and sheep breeding, this year, Shanghai's scientific and technological agricultural project around meat and sheep breeding was officially approved, aiming to establish a national meat and sheep core breeding farm, mutton green certification, and screening excellent hybrid combinations of Chongming goats.
Zhou Zhiqiang, president of the Shanghai Special Breeding Industry Association, said that at present, there are more than 20,000 sheep farmers in the city, raising about 300,000 sheep per year, mainly white goats, lake sheep, black goats and other breeds. Among them, Chongming goat is one of the largest breeds of meat sheep in Shanghai, because the white goat has strong adaptability, high reproductive rate and delicate meat quality, so it is very popular with the market. In recent years, in order to fix the excellent traits of chongqing goats, under the promotion of government departments and professional guidance, Shanghai has determined the overall idea of government seed protection source and enterprise development, and through science and technology to revitalize agriculture, to provide technical support for the breeding and processing of high-quality meat sheep.
From the perspective of breeding technology, advanced technology and traditional experience complement each other. A number of large-scale meat and sheep farmers (enterprises) in Shanghai have established modern sheep houses, which can monitor the breeding environment in an all-round way, automatically deal with pollutants such as sheep manure, and monitor the growth status of sheep through sheep face recognition and intelligent temperature measurement. At the same time, agricultural experts have designed feeds that are more suitable for the taste of sheep. In the pastures eaten by most high-quality meat sheep, raw materials such as cereals, brans, and tubers are added to ensure the daily nutritional intake of meat sheep.
Wang Bin, general manager of Shanghai Qichuang Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd., who won the gold medal of this tasting and appraisal activity, shared his experience and said that the sheep feed they used contained peanut vines, which can meet the crude fiber needed by sheep, and there is no drug residue, so feeding is assured. They also added garlic skin to the feed to help the meat sheep digest and regulate the intestines. And these feeds are processed into granules and then fed, making meat sheep more like to eat.
From the perspective of market demand, there are also many new trends in the consumption of mutton in Shanghai, and Western-style methods such as fried and grilled lamb chops are popular among young people. This puts forward higher requirements for Shanghai's meat and sheep industry chain.
Shanghai Guzong White Goat Professional Cooperative is the first meat and sheep breeding enterprise in Shanghai to obtain green food certification, and the Chongming Eastern Goat Industry Alliance led by the establishment integrates 8 local breeding cooperatives and 2 family farms, and lamb from the Industry Alliance can be seen in well-known fresh e-commerce and quality supermarkets such as Hema Fresh, Dingdong Grocery, Daily Excellent Fresh, Century Lianhua, city supermarket and so on. Shi Weidong, chairman of the cooperative, said: "In the past, chongqingstood that goats were sold whole sheep or simply divided sales, but in recent years, farmers have increasingly found that it is not only necessary to raise sheep well, but also to develop deep processing. "Taking the Guzong brand of mutton as an example, there are 26 varieties of cold fresh, frozen and cooked food, of which there are cold and fresh lamb brisket, lamb chops, sheep scorpions and other types, frozen butterfly ribs, French leg of lamb, etc., and cooked food has braised lamb, white cut lamb and so on." This is deep processing, not only according to different cooking methods for reasonable cutting, but also to design products and flavors that can meet the needs of different scenes. Shi Weidong said.
【Extended Information】2020 Shanghai Real Estate Quality Lamb Tasting and Appraisal Activity Winner List
Column Editor-in-Chief: Wu Weiqun Text Editor: Ren Chong
Source: Author: Ren Chong