Tan Yanmin is a foodie himself and often has his own unique views on cooking. He often passed on this insight to his own chefs to improve their cooking skills. Now there is also a saying that Tan is a "designer" who has achieved zu'an cuisine, and is proficient in food and scripture in his brain; Cao Jingchen, the home cook, is an "engineer" with exquisite cooking skills. The two have a clear division of labor: Tan only talks about not doing, Cao only does not say, and the two cooperate tacitly. Some strange ways of eating, classic sayings, fashionable practices, through Tan Yi said, Chef Cao can understand without leaving the house, make it on the table, and its taste is wonderful. At that time, there was a legend in Nanjing: "If you want to feast on President Tan, you need to invite Chef Cao first." ”
Cao Jingchen's specialty dish, red simmered shark fin, is Tan Yanmin's favorite. Every time Cao Jingchen simmered the shark fin, he always waited next to Tan Yanmin to listen to Tan Yanmin's opinion after tasting it. Tan Yanmin will evaluate the heat, knife technique, taste, etc., not only shark fin soup, but also other dishes. Cao Jingchen gradually improved according to Tan Yanmin's opinion, prompting his craft to reach the point of pure fire.
(Image from Baidu)
Tan Yanmin himself can also cook, although the action and materials are not as skilled as the chef, but he can grasp the direction of cooking. According to Tan Yanmin's eldest son Tan Boyu's book "My Family Tan Kitchen", it is recorded that during the big banquet or sometimes new dishes are served, Cao Si must eavesdrop on the criticism of the first public after the curtain, thinking that it is the norm, and his humility is so.
I once found a menu in Hunan, which is a record of Cao Jingchen making shark fin soup: first boil four pounds of dried shark fin in cold water for three hours, then remove the crispy bones from the sand after cooling, and replace the belly meat with cold soup and then boil. Change the water twice a day and boil it twice, so repeat it for three days, and the fishy smell is removed before it can be used. After that, take a large tile bowl and use 500 grams of pork belly to the bottom, put the fish fin on the pork belly, and then put a whole 1000-1500 grams of fat hen, and also put 1000-1500 grams of pork knuckle on the shark fin. Add 250 grams of shochu and drizzle over chicken and elbows. Add water to submerge the elbow as a good, put onion, ginger, a little salt, after boiling on high heat, move to a low heat simmer for four hours, wait for the shark fin to melt, the thick juice through the wings when the end, the fat chicken, pork knuckle, pork belly to remove the other use, only take the shark fin on the plate, and then take the thick juice in the bowl plus 50 grams of chicken fat, under the pot crisp cover on the shark fin.
This is the practice of shark fin soup in Hunan, but it is different in Nanjing, without adding pork knuckle but adding ham, which is stronger than pork knuckle. Many books say that Cao Jingchen made zu'an shark fin and added ham, which was done in Nanjing, and returned to Hunan with pork knuckle. He used ham at Tan Yanmin's house and pork knuckle when he opened his own shop, because Hunan does not produce ham.
Cao Jingchen, the cook, has three key words to cook: roll, rotten, and light. These three key points are actually the practice of Huaiyang cuisine. Although Cao Jingchen is a native of Hunan, after many years of tan yanmin's tutelage, he has made Huaiyang cuisine and Cantonese cuisine pure and pure. His cooking skills are to fry and stir-fry with a martial fire, stew and simmer with a low flame, and charcoal, firewood, and coal have their own functions. There is also the combination of condiments, green onion, garlic, pepper, sauce, salt, vinegar, tempeh complement each other, not sloppy.
For example, Liuyang's tempeh is famous throughout the country and has more flavor than tempeh in other places. Then when Cao Jingchen cooks, he should use Liuyang tempeh and never use tempeh from other places instead. Tan Yanmin and his cook Cao Jingchen have the same requirements in this regard, and they must be exquisite in the use of materials, not forced.
The Zuan series of dishes is worth mentioning Zuan tofu. When Tan Yanmin was serving as an overseer in Changsha, he specially selected a tofu shop for couples surnamed Liu, and the tofu made in this shop was not taken out, but was specially used by major mansions. The soybeans used to make tofu are "June Burst" and "Ten Grains and Five Pairs" in Youxian County, Hunan Province, and these soybeans are the same size. The water used for making is Changsha shajing water, and then brine with the stone point of Xiangtan, which looks like an ordinary tofu, but the tenderness of the food is incomparable.
Zu'an tofu is done by breaking the water tofu into a pulp and filtering it into a sieve, taking a fat chicken breast and mashing it and adding it to the tofu. Then steam the chicken cake in the same way as the honeycomb eye, then heat it, then cool it and cut it into domino pieces with a knife, then fry it in the pot with fat chicken soup for a while, take it out and steam it with a clay bowl and chicken soup, squeeze out the steamed soup before serving, collect the juice with chicken soup, and then cover it with chicken fat. When you think about it, you will feel delicious, and the role of the honeycomb eye is to collect the soup into the tofu, which is more delicious.
Someone asked Tan Yanmin, what is the difference between Zu'an tofu and other tofu? Tan Yanmin was very proud of this dish, saying that although tofu is a common thing, George's ingredients are not cheap. Because the mushroom is indispensable, you must not use mushrooms (shiitake mushrooms) to impersonate. The original taste of pure chicken soup, chicken must use native chicken, too old chicken can not work, too tender chicken can not work, can not be substituted, holding layer chicken can not be used; tofu should be small grinding, with salt brine points.
In the early 1980s, I was teaching at the Youyu Middle School in Youyang, Chongqing, where there was a Youshui River that flowed from Hubei and flowed all the way to Dongting Lake. The soybeans on both sides of the Youshui River grow particularly well, and the tofu made is well-known throughout the country, which is both fragrant and tender. During the New Year's Festival, the wealthier families in the county town will drive to Nading tofu and get it home before Chinese New Year's Eve. It can be said that one side of the water and soil to achieve one side of tofu, but also the achievement of one side of the person, including the girls in this place are skin color like tofu, so we call the beautiful girls in this place tofu Xishi.