Moringa tofu is one of the most popular dishes among diners at moringa feasts.
Prepared moringa ingredients.
Wu Weiwei's wife is repairing moringa trees.
The method of red braised turtle meat is to fry the ginger slices first, then add the turtle meat, cooking wine, soy sauce, and simmer to collect the juice.
A pot of delicious and nourishing turtle medicinal soup needs to be simmered for more than two hours.
Moringa stemmed keel soup has a sweet taste.
Steamed turtle skirts and turtle eggs are not only delicious, but also have high nutritional value.
Drizzle the minced meat on the surface of the white-seared moringa core to cover its astringency and make the taste more fragrant.
"Master Wu, a table of 'old rules', come and eat at night!" "Nice!" The person in front of him who is busy answering the order call is Wu Weiwei, the owner of the Shunxiang Hotel in Shuichuan Town, and the "old rule" mentioned on the phone is a banquet made of characteristic ingredients - moringa.
In between phone calls, Wu Weiwei told the author that due to the long time it takes to prepare the moringa feast, diners must call four hours in advance to taste a complete moringa feast. Five years ago, the moringa feast, innovatively produced by Wu Weiwei, was loved by the locals as soon as it was launched, and in just a few years, it established a good reputation and attracted a large number of foreign diners.
Moringa feasts are famous, and a nutritious and delicious turtle feast is also a household name in Waterwheel Town. Waterwheel Town has a high-quality water source blessed by nature, the water quality is clear, the ecology is good, the turtles raised are delicious, the taste is unique, and it is called "the treasure in the water".
Moringa and turtle are full of treasures, all parts can be added to the dish, moringa feast and turtle feast have also become the two "food business cards" of waterwheel town. How exactly are these delicacies "refined"? With curiosity, the author walked into the watermill town of Meixian District to find out.
●Text/He Yuanni Photo/He Senyao
origin
A moringa seed gives birth to an innovative idea
After receiving the call to order food, he immediately went to his plantation to pick fresh moringa ingredients, which is what Wu Weiwei has to do every day. "I'll pick as much as I need to add to the dish to ensure the freshness of the ingredients and the best taste of the dish." Wu Weiwei said that the planting base and his hotel are only separated by a road, and in order to pick ingredients, he has to run dozens of times a day between these two points and a line.
Speaking of his relationship with Moringa, Wu Weiwei said that he should start with a meal ten years ago.
"In 2009, I was having dinner with friends in Shenzhen, and at the dinner table, an Indian friend brought moringa seeds from his hometown and asked us to taste them." Wu Weiwei smiled and said that it was this moringa seed that changed his life.
After returning home, the strangely smelling moringa seed on the table has been lingering in Wu Weiwei's mind. He couldn't help but search for all the information about "moringa" on the Internet, and he found that moringa not only has high nutritional value, but also lowers the "three highs", detoxifies and nourishes the face, and all parts are edible, and the whole body is "treasure".
Since moringa seeds have a good taste and high nutritional value, why not make it into a dish? Wu Weiwei, who has been a chef for many years, smelled the business opportunities with professional sensitivity and made up his mind to do something big. There are strict regulations in India that only a certain number of plant seeds can be taken out of the country, so he asked a friend to help bring back 20 moringa seeds from India. When he got 20 moringa seeds, Wu Weiwei was rewarded with the most precious treasure. He carefully plants moringa seeds in his own farmland and goes online every day to learn the techniques of cultivating moringa trees.
These 20 moringa seeds have now become the 100 moringa trees in Wu Weiwei's planting base. In 2014, Wu Weiwei launched his own dish, Moringa Feast, a total of eight dishes and one soup. With its novel ideas, moringa feasts attracted the attention of diners from all over the world. After the promotion of diners, one pass ten, ten pass a hundred, moringa feast is "red" in this way.
"More and more people are coming to eat moringa feasts, and now the 100 moringa trees I have planted are only enough to meet the needs of restaurant cooking." Wu Weiwei said that after the launch of the moringa feast, he continued to innovate and invented healthy foods such as dried moringa noodles and moringa tea leaves. Now, Wu Weiwei also buys hundreds of pounds of moringa leaves from merchants who grow moringa every month.
In the winter of 2017, a hotel in Dongguan offered a high price to buy out the production method of the moringa banquet, and proposed to hire Wu Weiwei to work as a chef in Dongguan at a high salary, but Wu Weiwei flatly refused. "I want to build a brand in my hometown and don't want good things to flow out." Wu Weiwei said that in the next step, when the scale of moringa tree planting expands, he plans to open a factory to produce moringa noodles, moringa tea and other foods, and make moringa into a specialty food brand in Meizhou.
ingenuity
Spent more than two years delving into the dishes
Cut moringa tofu into pieces, pour oil into the pan, wrap the tofu in corn starch and fry until golden brown... The collision of tofu and cooking oil makes a "whooshing" sound, and a teppanyaki moringa tofu with a compelling aroma is ready. Serve with fried onions, double peppers, shiitake mushrooms and more. Freshly baked moringa tofu is crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, and thanks to the addition of moringa powder, it is oily and not greasy, and every bite has an endless aftertaste.
Moringa tofu is one of the most popular dishes among diners at moringa banquets, and the method seems simple, but when this dish was developed, it was once difficult for Wu Weiwei.
"There is more moringa powder in the tofu, and there is more astringency, and there is less, and you can't taste the fragrance of moringa." In order to find the best ratio of moringa powder and tofu, Wu Weiwei invited a wave of friends to help taste it, and repeatedly improved it countless times. "In the process of trying, tofu doesn't know how many pounds I dumped!" He even joked that his friends were already afraid to taste his tofu.
In addition to moringa tofu, moringa buns, indole blanched moringa cores, moringa soup, moringa tea baked shrimp, moringa dumplings, moringa noodles, moringa leaf steamed chicken and moringa stalk steamed ribs. From studying the dishes in 2011 to launching the Moringa Feast in 2014, Wu Weiwei spent more than two years. Every creative dish is his masterpiece.
"Boss Wu, I want 100 char siu buns to take away!" "Here it comes!" Such conversations often occur in the Shun Xiang Hotel. Diners who go to the store to buy take-away food often buy dozens or hundreds of them. Wu Weiwei told the author that the skin of the char siu bun with moringa powder is more fragrant than the general bun skin, and has the effect of detoxification and stomach cleansing, many guests come from the city to buy, in addition to eating themselves, they will also buy it for friends and colleagues.
Moringa feasts are delicious, but they are not available all year round. Some dishes can only be eaten during limited seasons, such as the white-seared moringa core. Since moringa cores can only be picked from April to June each year, it is only during these three months that diners can taste fresh white-burned moringa cores. At other times, if you want to taste it, you can only eat it until the harvest season. In summer, the moringa tree bears fruit, and the fruit can be made into a cold moringa fruit, which is sweet and sour, and it is a good product for degreasing.
The author noticed that to make a table of moringa feasts, there is no need to pay too much attention to the skills in the seasoning, in the words of the owner Wu Weiwei, that is, "the ingredients are fresh, the collocation is right, and how to fry is delicious." ”
In recent years, through the promotion of diners' circle of friends and Microblogs, more and more foreign diners have come to Meizhou to "seek taste", including the Pearl River Delta, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and even some overseas. "Someone who wants to travel thousands of miles to eat your dishes is the biggest affirmation for the chef." Speaking of this, Wu Weiwei showed a satisfied smile.
raw material
High-quality water sources nourish the meaty and delicious turtles
Anyone who has been to watermill town is impressed by the abundant water resources that are unique here. Surrounded by mountains and water, the water quality is clear, and the good ecological environment also nourishes delicious ingredients. Turtles that have lived in this water environment for a long time have delicious and tender meat, the taste is unique, and the turtle itself has a high nutritional value, which is called "water treasure".
In the big nest of Shuisheng Village in Shuichuan Town, there is such a farm house featuring a turtle feast - Jiuye Turtle Garden. Next to the farmhouse, there is a Jiuye ecological turtle breeding base covering an area of 150 acres. "Our breeding base is just below the Dawo Reservoir, and the turtles raised from the water flowing through the reservoir are more vigorous and taste better." Zhong Yijia, the person in charge of the Jiuye Ecological Turtle Breeding Base, told the author that in addition to the green and pollution-free aquatic color of the turtle farming, the base is mainly based on earthen ponds, imitating the living environment of wild turtles.
In order to make the meat quality of the turtle closer to the wild turtle outdoors, Zhong Yijia only uses natural ingredients such as marine fish when feeding. "Generally speaking, edible turtles need to be kept for 5 to 6 years, or at least 4 years, before they can be used as an ingredient." Zhong Yijia told the author that the growth cycle of turtles is long and the cost of feeding is high, which leads to a relatively high risk of investment. In order to ensure the quality of turtles, Zhong Yijia has been adhering to his own set of breeding standards for more than ten years.
The most unique thing about the Nine Wild Ecological Turtle is its daily "walk". In the breeding base, the author saw that there was a 1-meter-wide "runway" on both sides of the earthen pond, surrounded by weeds, and many turtles "walked" here to exercise. According to Zhong Yijia, letting the turtle "walk" is to imitate the wild growth environment, and when wintering, the turtle naturally hibernates and does not take any thermal insulation measures.
In the town of Waterwheel, the history of turtle farming dates back to the 1990s. At that time, the mainland vigorously developed aquaculture, many people chose aquaculture at that time, Zhong Yijia from then on, raised turtles, for more than ten years. "I've been raising turtles since 1996." Zhong Yijia said that at first he only had a small fish pond of 5 acres and raised more than 5,000 turtles, and now, there are more than 100,000 turtles in the 150 acres of breeding base.
More than ten years later, his turtle has not only become a tonic delicacy loved by local residents, in May 2013, Jiuye Ecological Turtle Breeding Base also passed the assessment of Guangdong Inspection and Quarantine Bureau, obtained the registration certificate of outbound aquatic animal farms, and became the first and currently the only Chinese turtle breeding base for Hong Kong and Macao in Guangdong Province. Since then, turtles from Waterwheel Town have entered the Hong Kong and Macao markets and stepped onto the tables of Hong Kong and Macao citizens.
method
Turtles can be made into one dish for each part
If you can cultivate such high-quality ingredients, why not make it into a delicious dish? In 2012, Zhong Yijia made a decision to open a farm and run a turtle feast.
Zhong Yijia, who has been cultivating turtles for many years, knows the characteristics of various parts of turtles, but this is the first time to be a chef. In order to study the dishes of the turtle feast, he made more than 20 different attempts according to the characteristics of each part of the turtle. Finally, on the advice of relatives and friends, a turtle feast containing seven dishes and one soup was finally finalized. The seven dishes and one soup are steamed turtle skirt, fried turtle meat slices, fried sauerkraut with offal in turtle, turtle blood rice, red braised turtle meat, baked turtle legs, steamed turtle eggs and medicinal turtle soup.
The best ingredients only need to be done in the simplest way. For a pot of nourishing medicinal turtle soup, just put the herbs such as ginseng, berries, angelica, red dates and other medicinal materials into the pot and simmer with the turtle meat for two hours. According to the data, turtle meat is rich in various amino acids and has a good health effect. For women, it can nourish the skin and have a good beauty effect.
"When cooking turtle skirts, I usually only use steaming, accompanied by ginger and berries to remove fishy, to avoid nutrient loss." Zhong Yijia said that the skirt of the turtle is rich in collagen, and the taste is similar to pig's feet but not greasy at all. Home-grown turtles are more robust and delicious when steamed. At the same time, the skirt of the turtle has a good blood purification effect, and regular food can reduce blood cholesterol, which is beneficial to patients with hypertension and coronary heart disease.
The author noticed that in the turtle feast, there is another dish that also uses the steaming method, that is, steamed turtle eggs. According to Zhong Yijia, turtle eggs are very precious ingredients, only adult thumb nail cap size turtle eggs, one to sell for more than 3 yuan. Therefore, it is not suitable to use too complicated processes when cooking, steaming them with ginger and berries, steaming them, and steaming them, which is both delicious and nutritious. When tasting, it is even more necessary to be very careful, a little inattention, it will squeeze the whole turtle egg, the yolk flows out, and the taste will be greatly reduced. Therefore, diners must be careful enough to taste a tender, melting turtle egg.
Although the farm is far from the city, the open space outside the farm is often full of cars, and a large number of diners come from all over the world just to taste the delicious turtle. "Now, the business of the farm has gradually stabilized, and in the next step, I plan to continue to develop and some processing industries related to turtles, such as turtle nutrition soup, turtle oral liquid and other health care products, focusing on anti-cancer, postoperative repair and other effects." Zhong Yijia said.
■Chita D
Moringa:
Known as the "Tree of Miracles"
Known as the "Tree of Miracles", moringa trees are native to India and are widely planted in various tropical regions. Its leaves, flowers, young bean pods, and seeds (moringa seeds) can be eaten directly, and the powder made from its young roots is one of the raw materials for making curry powder. The oil extracted from moringa seeds is edible oil. The young leaves can be eaten as soups and are delicious. Fresh moringa leaves can be eaten directly as vegetables, and after 2 months of colonization, the young leaves on the branches can be regularly picked, and the relatively old leaves can be roasted and fried to make tea leaves after picking. In addition, young and flexible fruit pods need to be harvested in time, and like fresh moringa leaves, moringa pods in the young age can be cooked and eaten. When the pods are fully mature, moringa seeds can be harvested for oil extraction. When the pods turn yellow and dry out completely without excess moisture, the harvested seeds can be crushed into powder to make condiments.
Moringa trees have provided Indian vegetarians with the nutrients they need on a daily basis since ancient times, and with their ease of cultivation, Africa has vigorously promoted the cultivation of such trees and has been used by the United Nations as an aid project to solve Africa's food shortage. In recent years, the therapeutic value and medical value of moringa have been widely recognized by society.
Precautions for eating turtles
Turtle is the common name of turtle, also called tuan fish, water fish, is an oviparous amphibian reptile. Turtle is not only a delicacy on the table, a high-quality ingredient for a high-quality feast, but also can be used as a medicinal herb. Turtle has many tonic and medicinal effects, and is rich in animal glue, keratin, vitamin D, which can enhance the body's disease resistance and regulate the endocrine function of the human body.
1. Suitable for people: weak physique, liver and kidney deficiency, bone steaming fever, malnutrition people to eat; suitable for people with low-grade fever in tuberculosis and extrapulmonary tuberculosis; suitable for people with chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis ascites, hepatosplenomegaly, diabetes, and nephritis edema; suitable for various types of cancer patients and post-radiotherapy and chemotherapy; suitable for patients with Sjogren's syndrome; suitable for patients with hyperlipidemia, arteriosclerosis, coronary heart disease, hypertension; suitable for patients with hypoproteinemia; suitable for patients with beriberi
2. Inappropriate crowd: turtles are greasy, long-term eating failure stomach injury, resulting in indigestion, so loss of appetite, digestive function is reduced. Therefore, pregnant women or people with postpartum cold deficiency, spleen and stomach weakness and diarrhea should not eat; people with chronic enteritis, chronic dysentery, and chronic diarrhea and loose stools should avoid eating; hepatitis patients will increase the burden on the liver, and when it is serious, it will induce liver coma, so it should be eaten less; pregnant women will eat will affect the health of the fetus; in addition, those who eat phlegm should eat with caution.