Text/Wen Nansheng
The Chongzhou food and beverage line, which is thousands of miles away, kills a dish, and walks thousands of miles to ride through five levels and slash six generals, and win the throne.
- Famous mouth
Leaving aside Chengdu, even in the famous cities of Beibei, Shang, and Guangzhou, there are not only "Catholic Chicken Slices" in high-end Sichuan restaurants, but even Chinese restaurants with the name of "Catholic Church Chicken Slices". It is reported that San Francisco, Toronto, Sydney and other Chinese settlements also have restaurants with tianzhutang jiroupian dishes.
This gourmet shop that makes Chongzhou people glamorous has nothing to do with the Catholic Church, but the store was opened next door to the Catholic Church when it was first established.
Photography of the mountain years
The founder of the Catholic Church Chicken Slice was named Nie Ming Fuxuan, and Qing Guangxu was born in Niehewan in Chongzhou Cowhide Farm (present-day Jixian Township) in the 31st year. His father died early, and orphans and widows were unable to farm. Helplessly, his mother took him and his sister to the county to find another way to make a living. Xiao Fuxuan looked east and west, and sold bowl chicken in the middle of the picture. First, a silver plate can be opened, and second, the mother and sister do not have to show their faces at home, and Xiao Fuxuan is a natural foodie. Delicious drills, often in front of the restaurant to watch the cook cook cooking, half a day and half a day silly standing, like a demon.
Xiao Fuxuan first bought a porcelain bowl, folded the cut chicken slices on the inside side of the bowl, and stored the juice at the bottom of the bowl. Cut chicken slices require high requirements, must be cut thick and thin size, let the customer choose after dipping, eat how much according to the price of the piece.
Fuxuan has been physically strong since childhood, holding or holding a bowl, shouting: "Chicken slices, chicken slices, fresh and spicy chicken slices", walking the streets and alleys to sell. Xiao Fuxuan often wears straw shoes or goes barefoot to cowhide farms, Yuantong, sheep and horses, and Sanjiang to catch up with the market, and consult the experts in the industry.
Zhao Chicken in Shangnan Street had already beaten the bowl chicken into Chengdu Province at that time, and opened a franchise store in Yanshikou and Jinhuaguan. Let Fuxuan be envious, meditating on how foreign it would be if one day, he could open a shop in Chengdu Province.
Fuxuan's brain is active, while tasting the taste of chicken slices, while blending and optimizing, forming a unique flavor on the basis of eclectic strengths, then called Nie Bowl. Although the street market sometimes sees bowl chicken sellers shuttling, this side also calls "Nie Bowl Bowl", and that side also calls "Nie Bowl Bowl", so that a lot of bowl chicken partners are inevitably ashamed.
After a little fame, with some savings, Nie Mu's heartbroken son sold bowls and chickens to avoid the sun and rain, and resolutely rented a Christian shop on Zhengdong Street to officially open a shop, which was adjacent to the Catholic Church. Fuxuan is generous, the taste of chicken is good, the fee is lower than other stores, the squire is good, the ordinary people's family banquet is good, the shop to serve chicken slices has gradually become a consumer fashion, and the endless stream of guests has raised the name of "Catholic Church Nie Chicken". Under the fame, Fuxuan is more and more refined, the name is becoming louder and louder, and it is famous in Chuanxi.
After her sister got married, Xiaozu's mother was also old, and the young and strong Fuxuan reached the age of marriage, and was introduced to marry the daughter of the Xie family in Zhonghechang (present-day Alder Spring Township). Housework aside, the chicken shop's chores add a powerful helper.
After liberation, business was intermittent with land reform, unified purchasing and marketing, and "natural disasters", and it was not very prosperous, so it had to be stalled in front of the Shen family noodle shop on the left side of the Catholic Church. Shenjia Noodle Restaurant is famous in Chongcheng, chicken and noodles complement each other, and both sides are happy.
As soon as the three years of "natural disasters" passed, materials were immediately abundant. My lonely widowed mother got up early in the dark and used the two shops of noodles at home to open a bean blossom restaurant, and the business was even more prosperous than the Shen family noodle shop. Soon, Uncle Nie rented the Youjia shop adjacent to my home for the second time and officially opened the store, the name of the store is straightforward "Nie Fuxuan Chicken". Eating beans and flowers rice needs to use chicken slices, only loudly greeted, Uncle Nie mixed it up and asked the big apprentice Cheng Kaiming to bring it over.
The burly Uncle Nie was very good-looking, he was close to flower armor at the time, his beard and hair were gray, and his long-lived eyebrows covered his eyes when he buried his head in a chicken. When calling out to Uncle Nie, that mighty face would be filled with a kind smile, and the bearded face actually had a pair of cute dimples.
The highlight of the uncle is the long garlic nose, while the eldest lady is shorter, and the prominent place is still a long garlic nose, which is very husband and wife. The difference is that the nose of the uncle is shaped like a clove garlic, and the big lady's is like a single rice garlic. The nose is in the five facial features of the person, although it is not as agile as the eyebrows and mouth, it can be in a central position, like the emperor in the five facial features. People with a considerable nose are rich and poor, and Uncle Nie, who was born in poverty, reveals the imperial style of the gastronomic world in his fate.
The streets in the city are narrow, and Zhengdong Street is the most stretched street in the old city except for South Street. Long, straight, ended at the East Side gate.
Even so, the paving is narrow. Uncle Nie rented a single room paving, except for a treasure cage, the rest of the site can only be set up with five small tables, four against the wall. Hanging from a pole above the treasure cage are a few chickens that have been cooked the first day. After Uncle Nie came to the shop in the morning, he opened the chicken (jargon) in front of the treasure cage, and first sharply used a knife to tie the chicken into nine large pieces: wings, legs, and claws, the chicken body was cut in half, and the neck was used separately. Then, squinting his eyes and stripping the bones with his thick and dexterous hands, peeling off the bones of the chicken feet, like peeling off the leather gloves, swinging in the air with the shaking of the hand, making the saliva flow endlessly.
After the boneless chicken nuggets, according to the muscle texture, Uncle Nie then sliced the chicken with a sharp kitchen knife. Uncle Nie usually does not look under the knife, his eyes are staring at the street, just greeting acquaintances, the chicken slices can still be sliced wide, and as thin as cicada wings, the chicken slices on the chest part, very similar to the transparent wings of a bird, can soar into the sky.
"Nie Shi Kai Chicken" Skillful process, bystanders is simply an artistic enjoyment, and its skill is completely comparable to Zhuangzi's description of "Cu Ding Xie Niu".
The cut chicken slices are placed like a hill in a large palm plate, and if the customer needs to take out the corresponding plate, grab some and put it in. There is no need to go through the scale, Uncle Nie's hand is the scale. Large, medium and small portions are not wrong. What's more subtle is that along the plate into the nest oil, drizzled with sesame sauce and red oil, shaken pepper noodles, white sugar, a few green onion white silk strips, its ingredients "increase one point is too much, minus one point is too little", simply pinched as if the machine is operating.
After the chicken plate is served, the guests eat it while mixing it. With the bite of the teeth and tongue, the chicken slices are fresh, fragrant, tender, smooth, numb, and spicy, and melt in the mouth, and their beautiful and nourishing feelings go straight to the brain and heart. The expression of "Tai Ba Shi" overflowed the faces of the diners, and from time to time it could be seen that after the hungry guests had finished eating, they picked up the plate and licked the remaining juice from the plate with their tongues. What a mesmerizing picture of food, which is still floating in front of you.
Cold mixed chicken has a variety of flavors in Sichuan, whether it is red oil chicken, pepper chicken, green pepper chicken, or stick chicken, spicy chicken, bowl chicken, etc., without exception always in the hemp, spicy circle.
Uncle Nie can be described as a master of cold mix chicken. Inheriting the tradition of Sichuan cuisine, but also not sticking to the tradition, first reducing the degree of hemp and spiciness, then making sesame seeds into a sauce, and then adding sugar, making it different from other Sichuan-style cold mix chickens in taste. He skillfully mixed the hemp and spicy of Sichuan cuisine with the sweet sauce of Lu, Fujian and Cantonese cuisine to form the unique flavor of Nie's chicken: hemp, spicy, sauce, fragrant and sweet. This is the subtlety and cheats of the Chicken Slices of the Catholic Church.
Fu Xuan had not read many books since childhood, nor had he traveled far away, so it was impossible to know the characteristics of other cuisines. The individual differences in people's taste in taste are incomparably large, and the taste level of Nie Uncle is doomed to the unique flavor of Nie's chicken, and Nie Uncle is a genius among foodies.
The chicken shop is held by Nie Dae, and the work is mostly handled by Nie Da Niang. Nie Da Niang and my mother are similar in age, the hours are also wrapped up in enough, every day to go to the market to buy chickens, buy chicken is limited to 1 year old, the big one is a little more than 4 pounds, genuine local chicken.
Uncle Nie has five children under his name, and I am in the same window as the third elder. When I came home from school, I loved to walk next door to peek at Nie Da Niang cooking chicken. If the chicken is cold water, let the chicken boil in the pot for a few minutes with firewood, and then cover the stove with sawdust and cook it over low heat. After half an hour, bring the chicken to a boil over low heat, quickly out of the pan, and hang in the shade and other details. As a child, I looked like a god to the mysteries of nature. After cooking, scoop it up and hang it under the eaves to let the wind blow cold. In summer and autumn, the temperature is high, and a bamboo stick should be used to pierce the chicken body. It can be seen that the heat of the boiled chicken is very exquisite, the stew is actually to ensure that the inside is cooked thoroughly, and the fire before and after is to make the chicken dry and tender.
Uncle Nie's family is on the lower South Street, diagonally opposite the county brewery, and the quality of soy sauce is also good. But Uncle Nie would rather tao shen and make his own soy sauce. Prepare your own soybeans, a series of processing procedures, and use large vats to dry soy sauce on the street. Even when soy sauce is made in a brewery, it is reprocessed in a special way. In Uncle Nie's eyes, the taste of soybean oil is the source of the flavor of chicken slice sauce.
Photography by Yuan Jian
I like to watch the making of Nie's tahini. The market selects the best white sesame seeds, infiltrates the water in the wooden basin, sifts out the empty shell of the floating surface, removes the sediment at the bottom, and after the kang is cooked, Nie Da Niang uses the sand helmet stick to scoop it into a fine powder, pours it into the porcelain jar, and then pours the fried green oil into it, and repeatedly mixes it in the porcelain jar with a spoon until it is mixed. If the people are too busy to come, they will call the third old man to go, and if I am lucky, I will also go to play. The feeling of holding a wooden spoon and mixing it back and forth in the jar is simply refreshing!
The process of brewing red oil is quite exquisite like making kung fu tea. First, select the two strips of pepper that are red and translucent, wipe off the dust one by one with a damp cloth, cut into knots, make the kang crisp, cool out of the pot and pour into the groove. Nie Da Niang supported the wall with both hands, and her wrapped little feet stood on the groove handle and moved back and forth, grinding into a thin sea pepper noodle. After frying in clear oil, cool to about seventy degrees before pouring into the sea pepper noodle jar and stirring with a spoon to make it evenly warm. The first day of frying red oil is used the next day to loosen and maintain the color, ensuring that it is both spicy and fragrant.
The green onion is only pulled white into silk and topped on the chicken slice, looking like a soft white hat worn on the chicken slice. It regulates taste while sweeping away the residue. Trick.
Around 1970, Uncle Nie had retired, and the masters in the Chongqing County Catering Company suggested hiring Uncle Nie as a consultant. On Dadongjie People's Park (now the Painting Pond Museum) opened on the left side of the door. I did not dare to touch the sensitive word "Catholic Church" and named it "Chicken Noodle Shop". Uncle Nie, who had passed the age of flower armor, personally guarded the shop town and disguised the name of Nie Chicken in the Catholic Church. A colleague in the store, even if Uncle Nie does not pass it on, can more or less observe and learn the secret skills of Chicken Slices in the Catholic Church from Uncle Nie's operation.
Photographed in the mountains
After a few years, Uncle Nie has been nearly ancient, can not stand at the counter for a long time, in addition, the person in charge of the store was sent to Anle Township to support farmers, and the chicken noodle shop disintegrated.
In the early 1980s, Uncle Nie died of diabetes for a long time, causing kidney injuries complicated by uremia. A few years later, Nie Da Niang also made ancient works one after another. None of Nie's descendants consciously applied for patents, and the "Catholic Nie Chicken" was not protected by the State Patent Office, like a wild horse running free of restraint in the vast food market.
Among Uncle Nie's children and grandchildren, only the fourth son, Yongzheng, had set up a stall in the name of Nie Chicken in the Catholic Church, and another grandchild was still setting up a stall in this name at Ximen. It is not in the same grade as the father and the grandfather. To outsiders, the bottom line of Uncle Nie's descendants is: as long as you don't hit the Chicken of the Catholic Church, you can be as generous as Uncle Nie.
In 1980, the catering company opened a Chinese restaurant at the intersection of Dadong Street and Xiaodong Street, and the manager Ma Shi and the four clerks still used the Chicken of Catholic Church as the signboard and named it "Chongqing Catholic Church Chicken Shop". There are stews, stir-frying, roasting, brine and other dishes commonly found in Chinese restaurants, and Nie's chicken is still the ace of the store. After more than 10 years of operation, the business is booming. Out of the plot entanglement of chicken in the Catholic Church, in that year, whenever there were distinguished guests from other places, I would take them to the store for consumption, and I praised the chicken slices.
After the dissolution of the Dadongjie store, Ma Shi opened a shop alone and named it "Catholic Chicken", which was a side ball, and indeed followed Uncle Nie's class.
Zhang Mou, a clerk who opened a Fukang Hotel in the 1990s and later renamed Fukang Hotel, has led the Chinese food industry in Chongzhou for more than 20 years, and the signature dish of victory is still Catholic Chicken Slices.
Another clerk, Zhang Mou, first set up a stall in Xiaodong Street, opened shops in Chongcheng and Jiezi, and later opened a hotel in Chengdu, all under the name of "Catholic Church Chicken". Realized the vision of Xiao Fuxuan longing for Zhao's bowl chicken to open a shop in Chengdu Province.
The legend of Nie Chicken in the Catholic Church is the old story of Chongzhou for a hundred years. In the "Catholic Chicken Slices" on This Man Avenue and its various kinds of restaurants, diners and merchants, how many people can remember the ingenious grandfather Nie Fuxuan?