<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >1, Fujian intangible cultural heritage cuisine - meat swallow</h1>
Fuzhou, Fujian Province, has an intangible cultural heritage snack, the meat swallow, which looks rough and looks like wontons, but it tastes very different. It is made of real "meat wrapped meat", and outsiders often admit mistakes.
Its shape is like a flat-headed flying swallow, the taste is special, made of meat swallow skin, the filling is generally diced meat, shrimp, water chestnut and other mixed as filling. The thin bird's nest wrapped in a special filling, after cooking, is crystal clear and puts into the mouth a "crisp" word, not only the meat filling but also the outer skin is crispy (unlike the ravioli dough skin is easy to lump). It can be described in one sentence: that is, there is a kind of pleasure of swallowing dates. It can make the eater eat free and comfortable, and revel in it!
In 2015, the movie version of "Taste of China", which was known as "China on the Tip of the Tongue", once focused on the meat swallow as the first delicacy in the opening chapter. Meat swallow is a festive dish in Fuzhou customs. Fuzhou people celebrate the New Year's Festival, weddings and funerals, relatives and friends gather to say goodbye, they must eat meat and swallows, so it is said that "no swallow is not a banquet, no swallow is not a year". Momofuku Ando, the inventor of instant noodles and the founder of Nissin Foods in Japan, praised the delicious taste of meat swallows and marveled at the fact that it was the only noodle made of meat in the world. As a result, the meat swallow has also become a local specialty snack, which is famous far and wide.
The historical source of meat swallow is said to be during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, when there was a royal historian in Pucheng County, Fujian Province, who returned to his hometown, lived in the mountainous area, and after eating too many mountain treasures, he felt that he was bland. To please the adults, his cook took the lean meat of the newly slaughtered pork leg, beat it into a meat paste with a wooden stick, rolled it into pieces as thin as paper, cut it into small pieces of three inches square, wrapped the meat skin with meat filling, made it into flat food, and cooked it with soup. The fresh stuff that this kitchen has mashed up is quite popular, and when eaten in the mouth, it only feels smooth and crisp, pure and fragrant, and because of its shape like a flying swallow, it is named "flat meat swallow".
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >2, the most mysterious meat swallow skin</h1>
The most characteristic thing about meat swallow is the "meat wrapped meat" meat swallow skin. The skin of the meat swallow is white in color, as thin as paper, and the meat is fragrant, delicious and rich in nutrients.
It is smooth and refreshing to eat, not only the meat filling can be made into flat meat swallows can also be rubbed into round swallow balls; the "swallow silk" cut into silk can also be made into a dish alone, combining the swallow and the dragon's eye-sized meatballs, and the soup can also burn a special soup dish one by one "Dragon's Whisker Swallow Pills", the color is bright and white, and the taste is tender and delicious.
In addition, there are "hair vegetable swallow balls", "chicken roll meat swallow", etc., and there are more than a dozen famous dishes that can be made with meat swallow skin. Fish, beef and mutton can also be processed to make "fish swallow skin", beef and sheep "meat swallow skin".
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >3, the traditional processing method of swallow skin</h1>
According to the Chinese time-honored brand "Tongli Meat Swallow", the traditional processing method of swallow skin is to take the upper pig hind legs, elastic buttocks red and red essence meat no more than 6 hours after slaughter, remove the fat meat, remove the skin membrane, tendons and bones, beat it with a hardwood round mallet into a uniform and delicate paste-like meat paste, mix it with cooked glutinous rice paste and vegetable alkali, and then through mixing pounding, add 4g of plant alkali for the second time to continue to pound to get the delicate and uniform meat surimi, and then sprinkle sweet potato flour on this meat surimi, and then rub the minced meat into long strips. Then crush with a wooden stick; During the rolling process, the sweet potato flour is continuously sprinkled. When the swallow skin is formed, sweep the surface of the remaining sweet potato flour. The whole process takes about 80 minutes. Fresh swallow skin is not easy to preserve and must be dried in a cool and ventilated place. Finally, it becomes a thin slice like white rice paper, which becomes a meat swallow skin.
The traditional production method is very time-consuming and laborious, and the repeated beating process is very physically demanding, and the daughter of the fourth generation leader of Tongli Meat Swallow in "Taste of China" bluntly said that "making Meat Swallow is dirty and bitter" At first, she preferred to devote herself to the bright and beautiful knocking platform. However, it is too regrettable that such a delicate snack has been lost, so the daughter of the leader finally chose to help her father and inherit the family business of meat swallow.
Many researchers are also trying to find ways to ensure that traditional food is delicious and save time and effort through mechanization. In 1982, some people tried to use a mechanical arm to imitate the action of arm pounding, but the success rate of swallow skin production was low, and the product quality was unstable.
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In 1998, some people tried to directly take animal lean meat and starch as the main raw material, lean meat was mixed or colloidal grinding to form a slurry filter, and then mixed with the appropriate amount of starch to form a glue liquid, and then injected by the machine to form a "swallow skin", but the "swallow skin" made by this method lost the taste of the original swallow skin.
These tentative transformations failed to truly grasp the technical essence of traditional swallow skin processing and were not successful. So what is the secret of being able to turn meat into noodles that can stretch the skin of a swallow that can be wrapped and cooked for a long time? Food biochemical researchers have investigated.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >4, why is there a swallow skin that can "wrap meat"? </h1>
The researchers carefully explored the main points of traditional production methods and found that the mystery exists in several important precautions for making swallow skin.
First, the feeding of the swallow skin emphasizes the lean meat of the pig's hind legs. What's the secret of lean meat?
Pork hind leg meat, especially the elastic buttocks red and red essence meat, is muscular and less fat. Proteins in muscles exist in the form of structural proteins, forming a large number of capillaries between muscle fibers and myofibrils, so that muscle proteins present a uniform network structure, providing a large amount of storage space for water.
Second, the process of making swallow skin requires repeated pounding with a swallow hammer.
A whole piece of meat cannot be reshaped, we must start with minced meat. The choice to pound instead of the mincing in the meat filling process is because the pork is pounded, which will destroy the structure of the protein, which facilitates de-organization and increases the possibility of reconstruction.
Third, during the beating process of swallow skin, water, cooked glutinous rice paste and plant alkali should be added.
The production of swallow skin requires minced meat to maintain high ductility and cohesion within the minced meat in the processing engineering. Excipients used in the processing of swallow skin include water, cooked glutinous rice and vegetable alkali. These excipients play a key role in the formation of swallow skin.
By studying the role of excipients in the formation of swallow skin, it was found that:
The addition of water helps to reduce the initial hardness of the minced meat, making the minced meat easy to process, but does not significantly improve the adhesion of the minced meat.
The addition of cooked glutinous rice can effectively reduce the hardness of minced meat, improve the adhesion of minced meat, and improve the water retention of minced meat. However, it is not effective in maintaining the adhesion of minced meat.
The addition of plant bases can make the protein structure loose, increase the water retention effect, and improve the pH value of minced meat, which effectively delays the hardening of minced meat, greatly increases the adhesion of minced meat, and also helps to form a uniform swallow skin structure. In particular, the destructured pork protein is mixed with lye, and the water retention is close to cooked glutinous rice, which is much higher than that of complete pork.
Fourth, the minced meat of the swallow skin should be mixed with sweet potato flour
Sweet potato flour has better starch gelatinization and allows the swallow skin to spread better.
Fifth, live pork that has been freshly slaughtered for 6 hours should be taken
Because the minced meat in the process of swallow skin formation needs to harden into a dough skin, and the principle of hardening of minced meat here is the same as the principle of muscle stiffness, with the help of the stiff process of live pig slaughter.
Sixth, fresh swallow skin should be dried and stored in a cool and ventilated place
Experiments have found that the hardening process of the refrigerated ambient minced meat is slower and faster at room temperature.
Through the above 6 points, we have a glimpse of the technical essence of traditional swallow skin processing. A complete piece of lean pork ends up being as thin as rice paper and white swallow skin, which can be wrapped in a variety of meat fillings like the skin of ordinary dumplings when wet.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >5, the mystery that swallow skin cannot be boiled</h1>
One reason some people think that the meat swallow is better than the ravioli made of wheat flour in general is that the meat swallow does not have to worry about how long it will be cooked, it maintains a crispy taste. What is the mystery that the swallow skin cannot be boiled?
Because swallow skin is essentially a mixture of starch granules and actin.
Among them, the starch particles are filled into the muscle filaments condensed into flaks, and the actin framework constrains the starch particles, which are boiled in boiling water, the starch particles are gelatinized, and the starch polysaccharide framework also assists in supporting the entire system, making the entire system more continuous, uniform and complete. Since one of the main structures of swallow skin is the actin framework, this is the reason why the swallow skin is not rotten after cooking, and it is smooth and refreshing to eat.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >6, traditional cuisine has survived in the long river of history are all experiments that have been refined</h1>
Unexpectedly, a piece of meat swallow skin is actually made of fresh pork, and the small ingredients have been precipitated for hundreds of years, and generations of inheritors have challenged it to this day. Chinese cuisine is vast and profound, and there are endless fresh Internet celebrities every year, but it is always traditional food that is most intoxicating and unforgettable. The traditional Chinese cuisine that amazes the world deserves the pride of each of our Chinese.
This article cites some of the data from Guo Jingke's master's thesis "Research on the Principles of Traditional Processing of Swallow Skin" from Fuzhou University in 2006
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