The Ming Dynasty's "Record of Dreams" records that on the second day of the second month of the second lunar month, in order to be auspicious, the government and the people gave each other fine noodles, called 'dragon whisker noodles'. At first, the noodles were cooked in water, and later, they were continuously improved, fried and charred to make them fluffy and crispy, and after sucking the juice, they were eaten with dishes, also known as baked noodles.
Snowflake dragon whisker noodles, fried with thin hair, sprinkled with sugar, Beijing cake, preserved fruit, fluffy shape, sweet in the mouth. This is a famous dish at the Tianjin feast, and it is also a gourmet dessert enjoyed by northern folk on the day of "February 2nd Dragon Rising", and people believe that the slender and long dragon's whisker noodles will bring good luck to the year.
This dish has been handed down to this day, Tianjin female pastry chef Shang Hongfang has taken the dragon's whisker noodles to the extreme, 5 minutes to roll out more than 30,000 filament noodles, the roots can pass through the eye of the needle, the strength is gentle and stable. Jingu Snowflake Dragon's Beard Noodles has been rated as the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Hedong District, and Shang Hongfang, as the third generation of Snowflake Dragon's Beard Noodles, has been dealing with flour for a lifetime, and she is also committed to the development of healthier Dragon's Beard Noodles, so that traditional feast food has entered today's life.
Female pastry chefs steal from teachers to learn the art
Steamed silver wire rolls, dragon whisker noodles
Shang Hongfang is one of the few well-known female pastry chefs in Tianjin and is well-known in Tianjin's catering circle. What made her a celebrity was her one-handed "dragon beard noodle" stunt.
And noodles, cold water with salt, pour into the medium gluten flour and knead the dough. Shang Hongfang, born in 1955, works quite sharply, one board at a time. Although kneading dough is the primary process of making dough, she never lets her apprentices handle it, and she does it herself. Because, if the dragon's whisker noodles want to be thin and continuous, they all rely on kneading the dough to get the position. Knead the dough, eat it for two hours, wait for the dough to be good, come up vigorously, and then walk the strip.
The process of walking the strip is a manual task. Two pounds of dough is rolled out, and it is necessary to pull the noodles evenly through continuous pulling. "Grab both ends of the noodles, evenly force, shake up and down. Cross-transpose, cross repeatedly, walk the noodles. "The potter must understand the nature of mud, the carpenter understands wood, and the greatest effort of the pastry chef is to play the dough through the contact between the hand and the noodles. In the whole process, walking the strip is the longest and the most tiring.
The final step is to produce a strip, which is also the most performative part of the production process of dragon's whisker noodles. The pastry chef will put a long strip on the case, press the strip with both hands, the left hand inward, the right hand outward, rub the strip hard, lift both ends, shake and shake... The movement can not be slow, 14 buckles in 5 minutes, 37280 strips, such a set of actions, Shang Hongfang has been repeating since the 80s of the last century, whether it is performing in front of foreign guests, or showing students, never lost his hand.
At the end of 1978, Shang Hongfang, who returned to the countryside and returned to the city, was assigned to the noodle department of Tianjin Roast Duck Shop. Shang Hongfang's noodle department is mainly responsible for the pastry production of the roast duck shop, making only 3 kinds of pastry, lotus leaf cake, silver wire roll and duck oil bun. At that time, in the early days of reform and opening up, people began to favor exquisite dishes, and silver silk rolls became a fashionable noodle that could only be eaten in restaurants, and the noodles in silver wire rolls were hand-pulled by pastry chefs. "As soon as I went to work, the apprentice couldn't go to the case, he could only watch from the side. I was particularly curious about how the silk inside this silver wire roll was pulled out. The master did not let the case be touched, and Shang Hongfang secretly asked his senior colleagues. She took advantage of the fact that everyone was off work, ran back to the store, secretly found a piece of noodles and practiced all the time, from 9 p.m. to three or four o'clock in the morning.
The quality of the noodle rolling technology directly determines the quality of the silver wire roll production. A week after work, the master let the new apprentices go to the case, Shang Hongfang's performance surprised the master, others had to learn the technology for a year, this little girl learned in a week, and was particularly skilled. As a result, the young business girl who had just arrived became the main force of the noodle department, "At that time, the noodles in the roast duck shop were very popular, and 220 pounds of noodles were used up every day. Shang Hongfang recalled that silver wire rolls were high-grade pastry at that time. At the New Year's Day, she showed her hand at her in-laws' house, rolled noodles, steamed silver wire rolls, lifted the lid of the pot, and the fragrance wafted through the yard, and the neighbors praised her as a clever daughter-in-law.
In 1983, the first national cooking technology competition was held in Beijing, and Tianjin selected 3 players and 1 assistant to form a delegation to participate in the competition. Among them, the snowflake dragon whisker noodles made by Jiang Wenjie of Tao Li Yuan Restaurant were unanimously praised by experts, who were rated as the best pastry chefs, and the long-lost snowflake dragon whisker noodles were also reproduced in the jianghu. Shang Hongfang paid attention to this news, and she thought to herself that this technology and the silk in her silver wire roll had the same place, and whether she could also learn this skill.
With the psychology of trying it out, Shang Hongfang carried pastries and crabs and went to visit Master Jiang Wenjie. Jiang Wenjie heard that his peers had come to consult the skills of snowflake dragon noodles, but did not agree, but only told Shang Hongfang to "hit 13 buckles". Buckle is the jargon of noodle rolling technology, noodle folding is a buckle, 13 buckles means 5 more buttons than silver wire rolls, the number of strips is 2 to the 13th power, that is, more than 18,000. As for how to fry noodles as thin as hair into the pan, Master Jiang did not say explicitly. Later, Shang Hongfang learned that fried is the secret core of this dish, and it is easy not to spread it. Experienced master, the dragon whisker noodles after the pot are still straight, very beautiful.
Exquisite pastry from Shandong
It takes the water of the sea to pluck out like snow silk
"Dragon's Beard Noodles" is one of the varieties of traditional northern feast noodles, which is said to have evolved from Shandong noodles and has a history of more than 300 years. With the development of Caoyun, Shandong noodle rolling technology was introduced to Tianjin. By the Qing Dynasty, Tianjin's catering industry has been quite developed, in the South Canal dock near the Houjiahou, Guijia Hutong area has become a famous catering gathering area, Tianjin's own cuisine has also begun to form, the famous restaurant "Eight Dacheng", daily customers surplus.
After the dragon whisker noodle making technology was introduced to Tianjin, the major celebrity chefs competed to develop the dragon's whisker for refinement, and after several generations, they developed a special production technique of "as thin as a hair", which is especially suitable for warm fried food, crispy and delicious, and melts in the mouth. Sprinkled with sugar, cake and preserved fruit, the taste is sweet, because the sugar is like snow, so it is named "Snowflake Dragon's Whisker Noodles". Tianjin Snowflake Dragon's Beard Noodles is different from the extensive Shandong Dragon's Beard Noodles, and also different from the dim sum "tea steamed buns" in the Jiangnan region. During the Republic of China period, snowflake dragon whisker noodles became popular in major restaurants in Tianjin and became an indispensable specialty food for feasts and even Manchu and Han Chinese seats.
After the fried dragon's whisker noodles, three or four strands of dough can be penetrated into the needle eye at the same time
In 1999, Shang Hongfang performed noodle making skills at a catering competition
Shang Hongfang asked Jiang Wenjie for advice on the practice of snowflake dragon whisker noodles, and secretly practiced as soon as he had time. In the later corporate training, Jiang Wenjie went to the Tianjin Roast Duck Shop to teach, and Shang Hongfang formally learned the whole set of techniques and increased the noodle button to 14 buttons. She also won a grand prize in the following year's catering competition. Snowflake dragon whisker noodles are a highly technical noodle that requires the operator to have a deep understanding of the ingredients. Once, Shang Hongfang went to Shanghai to participate in a competition, using local water to make noodles, but it did not take shape. I had to put the dough in the refrigerator and freeze it, and then knead the dough with my hands a little bit. All night long, the dough reached the effect of rolling the dough.
"Flour and water are the key to dragon's whisker noodles, and the water quality in Tianjin is too hard, but this is the best material for rolling noodles." Since then, Shang Hongfang began to pay attention to the influence of flour, water and other ingredients on the noodles, and gradually explored a detailed set of production techniques. At the feast, snowflake dragon's whisker noodles are a dessert that accompanies the meal, but it is difficult to enter the daily table. According to Shang Hongfang's idea, dragon's whisker noodles can be boiled, fried, and steamed, and different recipes of flour need to be developed. Today, Shang Hongfang teaches the technique of dragon noodles to his son Liu Shichen. Liu Shichen, a post-80s pastry teacher at The Chinese Vocational College, has a lot of research on Chinese and Western pastry. Shang Hongfang also hopes to use a younger perspective to develop a new generation of dragon's whisker noodles with her.
A feast dish made with dragon's whisker noodles
Snowflake dragon whisker noodles
The dragon's whisker noodles are fried until crispy and sprinkled with sugar, cake and preserved fruits. The dragon head and dragon tail are carved out of vegetables as decoration. During the Republic of China period, snowflake dragon beard noodles became popular in major restaurants in Tianjin and became an indispensable specialty in the feast.
Carp noodles
It is made with two famous dishes of sweet and sour boiled fish and baked noodles. This dish, in addition to the delicious taste of sweet and sour fish, is wonderful that there are two kinds of food interests in one dish. It is known as "eating dragon meat first, and then eating dragon whiskers".
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