Panlong cuisine is a famous food in Hubei, which has a history of more than 500 years, and it is said that it was specially developed by chefs to buy time for the Jiajing Emperor to enter the capital and take the throne. Because of its royal background, this dish is far more famous than jingchu's other cuisines.
Panlong cuisine first began in Zhongxiang, Hubei Province, and there is a long-standing story about its origin. According to legend, in the sixteenth year of Zhengde of the Ming Dynasty (1521 AD), Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao died, and because he had no children to succeed to the throne, Empress Dowager Cishou secretly ordered three clan kings who lived outside Beijing to go to Beijing, first as kings and then as subjects. Zhu Houxi, the King of Xing, lived in Zhongxiang, the farthest away from Beijing, and yan Song offered advice to Zhu Houxi to pretend to be a Qin prisoner and take a prison cart to Beijing to avoid the disturbance of receiving and sending along the way. Famous chef Zhan Duo used fish, meat and poultry eggs to make a new dish with the color of steamed sweet potatoes to offer to Xingwang, so that Xingwang could eat delicious food without being suspected by passers-by. Zhu Houxi lived in a prison car to eat this dish, rushed day and night, first arrived in Kyoto, ascended the throne as emperor, and set the year name "Jiajing". Zhu Houxi felt that this dish was not greasy, and helped himself to become emperor, so the imperial gift of this dish was "Panlong", which was designated as a royal tribute, except for his hometown Zhongxiang, and the Shu people were not allowed to make it and eat it.
After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, panlong cuisine returned to the folk and became a local delicacy. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the "Bamboo Branch Words" once praised this dish: "Mountains and treasures and sea mistakes do not need to be offered, and the rich water and spring wine have a strong taste." The full house of guests called for food, disguised as a roll cut is a dragon. Nowadays, in the Zhongxiang area, the people love to eat dragon dishes, the local custom of "no dragon does not hold a banquet" and "no seat does not see the dragon", every New Year's Festival, wedding and birthday celebrations, every household must prepare "dragon dishes" at the banquet to show the meaning of good luck. Chefs who can cook dragon dishes are even more respected by the villagers.
After hundreds of years of inheritance and improvement, today, the preparation method of dragon cuisine has become extremely exquisite and refined. When cooking, the best lean pork, pure white pork fat, river carp meat mixed and chopped, add eggs, mung bean flour, condiments, mixed into a paste, rolled into the egg skin, into a one-foot long, one-and-a-half-inch diameter long cone, basketed and steamed for half an hour, taken out, cut into a thick egg roll piece into the bowl, and then basketed with high heat steaming for 15 minutes to take out, flip into the plate, spelled into a dragon shape, drizzled with cooked lard, decorated with decorative flowers, a live dragon immediately appeared in front of the eyes. When it is served on the table, it is steaming hot and the dragon wants to fly, which makes people's appetite increase.
As a craft dish, the dragon dish is permeated with a strong royal style, it is white and yellow, bright and rich, the roll is like a dragon, the shape is realistic, the entrance is fresh and tender, and it is like meat instead of meat, like fish and not fish. Because this dish is widely spread in Hubei, there are many variations in various places. Some places inlaid the dish with cake carved dragon heads, dragon tails, dragon claws; in some places, the steamed egg rolls are cut into pieces, the powdered egg paste is fried, and when the color is golden, it is fished out, and assembled into a "dragon shape" in the plate, which is fresh and caramelized when eaten.