Dongpo Elbow (my specialty)
■ Huang Zihong
(Originally published in People's Daily Overseas Edition, August 2, 2003)
In Sichuan's food culture, the most prestigious is the Dongpo elbow. There are no less than ten versions of the legend about the birth of the Dongpo elbow in Sichuan alone, the most famous of which are "transfer theory" and "temperament theory". "Transfer theory" refers to the year when Dongpo was relegated to Lingnan, turning grief into food, not only "three hundred lychees a day", but also devoted to cooking, so there were a large number of dishes born, the first of course is Dongpo elbow. "Temperament theory" happened in his hometown of Meishan (Meizhou), which means that the newlywed Yan'er's dongpo, due to excessive intercourse, caused waist and leg pain, the new daughter-in-law saw it in her eyes, the pain was in her heart, so she secretly asked for many folk remedies from him, but none of them worked. One day, she stewed a pair of pig thighs for Dongpo, and took a nap by the fireside, and was suddenly awakened by a scorched smell: the pot was mushy! She busied herself with breaking the fire, and painfully turned the pig's leg out, and saw that the soup had dried up, and the pig skin at the bottom of the pot was slightly browned. Seeing that it was time to start the meal, she was in a hurry, pouring marinade on the pork leg and sprinkling ginger, garlic paste and green onions. She watched Dongpo taste the first bite nervously, but unexpectedly, this mellow and thick pig leg doubled Dongpo's appetite, and he wiped out both pig legs like a cloud. As soon as the daughter-in-law saw that she was crooked, she made this dish for him every three to five minutes, and to her surprise, the symptoms of Waist and Leg Discomfort in Dongpo disappeared unconsciously. Since then, the days of the little two have been more sweet and sweet.
There are two main types of modern Dongpo elbow methods: one is the method of "Dongpo daughter-in-law": use a casserole pot to hold the whole pig thigh, add cold water, just over the pig leg is appropriate, add crushed ginger and whole onion, boil over high heat, remove the blood bubbles, and change to simmer. Until the soup is basically dry and the pork skin is semi-bright, fish it out and put it in a large bowl, while hot, put it with soy sauce, sugar color, aged vinegar, refined salt, red oil pepper, red and green pepper diced, oil crisp minced Pixian watercress, boiled dried pepper segments, flower peppers, cumin powder, brine mixed juice water, sprinkle with crushed fried flower kernels, black sesame seeds, ginger rice, garlic paste, green onions, and herbs leaves. The other type is simpler, the pork thighs spread with pepper and fine salt are placed in a small porcelain pot covered with a layer (about two hundred grams) of kelp silk (large and small white beans are also available), put about 100 grams of Yibin crushed rice sprouts and more than ten Hanyuan peppercorns, buckle on top with another pot, put them in the steamer basket and steam for 3 hours on high heat to get out of the pot. Both of these practices, material selection and heat are very important. The biggest feature of Dongpo elbow is that it is delicious, oily but not greasy, and its skin and fatty parts are actually more delicious than lean meat. Even a lady who doesn't stick to the oil star on weekdays can't help but taste a piece of fat with a skin at the moment.