Pocket tofu is a unique delicacy of Baoshan Jinji Township, Jinji Township is located in the east corner of Baoshan City, there is a local saying: "long but Langyi, big but golden rooster", there are ancient buildings such as Jinji Temple built in the early years of Tang Xuanzong Tianbao. It is said that the history of the production of Baoshan Jinji Pocket Tofu can be traced back to the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, and the monk Yun traveled here to preach at the Jinji Temple, and invented pocket tofu by accident.
Gao Wenjin, a local, is the sixteenth generation of pocket tofu, and he has taken making tofu as his life's mission. Passing through Jinji Township, be sure to go to Jinji Pocket Tofu Garden to see if there are really pockets in Pocket Tofu.
There are three hardships in life, punching a boat and making iron to make tofu
Before dinner time came, the Golden Rooster Pocket Tofu Garden was already full of people, and everyone was smelling the fragrance. Pocket tofu as a local specialty, the outer skin is tender but not scorched, soft but not tough, the inner skin is as white as jade, tender as a bean flower, eating a mouthful of fresh flavor, provoking many foreign diners to go to Baoshan to taste.
From time to time in the kitchen, there is a "jingle bell" sound, and it is Gao Wenjin, the sixteenth generation of pocket tofu, who is busy making tofu for the guests. Thanks to the excellent local water quality, the tofu made by Gao Wenjin has a little alkaline nature, and the elderly in their seventies and eighties and children up to the sevens and eighties like to eat.
Gao Wenjin recalled that he had taken no detours along the way, and decades ago, he was as ambitious as many young people, uneasy about the living conditions of his ancestors who made tofu for a living. "Making tofu is a very hard job, and I am too busy to make money every day, and I can only barely make a living." As the saying goes, 'There are three sufferings in the world, punching a boat and grinding tofu with iron'. Only those who have experienced it firsthand can truly understand the meaning of this sentence. "When he was young, Gao Wenjin was not willing to do such a hard, tiring and unprofitable job.
So he wanted to go outside and break in, driving a walking tractor, a farm car, working as a coolie on a construction site, and doing some small business. I have suffered a lot, suffered a lot of hardships, and worked hard for several years without changing the fate of poverty. After several twists and turns, he returned home, precipitated impetuous thoughts, and began to work steadily and steadily to make tofu, the old business inherited from his ancestors.
Every morning at six o'clock in the morning, I got up on time to burn the fire, grind beans, boil water, and start the day's work. "To make pocket tofu, you need to choose the best soybeans that are full of geology and golden in color, "such soybeans have good water absorption." After washing, then pour into the water to soak for a night, the dried soybeans in the water again a wake up, one by one to restore the warmth and smoothness, the texture is soft and full. After soaking, it is ground, and the golden bean grains are ground into a pulp by the ancient stone grinding, while nutrients such as plant protein are still retained. "To make tofu to pay attention step by step, leaving a process of tofu is ruined, more than thirty years later, Gao Wenjin is more and more diligent and serious."
After the beans are ground into soy milk, it is in accordance with the previous practice of ordinary tofu, the ground soybeans are filtered with water to filter out impurities such as okara. Immediately after that, it is boiled over a high heat, and at high temperatures, the diluted soy milk boils up and the nutrients in the soybeans dissolve. Gao Wen Phnom Penh made tofu while explaining: "When making tofu, the control of temperature is very important, too low temperature is difficult to remove the original fishy taste of beans, too high temperature will destroy the original protein molecular structure, not only reduce the nutritional value, but also affect the fresh taste of the final product." ”
Finally, remove the foam floating on the surface and add the appropriately proportioned acid water, and the bean blossoms will congeal. Pour into the abrasive press, after pressing and molding, the prepared large pieces of tofu are cut into small pieces with a knife and put in a cool place to dry, which is the ordinary tofu we most often eat, and the golden chicken pocket tofu needs to undergo another magical transformation on top of this. "Golden Chicken Pocket Tofu puts the dried and cut tofu in a frying pan and frys it until the skin is golden and crispy, makes it into a fried tofu that is convenient for storage, and then puts the fried tofu into alkali water and soaks it." Gao Wenjin said.
If you want to be fast, you can't eat hot tofu in a hurry
It doesn't take long for a pot of pocket tofu to be placed on the table. In the steaming soup, pieces of fragrant yellow tofu are arranged in a staggered manner. Pinch the soup spoon, gently stir the ginger and green onion on the soup noodles, and suddenly feel the fragrance repeatedly drill into the nostrils, luring out people's saliva. And the tofu block that was still plain and fragrant yellow just now was smeared with white and green green onions, and it showed a different charm. Use chopsticks to pick up a piece and you can see it as it really is— dangling, swollen and bulging, like a skin bag full of water.
With chopsticks, he poked and tore open the fragrant yellow bag, and a strong bean fragrance instantly entered his heart. In front of his eyes, the white yingying, shiny crystal, and dangling bean blossoms were simply crushed into the jade plate of the Nine Heavens Yaochi, making people unbearable to swallow.
Yang Zhiwei is the son of Gao Wenjin, the sixteenth generation of pocket tofu, who has been hearing about his father's process of making pocket tofu since he was a child, and now he has studied the practice and eating method of pocket tofu. Just as the diners were about to taste the delicacy, he hurriedly interrupted: "I can't eat hot tofu in a hurry."
He said: "To taste pocket tofu, you have to pay attention to one cold, two bites, three sucks, and four chews." Once you are in a hurry, you can only end up with a 'full mouth spray' result. “
Eat pocket tofu, the method is extremely exquisite. It is generally to scoop the pocket tofu into the bowl first, and drink the soup water after it is slightly cold, so as to remove other flavors in the mouth and help the taste buds to fully release. After drinking the soup, gently pick up the pocket tofu and put it to your mouth, first feel the temperature of the tofu with your outer lip, and then bite open a small hole in the skin of the tofu and slowly suck the bean blossoms inside. After the bean blossoms are sucked, you can slowly chew the golden tofu skin.
Take a bite of the bean blossom in the bowl, and suddenly your mouth is full of warm nephrite, and the heat rushes to the top, as if you are in a warm embrace, and you feel extremely comfortable. Come back to Life, slowly chew the yellow tofu skin, there is a tender but not scorched, soft and not tough comfortable taste, let people just taste a bite to fall in love.
Golden Chicken Tofu Feast Unique to Baoshan
In addition to the well-known pocket tofu, tofu is also a very popular soy food.
Tofu is a delicious dish baked over high heat, add vinegar, salt, and chopped salt and you're ready to serve. Before you even enter the mouth, you can smell the fragrance of tofu from afar. Take a bite, sour, very chewy, the more you chew the more mellow it tastes. The fragrance is wrapped between the lips and teeth, and it is difficult to disperse for a long time.
Pickled milk curd is also a major feature of the Golden Rooster Pocket Tofu Garden. Salty, sour, spicy, and it's really appetizing to eat in your mouth. Some neighbors joked: "If you can't eat one day, come to a piece of pickle milk rot from the Golden Rooster Pocket Tofu Garden, you will have an appetite!" "You can see the charm of pickled vegetable milk rot.
As for the legend of pocket tofu, local folklore, in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the monk Yun traveled here, during the preaching of the Golden Rooster Temple, he accidentally dropped the fried tofu into the lye water with grass and wood ash during a meal, and once accidentally created this special cuisine. Later, the clever Jinji people used the local unique well water with a high alkali content to brew pocket tofu. After soaking, the outer skin of the tofu is soft and tough, but the inside is slurred under the action of alkali, shaped like a pocket, the outer skin is golden in color, the inner skin is as white as jade, and the food makes the teeth of the population fragrant.
Pocket tofu color golden, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, into a tofu bag on the outside, and soybean milk on the inside, which is light and delicious, rich in nutrition. In addition to the golden rooster, it is rare to see in other places, which can be called a golden rooster. Nowadays, Jinji Pocket Tofu is listed as a municipal intangible cultural heritage of Baoshan City, and more and more people can enjoy this delicacy.
Co-ordinator Liu Jiatong
Wen Liya
Figure Yang Lei Bi Peng
Edited by Xie Tongxi
This issue is responsible for editing Zhang Lingjie Ma Yonghu
Reviewed by Ma Bo Liu Li