Among the top ten famous dishes in Shaanxi, there is a pure meat dish that is too hard to be hard - with an elbow.
The belt elbow originally originated from Dali County, Weinan, Shaanxi, and belonged to the meat cuisine family of Shaanxi cuisine (Qin cuisine).
In the book "Chinese Recipes", it is promoted as the first famous dish in the Qin cuisine section.
According to legend, the belt elbow has a long history and was created by Li Yushan, a chef in tongzhou (present-day Dali County) during the Hongzhi period of the Ming Dynasty.
It is said that one day, futai in Shaanxi province came to Tongzhou to inspect, and the local prefect, in order to please shangguan, sent someone to find Li Yushan to cook for the leader. However, Li Yushan was a man of integrity, and he had long been dissatisfied with this inflamed prefect, so he planned to take this opportunity to embarrass the prefect. But he didn't want the housekeeper of the prefect's house to be all the way to the goods and the old man of their family, and when he saw Li Yushan come to the palace, he deliberately made things difficult, only giving him some broken meat and rotten bones as ingredients, and limiting him to a banquet within two hours.
Li Yushan did not shirk his resignation, and took over this errand with a slight groan. In the kitchen of the prefect's home, I saw Li Yushan's knife flying spoon dance, and in less than two hours, he made a table of wine dishes.
During the meal, Lord Futai was eating and eating, and suddenly found a dish, the surface was a layer of meat, but underneath was a few broken bones, so he asked incomprehensibly: "This dish?" ”
When the prefect saw this, he was immediately shocked and rushed to cure Li Yushan's sins. After passing on Li Yushan, the prefect was furious and asked him what was going on. However, seeing that this Li Yushan was not in a hurry, he turned to Lord Futai and said, "Lord Futai does not know that we, the prefect, not only eat meat, but even bones on weekdays." ”
It just so happened that this Futai lord was a well-known Qing official, who heard the unspoken meaning of Li Yushan's words, and without waiting for the prefect's question, he first rewarded Li Yushan with ten pieces of silver and told him to go home first. The next day, Futai Weifu paid a private visit, asked Li Yushan about the prefect's bad deeds, and then severely punished the prefect and the housekeeper at home.
Before leaving, the prefect asked Li Yushan what the name of the dish he ate that day was, and Li Yushan said in passing: "Bring an elbow." So, since then, the dish has been passed down.
Today, the practice and raw materials of the elbow are far from being as casual as they were at the beginning, but are made of pig legs as raw materials and made with exquisite workmanship.
The basic process of making a belt elbow is:
First take the pig's front leg and scrape it clean, then elbow the head outward, elbow handle inward, elbow skin down on the cutting board, use the knife in the middle from the elbow to elbow handle along the leg bone to cut the skin, and remove the flesh on both sides of the foot bone, so that the bottom bone is connected with the meat, so that the bone is exposed, and then the two leg bones are smashed in the middle with the back of the knife. Then cook in a soup pot until seven ripe, roll dry and rub the skin with red soy sauce while hot. Then take the steamer, add the star anise, cinnamon and other seasonings, put the elbow skin down, sprinkle with fine salt, cover it with clean gauze, and finally apply sweet noodle sauce, green onion, tofu milk, red oil, white soy sauce, ginger, garlic, etc. on the surface of the gauze, and steam it. After steaming, take it out, remove the gauze, buckle the elbow into the plate, and pick off the star anise and other large spices. Serve on a small plate of shallots and sweet noodle sauce.
The flavor characteristics of the elbow are mainly: the elbow meat is crisp and not greasy, the elbow skin is sticky, and the mellow taste is delicious.
Although in the elbow world, China is most well-known as the "Dongpo elbow", in Shaanxi, this "elbow with a handle" is more popular with the people. One is that it is locally produced, and people have different feelings for it, and the other is that his taste and use of the feelings are more in line with the preferences of the local people in Shaanxi.
Now, this famous Shaanxi dish can be eaten in some large restaurants in Xi'an, of course, if you want to eat the most authentic, you can also drive to Weinan Dali County to taste it yourself.
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