Source: Fu Tao nine points full
As a northerner, fried cakes are from snacks to large foods.
Probably because I was too familiar with this food, I was slightly shocked when I heard that there were no fried cakes in the south. After all, fried noodle fried rice fried rice fried pho is so popular, who can think that fried cake actually fell single.
But what is more full of confusion is the southerners' reverie of fried cakes and completely different evaluations.
People who have not eaten it think that the fried cake is to cut the cake and cut it and fry it:
▲ Northerner: The fist is hard
© Lower kitchen
After seeing the Buddha-figures, I was even more puzzled, where is the bread? Is this sure it's not powder?
© mamabang.com
Some people who have eaten it like it so much that they still remember it when they return to the south:
Others ate it and wrote resistance on their faces, saying they would never want to see it again:
It's a modern version of pony crossing the river.
So, what exactly is a fried cake? Why should the good end of the cake be fried?
As a northern home-cooked staple food, although there are many kinds of cakes, they are used to accompany meals like steamed bun flower rolls.
As for when it was taken out and fried, there is no history to study, but there is indeed an allusion.
According to legend, Mr. Feng Shiqiao, a famous calligrapher of the Qing Dynasty in Changzi County, once went to a family to play (ceng) tip (fan) when he was sketching outside, and the owner made a dish called stove bu, Mr. Feng was amazed after eating it, and wrote a poem before leaving: "Hiking special tour to Fa jiu mountain, the source of the Zhanghe River is turned over by clear water." Go down the mountain to Shizhe Village, and enter the house to quench your thirst to sharpen your eyes. The host brought out a hospitality meal, and coarse grains were made into incense. "It is said that the stove here is a fried cake.
Today, Shanxi's changzi fried cake has also become a local famous food, just like Yangzhou fried rice, scallion oil noodles and dried fried beef river, which have become local food business cards.
▲ It's just not so famous
Although the allusion is only an allusion, it can at least show that the fried cake was born in the north, and more precisely, it can be located in the Jizhong Plain, so it is normal for southerners not to see the fried cake.
And really want to talk about why to take the cake to fry, in fact, we can also guess a rough idea, nothing more than the flapjacks are burned too much at a time, and the remaining cakes taste worse, so with meat and vegetables casually created a second time, and we are familiar with fried rice fried noodles are no different.
But to say that it is arbitrary, it is a little more exquisite.
First of all, in the choice of cake, we must pay attention to it, and northerners will not casually pick up a piece of cake and fry it.
Like what kind of hand cake, green onion cake, egg cake, oil cake, hair noodle cake all can't do!
Green onion cakes and egg cakes are not pure enough, and the fried cakes will rob the taste of the ingredients; the hand-grabbed cakes and oil cakes themselves are too oily, and the fried cakes are too greasy, and the cakes that are too crispy are fried and not smooth enough.
Not to mention the dough cake, which is difficult to cut into silk; the kind of cake as thin as the ruffle cake of the rolled roast duck is not enough, it is too thin to be tough, and the fry is completely broken.
It must be the most simple baked flatbread cut into shreds, which is the best ingredient for making fried cakes.
▲This is a shredded cake
© Authentic cuisine
A good flatbread should have the following characteristics:
There must be layering, but not too much, easy to absorb the soup; thin and moderate, so that it can be cut into silk; soft and hard moderate, the outer skin is slightly chewy, the inside is noisy, so that the fry out has toughness and is not easy to break.
The second is the side dish.
Although the cake itself does not have any taste, it is reasonable to say that it can accommodate all side dishes, but it is still characteristic to say that the dishes that can be paired with fried cakes are still characteristic.
The fried cake itself is coarse and hard, more chewy, so the dishes should also be crisp, the most common are cabbage, bean sprouts, and some places will also put carrots, beans, garlic moss, green peppers and so on.
© Little Miss Tall's magic spice
Fried cakes are probably one of the few foods that do not need to rely on meat to enhance taste, vegetarian stir-fried is delicious enough, at most add some eggs. But if you want to eat, you can also add some shredded meat to make a meat fried cake, remember to bring some fat, eat more fragrant.
© Brother Tang River
In addition, fried cakes have another soul ingredient, that is, garlic.
Northerners love to eat garlic, so when making fried cakes, they will add minced garlic to it at the end, stir-fry it slightly to stimulate its aroma and quickly put it out, without the pungency of raw garlic, but without losing the taste of garlic.
There is also a kind of garlic put twice, once when the pot is put in, once when the pot is put in, once when it is put out of the pot, it becomes a fried cake with its own "gold and silver garlic", fragrant to tears.
© Chef Zhang Chenbing
Don't forget to slip a little more vinegar to sublimate the whole fried cake!
Some people prefer to sprinkle before the pot, some people prefer to mix it when eating, but in short, vinegar is also essential, and fried cakes without vinegar are incomplete!
© Ray's cuisine
If there is still a leftover lapa garlic in the new year at home, when eating it with a little lapa garlic and lapa vinegar, love to eat spicy fried pepper oil or chili oil, which is the taste of the northerners carved in dna.
You won't see it in a decent restaurant, only in a small shop far from the city center, or a stall next to the station, you can see the most original fried cake.
The cloth strips on the handle of the wok are already cloudy in color, and there is often thick grease on the stove, but the inside of the pot is particularly dark and shiny.
▲ Often the fried cakes on this kind of stall are the best
© Fate of Baoding
The first time you eat it, you may be scared by the portion, no one has ever thought that the fried cake for 10 yuan is so real. A large number of carbohydrates mixed with sporadic protein and vitamins, anyone who looks at it does not meet today's healthy eating standards, but it is a rare and suitable meal for manual workers, in their eyes, the amount of affordable and more expensive than anything.
Although the stir-fry may seem simple, it is also a test of the chef's skill. From the thickness of the cake to the mastery of the heat, the fried cake that comes out should be evenly heated and gelatinized by each cake shred, wrapped in a layer of oily vegetable juice, and the vegetables can not be soup, must just break the raw, maintain a crisp taste, a 10 yuan fried cake, sometimes can also eat the craft.
© Hungry cat shop
The stir-fried cake is also very family-oriented, only because it is the favorite lazy dish of the family's spoons, and any leftover scraps at home can be put in.
If there is a leftover flapjack, it is a coincidence, if there is no flapjack and want to eat a bite of fried cake, send the children of the family to the market to buy three dollars of shredded bread, and come back very quickly. But every "perfunctory" child eats with relish, and even misses it when he grows up.
Although it is a way to eat leftovers, if you seriously eat a fried cake, northerners are more energetic, and it is definitely not easier than any meal.
The shredded bread bought in the market is also inferior at this time, and a family fried cake starts with a flatbread.
Knowing how to adjust flour is probably one of the regional talents of northerners, and good noodles should be woken up for a while, then greased with oil and salt, and finally baked out of the cake is flexible and layered.
© pinlue.com
When handling side dishes, it is also a lot finer, the meat is marinated in advance, the cabbage should be cut off the hard stem, the head and tail will be pinched with bean sprouts, and the garlic cannot be saved by beating garlic into garlic, and it must be chopped into garlic that is not thick or fine, and the taste is the best.
Every child who loves to eat fried cakes has also formed their own exclusive memories at this time, some families love to put tomatoes, some do not put eggs at home, some directly use bacon instead of shredded meat, in short, each family has its own unique fried cake.
Especially the northerners who left home suddenly wanted to eat a bite of fried cake, but found that there was really no food that could replace it:
Wheat flour comes with its own aroma, can not be found from rice products such as pho and kway teow, after kneading the baked cake, the outside is crispy and soft, with the sweetness of the noodles, the layered core can absorb more vegetable juice, the surface looks dry and refreshing, but the teeth can ooze oil aroma.
In front of the fried cake, every foodie is equal. A full plate is served, the staple food and the dish are mixed together, no one can pretend to be Sven, they have to take a big mouthful and pull it into their mouths, after eating everyone is a garlic smell, no one should dislike anyone.
In this way, fried cakes are also an extremely lonely food.
A northerner will not easily eat fried cakes with outsiders. When they want to eat, they often buy a fried cake by themselves, accompanied by a simple bowl of seaweed egg flower soup, and burp comfortably after eating, they can forget a lot of troubles.
But if he's willing to invite you to your house for a stir-fried meal, that's a very deliberate thing to do. After all, although the fried cake is simple to make, it will not be done as casually as stir-fried vegetables, and eating a fried cake that can feast on guests must be prepared in advance and make sufficient efforts.
If you are also just informal, willing to accompany him to eat fried cakes, breathing in the garlic-smelling air, even if he does not say anything, he will definitely treat you as his own.
Rough on the outside but soft on the inside, casual but exquisite, can be kind to everyone, but the real good will only be shown to those who understand.
This is true of fried cakes, and it is also true of northerners who eat fried cakes.