Place names + food, so that naming the food can often awaken the taste buds.
Taiwanese grilled sausage, Taiwanese hand-grabbed cake, Taiwanese ice powder... These snacks under the name of "Taiwan" are not the memories of Taiwan, and when it comes to Taiwan's food business card - it has to be a bowl of Taiwanese beef noodles, which have the common taste memory of everyone.
Walking on the streets of Taiwan, the appearance rate of beef noodle shops is particularly high.
In the early days of Taiwan, there was also a taboo of not eating beef, and the Taoist exhortation classic "Cow Diagram Classic" reads: "The prison word is from the cow, the prison word is from the dog, and the prison dog is not eaten, and the prison can be avoided." ”
Cattle are a very valuable labor force for farmers.
This atmosphere was impacted after the defeat of the Kuomintang after 1949, when many retreating soldiers and the families of the garrison came to Taiwan and lived in the villages, most of whom were the air force and family members who retreated from Sichuan, and everyone improved the Sichuan red soup beef noodles and developed a new field of exploration for the sense of taste.
Lu Yaodong, a famous chinese foodie and historian of contemporary times, once recorded that the braised beef noodles sold in Taiwan in the early days almost always emphasized Sichuan flavor, and even accompanied by Chengdu street food such as Sichuan-style tamales, which shows that the "blood relationship" is very close.
Now, in the Nanmen Market, you can still see a variety of flavors such as Hunan spicy sausage, Shanghai osmanthus cake, Jinhua ham and so on, most of which originate from the village.
Writer Shu Guozhi once said
"In Taiwan, beef noodles are such a culture, and in Taiwan, beef noodles are such a memory. Even beef noodles are such an era."
Taiwanese beef noodles are produced in this special context and form a unique Taiwanese flavor.
The noodles are served, and the large pieces of beef that serve as toppings have an amber luster on the noodles, and this piece of beef is one of the important secrets that determine whether a bowl of beef noodles is delicious or not.
Photo/tainanfoodeat.blogspot.com
When we evaluate a bowl of beef noodles, we always say: What a fragrance!
This flavor depends mainly on the beef.
Beef noodles in Taiwan usually choose beef tendons, brisket, beef tendons, and some stores will choose beef breasts, ribs or tripe.
The best option for beef tendons is sliced with neat shapes, fine tendons in the muscle fibers, no fat, and a good proportion of tendons and meat, such as tendon hearts.
After stewing, such beef tendons have a bouncy tooth, but they do not plug their teeth, and the meat tendons become transparent, and they are soft and tender to eat.
It is said that the standard of Taiwanese tendon is also derived from the early subdivision and study of beef tendon in Taiwan when making beef noodles.
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Half-tendon and half-meat toppings often use chest and abdomen meat, which is also a part of the cow that exercises more, and it is somewhat chewy to eat, and it is also mixed with fine tendons and some grease.
To complete a gorgeous turn of the chest and abdomen meat also needs to be cooked, take some time, find the best state of this piece of meat, you can experience the tender and delicious taste.
The representative of the whole tendon, beef tendon, is a very hard texture before stewing, but after stewing, the taste becomes more vigorous and crisp, and the collagen is more abundant, which brings people surprises.
After being baptized with spices, these pieces of meat are cut into large pieces and placed on top of the noodles and soup base, and a little green onion embellishment can make people's appetites explode.
Another secret that beef noodles can accurately capture the hearts of diners is beef soup base, and the beef aroma of noodle soup can penetrate into everyone's food memory.
The soup base of Taiwanese beef noodles is mostly made from parts with bones, such as beef legs, oxtails or beef ribs, and sometimes a few more bones are added to add flavor.
It takes several hours or even days to boil bone broth here, and some "fine soups" will be prepared according to taste, mainly braised and clear soup.
Originally made by Sichuan veterans, Sichuan-style braised beef noodles can be said to be the originator of Taiwanese beef noodles, and it is a taste that almost every store has.
Braised pork pays more attention to the thick taste, the color should be red and bright enough, based on watercress sauce and soy sauce, but it is not an extension of a certain dish, and it will also add Chinese medicine recipes to make bone broth smell fragrant and drink without getting greasy;
Or add tomatoes to become tomato braised beef noodles, add some spicy texture to become spicy beef noodles, etc. to complete a pleasure between the lips and teeth.
Clear soup is important - the noodle soup is light and delicious. Based on peppercorns and peppercorns, refreshing taste, clear soup, adding fruits or traditional Chinese medicines, becoming different types of soups, coupled with modern people's emphasis on light and healthy health, there are many stores to launch - health vegetable beef noodles.
In order to make a bowl of healthy clear soup beef noodles, some stores will choose to use the cattle slaughtered on the same day, in fact, the earliest beef noodles will also use taiwanese local yellow beef, but the number of this cattle is very small, the cost is extremely high, the store almost did not waste every part of the use, in addition to making beef noodles will also do some brine products side dishes.
Most of the beef is now fed in the U.S. grain or grass in Australia.
The selection of American grain-fed beef tendons, the muscles are softer and tenderer than other production areas, the meat is more elastic to chew, effortless, and the metallic taste and fishy taste are small;
Australian grass-fed beef is mostly used for half-rib, half-meat beef noodles, which need to be simmered for a long time, but the taste is extremely rich.
In Taiwan, there are beef noodle competitions every year, and even a bowl of beef noodles can sell for thousands of yuan, making people wonder if it is worth it?
It doesn't matter.
Eating itself is a part of life, a delicacy itself is a head, an excuse, an expression of emotion, if you can eat a sense of happiness, how much money is worth it.
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TEXT: Cora/World Beef Guide
DESIGN: Cora/World Beef Guide
First published on the official account World Beef Guide
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