In old Beijing, eating in all seasons should pay attention to the ritual sense of life, especially the important festival of Lichun. In the early years, Beijing people Lichun had the habit of eating radish, radish is also known as vegetable root, "bite the root, Pepsi can do", which is the belief that has been circulating for thousands of years, containing people's hard-working, tenacious and tenacious strength, especially suitable for this spring.
LiChun's feast is spring cake, the so-called spring cake, also known as lotus leaf cake, is actually a kind of hot noodle pancake - two small pieces of water, greased in the middle, rolled into a pancake, after baking can be peeled into two sheets. Spring cakes are eaten with rolled vegetables, including cooked vegetables and stir-fried vegetables.
In the past, when eating spring cakes, we paid attention to going to the box shop and asking "Su Pan" (also known as box dishes) to be delivered to the home. In the box, put smoked belly, pine nut belly, stove meat, sauce meat, smoked elbow, sauce elbow, sauce mouth strip, smoked chicken, sauce duck, etc., when eating, you need to change the knife to cut into thin wires, with several home-cooked stir-fry dishes, usually for shredded meat fried leek sprouts, meat shredded fried spinach, vinegar cooked mung bean sprouts, vegetarian fried vermicelli, stall eggs, etc., if there is a freshly listed "pheasant neck leek" fried lean meat shredded, and then with stall eggs, it is more delicious and refreshing, roll these dishes together into the spring cake to eat, this is a vibrant "bite spring feast".
There is an indispensable food in the spring cake, that is, the sauce elbow, I have always believed that the spring cake without it is soulless, today I will talk about my favorite sauce elbow and Tianfu.
Speaking of Tianfu's sauce elbow, it is definitely the number one that the old Beijing sauce meat can count. The skin is tender and crispy, the taste is mellow, fat but not greasy, I think even Cixi was good at this bite, I was stunned to give the Tianfu a waist card. Whether it was in the past or now, this is a delicacy loved by Beijingers.
There are many ways to eat sauce elbows. Every time I pass by the shop of Tianfu, I always can't help but buy a piece of dark and shiny sauce elbow to take home, not directly on the mouth, the simplest way to eat is to cut into large pieces of dipping sauce to eat.
Slicing sauce elbows is easy to say, and practical exercises are often problematic. The sauce elbow of the Tianfu is tender and crispy, and if it is not cut well, it must be broken into a board. There are two secrets you remember well, the first is, the bought elbow is first put in the refrigerator refrigerator refrigerator for an hour and then taken out to cut; the second is that you must use a thin slice to cut quickly, a force to cut down a knife to be complete, do not hold a knife on the meat can be energetic "Gay". These cut into large sauce elbows, white mouth to eat is already very fragrant, and then pay attention to the point, you can accompany the sweet noodle sauce, or the traditional garlic sauce dipping sauce.
Sauce elbow can also be served with the staple food, usually I buy elbows at the same time will buy a few sesame cakes, just baked out of the oven, steaming cut, sandwiched with cold elbows, this is called a beauty! Of course, the spring cake is more classic, but it cannot be eaten casually, that is to pay attention to the sense of ceremony. At that time, there were many famous box shops in Beijing, and tianfu was among them. Therefore, in the "Spring Feast" of Beijingers, the contribution of Tianfu is indispensable.
Tracing the history of Tianfu, it was a sauce butcher shop at xidan road junction more than 200 years ago. The slaughtering industry and the butcher shops opened in old Beijing are mostly operated by people from Yexian County, Shandong, and liu Fengxiang, the founder of Tianfu, is a native of Yexian County, who came to Beijing and opened a sauce butcher shop in the northeast corner of Xidan Arch, and he was very careful in the process of sauce making, using spices such as fennel, peppercorns, sand kernels, cardamom, cinnamon and baizhi, plus aged soup and fine yellow sauce. Liu Fengxiang sauce out of the elbow fat meat is not greasy, lean meat is not chai, the skin color purple red glow, rotten meat to the entrance that melts, the taste is extremely beautiful, but because his store is small, nameless and numberless, so although most of the customers who have tried to "turn back", but the business is always not big.
It is said that Liu Fengxiang went to the market one day to buy goods, passing by a thrift stall, saw there was an old plaque horizontally, on which were written three vigorous and powerful characters "Tianfu" in Yan Body Kai, Liu Fengxiang felt that the word "Tianfu" had the meaning of heavenly blessing, very auspicious, just can be used as the name of his shop to attract customers, so he bought back this old plaque, slightly trimmed and decorated, and hung on the lintel of the small shop.
Beijing is originally a place of special culture, people to and from Xidan saw that the words on the plaque were well written, they came to stop and watch, especially some literati and scholars, when tasting calligraphy, they also bought cooked meat, and when they tasted it, they felt that the taste was very good, it was widely spread, Tianfu business flourished, and during the Guangxu years, Tianfu sauce meat, both in technology and taste, has been crowned in Beijing.
The person who really made Tianfu the name of Tianxia Chi was a "nobleman" - Cixi. It is said that there was a court official who lived in the old punishment department street who often bought the sauce elbow of the Tianfu, this official was likely to be from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and once he asked the Tianfu to elaborately process and make several sauce elbows for Cixi, and Cixi ate it, and felt that the meat was rotten and did not stuff the teeth, and was very satisfied, so he asked the Tianfu to send the sauce elbow to the palace on time, and gave them a waist plate to pass, so the Tianfu became famous at once.
Tianfu Sauce Elbow also has a hardcore fan, that is, the last emperor Puyi. After the Xinhai Revolution in 1911, Puyi longed for Western life, wore dresses, ate foreign rice, and disdained the traditional food of the Qing Palace, but tianfu was a special case, although the Western food Puyi ate every day was not the same, but the Tianfu sauce elbow was a must-have dish on the Western table. After Puyi's amnesty in 1959, he rode his bicycle to Xidan Tianfu to buy sauce elbows the next day.
Before liberation, in addition to selling sauce elbows and sauce meat, Tianfu also sold sauce meat, stove meat, and large balls, which were very popular with diners. Especially in winter, boiled cabbage is a large ball with a few slices of stove meat or cut into two or four halves, which is extremely delicious and inexpensive. These kinds of Beijing-specific cooked foods may not be well known to young people, because they have disappeared since the 1950s, and their names only appear in the text of gourmets, which arouses infinite reverie.
Meat with clear sauce
For example, Beijing's specialty clear sauce meat is similar to the ham in southern cuisine. Clear sauce meat is actually cured with sauce. The sauce is a thick sauce that spills out of the sauce tank when making the sauce, which is heavy in color and has a very fragrant and mellow taste. The meat with the sauce was brought to Beijing by the Manchurians, and it is said that it was passed on by the "wrapping" of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Shandong people who opened the box shop, and became popular in Beijing at the end of the Qing Dynasty. Compared with ham, old Beijingers only have a special love for clear sauce meat, Mr. Liang Shiqiu wrote in "Yashe Talks about Eating": "Some northerners are afraid when they see ham, and they always feel that there is no sauce meat to be refreshing." Authentic northern restaurants make ingredients, never use ham, always sauce meat. ”
The method of clear sauce meat is to choose the thin skin of fat and lean consistency and then the tip of the buttocks, first marinate with a small amount of salt, then wash the salt, and then marinate with clear sauce. The original method of making meat with clear sauce was to marinate it in salt for several days, and when the meat was marinated, it was put in the sauce for at least one year and then air-dried. This production method takes more than 2 years due to inefficiency. Mr. Tang Lusun mentioned in recalling the "unique food of Peking": "It is said that the clear sauce meat takes one and a half years to be pickled out of the tank, there is no smell of oil, the ham must be steamed to eat, and the clear sauce meat can be sliced and served as long as it comes out of the tank. "Now, the sauce meat of the Tianfu is back.
Hearth meat
Back is also the hearth meat, the so-called old Beijing stove meat, that is, the whole piece of pork belly selected with fat and lean and suitable meat layer, placed in the oven to bake. The stove is made of brick, shaped like a hut, the upper part of the stove is crossed by an iron bar, the whole piece of pork is processed and hung on the bar with an iron hook, and the stove below is lit and baked with fire. Grilled straight until the skin of the pork is foamed and the grease is best. The cooked meat is slightly yellow and crispy on the surface of the meat skin, and the part of the meat is fat but not greasy, lean and chewy, soft and tender. When cutting, put the roasted meat on the case, the skin of the meat is facing down, the meat is facing up, the knife feels crisp and sound, and it can be eaten after cutting into thin slices. The sliced slices can also be boiled with cabbage, etc., which are delicious and fragrant. In the past, if the old Beijingers used to drink with the warm stove meat, it was really a unique flavor, and they could really drink him for a drunken rest. The residue after the hearth meat is cut, which is the raw material for making the stove meatballs.
An old Beijinger recalled that in his early years, his father often went to the long-established Tianfu to buy meatballs. "The yellowish, burnt on the outside, flattened round shape, with a pimple on the surface and a fragrant aroma, the price of the stove meatballs is very cheap. After buying it back, it is generally cut into small pieces for boiling cabbage, and the cooked cabbage soup is delicious and flavorful, so that you do not drink a 'belly round' and refuse to give up, and the aftertaste is still mouth-watering. ”
Food, with the taste of the years, eat well and drink well, is the quiet of the years.