How many people still remember the bluefish paddling in the Xinxing Grand Restaurant? At that time, with this dish, it was famous in Wuhan.
Xinxing Restaurant is a long-established catering enterprise in Wuhan, founded in 1927, and the founder is Mr. Shao Shengmu, a master of Hui cuisine. The restaurant inherits the long-established corporate culture and special dishes, and the products are known for their fine workmanship and delicious meat. The main cuisine is Hui, and there are also Zhejiang cuisines. In the 1980s, the "Blue Fish Paddling" dish produced by Xinxing Restaurant was named "Qingyu Paddling King" in the Jiangcheng Famous Cuisine Selection, and officially appeared on the list of Jiangcheng Famous Dishes.
A few nights ago, in Wuchang Jiangtan Yuanyinjia met Master Zhou and the manager of the former Xinxing Grand Restaurant, Mr. Zhang Lao, and listened to the two old gentlemen talk about the glorious past of those Xinxing Restaurants, and felt a thousand emotions... The two gentlemen are about seventy years old, and the years are making people old. Speaking of which, I hope that the famous dish of braised paddling can re-emerge from the rivers and lakes...
Next, let's talk about Huibang cuisine and its leader Xinxing Grand Restaurant.
1 Wuhan's Emblem Gang dish
At that time, there were many Hui restaurants in Wuhan, which was related to the fact that "the first of China's top ten merchant gangs" Hui merchants occupied an important position in Wuhan. In the old days, Hui Restaurant was a cow ear for Wuhan catering with a large number and high grade. Mr. Tang Lusun mentioned that "there is not a single restaurant in the three towns of Wuhan that pretends to be Hubei cuisine, and the generally simple and elegant old restaurants mostly carry the brand of Huiguan." ”
The top brand of Wuhan's famous Hui cuisine restaurant is the Great China Restaurant (later evolved into a leader in Ecai cuisine due to Wuchang fish), followed by Zhongnanchun Restaurant, Xinxing Building, Tongqing Restaurant and so on.
Zhongnan Chun Restaurant is on Jianghan Road, and its steamed dumplings with soup and fresh meat are the most distinctive.
The Xinxing Building opened in 1936 (also known as 1927), and the most famous dish is "braised paddling".
Tongqing Restaurant is famous for its braised fish noodles in Wuhan. It is said that Zhang Zaishou, a GreatEr China restaurant, was an apprentice at Tongqing Restaurant before his career. Because of his diligence and ability, he was deeply appreciated by his boss Hu Guisheng, so he quickly learned the craft of first-hand emblem help dishes.
In addition, there are also some cheap restaurants in Huibang cuisine. For example, in the Jingyang Building in Shengji Lane, a table of four silver dollars can be eaten, and the dishes are roasted green fish, yellow braised dumplings, three fresh noodles and so on.
However, in the later years, with the decline of the Hui Gang, the Hui Gang cuisine in Wuhan did weaken.
However, many people are obsessed with the new big restaurant. At that time, the xinxing restaurant diagonally opposite the Hankou Youth Palace was the shoulder handle of the Wuhan Hui cuisine industry!
2 "Bluefish Paddling" and "Running Horse Eggs"
In the 1980s, the "Blue Fish Paddling" dish produced by Xinxing Restaurant was named "Qingyu Paddling King" in the Jiangcheng Famous Cuisine Selection, and officially appeared on the list of Jiangcheng Famous Dishes.
Yesterday evening, Hanyang Sixin Avenue Yuan Yinjia dinner, in the Xinxing Restaurant for more than 50 years, the now seventy-year-old Master Zhou personally cooked for us two big dishes, one is a green fish paddling, one is braised fish belly.
Master Yang Yuanyin, a master of Chinese cooking and Yuanyin Jia, specially bought a six-pound green fish in order to let Master Zhou show this famous emblem dish.
The manager of the Xinxing Restaurant at that time, Hu Runsong, said that the practice of paddling the classic Emblem dish bluefish is to choose about 4 pounds of fresh green fish, take the tail of the fish intestine under the eye, keep the tail fin as it is, cut the tail vertically into two knives and three women; the dry pot is burned on the stove until it is red, pour the cold oil to run the pot and then pour out, the remaining oil is put into the ginger slices and stir-fried, and then the fish tail is put into the pot, add cooking wine, soy sauce, old vinegar, sugar, lard, fine salt, and the appropriate amount of hydrology and simmer for 10 minutes, and then collect the juice on high heat, add flavor, turn the pot, and plate it.
Its firing method is quite fierce - neither oil, nor water, even without a spatula, seasoning in one go, only use the wrist power to turn the pot, add the pot lid, simmer out of the red natural mustard, a cigarette kung fu, out of the pot! The presentation is very interesting, the tail is soft on both wings, the middle wing is erect like a flag, trembling, fat and shiny, tempting appetite.
After all, Master Zhou is old, his strength is no longer in his prime, and although the blue fish paddling produced is not perfect enough, the fish meat is strangely tender, and it still has the afterglow of the veteran Lianpo on the battlefield. When Master Zhou's cooking video is posted to the video platform, it is not a compliment, but a diss. For example, "This stroke does not touch the color and shape, and the taste is very good." "Chef who only learned at the age of 69" "Without a big flip, there is no level, and the juice is not well hooked." This is a Shanghainese dish that should be shiny. ”
Master Zhou said that although the blue fish paddling is bullish, the braised fish belly is fat and should be more popular with the current people, in addition to running horse eggs and crystal balls are well-known dishes of the emerging restaurant.
Everyone wondered, what is a "running horse egg"? It is six egg whites wrapped in beef, beat the egg whites evenly, boil a pot of oil, pour them into the pan, flatten them, and quickly fry them with a spatula. With a little force, the crispy crust that has just formed will break. When rolled, it is like a large pillow of bread, very fluffy, and will quickly disappear when it cools, somewhat similar to the dessert "Soufflé".
The master fu requires that the waiter should directly carry the pot and trotting to serve the dish, so it is called "running horse egg" (I suspect it is also related to the Western Merchant Racecourse), so that guests can take advantage of the heat to eat with chopsticks, eat fluffy and bite. The difficulty of this dish is that it is the least easy to cook and easy to break. It's a test of skill. But also hard work waiter, must be urgent as the law, fast and fast!
3 other famous dishes
In addition to the above famous dishes, Xinxing Grand Restaurant has many dishes.
For example, crystal balls, does anyone remember?
Combined with the information of Hu Runsong, a legal person of the xinxing restaurant at that time, the general method of "crystal ball" is as follows, cutting the sesame lard core into small pieces, rolling it into a whipping fluffy egg white liquid, rolling it into a ping-pong ball shape, and quickly frying it. When dragging the wrist power to master well, to be fast, immediately sealed and wrapped, otherwise the oil pot will leave two eyes, the oil and sugar core will flow out, belongs to the "wrist light work".
"Money chicken" is the opposite dish, two layers of fat sandwich a piece of chicken, rolled on the fluffy egg white liquid under the pot, forming a circle, but to expose two square eyes out, to achieve the effect of the outer circle and the inner square. This dish, the lard seeps into the chicken, very hot but fat. Hu Runsong once said, "This dish can only be cooked by Chen Xinghao (the older generation of chefs), and as soon as we let go, the egg white liquid sealed our eyes." "It can be seen that the older generation is exquisite.
Although the Xinxing Restaurant is named Huibang Cuisine, it also integrates the cuisine of Ningbo, Zhejiang, and competes with several major restaurants in Wuhan at that time. At that time, the most powerful stove master was called Chen Xinghao, and his master was Xie Asan of Ningbo and Wufangzhai, and the roasted eel paste and yellow fish were good, which showed that the xinxing restaurant had the shadow of Ningbo.
At that time, the Wuhan catering industry had such a saying, "Eating sweet and sour mandarin fish is the old Tongcheng, eating green fish paddling is the Xinxing Building, eating yellow fish to Wufangzhai and eating watercress mandarin fish to the Furong Restaurant..." For the Xinxing Restaurant, Hu Runsong was full of pride, "Brush rod eel silk, the old Tongcheng city is not as good as we do; running horse eggs, Wufangzhai will also do, not as we do well; but our family makes sauce and fried meat, no one in Chunming Lou does it authentically." ”
In fact, in addition to the emblem dishes such as blue fish paddling, its small soup bun is also very well-known. Some netizens recalled that in the 90s, the soup bun was five yuan a cage, and after receiving a salary every month, he had to go to relieve his hunger. There is also a large bowl of dumplings for a few cents, which is still unforgettable.
It is worth mentioning that the stinky mandarin fish that Wuhan people love to eat is also circulated from the xinxing restaurant. It is actually a Huangshan dish, "our shop is called 'pickled fresh and smelly mandarin fish', pickling it takes a lot of time, and now it is made with Wang Zhihe's stinky curd brine for a few hours, rushing to work." Hu Runsong said.
In the 1980s, the new restaurant was very brilliant, and celebrities flocked to it. In particular, sports stars, such as the old Chinese men's basketball team, the old Chinese women's volleyball team that is older than Lang Ping's qualifications, the Russian head coach of the former swimming team, and the Martin of the football team, have all gone to the store to eat blue fish and paddle. Zhu Mingying, Zhang Shumo, You Benchang and other stars also had a late night snack here.
In the later period of Xinxing Restaurant, Zhang Mingming of Wuhan Wufangzhai was sent to Xinxing Restaurant to take charge of related matters. At that time, Chen Xinghao had died, and there were many internal contradictions in the Xinxing Restaurant, and it began to decline. Coincidentally, before Zhang Bin's death in the 80s and early 90s, LaotongCheng also entered an era of brilliant expansion.
Then into the mid-1990s, Wuhan's big restaurants were like a cheat, they failed to transform, and then the collapse of the closure, the liquidation of the liquidation, the land was really clean.
At the same time, with the gradual disappearance of long-established restaurant companies and inheritors, many old Chinese famous dishes have also "disappeared". In addition to the famous dishes of the Xinxing Restaurant, the hedgehog pearl pills of the former People's Restaurant (the glutinous rice wrapped in the steamed balls are erected), the crispy large intestines of the former Huibin Restaurant, the xiang sugar mandarin fish of the former Laotong City, and the fried tenderloin of the former Chunming Building have basically disappeared from the catering rivers and lakes of Wuhan.
I wonder how many people still remember those fading old Hankou famous dishes?
Author: Shu Huai
Photo: Thanks for the invitation to shoot
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