Cantonese speaks of ancient | The highest realm of Cantonese cuisine master is "enough wok qi", what is the qi?

Text/Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Zhou Cong Tan Zheng Li Huankun audio/Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Tan Zheng

"I want to be a Cantonese chef, stir-fry the dish and stir-fry Niu HeXian." On November 2-3, at the 4th Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area "Cantonese Cuisine Master" Skill Competition, dry fried beef river became a compulsory question.

Point to solve the dry fried beef river will be a compulsory project? Bull River behind the test and grin? In the Guangdong people's diet, there is a good "mysterious" breath, called "wok gas". What exactly is "wok-y"? Cantonese chefs understand "wok qi" in a bit? Today, I listened to the incense spray "Cantonese Talking about The Ancient World" together!

"If you want to be a Cantonese chef, stir-fry the plate and stir-fry Niuhe first." On November 2-3, at the 4th Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area "Cantonese Cuisine Chef" Skill Competition, dry fried beef river became a compulsory question.

Fried beef river, that is, beef fried rice noodles. It sounds like a simple snack, but it is one of the standards for measuring Cantonese chefs. Why? It turned out that in Guangdong, whether it was a large restaurant or a food stall, almost every house had a dry fried beef river. Some people say: Chefs who can't fry Niuhe are not enough to talk about Cantonese cuisine. This also proves the difficulty and status of dry fried beef river in Cantonese cuisine.

What kind of dry fried beef river is perfect? Cantonese chefs say that "wok is compelling" is the supreme praise for a plate of dried fried beef river. What is "wok gas"? Some people say that the wok is the sound of the stove "banging" in the back kitchen can be heard from a distance; some people say that the wok is the stir-frying sound of the back kitchen master's "ping-pong ping-pong".

According to the data, as early as the 1920s, some people proposed "wok gas", but many people said that it could only be understood and could not be said. Wok gas, inseparable from a "stir-fry" word, is accompanied by Cantonese chefs have a deep understanding of the stir-frying method formed a scorched aroma.

It is said that at the end of the Qing Dynasty, Empress Dowager Cixi had a cook named Wang Yushan by her side, and he made "sugar crisp tenderloin" that particularly pleased Empress Dowager Cixi. This dish is made by taking the leanest part of the pig's back and cutting it into large pieces, slightly salting and dipping it in egg paste, then placing it in a pot with a small amount of oil and slowly cooking it to make it crispy, and finally pouring sweet and sour sauce and turning it over.

One day, Empress Dowager Cixi was in a hurry to eat, and the eunuch told Wang Yushan to hurry up and get the dishes ready. But this "sugar crisp tenderloin" is quite time-consuming to make. In a hurry, Wang Yushan cut the tenderloin into strips, dipped it in egg paste, and put it in a pot with a small amount of oil to rummage through. Then he poured in the sweet and sour juice and continued to stir, and finally the plate was served to the eunuch to Empress Dowager Cixi.

Empress Dowager Cixi was very satisfied with this "sugar crisp tenderloin" that was different from the previous one, and immediately ordered the eunuch to send Wang Yushan to interrogate him. Of course, Wang Yushan did not say that this was his practice under the "rush chapter", but only said that this was a newly created method of "catching and stir-frying".

Soon, the "catch and stir-fry method" spread all over the country, and Cantonese chefs realized that the so-called "catch and stir-fry method" evolved from frying. Frying is to put food on a small amount of hot oil pan to heat, while stir-fry is to dance food on a small amount of hot oil pan to heat, one still and one movement.

Nowadays, Cantonese chefs often support the process of "flying water" or "pulling oil" before "stir-frying". "Flying water" is to put the ingredients into a pot of boiling water and quickly skim over; "Pulling oil" means putting the ingredients into a hot oil pan and skimming it quickly. In other words, before the ingredients are "fried", they already have 80% or 90% maturity, and the rest of the maturity only needs to be scattered in a hot wok with a small amount of oil.

From a scientific point of view, wok is more like a synthetic aroma. Most foods contain sugars, amino groups, carbonyl groups and other compounds, through heating, sweet sugar compounds will undergo caramelization reaction, and non-sweet amino, carbonyl compounds will often occur Maillard reaction. "Wok gas" is the aroma synthesis formed by the caramelization reaction and the Maillard reaction of the compound. That is, in the eyes of senior chefs, when the small stir-fry is served, the layer of heat that flutters on the surface of the small stir-fry.

It is also said that wok is actually a combination of momentum, smell, color and temperament. Momentum, that is, the dish out of the pot, to steaming, smoke filled; smell, is to require the dish to have a different fragrance, enduring, let people smell fragrant foraging, smell the incense and salivation; the color, that is, is the oil bright, the color is positive, so that people get visual enjoyment; temperament, is the requirements for taste. Only if the above four are satisfied at the same time, it can be called wok qi foot. (For more news, please pay attention to Yangcheng Pie pai.ycwb.com)

Source | Yangcheng Evening News Yangcheng Pie

Editor-in-charge | Liu Zhuonan