"Steaming" is a cooking method that uses steam as a heat transfer medium to mature or shorten the seasoned raw materials. There are many ways of steaming, including steaming named after the color, smooth steaming named after the taste, steaming named after seasonings, paste steaming named after the form, buckle steaming named after the way of plate loading, steaming named after cooking methods, and brewing steaming named after the cooking method. Each steaming method has its own unique features and operating techniques.
Here I will talk about my opinion on how to make a tamale dish.
Steaming is to put the raw materials processed by the knife in a small basin, add the seasonings to marinate into the flavor, then add the spice rice flour to mix well, and then put it in a dish (bowl) and steam it until it is ripe. It is named because it requires the addition of spiced rice noodles to season.
Tamales have the characteristics of glossy color and oil, tender and soft texture, five-spice flavor, fresh and delicious, and its representative dishes are tamales, tamales, tamales, tamales loach, lotus steamed duck and so on.
1
Raw material selection
The raw materials used to make tamales are very extensive, including animal raw materials, such as pork ribs, pork belly, beef, mutton, fish, shrimp, rabbit, bullfrog, eel, moray eel, loach, etc., as well as plant raw materials, such as oyster mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, white radish, artemisia annua, beans, potatoes, fresh lotus, red amaranth, etc.
In order to produce high-quality tamales, the selection of ingredients should be exquisite. For example, the pork belly used to make tamales should be selected with soft pork belly with thin skin and tender meat, and it is forbidden to use fatty pork with thick oil, otherwise it is greasy to eat; steamed lamb needs to use a small lamb leg part with a light red meat color and uniform meat; steamed beef should use lean meat with less muscle; steamed chicken should use baby rooster legs or fat and tender broiler legs; steamed ribs need to use ribs, and the ribs in the middle should be used.
△ Steamed hooves
When using animal raw materials as the main ingredients, some plant raw materials should be added as ingredients to achieve the purpose of homogeneous nutrition, clear mouth and greasy, and add flavor. Generally speaking, pork is suitable for old pumpkin or red amaranth at the turn of summer and autumn, pork ribs with potatoes, lamb with radish, chicken nuggets with shiitake mushrooms, eel with beans, etc., and these combinations are not fixed, and can be flexibly used according to the changes of the season and the taste requirements of customers.
The condiments commonly used in the preparation of tamales are salt, monosodium glutamate, chicken essence, pepper, pickled chili pepper, Pixian bean paste, sweet noodle sauce, curd milk, spicy sauce and so on.
Spiced rice noodles are indispensable for making tamales, both ready-made and homemade, and there are many recipes, generally take 100 grams of rice and a small amount of star anise, cloves, sand and other spices, put them in a clean wok, roast the yellow with a low heat, and then pour it on the board to roll out the coarse rice flour.
2
The raw materials are initially cooked and processed
Pork belly with skin is a common ingredient for making tamales, and it is generally subject to the process of initial cooking.
The method is: scrape and clean the residue on the skin of pork belly, cut into large pieces of 7 to 8 cm square, and then put it into a pot of water with green onion knots, ginger slices and cooking wine, boil and skim off the foam, then cook over medium heat until just cooked, fish out and cool. Note that pork belly should not be overcooked or over-cooked, otherwise it will affect the quality of the dish, so it is advisable to use chopsticks to insert it down from the skin of the meat, which can be gently inserted.
3
Knife handling
When making tamales, the shape of the raw material knife treatment is mostly slices, segments, blocks, strips, dices, etc. For example, pork belly slices for making tamales should be cut into rectangular pieces about 7 cm long, about 4 cm wide and about 0.3 cm thick; slices of steamed beef and mutton should be cut into about 4 cm long; tamales should be cut into 5 cm long segments; steamed chicken pieces should be cut into 2.5 cm square pieces; and steamed bullfrogs should be cut into 2 cm square pieces.
△ Steamed lamb
The shape of the raw material knife treatment should also be combined with the form of the plate and the size of the fire temperature to be flexibly used, and the general principle is that the shape is uniform and the size is appropriate to ensure that the heating is uniform and the maturity is consistent.
4
Some raw materials are treated with effluent
In order to ensure that the steamed dishes are delicious and bright in color, some of the raw materials after knife treatment need to be treated with water, such as rabbit meat, turtles, moray eels, loach, oyster mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms and so on.
Among these raw materials, raw materials such as rabbit meat with large odor, blood stains, and old texture should be put into the pot together with cold water, add cooking wine and green onion and ginger, boil for about 5 minutes, and then fish out and wash the dirt with water; and eels, moray eels, loach and other raw materials with heavy mucus and fishy smell should be put into the pot of boiling water slightly, that is, quickly fished into the cold water basin and wash off the surface mucus; as for the mushrooms such as oyster mushrooms and shiitake mushrooms, they should also be boiled under water to remove their sour and astringent taste.
5
flavouring
In order to make the steamed dishes attractive, it must be carefully seasoned, the method is: put the raw materials of the knife in a small basin, add green onions, ginger rice, garlic rice, salt, monosodium glutamate, chicken essence, pepper, cooking wine, soy sauce, etc. to mix well and marinate, or put in the flavored soup to burn through the flavor. On the basis of this salty and umami flavor, sweet noodle sauce, tempeh, pickled pepper, watercress sauce, seafood sauce, shacha sauce, etc. can also be added to make steamed dishes with different flavors. When seasoning, you should master the following points:
1. All kinds of raw materials must be drained, otherwise it will affect the taste.
2. Because the tamales are one-time seasoning before heating, the amount of various raw materials must be mastered, especially when adding salt and salty sauce (such as bean paste), the salty sauce should be added to adjust the color, and then add salt to supplement the salty taste.
3. The seasonings such as sweet noodle sauce, pickled chili pepper, bean paste, tempeh sauce, etc., should be fried in hot oil in advance, and then mixed with raw materials.
4. The time of pickling should be flexibly mastered according to the old and tender raw materials and the shape and size. For example, beef and mutton can be marinated for half an hour because the meat slices are thin and easy to taste; bullfrogs and eels should be marinated for about 1 hour; ribs and chicken nuggets need about 1.5 hours; artemisia annua, elm money, white radish shreds, beans and other small vegetarian raw materials can be pickled for a few minutes.
6
Stir in the rice noodles
Add an appropriate amount of rice noodles to the ingredients that have been marinated and mix gently. You should pay attention to the following points when operating:
1. Regardless of the flavor of the dish, rice noodles can only be mixed after the ingredients have been pickled and flavored, and before steaming in a cage.
2. Do not put too much rice noodles, otherwise it will stick into a lump, resulting in not being soft after the dish is formed, and it is greasy to eat.
3. After adding rice flour and mixing well, you can add an appropriate amount of fresh soup and cooked oil according to its degree of dryness and wetness, so as to avoid the dry and soft taste of the steamed product. For some animal raw materials (such as pig lungs, etc.) that do not contain oil themselves, it is necessary to add enough oil when mixing powder, so that the steamed product can be oily.
7
Plate
After the ingredients are mixed and glued to the rice noodles, there are many options for how to plate and shape them.
The raw materials can be steamed directly in a plate; steamed in a special small bamboo cage (such as steamed beef fillet skewers); the raw materials can also be neatly stacked in a bowl, steamed and flipped into a dish (such as tamales). The first two methods generally do not need to change the plate or cage, and directly put the steamed dishes on the table together with the original utensils, so as not to destroy the shape of the dishes. It should be noted that the raw materials should not be piled too thick in the plate to prevent steaming.
8
Steamed in a cage
The container containing the steaming ingredients is placed in the steamer basket and steamed over high heat, and the steaming time should be flexibly mastered according to the size of the raw material volume and the taste of the dish.
Because most of the steamed dishes use raw materials, and the appearance is wrapped in rice noodles, the heat transfer is slower, so it is necessary to steam with a high fire, and can not be deflated in the middle. At the same time, the steaming time must be mastered, the general principle is: large volume, requiring crisp taste, such as ribs, etc. need to be steamed for about 1.5 hours; small size, requiring soft and tender taste, such as fish, chicken, etc., need to steam 20 to 30 minutes; radish shreds, artemisia annua, etc. only need to steam for ten minutes.
9
Replenish flavoring
After the steamed dishes are steamed, sprinkle some small ingredients such as green onions, minced red peppers, crushed coriander, pepper and other small ingredients, and drizzle with a small amount of hot sesame oil or cooking oil to enhance the aroma and attractive color.
Dishes
- Steamed chicken nuggets
Ingredients: 300 grams of vegetarian chicken, 100 grams of spiced rice noodles, 5 grams of chopped green onion, 5 grams of minced ginger, broccoli, salt, monosodium glutamate, cooking wine, soy sauce, fresh soup, sesame oil, salad oil
Method:
1. Cut the vegetarian chicken into irregular hob pieces (see Figure 1).
2. Heat the pot, heat the salad oil, add vegetarian chicken nuggets and stir-fry slightly (see Figure 2), mix an appropriate amount of fresh soup and add salt, monosodium glutamate, ginger, cooking wine and soy sauce, after heating through medium heat, let it cool from the heat (Picture 3).
3. Mix the chicken nuggets with the spiced rice noodles, put them into a steaming bowl, pour in an appropriate amount of soup (see Figure 4), and then basket and steam over high heat until the rice noodles are swollen and mature, take them out and flip them on the plate, place cooked broccoli around them, sprinkle with spring onions, and drizzle with hot sesame oil.
Note: Vegetarian chicken nuggets are soy products, which must be simmered in fresh soup and then mixed with rice noodles. The soup should not be too much, so that the rice noodles will not stick to the raw materials. Spicy food, you can add some chili peppers or chili sauce to the seasoning.