The two cities of Shaanxi and Beijing are more than 1,000 kilometers apart, but they are two thousand-year-old cities that are harmonious and different. Xi'an, Shaanxi, represents the splendor of ancient China and the starting point of the ancient Silk Road. Beijing was the new capital city that after Xi'an, the political, economic and cultural center of China shifted to the southeast coast, and the capital of the Three Dynasties of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties. From the great wall in the north of Shaanxi to the Qinba Mountains in the south, across the Yellow River and the Yangtze River, the temperature difference between the north and the south is large, and the products are diverse, making the raw materials of its dishes rich and colorful. The cooking method is good at steaming, frying, stir-frying, braising, mixing, etc., and the taste of dishes highlights salty, fresh, sour, spicy and fragrant. Shaanxi flavor is mainly composed of Guanzhong, Northern Shaanxi and Han Chinese cuisine. These three flavor dishes bring together official cuisine, Shangjia cuisine, municipal cuisine, folk cuisine and halal cuisine. Meat sandwich steamed bun is a famous flavor snack from Shaanxi folk cuisine.
About 7 or 8 years ago, Beijing meat sandwich steamed bun began to become "puff pastry meat sandwich bun", steamed bun skin crisp, the outer skin is like a screw cake, there is a smell of grease, steamed bun plus bacon meat, the aroma is overwhelming. The puff pastry meat sandwich steamed buns sold in Beijing are derived from the Shaanxi Baiji meat sandwich buns.
Bai Ji Bun can highlight the aroma of wheat flour, the skin is thin and crisp, the heart is soft and cottony, and it can absorb and highlight the aroma of bacon meat.
In Shaanxi sandwich steamed bun is a kind of cuisine, named from the ancient Chinese "meat sandwich in the bun", if the meat sandwich steamed bun changed to steamed bun meat may be more image, probably in order to highlight the delicious meat in the steamed bun, so it is called meat sandwich bun. Sandwich buns include meat sandwich buns, vegetable buns, egg buns and so on. In Xi'an, the status of meat sandwich steamed buns is comparable to that of steamed buns, and it is said among Shaanxi people: "Fat meat is not greasy to eat, lean meat is full of mouth fragrance, no teeth bite the meat to rot itself, and the aftertaste will not disperse after eating."
It is impossible to verify when the meat sandwich bun was there, but there is a custom in Shaanxi people to get married, which can be seen the importance of meat sandwich bun in Shaanxi. In ancient times, when Xi'an married a daughter, she had to choose a young woman as a bridesmaid and send her daughter to her in-laws' house. Bridesmaids are also called "Quanhe ren", "send female guests", "female concubines", "quanhe people", etc., bridesmaids have strict requirements, not only young and beautiful but also young women who have given birth to sons, and are the first marriage. When the bridesmaid sends the bride back, it is natural to bring some gifts. Among the gifts brought back by the bridesmaids, otherwise there must be meat sandwich steamed buns. However, there is no definite number requirement, and most are even numbers.
In different places in Shaanxi, the meat sandwich steamed buns brought back are also different. For example, in Baishui County, Guandong Province, there are generally 2 bridesmaids, each of whom has to bring back 6 meat sandwich steamed buns; Fengxiang County in Xifu Province brings back 12 steamed buns without meat and 12 steamed buns with meat; Qishan is mostly the bridesmaids themselves to take steamed buns and sandwich meat, and there are also in-laws who make meat sandwich buns.
The combination of Chishan noodles and shou shou is combined with the combination of meat sandwich steamed buns and the oldest, most solemn, and most common rituals, and the history of meat sandwich buns can naturally be seen. Meat sandwich bun is a kind of expectation for people's life, hoping that the life after marriage will be reunited and happy, symbolizing a kind of intimate and integrated meaning, expressing auspicious wishes.
The difference between Xi'an Baiji steamed meat sandwich steamed bun and Beijing puff pastry meat sandwich bun lies in steamed bun.
In the minds of Shaanxi people, only the meat sandwich steamed bun made of Bai Ji steamed bun is the most authentic. Freshly cooked white steamed buns, the skin is crispy, dry and very sweet, with a hint of wheat, not to mention the bacon meat. The process of Baiji bread is relatively simple, there is no difference with ordinary flaky cakes, but the specific details are not easy to grasp, and a special pot stove is needed, just like the steel stove in Shijiazhuang, which is specially used to bake baked cakes, and the degree of fermentation opposite Baiji buns is also required.
A few days ago, I talked to my friends in Xi'an about the more popular puff pastry meat sandwich steamed bun or mille-feuille meat sandwich bun in Beijing in recent years, and I would ask, can it still be called meat sandwich bun? Mille-feuille is a particularly crispy cake that is very much in line with the taste of today's young people. The mille-feuille recipe is slightly more complicated than the white bread, wheat flour, warm water, pork and dough, made into raw blanks, roasted steamed buns, browned and crispy, and with one bite, the crispy crust of the ice will fall off.
Beijing Puff pastry meat sandwich bun originated from Tongguan meat sandwich bun, also known as roast cake meat sandwich bun, which is different from other Shaanxi meat sandwich buns. One is that the skin of the baked cake is crisp, dry, fragrant and crisp, and it is like a shortbread in the mouth; the second is to eat the Tongguan meat sandwich steamed bun with duck slice soup; the third is the difference in eating methods, hot cake with cold meat.
Both baiji steamed buns and puff pastry buns are inseparable from bacon meat. Bacon meat, crispy and crisper than the usual sauce meat, tastes fresher. This is mainly because when making, the selection of ingredients is fine, the seasoning is complete, the heat is to arrive, and the use of aged soup, so it naturally has its own characteristics.
Bacon meat method is very exquisite, first use cool water to wash the fat and moderate fresh pork, cut into long strips, and then put into the pot containing old soup, and then put in the appropriate amount of cold water, salt, cooking wine, sugar color, in addition to enlarging the material, pepper, cinnamon, cloves and other more than 10 kinds of spices, it is best to put these spices in a coarse cloth bag, so that it will not be full of pots.
When all this is done, press a heavy object on top of the meat, first boil the pot over high heat, and brush off the floating foam inside. Then cook over low heat, but make sure the soup pot is open, so that after cooking for 2 hours, simmer for another 3 hours over low heat, the meat is completely cooked. At this time, the meat is fished out and the bones are removed, and after the bones are removed, the meat is placed on a large plate. Freshly made hot cakes and cold meat is the traditional Way to eat Tongguan Meat Sandwich Buns.
Beijing's current meat sandwich steamed buns are hot cakes with hot meat, the cooked meat is removed from the bones and put into the soup of the boiled meat, slowly heated, the meat should be completely soaked in the soup, absorbing the flavor of the soup. When eating, put the cake in the pan and bake it, and chop the fat and evenly fat bacon into meat tweeds and sandwich it in the puff pastry. Bacon meat is also first cut into small pieces and put into the pot to marinate, this meat is delicious, but there is no aroma of bone meat.
In addition to the Tongguan meat sandwich steamed bun, in Xi'an there is a Fan family bacon meat sandwich steamed bun is the most famous meat sandwich steamed bun restaurant in history, originated in the Guangxu years, after the Fan family meat sandwich steamed bun is a bacon meat sandwich bun, bacon meat after several generations of careful study by the Fan family, its "bright and fragrant color, fat but not greasy, thin without leaving residue" characteristics, deeply loved by people.