To Chongqing tourism, you have to say that Chongqing's cuisine and specialties, hot pot, small noodles, Jianghu cuisine has long been famous at home and abroad, Chen twist, rice candy, Hechuan peach slices are also well-known throughout the country, here and so on, not to say, today we talk about Chongqing's unique strange flavor of beans, it sets hemp, spicy, sweet, salty, fresh, crisp as one, can be called a must in Chongqing.
According to the data, the strange flavor of Hudou in Chongqing originated in Beibei. Wang Zengqi wrote in the book "Eating Beans, Drinking Water, And Idle Pen": "The strange taste of Beans in Beibei is really strange: crisp, crisp, salty, sweet, hemp, spicy. Today, this special snack has blossomed everywhere in Chongqing, and some have been exported overseas. However, with the development of society, while people pursue efficiency, most of them switch to machine processing, and the Liujia Sihe Hudou we found in Fengsheng still insists on hand-made, unchanged for hundreds of years.
When we came to Fengsheng, the owner of this shop surnamed Liu was in the shop, and he said that their family was a native of Fengsheng, who had been selling beans for generations, and he himself had been doing it with his family since he was 18 years old, and had been doing it for almost 40 years.
Lao Liu told us that the throat of The three places of Fengsheng Choke Banan, Fuling and Nanchuan belongs to one foot in three places, and the people who come from south to north to catch the market will stop at Fengsheng for a while, and their family's beans bring together the characteristics of hemp, spicy, crisp, crisp and fragrant, which are very popular with guests, many passers-by in addition to their own relief, will also buy one or two packs to give to relatives and friends, Liu family beans gradually became famous.
In his hands, the production process of strange flavored beans has become an intangible cultural heritage, although the store is not large, there are not many employees, but the annual sales of beans reach hundreds of thousands of kilograms, the sales amount is tens of millions of yuan, the products are sold at home and abroad, becoming a local star store.
He said that the good strange taste first in the selection of materials to be strictly controlled, Chongqing land fat, very suitable for the growth of beans, but not all beans are suitable for the strange taste of beans, you must choose beans large, full of particles, the first step is to soak the beans, after soaking with a knife to cut the beans, and then put in the oil pot with fried, these are fried beans, has been very crispy ...
The next key step is to boil sugar, how the grain is made, directly related to the taste of the strange taste of beans, boiling sugar is a large iron pot, the inside of the sugar, caramel, chili noodles, monosodium glutamate, five-spice powder, salt, sweet sauce and other ingredients are their secret recipe, these slowly poured into the pot, and then stirred evenly, until boiled into caramel color.
There are more than ten processes in the production of four-in-one beans, of which "wearing sugar coating" is the most ornamental and technical link. This "sugar-coated" skill is not simple, if you want to achieve skillful technology, do not waste every drop of material, at least five years of practice. The brown sugar water is moderately thick and sweet, and flows slowly along the special tools, from top to bottom. The double impact of sight and smell makes onlookers salivate.
In the process of "wearing sugar coating", the cooperation of two or three people should be very tacit, one person shakes the beans, one person pours syrup, one person sprinkles pepper noodles and other ingredients, shaking beans is a physical work, but also technical work, must be full of a basket of beans to be evenly shaken up, so that each bean can be wrapped in sugar water and ingredients between the beats, in order to ensure that the sugar coating of the beans is uniform and rich in layers.
The inheritors of Liu Family Sihe HuDou have brought us a visual feast with many years of experience in "wearing sugar coating". This is a perfect combination of traditional craftsmanship and gastronomy, and what we see is not only the birth of a delicious, but also the inheritance of traditional handicraft art.
Lao Liu told us that if the shaking beans are uneven, the sugar water will soon stick together, and the strange flavored beans made will not look good, nor will they be delicious, then it will become a real "strange taste of beans", and the process should be shaken non-stop until the surface is white after the sugar coating solidifies.
He said that the strange smell of beans is not only the common people like to eat, but also the big people like to eat, can be far away from the rivers and lakes, can also live in the temple. In 1965, when the former Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia came to Chongqing, Premier Zhou Enlai invited him to a dinner with a strange flavor of beans. Prince Sihanouk even said it was delicious, and quietly grabbed a handful and hid it in his pocket. Knowing that he was looked at by Premier Zhou, he asked people to send him a bag. Prince Sihanouk is said to have brought him back to Cambodia to honor his mother.
The shaken beans should be placed in the dustpan to be cold, and then the bag is sealed with a packaging machine, and then these packaged "Liu Family Four-in-One Hu Beans" can be placed on the counter, or packaged and shipped to thousands of households, passing on the charm of Chongqing cuisine.
In 2008, Chongqing's local standard "Strange Taste of Hu Dou" was officially introduced and implemented. This standard specifies the color, texture and taste of the strange bean. The standard strictly limits the proportion of moisture, sugar and acid in the strange flavor of the bean. It is required that all strange flavor beans should be granular or petal-shaped, and the mouth induction should have the characteristic flavor of crisp, crisp, fragrant, sweet, hemp, spicy, salty, fresh, etc., at the same time, the product should be non-sticky, no mole taste, no impurities visible to the naked eye. The Liu family four-in-one hudou is a participant and enforcer of this standard, ensuring its health, hygiene, deliciousness and distinctiveness.