Taste snake, is a traditional dish in Hunan Province, belongs to the Hunan cuisine family. This dish uses high-protein, low-fat, tender local snakes as raw materials, and is formulated with fresh, fragrant and spicy flavors. The cholesterol content of snake meat is very low, which has a certain effect on the prevention and treatment of arteriosclerosis.
Snake meat is delicate in texture, delicious in taste, and rich in nutritional value, and is a delicious dish loved by people.
Historical origins
The taste snake originated in Ningxiang. There is a Hu Jianmin in the countryside of Ningxiang, who worked as a blacksmith when he was young, and then by chance, he opened a taste snake shop at the mouth of the village halfway out of the house, and the taste snake was sold vigorously. What is more interesting is that three years ago, although Hu was more than half a hundred years old, he was confident that the sword was not old, and he participated in the provincial cooking competition with his signature dish "Jianmin Taste Snake", the techniques of Cantonese cooking, the taste of Hunan cuisine, the mysterious and spicy soup, the fat and tough snake meat, and the bite of the mouth can be torn into a line to show the deep fire power, a chew, a taste. The judges were impressed to win the gold medal.
Ningxiang tastes the heat of the snake, and is addictive because of the spicy. After entering Changsha, he experienced three changes in spicy skills. First in the tea oil, garlic, ginger fried snake meat put a handful of dried chili powder simmered to collect juice to eat, and then with fresh pointed red pepper all simmered in two pieces to eat, simmered out a pot of red and hot, in the past two years chefs have played a green pepper stewed snake, the fragrance of green pepper once again activated people's taste buds, became the signature dish of Hunan restaurant, popular. Popular in Changsha
Eating snakes is popular in Changsha, which should be after 1995. Tang Hua, a native of Ningxiang, has successively opened the Kowloon Hotel and the Kowloon Snake City in Jiefang Road and Guihua Park, and first promoted the "Ningxiang Taste Snake" in Changsha. Immediately after that, Zhang Xiaoling of "Golden Sun" opened a chain store in Xiangya Road, Songguiyuan, Zhizhiling, Laodong Road, North Station Road and other places. Golden Sun Shop guests are full of doors, whether it is a banquet or a party drink, the first dish ordered by guests is almost "Ningxiang taste snake". This pomp and circumstance lasted about five or six years.
Now in detail, the "characteristic storm" and "taste storm" set off by the new Hunan cuisine are actually mainly due to the amazing performance of the "Ningxiang taste snake" in the Changsha restaurant market many years ago. "Ningxiang taste snake" has created a prosperous era of continuous innovation and innovation in Hunan cuisine.
"Ningxiang taste snake" was transmitted from Dachengqiao Township, Ningxiang County to Changsha. The people of Ningxiang originally did not eat snakes, and snake meat has always been regarded as a disgusting thing, not only can not be eaten, but also not allowed to cook on the stove. Occasionally, someone caught a snake and ate it, but also hung the snake upside down on a tree, cut the skin, and then built a few stones in the open outdoors, set up a pot, stewed with clean water, added oil and salt, and sprinkled pepper. The soup is tender and has a wonderful taste, but not many people dare to taste it.
Around the beginning of the 1990s, there was a small town called Dacheng Bridge in Ningxiang County, and there was a shop that started to make "taste snakes". Peel and cut the flower snake into sections and simmer in dried red pepper powder, tomato sauce, large ingredients, fragrant leaves, green and red peppers, and onion and ginger MSG. Stir-fry over high heat and then simmer over low heat to taste, then sauce and serve. Served on the table, a plate full of bright red peppers, the fat snake segment has been soaked red and shiny, and the snake meat is tight and shiny with transparent oil. With a bite, the snake meat came out of the bone, sweet and tender, the kind of spicy that I felt after eating, so spicy that people poured cold air but couldn't stop. It is said that vitamin C pills are also powdered into the juice to prevent diners from catching fire. The taste is snake-like and spicy, and the appearance is no longer as white as that of a stew. This snake food soon became popular, and the people of Yutan Town, the county seat of Ningxiang, went to Dacheng Bridge in droves to taste it. It was at this time that Tang Hua and Zhang Xiaoling pushed the Ningxiang taste snake to Changsha. Since then, Hunan cuisine, including snake food, has begun to enter a new journey of ever-changing flavors.
Related allusions
"Autumn wind rises, three snakes fat". The golden wind is refreshing, and the snake has accumulated enough nutrition for hibernation, which is the fattest and strongest at this time, and the most nourishing. This is also a great time to eat snakes. In Changsha large and small restaurants, most of them have snake food: taste snake, green pepper stewed snake, ginger spicy snake, secret snake, dry pot with skin snake... Snake food has become an indispensable flavor protagonist of new Hunan cuisine.
But more than a decade ago, Hunan cuisine avoided snake food. As we all know, Cantonese people have a tradition of eating snakes. The "Qing Barnyard Banknote" records: "Cantonese people love snakes, that is, no matter what kind of snake, they can accompany meals." The "Compendium of Materia Medica" records: "Southern people love snakes. "In fact, in addition to Guangdong, there may not be another place to find, there are Changsha people who like to eat snakes." Nowadays, Changsha is the most famous snake is the "Golden Sun", its boss Zhang Xiaoling introduced, the snake we eat is basically a wild snake, so far no one has successfully bred snakes, the so-called artificial snake, in fact, is just a "circle snake", the wild snake to be caught in captivity——— build a wall around the mountain, do not change the natural ecological environment of the mountain, let the snake live in this territory; and the wall must be curved, there must be no two wall bends, otherwise, the snake along the angle, head and tail between the two walls to climb out of the wall. Hunan's local snakes are in short supply, and most of the snakes consumed by Changsha catering are transported from the largest wild animal concentration in China on Zengcha Road in Guangzhou. Entering the restaurant are basically three kinds of non-venomous snakes: flower snakes, black snakes, and stink snakes (also known as the great king snake).
A few years ago, I once consulted the Hunan cuisine master Xu Juyun on the culinary history of Changsha people making snake dishes, and Master Xu told me that the "old team" in Changsha did not eat snakes, and traditional Hunan cuisine did not use snakes as raw materials. In the 1980s and 1990s, there was a dish called "Dragon and Phoenix Chengxiang——— stewed snake and chicken, which were transplanted from Cantonese cuisine. It was a big dish, and it was only available at high-end banquets.
Preparation of ingredients
Ingredients: 1 cauliflower snake weighs about 1000 grams
Accessories: fresh red pepper 75 g, ginger 25 g, star anise 1 g, cinnamon 1 g, fragrant leaves 1 g.
Seasoning: vegetable oil 150 g, sesame oil 5 g, spicy sauce 20 g, bean paste 10 g, peanut butter 5 g, broth 1000 g, chicken powder 13 g, dark soy sauce 10 g, wet starch 10 g.
Production steps
1: Peel the live snake and cut into long segments of about 10 cm.
2: Add oil to the wok, add spices and spices, sauté the snake section on low heat for a while, pour in the broth, simmer 70% of the rotten instead, and take out the original soup.
3: Cut the red pepper into about 10 cm pieces, after a few moments, add the simmered snake and the original soup to properly season, and then drizzle with sesame oil.
Recipe for making
Snake segments should not be simmered too badly.