The earliest understanding of Shaoxing is still from the textbooks of junior high schools, Shaoxing literati are born, and the Lu You, Lu Xun, Zhou Enai, etc. that we are familiar with are all shaoxing people in Zhejiang. Shaoxing is not only a literati, but also rice wine, curd milk, social opera, Yue opera, water town, bridge town, calligraphy, wu tent boat, etc. are all classic cultural elements of the ancient city of Shaoxing.
Shaoxing curd milk
Foreigners come to Shaoxing, in addition to feeling the local small bridge and flowing water people's Jiangnan characteristics of the beauty, will also do these things: eat fennel beans, taste stinky tofu, try moldy dried vegetables. At the end of the trip, I will also bring two things with me, one is Shaoxing yellow wine, and the other is the Shaoxing curd milk we will introduce next. Shaoxing curd, although it is made of moldy tofu, is the taste of historical precipitation, and it is also an ancient human delicacy.
Shaoxing
Curd milk, also known as tofu milk, is a folk specialty food that has been passed down for thousands of years in China. It is characterized by high nutritional matrix, soft taste, smelly, fragrant to eat, deeply loved by the Chinese people, is a delicious dish that has been passed down through the ages and has endured for a long time.
China's territory is vast, and the differences in food culture in different regions have made different types of curd milk appear. Divided from the type, curd milk is usually divided into three categories: green square, red square and white square. Among them, stinky tofu belongs to the "green square", "large pieces", "red spicy", "roses" and other "red square". "Sweet and spicy", "osmanthus flower", "five spices" and other "white square".
White curd milk is represented by Guilin curd milk, Guilin tofu milk has long been famous, is one of the traditional specialties "Guilin Three Treasures". White curd does not add red yeast to make it maintain its true color when it is produced; Guilin white curd is small, the texture of the fermented curd is smooth and soft, and the surface of white curd is orange and yellow, with a delicious and fragrant taste and rich nutrition. White curd milk has a reputation and has been welcomed by people from Hong Kong and Macao, Southeast Asia and Japan.
fermented bean curd
Red curd milk is a seasoning dish made of soybeans, rice wine, sorghum wine, red yeast and other raw materials, red curd milk is called red sauce tofu in the north, and in the south it is mostly called southern milk. Red curd is a large class of products in curd milk, the surface color is natural red, and the knife cut surface is yellow-white. The taste of red curd milk is relatively mellow and the flavor is relatively unique. Red curd milk is also often used in cooking condiments in addition to meals, and when purchasing red curd milk, the color is positive, the shape is square and neat, the texture is delicate, and the odorless is the best product.
Tea oil curd is a kind of red curd milk, and its production areas are mainly concentrated in Yongzhou, Hunan and Guilin, Guangxi. Tea oil curd milk is to add curd milk to tea oil soaking, delicate and delicious, rich in nutrients, deeply loved by people in the south.
Red curd milk
Green curd milk is stinky tofu milk, also known as green square. Green curd milk is a delicacy that "smells and eats fragrant" among the people of old Beijing, and many people are good at this bite. Beijing Wang Zhihe tofu milk is the representative of Qingfang, and the inventor is Anhui Wang Zhihe. Stinky tofu was once used as a small court dish, which was appreciated by Empress Dowager Cixi and was personally given the name "Royal Qingfang".
Green square curd milk
In addition to the white, red, and green squares, there are also some special varieties. For example, those who add bad rice are called bad parties, and those who add rice wine are called drunken parties. There is also floral curd with sesame seeds, shrimp seeds, sesame oil, and rose raw materials. In Jiangsu and Zhejiang, such as Shaoxing, Nanjing, Ningbo and other places, the curd milk is known for its delicate taste, slightly sweet and long length; and in Dayi County, Sichuan, Tangchang tofu milk has a strong Sichuan flavor characteristics, spicy, fragrant, delicate and slag-free; in Chengdu, Meishan and other places in Sichuan, chinese cabbage curd milk also shows another characteristic, wrapped in cabbage leaves, the taste is fresh and spicy and delicious; the crisp tofu milk made in Henan Tuocheng is mellow and has a good taste.
Curd milk was the first invention in China, which has a history of thousands of years. During the Two Han Dynasties, Liu An, the king of Huainan, inadvertently invented tofu, and since then, people's research on tofu has never stopped. In the 5th century AD, there is a record of curd milk in the ancient books of Wei Belt: "Dried tofu is fermented after ripening with salt."
The "Compendium of Materia Medica" written by Li Shizhen in the Ming Dynasty records: "Curd milk, also known as curd milk, is pickled with tofu and made with lees or sauce, and the taste is salty and sweet. ”
The Ming Dynasty's book "Pengli Night Talk" also records the production process of curd milk.
By the time of the Qing Dynasty, there was no difference between curd milk and today's curd milk, and there are also detailed records of different methods of making curd in the "Awakening Garden".
During the Ming Jiajing period, Shaoxing curd milk was already exported overseas, and at that time, India, Singapore and Myanmar all had Shaoxing curd milk. Some businesses even expired the billboard of "Shaoxing South Milk" in front of the door, resulting in a very prosperous business. In the major sauce gardens in Shaoxing, curd milk is often its main product.
During the Qing Dynasty, Xianheng, Lao Shuntai, Shen Tongmei and Zhengde Sauce Gardens in Shaoxing all produced curd milk. Among them, the curd milk of Xianheng Sauce Garden (the predecessor of today's Xianheng Food Factory) was created during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, and its exquisite materials, exquisite production process and fine workmanship have become the old brand of curd milk.
Shaoxing curd milk and Shaoxing yellow wine, its name, is a traditional delicacy with a great sense of age and history. As a delicacy handed down for thousands of years, Shaoxing curd has experienced the precipitation of time and created a delicious taste that belongs to the tip of the tongue of the Chinese people.
Shaoxing curd milk is not only a table dish commonly prepared by locals, but also a good product for foreigners to travel and give gifts to friends. Shaoxing curd milk square, drunken mellow, moist color, its fragrance is slightly similar to old wine, the taste is salty and delicious, the texture is soft and delicate.
There are five main varieties of Shaoxing curd milk: drunken fang, Taifang, Dingfang, Qingfang and Chessfang, of which drunken fang is the most common in ordinary people's homes in Shaoxing. Drunken curd is golden in color, ripe and soft without deformation. Because of the addition of wine as a raw material, the fragrant curd milk adds a strong aroma of wine. The reason why Shaoxing drunken fang curd milk intoxicated everyone was mainly because of the addition of Shaoxing wine. Shaoxing wine as a fine wine, the local Shaoxing taste is not imitated by other regions.
The common types of Shaoxing drunken curd on the market are ordinary drunken party in the altar, bottled pepper drunk party, sesame oil drunk party and ham drunk party. The ordinary drunken curd block of Shaoxing altar is large and cheap, and it is a more favored variety among locals. Bottled hemp oil drunk is a more popular category for foreign tourists, and is also popular with people in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. The ham drunken party is an emerging category, showing the vigorous vitality of Shaoxing curd milk.
Shaoxing curd milk is not a big dish, but a condiment small dish in the folk, which is more suitable for porridge, bubble rice and so on. As an accompaniment dish, whether it is nutritional value or flavor taste, curd milk is actually in the first place.
As a condiment and excipient, the main function of curd milk is to freshen, salt and color. The roasted meat made with the juice of red square curd milk is red in color and rich in flavor, and is one of the famous local dishes in Shaoxing. And the juice of the drunken party, Shaoxing locals usually use to steam tofu, plus a little chives, the taste is rich, let people appetite greatly increased.
As an ancient delicacy, the production process of Shaoxing curd milk is mainly the crystallization of the wisdom of the working people. Shaoxing curd milk is mainly carefully made through more than ten processes, from the selection of soybeans to the rail crush, refining, filtration, pressure plate, pelletizing, fermentation, cylinder loading, ingredients, sealing altar, and then to the bottle after maturity, each process needs to be carefully operated, if there is a process that is not in place, the quality and taste of the curd milk can not be guaranteed.
Fermented fermented fermented milk
Shaoxing curd milk is selected from the local high-quality soybeans to make white blanks, requiring the semi-finished products made of white blanks to be white, uniform in thickness, soft and flexible, which is a great test for the master's production skills, and veterans without several years of practical experience cannot be produced. After the white blank is cured, it is put into a bamboo cage, and then sprinkled with two-tenths of a thousandth of the mucormycete species, and after about five days of fermentation, the mold grows out. The mycelium of the mold gradually changes from the beginning of the white to yellow-brown, the hyphae are thick and the spores are obvious, which means that the fermentation is good, and then it is necessary to pickle.
Pickling is very particular about the amount of salt added, and the amount of salt added is 30% of the blank. A layer of rough is sprinkled with a layer of salt, the red side is pickled with a jar, the drunken side is pickled with bamboo, and in the environment of 20 degrees Celsius at room temperature, after 10 days of pickling, the pickling is formed.
The pickled blanks are golden in color, slightly hard in texture, square in all corners, and soft and soft mold on the surface, and are loaded into the altar for later fermentation. When entering the altar, 30% of the condiments are added, namely 30% of rice wine, 5% of red yeast paste, 11% of sauce seeds and peppercorns, etc., sealed with lotus leaves, in an environment of 25 degrees to 30 degrees, after half a year of fermentation can be completed.
The finished product Shaoxing curd has a red appearance, the cut surface is sauce yellow, the texture is soft, the taste is fragrant, and you can smell the unique fragrance of curd milk without opening the altar.
Shaoxing curd milk is rich in protein and sugar and other nutrients, which has the effect of strengthening the spleen and stomach and enhancing appetite. Fermented milk is a delicious fermented product, protein is broken down into various amino acids, which can help people increase appetite and help digestion. Breakfast with a small piece of curd is delicious and healthy.
As a big country in gastronomy, China is also the first country to discover and master fermentation technology. From staple steamed buns to drinks, from pickled sauerkraut to stinky curd, fermented foods are everywhere around us. The broad spirit of China's food culture is the spiritual wealth of thousands of working people. Just from the small fermented food item is enough to see the wisdom of the ancestors, the ancients turned decay into magic, and created countless delicacies from life that have been passed down through the ages to benefit future generations.
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