I spent the first 18 years living in Dali Midu. If I had asked me what good food I had in my hometown before, I might not have been able to answer it, because I hadn't been away for a long time, and I felt that everything was taken for granted, until I left home to find that everything in Midu was so special, with love and thoughts. However, it has been a long time since I left Mito to study abroad and I have not been able to taste a piece of the homemade mellow roll.
In the list of hometown customs, the food always dominates with a simple and not simple style, and in Midu, the curly hooves are not allowed.
Some people comment that Yunnan has "three legs": Xuanwei ham, Norden ham, and Midu rolled hooves. As you can imagine, the curly hoof is a leg. A complete pig front leg, in order to avoid the fire affecting the taste, the remaining hairs on the pig skin can only be pulled out by hand, which is a meticulous job, and people who do not have a little patience can not do it.
Along the elbow, cut the skin through a long opening, the sharp knife goes deeper, removes the inner bone, separates the flesh from the skin, cuts the red meat and the hind leg meat and the tenderloin into long strips, and sprinkles well salt, fennel powder, and grass fruit powder. Finally, it is a finishing step: the white wine is poured into the red yeast rice, ignited, and the red yeast rice is fermented to the maximum extent and enhances its bactericidal effect. Mix the above spices with the meat strips and massage with stirring to allow them to fully flavor. Then the strips of meat are then settled back into the pig skin, which seems unnecessary, in the opposite direction, in vain, but some steps often seem useless, but in fact, it is very big, this wonderful creation makes the original ordinary pork breathe new life.
When stitching with thread, it is difficult to grasp the strength, both to sew tightly, but also not to pull the pig skin, which is a kung fu work. The first day, take the dried straw into hot water and boil it, enhance the toughness, weave it into a strand of rope, and tightly wrap it around the outside of the sewn rolled hoof, that is, it is a fixed shape, and it is also to prevent the next cooking of the rolled hoof from sticking to the pan, naturally leaving the fragrance of the silk rice, which is considered to be an unintentional willow insertion.
Outer white gauze, wrapped tightly with rope again, deeply boiled in a pot, water spread over the surface, cooked until seven or eight minutes cooked, otherwise it will affect the taste and is not resistant to storage. Allows to cool freely before storing.
Traditional storage should be prepared early in the dried white radish shreds into the water to wake up the bubble, press hard, squeeze out the excess water, and fuse with spices, radish shreds and meat layer by layer alternately superimposed, into the clay altar, fermentation, pregnant with the "soul" of the hooves.
In order to facilitate transportation and carrying, the rolled hooves also have vacuum packaging. It is the only way for the wanderers who left Mido to comfort their taste buds because of their study and work.
The finished product is cut into thin slices, the pork skin part is crystal clear, the flesh color is soaked with bright colors due to the fermentation of red yeast rice, and the colored thin slices of meat are either opened in a white jade porcelain dish like an elegant peacock after being plated, or bloom in a simple wooden plate like a high-quality and elegant idle flower.
Authentic roll hooves salty and tender, skin and flesh are connected, meat less tendons, q bullets, chewy head, the more chewy the more fragrant. Usually, the curly hooves have dipping companions: white garlic, tender yellow ginger, green and white spring onions, turquoise coriander, fresh red pepper, hemp peppercorns, cane sugar, sour and refreshing vinegar, sun-dried soy sauce, meet and meet, compatible, cast a plate of perfect dipping water, sour spicy, refreshing and delicious.
Writing this, I couldn't help but swallow my saliva, and I could only learn from Cao Cao, who quenched Mei's thirst, and read it thousands of times in my heart. Thinking of going home for the New Year on vacation, reuniting with relatives, drinking and talking, holding bamboo chopsticks in hand, reaching for the thin slices of rolled hooves on the plate. The first piece, directly into the mouth, press the inner surge, chew, chew again, relive the original aroma of pure meat, can not stop at all. The second piece, to be dipped in the dipping water prepared by the mother's own hand, coincides with the warmth of the memory, which is the taste of happiness. Thousands of people have made thousands of dips in their hands, and they have also had the opportunity to taste dipping water in different places, but there has never been a dish of dipping water that can be compared with the mother's dipping water, and the taste seems to have long been deeply rooted in the bone marrow, unique. I have heard this secret recipe, from elementary school to adulthood, I have not learned home, and I may never learn it. If this secret recipe is a sacred and unshirkable responsibility, then I would rather never learn it.
Due to the complicated and meticulous steps and the busy work, I have not eaten the cured hooves at home for a long time. Now, homesick, I have fallen into a deep taste bud.
Text / Zhao Guoyuan
Figure / Micro Midu editorial department collection and collation
Editor-in-Charge: Xiang Xiaoying