Seriously, who really wants to eat the Honey Fire Party now? When eating Spanish or Italian ham and swallowing champagne, do you think about Jinhua ham? If marco polo had not brought back a Chinese ham eight hundred years ago, where would the ham technology come from in Europe? The development of the times has reached this point, how many thousand-year-old brands are secretly declining, and not only Jinhua ham. This time let's revisit this leg and relive this famous dish that is about to disappear, the honey sauce fire recipe.
Let's start with a good leg
In fact, Jinhua ham is a general term, does not only refer to the ham produced in Jinhua, South of Hangzhou Yiwu, Dongyang, and even many small village residents themselves will do ham, but because this leg is extremely sensitive, the humidity, temperature requirements are harsh, it just so happens that Jinhua has gathered the weather and place, winter is not too cold nor too warm, the basin terrain, humidity is balanced, the sun is not strong or weak, so it has become a Chinese ham resort.
A handful of salt, two knives, can make ham, but because of its complexity and uncertainty, it is rare to have a good master in ten years, several times on one leg, when to go up, where to go up, how much to put on, and wash, dry, repair, ferment... It's all a lifetime of learning, and a paper is hard to explain.
Jinhua ham pays attention to slenderness, full of bamboo leaf shape, pig's claws and pig legs are straight, like the old people sitting on hardwood chairs with a straight waist, 3 years old legs have a black and green surface, this green mold is a good leg high-end dress.
To determine the quality of the ham, it is up to the experienced master to sign, that is, to hold a slender wooden skewer, insert it into the kneecap, longan bone and lumbar vertebrae of the ham 1 to 2 cm deep, and then pull it out to smell, and the three signs are incense, commonly known as "three sticks of incense". There is an "old sign" in the Shanghai ham shop, because it is especially necessary to sign the leg, known as "Shanghai first sign". Nowadays, his descendants still open small shops, selling Jinhua ham, and the old customers take more than ten kilometers to buy legs, and the masters often patronize.
The first signed shop Jufeng pickled wax shop, on Changle Road looks very retro, the outer wall hangs 1 year Chen Jinhua ham and Nanfeng leg (1 year pig front leg), black and green aged legs hidden in the back, there are reservations of guests to pick out one out of the chop. The thick leg-chopping knife on the thick chopping board broke the entire leg in a few clicks, revealing a touch of rose red that had been perfumed with agarwood.
Trimming and taking meat is professional work, cutting off excess fat, taking out bones, must not hurt the intact muscle, knives are various, the boss will also calculate how to reprocess the debris while cutting, and then you can sort out a few packs of ten pieces of twenty pieces and then sell, after all, it is not easy to survive in Shanghai, where the land price is so expensive.
Most guests come to the door to ask to divide the ham into each meal amount, vacuum packaging piece by piece, take it home and freeze it up to eat slowly, but the Jufeng family still has the oil paper that was used many years ago, although it is rarely used, but every other day it is necessary to buy a dozen familiar paper shops, and the boss said that this paper is difficult to find.
Even the honey fire party must adapt to the times
Sealed in the warehouse aged ham, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years have, up to no more than 5 years, because more than 5 years of meat is too dry wood, there is no real value to eat, different generations of legs have different cooking purposes, used to make honey sauce ham, 3 years old is the best.
From the hoof to the leg up, a ham is divided into 5 parts, fire claw, fire stick, above, Chinese side, dripping oil, the above picture is the position of the fire stick, there are bones and meat, there are oil and tendons, the ingredients are not informal, the fire stew duck is once everyone yearn for a good taste.
Above, even if there is no illustration, you can think of it, the most central part of the leg meat concentration, the best and most expensive, the fewest bones, fat and thin, the master lifted the big knife simply to remove the corners, the square core, 3 years only such a small square, steaming, frying, stewing can be, the most luxurious is the whole piece to do the honey juice fire party.
There are very few dishes that specialize in and only use ham, and the honey sauce fire recipe is the most representative. The method is not difficult, but it is a bit complicated, pre-soaked in water to remove salt, and then soaked with yellow wine rock sugar, and then spent 2 to 3 hours steaming, and then another round of yellow wine rock sugar plus honey re-steaming for 2 to 3 hours, honey juice is thick to brushed, ham salty taste is exhausted, dry flesh is full of wine liquid sugar juice, dry and salty is transformed into fat sweet, although not as soft as Dongpo meat, but the taste is more timeless, when it comes out of the oven, tear out a piece of chopsticks to eat directly, the most authentic taste.
With the change of times, the brush honey juice has long been unable to keep up with the situation. Chef Hang bang came up with a new way to eat in line with diners. Southern Foothills. Zheli is a Hangzhou restaurant that has been open in Shanghai for seven or eight years, the owner is Jinhua, good at introducing the improved Zhejiang flavor to Shanghai diners, over the years they have made great changes in cooking techniques in addition to local ingredients such as huyang soy sauce and Lin'an bamboo shoots.
The fire cube placed in the large steamer in the palm of the hand is no longer a large piece, a thin piece, covered with lotus seeds, sandwiched with petals, and chewed onions and thin crisp, with a multi-layered taste, sweet but not greasy. The honey juice fire recipe that young people can also accept now looks like this.
Compared with the last century, the sales volume of Jinhua ham has been sharply reduced by half, and it is even less than 1/5 of the annual sales of the Italian single ham brand. Originally, jiangsu and Zhejiang rural families slaughtered pigs and pickled legs, and steamed fish, duck soup, gold and silver hooves were clustered on the Chinese New Year's Eve table with a central honey juice fire party, symbolizing the sweet beginning of the year. Whether it is improved or fusion, it is also a special taste to eat a mouthful of honey fire and remember the old times.