Four dark dishes of old Beijing
?Beijing snacks can be divided into three types: Han people’s flavor, Hui people’s flavor and palace flavor. There is a saying that the 13 must-have snacks of old Beijing include bean flour cake, ai wowo, sugar-rolled fruit, shredded ginger steak, sugar ear, noodle tea, steamed buns, toad honey, burnt rings, sugar fire, pea yellow, stir-fried Liver and butter fried cake. Although in the eyes of outsiders, these snacks are "not that good". However, in the eyes of outsiders, what is more terrifying than these "not so good" flavors is that the four kings of old Beijing's dark cuisine: bean paste, braised pork belly, fried tripe and stir-fried liver, are also ridiculed as The four giants of ICU snacks in old Beijing mean that after eating these sour, fishy, muttony, and smelly leftovers, you will go directly to the hospital intensive care unit.
So, what are the four dark dishes of old Beijing in the eyes of outsiders and the four delicacies in the hearts of old Beijingers? How are they cooked?
The first time I drank bean juice, the sour smell like swill was really hard to swallow. Because the process of making bean juice is as follows: soak mung beans until they can be twisted and peeled, take them out, add water and grind them into a fine slurry, pour them into a large vat for fermentation, the starch that sinks to the bottom of the vat is the bean juice, and the one that floats on the upper layer is the bean juice. The fermented bean juice must be boiled with water in a large casserole, then mixed with fermented bean juice and then boiled, then kept warm over low heat, and served as needed.
Although it tastes weird, soybean juice is rich in protein, vitamin C, crude fiber and sugar. It can quench thirst and relieve heat in summer, and clear away heat and warm yang in winter. Drinking it in all seasons is good for appetizing and strengthening the spleen. , remove toxins and remove dryness.
How can you drink authentic bean juice? If you drink it cold, you will have a swill taste in your mouth; if you drink it while it is hot, the taste will be different, sweet and sour, sour and astringent, and the taste is unique; drinking bean juice must be accompanied by very finely chopped pickles, usually kohlrabi in summer. Blue, the special one is to use old salted water mustard cut into thin strips and mixed with chili oil rings to give it a unique flavor.
There is a poem about bean juice porridge in "Miscellaneous Odes of Yandu Snacks" by Xueyinxuan Master: The dregs can actually be made into porridge, and the flavor of laojiang is thin and thick.
Fried liver is a Beijing snack developed from the folk foods "boiled liver" and "fried lung" in the Song Dynasty. There is also a poem about fried liver in "Miscellaneous Odes of Yandu Snacks": Boil the fat intestines in thick and thick juice, and taste them in pieces according to the fairness of the transaction. As the proverb spreads, Zhu Bajie passes by and the liver is fragrant.
How is fried liver cooked? The annotation after this poem says: "Stir-fried liver is made from pig's small intestine, cut into sections, and stewed with rice flour juice... It is called stir-fried liver, but it is actually stewed pig intestines and ears. There is no liver, and there is no need to stir-fry it (sometimes) There are pieces of liver, and it has not been fried). There is a saying in Beijing that Zhu Bajie eats fried liver and mutilates his own flesh and bones. Therefore, in the poem, the word fried liver is fragrant, and the seller yells, "This explanation is very clear, fried liver." The liver is actually braised intestines. That is, it is made with pig large intestine and liver (only 1/3) as the main ingredients, garlic as auxiliary ingredients, and starch as thickener. In the eyes of outsiders, this stir-fried liver is dark, sticky, and smelly, but Beijingers praise it: the soup is oily and red, thin but not watery, and the liver sausage is fat and rich in flavor but not greasy.
Baoduer is made by washing fresh beef tripe (referring to beef louvers and tripe collars) or fresh sheep tripe and cutting it into strips , stir-fried in boiling water, dipped in oil, sesame paste, vinegar, chili oil, soybean curd soup, minced coriander, chopped green onion and other seasonings to eat, the texture is fresh and tender, and the taste is crispy.
Old Beijing people like to eat fried belly, especially after the beginning of autumn in the lunar calendar. Beijingers pay attention to "eating autumn", and there is a saying that "if you want to eat in autumn, you have fried belly".
There may be only one kind of fried tripe in the eyes of outsiders, but in the eyes of Beijingers, it is divided into:
Yang fried tripe: loose pills, tripe kernels, mushroom heads, tripe collars, mushroom.
Beef tripe: louver, tripe kernel, tripe collar.
Generally, the so-called black louver we eat is sheep tripe. The correct name should be Sandan, which is relatively fresh and tender.
Only cows are called blinds. There are two types of beef louvers. The louvers of cattle that grew up on feed will be black, and the louvers of cattle that grew up on grain crops will be yellow. As for the taste, the yellow ones are better. The principle is naturally the same as that of wood-fired chickens.
Beef tripe is thicker than sheep tripe, so if you want it to be tender, you should order the tripe, and if you want something a little chewy, order the louver. The highest level of eating fried belly is to eat belly collar, because it is more precious and very tender. It is said that it takes several stomachs to produce such a dish. The outer skin of the sheep's belly collar needs to be peeled off and eaten, while the cow's belly collar can be exploded directly. In addition, mushroom tips are also valuable items. Mushrooms are only a part of the sheep tripe, and the mushroom tip is the essence. One sheep only has that small piece, and it takes many sheep to complete the dish. The tripe kernels are also very good, they taste very tender and smooth. It takes three sheep stomachs to make a plate of tripe kernels. In the old society, ordinary people mostly ate clams and mushrooms when eating fried tripe. Only the poor or the not-so-rich rich would eat tripe kernels and mushrooms.
In Beijing, the best place to eat fried belly is Niujie. Feng Manzhang’s three restaurants are pretty good. But the price may be a bit expensive. The right way to open it up is to have a portion of mutton oil and sesame tofu. If you have a big belly, you can add sesame seed cakes or haggis soup to make it a complete meal.
Some people say, "Braised pork and BBQ is a pure thing of old Beijing. It is native to the country and is more pure than Peking Opera." Braised pork and BBQ was loved by Qianlong. The "Su Zao Meat" eaten was introduced into the folk and evolved into a popular snack. According to unofficial history, Qianlong liked the dishes cooked by Zhang Dongguan, the chef of the Chen family in Yangzhou, so he summoned him to the palace as an imperial chef. Zhang Dongguan knew the emperor's dietary preferences well and created a dish made of pork belly for dinner. Since Zhang Dongguan is from Suzhou, this dish is called "Su Zao Rou". There is a poem about Su Zaorou in "Miscellaneous Odes of Snacks in Yandu": "Su Zao is full of fat and fresh meat, and he is greedy. He cooks the meat with soup and marinates it. Even though the gluttonous people say it is greasy, a piece of grease has already filled his shirt." and noted. Said: "The people who make meat in Su use long strips of fatty meat, stew it in a sauce that is very rotten, and the taste is very thick, and cook it in a pot with fire. Buyers often put the meat into the fire and eat it."
After this method was introduced to the people, ordinary people used pig head meat instead of pork belly, and then added cheap pig offal. Although it was not the best food, it was still delicious. It's fun, this is braised and cooked on fire.
Braised and roasted meat should be cut into tic-tac-toe cuts, tofu should be cut into triangles, and small intestines and lungs should be chopped into small pieces. Scoop a ladle of old soup from the pot, pour it into a porcelain bowl, and add some chili oil, fermented bean curd, minced garlic, and chive flowers. When the hot bowl of braised pork was served, the pork belly, lungs, and tofu in the bowl had absorbed enough of the soup. The meat was cooked through but not sticky, and the meat was rotten but not bad. However, the strongest flavor among them is the small intestine, which is soft, rich and not greasy.
Undoubtedly, the most famous braised and roasted dish is the "Small Intestine Chen" on Nanheng Street.