▲Brown sugar glutinous rice cake. Picture/Visual China
- Fengwu Junyu -
Little Sweet Pepper
"Chongqing, as we all know, is a city full of hot pot." This is a narration in the movie "Hot Pot Hero", and it is also everyone's first impression of Chongqing. impression.
▲Chongqing Old Hot Pot. Picture/Visual China
However, apart from the hot pot of old oil, thick and spicy , Chongqing is still the mist city of vast smoke and clouds ; Hiphop rap, cyberpunk "Chongtlan" The big "" ships docked and competed with each other to honk their horns.
Chongqing is a city with personality and three-dimensional . Just like people's personalities, behind all stubbornness and coolness, there is almost always a softness that is easily unwilling to be shown to others, and the softness of Chongqing lies in those sweet that are easily overlooked in food.
▲In Chongqing, a passable Kung Pao Chicken has no cucumber. Photography/BVS, Picture/Visual China
Old brown sugar, Chongqing’s universal candy
spicy are most people’s first impression of Chongqing. For old Chongqing people, has been bitter and "spicy" for a long time. After all, spicy is just one of the diverse and complex flavors in Chongqing. In addition to being spicy, the taste of Chongqing is also very sweet.
▲Brown sugar production in Jiangjin District, Chongqing using the ancient method. Photography/Jiangjin Rice Krispies Station, Picture/Tu Chong·Creative
If hot pot is the A side of Chongqing, then the B side that is comparable to it must be Chongqing Old Brown Sugar. In ancient China, sugar was a scarce resource. Apart from dignitaries, the only people who were most likely to enjoy the sweet taste of sucrose were the common people in sugar-producing areas.
According to "Rong Zhai Essays", there were five major cane sugar producing areas in China during the Song Dynasty. Among them, the Guanghan production area and Suining production area were both located in Bashu. In particular, the Suining production area had the highest sucrose quality, and it was also the largest sugar production area in China. borders Chongqing Tongnan district (formerly Tongnan County ). So a long time ago, people in the Tongnan area of Chongqing began to learn to grow sugar cane and make earthen ponds. Because it has not yet been refined, the color of native sugar is mostly healthy reddish brown, and Chongqing people also call it brown sugar .
▲Brown sugar ice powder . Photography/Old Angel, Picture/Picture Chong·Creative
In Chongqing, summer without ice powder is incomplete. If ice powder does not have brown sugar, its soul is missing. has gone from mobile vendors in ancient times to dense independent stores today. With the most original tender and sweet , brown sugar ice powder, the most authentic Chongqing delicacy, has even become a new generation of Internet celebrities.
Chongqing people’s original memory of brown sugar ice powder is a tricycle under the shade of a tree in midsummer when they were young. There were several large iron buckets mounted on the car. When the lids of the buckets were lifted, they were filled with jelly made from ice powder seeds . Take a large iron round spoon, scoop a spoonful into the bucket, pour it into an enamel bowl, add a spoonful of brown sugar water, and pound it casually with a small spoon, and the whole jelly will be spread into small pieces. Soaked in brown sugar juice, it shook and squeezed and collided, smashing the reflected sunlight into pieces.
▲Brown sugar Cold shrimp . Photography/Tan Hua Broken Dream, Picture/Tu Chong·Creativity
In the Chongqing summer contracted by brown sugar, in addition to brown sugar ice powder, there are also brown sugar cold shrimps . Similar to ice powder, the containers for cold shrimp are usually several similar large iron buckets. The cold shrimps taken out from the iron bucket are as white as jade. After adding a spoonful of brown sugar water, the surface is dipped in a light reddish brown, giving it a smudged beauty like Qi Baishi's ink paintings.
Rumor has it that when eating cold shrimps, you should put three spoons of sugar . The cold shrimp made from rice milk is smooth and delicate, and soaked in brown sugar, giving it a refreshing sweetness. A spoonful of it is put into the mouth. The cold shrimp is wrapped in a refreshing taste. It bounces gently on the teeth and instantly breaks through the elegant of a puddle of rice. Moistened with brown sugar, it flows straight down from the teeth and cheeks, all the way smoothly, directly to the depths of the Five Zang Temple.After finishing a bowl of cold shrimps, the heat around me disappeared.
▲Although it is called cold shrimp, in appearance, it looks more like... a tadpole? Photo / Internet
Different from the summer specialties of ice powder and cold shrimp, brown sugar fermented rice dumplings are the "ice and fire" of Chongqing people . In winter, a bowl of warm brown sugar glutinous rice dumplings is a favorite of Chongqing people; while in summer, iced brown sugar glutinous rice dumplings are a favorite of Chongqing people to relieve summer heat.
The round and glutinous glutinous rice balls, the light aroma of fermented glutinous rice wine, and the brown sugar accompanied by the fragrance of sugar cane, have a warmth that permeates the heart and spleen. After finishing the hot pot, have a bowl of it to warm and iron your clothes.
▲Brown sugar glutinous rice dumplings. Photography/A passing grandmother, Picture/Picture Chong·Creative
"ancestral" sweet
Sichuan and Chongqing have been the same family since ancient times. Even in recent years, the concept of "Chongqing cuisine " has been gradually strengthened, but we have to admit that today In many Chongqing dishes, the genes of Sichuan cuisine can be found everywhere, and lychee juice flavor is one of the most significant "chromosomes".
▲The flavor of lychee juice made from sugar, mature vinegar and other seasonings is the secret to the taste of Kung Pao Chicken. Picture/Network
Sichuan cuisine pays attention to "one dish, one dish, hundreds of dishes" , and the taste of lychee juice is a sweet and sour taste that Sichuan cuisine blends on the basis of imitating the taste of lychee . The soul of Sichuan flavor Kung Pao Chicken is the walking Xiaoli juice flavor. As foreigners’ favorite Chinese dish, the beauty of Kung Pao Chicken is that it has a compound taste of sourness first, sweetness at the end, and spicyness at the bottom.
Kung Pao Chicken looks like a quick dish, but the cooking process is very particular. Before marinating, the chicken must go through three levels: " shooting, chopping, and penetration" before it can pass and enter the seasoning stage. The chicken is beaten with the back of the knife, and then pecked in with the tip of the knife, creating the effect of "rain hitting the beach with little pits" . Only after this cooking can the chicken taste evenly.
▲This spoonful of diced chicken is delicious at first glance. Photography/Tong Kexin, Picture/Huitu.com
Ensure the delicate balance between sour, sweet, and salty, which is the key to the flavor of Kung Pao Chicken and Lychee Sauce. If it is too salty, it will easily become fishy, and if it is too sweet, it will become sweet and sour. taste. The subtle differences may only be discerned by a master who has stood in front of the stove for many years. Deep-fried chili peppers, marinated diced chicken, crispy peanut petals, pour in the lychee-flavored sauce made from mature vinegar, sugar, soy sauce , etc., stir-fry over high heat until the red oil disappears. "Zhaer" , a dish of Kung Pao Chicken is considered a success.
In addition to Kung Pao Chicken, there is also "Xiajiang Characteristics" (in the Sichuan and Chongqing area, Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang and other lower reaches of the Yangtze River are called Xiajiang) Crispy Rice Pork Sliced , which is Dali Juice flavor representative. During the Anti-Japanese War, with the fall of Nanjing, people from Jiangsu, Anhui, and Zhejiang moved up the Yangtze River and moved westward to Chongqing and Sichuan in large numbers. Guoba , which was originally an Anhui cuisine, was also brought to Chongqing.
▲Cooked pork slices. Photography/yaofuai, Picture/Huitu.com
The crispy rice dumplings are fried to a crisp and cooked with the lychee flavor characteristic of Sichuan cuisine. There is a strange mix and interesting . As soon as it was born, it became popular in Chongqing at that time. It is about juicy Sichuan-flavored pork slices poured on the freshly cooked rice crackers. It sounds like a bomber making a crackling sound, so this dish was also called "Bombing Tokyo" by the people at the time.
If in lychee-flavored dishes, sweetness is just one of the "group images" of its taste, then in Chongqing's most authentic Sha Pork with Sand Pork (also known as Sweet Shao Bai), sweetness has taken the title of "big heroine". "script. In the early years of China, sweetness was a delicacy that could only be enjoyed by wealthy people. Therefore, Chongqing people could only eat pork with sand at wedding banquets.
▲ Sand meat.Photography/Yilang Vision, Picture/Picture Chong·Creative
It is about the sweetness of meat with sand, which always reminds people of happiness and auspiciousness, so in the traditional farmhouse nine-dou banquet of Sichuan and Chongqing, meat with sand It often takes the stage as the finale of and . Scrape and clean the pork, cook in a large pot until medium-cooked, remove and cut into thin slices. is 90% fat and 10% lean , which is the best state of meat slices. Then embed brown sugar into it and stack them in an earthen bowl. Finally, a layer of semi-cooked glutinous rice baptized with sugar and oil is added, which is extremely charming.
After being cooked over high fire, the brown sugar and dense water vapor become invisible in the meat and glutinous rice. The white pork was soaked until it was transparent, and the fat oozing out was entangled with the glutinous rice. The tender and smooth texture of the pork, and the fragrant and glutinous texture of the glutinous rice, are led by the sweetness and transformed into a sandy and waxy texture, leaving a smooth and lingering sweet taste.
▲ Who can resist the temptation of meat with sand in it~ Picture/Documentary "Flavor of the World 2"
Glutinous rice, the most original sweetness
In addition to the help of sucrose, some natural ingredients also hide a subtle sweetness , Nuomi is one of them.
If you want to vote for the most festive Chongqing delicacy, the highest vote must be brown sugar glutinous rice cake . Today, when material is relatively abundant, glutinous rice cakes have long since broken away from holiday restrictions and become the most common snack on Chongqing people’s daily tables.
▲Handmade Beating glutinous rice cakes is a ritual during the Chinese New Year in Chongqing. Photography/Mushan-Pedestrian A on the street, Picture/Picture Chong·Creative
The newly harvested glutinous rice is the only raw material for glutinous rice cake. Coming from the rice fields, the freshly peeled glutinous rice still has a hint of the sweetness of the plant. After washing and draining, the glutinous rice is steamed over high heat in a steamer, and then placed in a stone mortar to be reborn into glutinous rice cakes. Beating glutinous rice cakes is a laborious task that often requires two people to work together. Each person holds a mallet and hits the cooked glutinous rice hard until the rice grains become soft, glutinous and sticky.
After being beaten, the glutinous and sweet inside the glutinous rice is fully revealed, and the surrounding air is filled with a sweet taste. The cooked glutinous rice cake is just right and warm, making it the best souvenir for Chongqing people to give to relatives and friends.
▲ Brown sugar glutinous rice cake, also known as hot pot companion. Picture/Network
In Chongqing, fried is the most common way to eat glutinous rice cake. Some districts and counties like to wrap egg liquid on the glutinous rice cake, but the more common way to eat it is to directly fry it naked. After being baptized by hot oil, the glutinous rice cake is slightly fluffy and wrapped in soybean noodles , giving it a very prominent sweet taste. If you add another spoonful of brown sugar juice , the sweetness will be doubled.
From the perspective of cooking method, glutinous rice cake is the 1.0 version of glutinous rice, while Chongqing’s traditional sweets round cake and triangular cake can be called the upgraded version 2.0 of glutinous rice.
▲Triangle cake. Photography/tsihua, picture/Huitu.com
Bubble cakes and triangular cakes are both made of rice milk. Compared with glutinous rice cakes, the sweet rice aroma is more intense. Perhaps because it has gone through a fermentation process, the bubble cake has an additional sour taste. Steamed steamed cakes are fluffy and soft, with a sweet aftertaste. They are the most appealing taste in the alleys of Chongqing in the early morning.
Compared with the "pureness" of bubble cakes, triangular cakes may be much more "material" than . Peanuts, sesame, bean paste, mango, meat floss, etc. are the most common fillings for triangular cakes today. However, the traditional triangular cake without fillings is a childhood sentiment that Chongqing people cannot let go of for generations.
▲So soft~ Picture/Network
The triangular rice cake that has just come out of the pan has the aroma of roasted rice, the surface is golden yellow, and has the crispy texture of rice crispy rice. Through the tiny cracks on the surface, wisps of hot air floated out, wrapped in the sweet fragrance of rice. Taking a bite, the triangular cake has a soft and glutinous texture with a slight sweetness, which is a very happy experience.
The sweetness of glutinous rice is already intoxicating. If you add sweet walnut kernels and honey roses, what kind of sweet taste will it be? The answer to this question must be found in Chongqing's Hechuan Peach Piece .
▲Hechuan peach slices. Photography/Xiao Match, Picture/Huitu.com
The stewed peach cake is cut into even thin slices, is loose and soft, and scattered like an unrolled . Pick up a piece and put it into your mouth. The sweetness of the glutinous rice and the fragrance of the rose melt instantly, leaving only the delicate and moist walnut residue.
It is human instinct to be sweet, and Chongqing talents are reluctant to give up this pleasure. Moreover, compared with the upstart pepper, Chongqing people have been addicted to sweet taste for thousands of years. Enjoying sweetness and spicy food, no wonder people often lament that " food is in China, and taste is in Chongqing".
- END -
text丨Yingshi
cover photo photography | Picture Chong·Creative
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