Food starts with Mapo Tofu

Chapter 762 Salt Baked Chicken

Mu Jie first took a piece of belly and put it in his mouth.

The turtle belly was cooked first, and then steamed in the steamer. At this time, it was already very soft, and it was extremely soft after eating.

The savory taste is exuded from the inside out, and its fragrance is not particularly strong, but belongs to the kind of mellow and long aftertaste.

"Yes, this belly piece has been fully cooked, and this ingredient has a characteristic that it will be sticky after it is made. It is fine if you eat it normally. Wait for it to stay in your mouth for a while, for example, for 1 minute, and it will be sticky. It melts in the mouth and sticks the mouth."

Mu Jie spoke highly of this dish after tasting it, and he was quite satisfied with both the sauce and the cooking temperature.

"The main reason is that Brother Zhou's ingredients are of good quality." Chen Nian said modestly.

Then Zhou Ji took a sip, and it was basically the same as what Mu Jie described.

Zhou Ji also didn't find any faults. In his opinion, this Sichuan cuisine has reached the standard. At the same time, he also felt that the masters Chen Nian just mentioned were definitely not ordinary people.

There are a few candidates in his mind, but he has inquired about them before, some of them don't know Chen Nian, and the only one who knows Chen Nian's name is from the Internet.

But there is no intersection between them.

When other people saw that the dishes were out of the pot, they all came together curiously and tasted them with chopsticks.

Although it is said that whether a dish is delicious or not depends on the skill of the chef, personal taste is quite a subjective thing. Among the few people who tried the dish later, they always felt that the dish can only be regarded as mediocre after eating. so-so.

It's just that due to the current situation, it's not convenient for them to speak out.

In fact, even if they say it, Chen Nian doesn't mind. For example, there is braised pork in my shop. Most of the customers say they think it is delicious after eating this dish, but even so, my mother would not eat it in normal times. this dish.

Even if you eat it, you just eat the lean meat after removing the lean meat on it.

But in the final analysis, it doesn't matter whether they think it tastes good or not. The real decision must be made by the two master chefs, Zhou Ji and Mu Jie.

However, after tasting this dish, the manager of the hotel still had some thoughts in his mind, but he didn't rush to say it, but planned to take another look at the following dishes.

The second dish to be cooked in the old age is baked chicken with wine and salt.

As the name suggests, the main ingredient of this dish is chicken, but the title of wine is added in front of it.

Lujiu is actually a beverage made from distilled liquor, Fen-flavored Fenjiu or edible alcohol as the alcohol base, processed with medicinal and edible animal and plant essences, and the original alcohol base style has been changed.

That is to say, dew wine is actually a very broad name. Some plum wine, rose wine, apricot wine sold outside can be counted as dew wine.

Rose wine is used here for aging.

However, the rose wine used for cooking in such hotels is not the ones sold on the market. After all, the wine is actually made of alcohol, saccharin, essence and food coloring mixed with water, and even some Unscrupulous merchants will also use synthetic dyes instead of food coloring to make fake and inferior wine.

In the selection of chickens, pullets of about two catties are used for aging. This kind of chicken tastes tender and is more suitable for salt-baking.

"This should be a Cantonese dish. I remember that people there always make salt-baked chicken." Zhou Ji said.

"Yes, Brother Zhou, this is a Cantonese dish." Chen Nian nodded and said, this dish was learned from Mr. Qiao when Chen Nian was in San Francisco's Chinatown.

It's just that when he learned this dish, Mr. Qiao's health was not as good as before. Later, after Chen Nian learned it, he also made it when Mr. Qiao's son entertained guests at home.

First of all, in the old age, rub the cleaned pullet with salt, monosodium glutamate and rose wine on the chicken skin and bone back and forth. Some rose wine was added to remove the fishy smell.

Then he wrapped the scallion and ginger and stuffed it into the chicken's stomach, and then took three more tissue papers, sprayed them with a watering can and wrapped them around the chicken.

"Brother Chen, I see that you used three pieces of tissue paper. Is there anything special about that?" Mu Jie asked looking at Chen Nian's actions. Of course, he must know why Chen Nian did this, but the rest of the following A few people don't know, although these are not his apprentices, but they also belong to his teacher, so he asked this question, wanting those apprentices to learn a little bit.

And he felt that it would be better for Chen Nian to explain this kind of matter by himself.

"On the one hand, the paper is used to protect the chicken itself. Otherwise, the chicken skin is quite fragile. If you don't wrap it, the salt will stick to the chicken skin. If the salt is removed, it will inevitably damage the chicken skin and affect the appearance.

And that may not be able to remove all the salt, and some parts will be too salty when you eat it, so you need to wrap several layers of tissue paper outside, generally speaking, wrap 2~4 layers, it depends on the tissue paper. thickness.

If the package is too small, the salt may be dried under high temperature, which will affect the quality, but if the package is too thick, it will affect the heat transfer. "

While explaining, Chen Nian had completely wrapped the chicken and put it aside for later use.

Then he picked up another pot and put a large amount of salt, which is often referred to as coarse salt, into the pot to stir fry.

This kind of sea salt is also extracted. Because it has not been further processed, the particles are relatively large, and there is no iodine in it. Generally speaking, people use this kind of salt at home to pickle vegetables, and its impurities are relatively small compared to those used at home. For refined salt, it should be slightly more.

However, you should look carefully when buying this kind of salt, otherwise it is easy to buy industrial salt.

When the large salt is fried in the pot until it is extremely hot, pour a part of the casserole into the bottom, then put the previously prepared chicken into it, then pour the remaining large salt into it, and bury the chicken , and finally put the lid on and put it in the oven to bake.

The reason why the casserole is used is because the material of the casserole itself is heated more evenly, and the old casserole did not choose to use a large casserole. Now this casserole is just filled with salt and chicken.

Aging is set on the oven for three to 10 minutes. During the subsequent baking process, Aging will turn it from time to time to ensure an even fire.

And in this process, in order not to waste time, Aging is going to prepare the ingredients for the next dish. There are still a lot of ingredients for this dish, so preparing them in advance can save some effort later.

Mushrooms, Tricholoma, fried mushrooms, water elm fungus, white fungus, yellow fungus, winter bamboo shoots, bamboo fungus, radish and rapeseed heart all need to be washed first. Among them, the winter mushrooms are cut in half with a diagonal knife, and the straw mushrooms are cut horizontally. After cutting it, put it into the water. Tricholoma and yellow fungus are also cut into slices. The mushrooms and carrots are aged and are not in a hurry. These two will be carved into flower shapes later. Then cut into strips about five centimeters long, and the rapeseed heart also needs to be sliced ​​in half, and the fresh lotus seeds also need to remove the coat and the painstaking care inside.

But after the old age processed all these ingredients, the oven also made a ding.

Take out the casserole, peel off the layers of tissue paper on the outside, and the chicken with a yellowish color is presented in front of you, steaming hot air is continuously emitted, and the old man poured out all the onion and ginger cooking wine in the belly of the chicken with gloves on.

"Is it ripe? I saw blood."

Zhou Ji looked at the state of the chicken and said.

"Yes." Chen Nian said while putting the chicken on the chopping board, and took a large kitchen knife to chop it into chunks and put it on the plate.

However, this dish is not finished yet. After the chicken is arranged, Chen Nian takes a part of the onion and ginger and cuts it into foam, puts some salt and monosodium glutamate and stirs it evenly, and burns some hot oil. After the oil is boiled, put the scallion and ginger powder prepared earlier into it, and wait until the scallion oil is fried, and then let it cool naturally.

Finally, I put some chicken soup into it, put it in a small bowl and put it next to the plate of salt-baked chicken as a dipping sauce.

"The chicken baked with wine and salt is ready, you can eat it with this dipping sauce, or just pour it on top." Chen Nian said.

Mu Jie and Zhou Ji nodded, and looked at Chen Nian's freshly cooked dish at the same time.

"Actually, salt-baked chicken is still very common in Guangdong, but the old-fashioned wine is added to it to make this dish more flavorful, although the taste of the wine gradually evaporates with the high temperature during the production process. , but after all, it was wrapped with wet tissue paper and covered with a thick layer of salt, so it can still smell a faint smell of wine and flowers at this moment."

Zhou Ji looked at the dish and commented.

"Yeah, I added a little innovation on the basis of salt-baked chicken. I didn't add too complicated steps when making it, but the flavor can be improved." Mu Jie is also very fond of such a small innovation. appreciate.

"Master Chen, originally we also had a Cantonese chef here, but he didn't come today, so can you tell us guys what to pay attention to when making this dish?"

Old age is nothing to hide, Zhou Ji probably knows how to cook this dish, even if they don't cook it, they can find other masters to teach it, it's nothing more than a sentence.

"When making this dish, you must first fry the coarse salt to extremely hot, then spread it on the bottom of the casserole, and then put the chicken in the center of the salt, so as to ensure even heating, otherwise it will be cooked somewhere The color is inconsistent if it is heated too much, or the inside is not fully cooked, and there will be blood when pouring out the onion and ginger seasoning in the stomach.

Secondly, the chicken body should be wiped dry with a cloth, and there should be no moisture, and the ingredients should be enlarged when adding the flavor, but only one piece of the aniseed ingredients can be put in, otherwise the aniseed ingredients will steal the flavor. In addition to these, The most important point is that this dish is mainly cooked by the heat of salt, so it is only suitable for young hens.

Of course, there is another way to make salt-baked chicken, which is to rub the inside and outside of the chicken with seasoning first, then put it in a pot and steam it in a basket, take it out, chop it into pieces and serve it with scallion oil, which is usually used now In this method, chickens weighing about two catties are usually steamed for 10 minutes. "

As soon as Chen Nian finished speaking, Zhou Ji quickly turned his head to let his apprentices remember something.

"It doesn't matter how old you are, but they are more serious than you in studying cooking every day. I heard that Boss Chen gets up at five o'clock every morning to go to the store, and he only rests for about two hours at noon. Then I was busy until I got off work at ten o'clock in the evening.

But after get off work, people still have to think about new dishes for several hours in the store. When you want to use them seriously, I can't wait to burn high incense for you. "

Zou Qi also heard that Chen Nian was working hard in this area, but now he heard that there seemed to be some loopholes in it: "Brother Chen, then you get up at five o'clock every day, what time do you go to bed at night?"

"Usually it is around 12:30, and sometimes it may be around one o'clock when I go back later, but I don't have that much sleep now, more than four hours of sleep at night is enough, anyway, I can go back at noon the next day Rest."

"What an iron man!" Zou Qi couldn't help giving a thumbs up in admiration.

Because being able to compress the time to this point is definitely a ruthless person, and what is even more ruthless is that Chen Nian can persist for such a long time, getting up so early and going to bed so late every day.

"Personal physique is different. After all, my store is relatively small, and I have to do everything myself. If I can make Honghong Hotel as big as the Intercontinental Hotel in the future, I will also find a lot of people to handle the ingredients."

"It will definitely. With Boss Chen's level, you may be able to reach our level in a few years." Mu Jie said.

There is five points of appreciation and five points of self-confidence in these words.

After all, they are also very envious of meeting such a person who is held in the arms of God and fed, who can master so many cuisines and so many dishes in just over half a year.

But Mu Jie said confidently that Chen Nian still needs several years to catch up with him. He didn't mean to praise Chen Nian or look down on Chen Nian, but he simply thought so.

At present, I am also a super chef at any rate, which is rated for five-star hotels. If a junior can catch up with me in just one year, it will be a science fiction story.

"Okay, since this dish is ready, let's try it first. After waiting for such a long time, I feel like I've digested everything I just ate."

"Row."

Mujie first took a piece of chicken thigh, which is also one of the best parts of the whole chicken.

When the food was close to his lips, Mu Jie could smell the wine aroma that had almost completely evaporated and the fresh aroma of the chicken itself.

This is also what they said for a while, otherwise the aroma of the wine would be more obvious.

The skin on the outside of the chicken is brilliant with a shiny luster, tightly wrapped around the inner leg meat.

The savory taste is very obvious after one bite. The soup secreted from the tender chicken neutralizes part of the salty taste, making the salty taste just right at this moment, natural and soft.

(End of this chapter)