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Chapter 823 What is King Melon?A vivid high-end dish - peacock shark's fin! 【Subscribe】

"Brother, what ingredients do you need to make peacock shark's fin?"

Since you want to learn this dish, you have to prepare the ingredients first. Fortunately, there are ready-made shark fins in the store, which can be used at any time.

Xie Baomin said:
"There are quite a lot of ingredients. In addition to shark's fin, sea cucumbers, shredded chicken, eggs, egg whites, minced chicken, fresh bamboo shoots, small rapeseed, Jinhua ham, chicken oil, broth, king melon slices and various condiments are also used... ..."

King melon slices?
Lin Xu asked curiously:
"What is Wang melon?"

"It's cucumber, but in high-end dishes, it's usually called king melon."

More than a hundred years ago, if you said two cucumbers to a vegetable vendor, the other party would probably be baffled, but if you say two king melons, the hawker will understand immediately.

Before the Republic of China, the official name of cucumber was always Wanggua, but cucumber was an unpopular name.

The reason why it is called king melon is because cucumbers "grew before all melons, so they are king", which means that cucumbers grow the earliest. At the time of the Qing Dynasty, the greenhouse technology was mature, and the first crop of cucumbers was on the market every February in the lunar calendar.

But at that time, cucumbers were very expensive, and ordinary people could not afford them.

There is such a poem in "Kyoto Bamboo Branch Ci" to criticize Jingui who is the first cucumber:

"Cucumbers are smaller than ginseng at first sight, and they are as small as hairpins worth gold; tiny things can't increase lifespan, so what's the point of eating ten thousand dollars?"

Xie Baomin smiled and said:

"It is said that at the end of the Qing Dynasty, there was a famous scholar named Pan Bingnian in the capital. He once invited his friends from other places to dinner at the Guanghe Residence in Badaju. After he was seated, he asked the guests to order food. The guest thought that the meat and vegetables were too expensive, so he ordered a plate of cucumbers. , After eating it, I thought it was good, so I ordered another plate, and ordered three plates in a row... Pan Bingnian's face was almost green, because a plate of cucumbers cost six taels of silver, and it would not cost so much to order a table of meat dishes, so after paying the bill , he immediately wrote a letter to break up with that friend."

Che Zai, who was recording the purchase order, asked curiously:
"Why don't you just say it directly? Such an expensive cucumber is so unjust."

Lin Xu smiled:
"If you invite acquaintances to dinner, you can say in advance that cucumbers are more expensive, and you can try something new, but it is not appropriate to say that to someone you just met. For example, if you are in business now, you invite customers to dinner, and you say this restaurant before you start ordering. The ones that make cucumbers are expensive, so don’t order them, what do you think people will react?”

In fact, this is also related to the cultural traditions of the Chinese people. If you don’t say anything directly, you have to beat around the bush. For example, Pan Bingnian, who poured 18 taels of silver into it, still didn’t turn his back on the spot, but chose to write a letter to break up the relationship. It is the reservedness and twisting of cultural people.

But this kind of thing happened at that time, the menu did not have a clearly marked price, and cucumbers were extremely expensive.

Let’s put it aside now, if you eat a bowl of cucumbers continuously, the person who treats you will not choose to break up the relationship. They will only think that the green cucumbers are some kind of hint from friends to themselves.

After chatting about cucumbers, Xie Baomin rolled up his sleeves and began to teach Lin Xu how to make peacock fins.

Shen Jiayue also wants to see:
"Brother, can you go to the small kitchen to make it? I want to see it too."

Xie Baomin smiled and said:

"Then just take a picture. It just so happens that I haven't shown my cooking skills recently, so don't let netizens think that my skills have regressed."

Upon hearing this, Shen Jiayue hurried to the small kitchen to prepare the camera and fill light, while Lin Xu prepared the ingredients and ingredients needed to make guppy shark fin.

All the ingredients and seasonings are ready, and the production begins.

"Hi everyone, I'm Lin Xu. I'm not busy today, so I asked my brother to teach me how to make a time-consuming main course for a banquet—peacock shark's fin."

In high-end banquets, guppy shark's fin, an elegant high-end dish, is without exception the main course.

Xie Baomin waved his hand at the camera, greeted the netizens, briefly introduced the peacock fin, and said at the same time:
"Actually, there is another way of making peacock shark's fin, which is to stuff the shark's fin into the peacock's stomach and stew it. Stewing the shark's fin with a real peacock feels very explosive."

Lin Xu asked curiously:
"Can peacocks be eaten?"

"Farmed ones are available, and they are available in some banquets in the south. But overall, they are not as delicious as chicken, but they are just a novelty. Some restaurants that sell peacock meat also include peacock feathers, which is more attractive."

Lin Xu really opened his eyes, but think about it, before the Animal Protection Law came out, the golden pheasant was almost eaten to extinction, the flying dragon was eaten for sky-high prices, and all kinds of rare animals became food for hunger.

After Xie Baomin finished speaking, he cracked a dozen or so eggs into a small basin, put a little salt in it, stirred the eggs with chopsticks, and used a sieve to remove the air bubbles.

Then take some cornstarch, pour it into the egg mixture, and stir slowly.

Stirring, he said:
"The dish of peacock shark's fin needs steamed egg cakes to carve the peacock's head and body. At the same time, this is also the staple food of the whole dish, and it can be eaten with shark's fin..."

Stir the dry starch and egg liquid into a paste, filter it with a tight filter, and sieve out the unstirred starch granules, then cover the mouth of the basin with plastic wrap, put it in a steamer and start steaming.

Xie Baomin reminded:

"This starchy chicken cake needs to be steamed more. In addition to the peacock's body and head, the decorations on the peacock's feathers will also be used."

Steam the starchy chicken cake properly, and bring the shark's fin over.

The finished shark fin is soaked in water, which is very similar to vermicelli. Xie Baomin uses tweezers to pick out the impurities and broken bones in the shark fin, and then drains the water for processing.

Large pieces of high-end shark fins are needed to make peacock shark fins, because they are used to make peacock feathers when serving dishes. The longer the shark fins, the more realistic and beautiful the peacocks will be.

Take out the shark's fin, put it aside to control the water, and then start to make the onion and ginger broth.

Put the frying pan on the stove, add chicken oil, heat the oil and add the scallion and ginger, pour in the broth when the surface is golden, cook for a few more minutes, remove the onion and ginger, and the broth in the pot will become full Chicken oil and scallion ginger broth, which is the key to making shark fin and the final sauce.

Then he took the chicken breast and chopped some minced chicken.

Chop it well, add egg white, dry starch, salt, pepper and other condiments, stir it into a thick paste, filter it again, and set it aside for later use.

At this moment, the chicken cake has also been steamed. Lin Xu helped to take it out of the steamer, put the basin into cold water, and keep it cool.

When it is not hot, take a larger plate and buckle it on the mouth of the basin, turn it upside down, and put the egg cake in the basin upside down on the plate.

The egg cake is very beautiful, with a warm yellow color and a fine texture, and it also exudes a strong egg fragrance.

Xie Baomin drew the outline of the peacock with the tip of a knife, but instead of carving, he cut off the excess corners, which were about two fist-sized cake pieces.

He cut off the excess corners of the cake, and trimmed it into a water drop shape with a pointed end and a round end.

Lin Xu looked a little surprised:

"Brother, what are you doing?"

"To decorate the peacock's feathers, only with these decorations, the whole dish will look more like a peacock."

After the water drop shape is finished, turn the cake over, cut the water drop shape into slices horizontally, each slice is about two to three millimeters thick, and after cutting, it will become a piece of water drop.

Lin Xu counted, there are a dozen pieces in total.

After finishing these, Xie Baomin took a relatively thick cucumber and cut it into slices with an oblique knife, trimmed it, and made it into a water drop shape.

Compared with the water droplets made of yellow cake, the cucumber slices are a circle larger.

Finally, take out the Jinhua ham, take the most essential upper part, and make it into an ellipse with one big end and a small end, and the area is two circles smaller than the drop-shaped chicken cake.

After finishing everything, Xie Baomin brought over the minced chicken that had just been smashed, and began to make decorations on the feathers.

Take the cucumber slices, because they were cut with a slanted knife, so there is more green on one side, and this side is placed on the top.

Spread a little minced chicken on top, and then put the yellow cake slices on top, with the tips of the water droplets overlapping, so that the green cucumber skin and the yellow cake are just in a step-like staggered state.

Spread a layer of minced chicken on the cake slice, put the red sliced ​​ham on it, place it in the center, and align the tip of the ham with the tip of the water drop, so as to present a sense of consistency in direction.

After being arranged, the three colors of red, yellow and green really look like the feathers on the peacock's tail.

Xie Baomin held the cucumber slices and carefully placed them on the grid-shaped steaming plate. All the feather decorations were done, and they were placed in the steamer for steaming.

This step not only allows the three ingredients to be completely bonded together, but also the color of the cucumber will be darker after it is broken, and the color of the steamed ham will be more delicious. Both visual and taste will jump to a higher level.

Taking advantage of steaming the feathers, Lin Xu took out the shark's fin, blanched it twice with green onion and ginger to remove the peculiar smell in the shark's fin, then carefully fished it out, drained the water and put it into the pot, then added half of the chicken oil and boiled it The prepared onion and ginger broth, simmer over low heat, and simmer the flavor of the broth into the shark's fin.

This step will take at least ten minutes. Xie Baomin told Lin Xu to watch the fire while he shredded the chicken breast, bamboo shoots, and soaked sea cucumbers.

Put the frying pan back on, add chicken oil to the pan, heat it up, pour in the chicken breast and stir-fry for a while, then add shredded bamboo shoots and shredded sea cucumber, add salt and pepper, cut raw and serve it out.

These ingredients are used at the bottom to set off the shark fin.

But don’t be fooled just because it’s at the bottom. In fact, these ingredients should be arranged in a silky state as much as possible later, because the shark’s fin is in a translucent state, and the ingredients underneath are too messy, which will give people a very messy feeling.

Put these ingredients into a large bowl first, and now the steamed feather decorations are ready, Xie Baomin takes them out of the steamer and sets them aside to dry.

Shen Jiayue couldn't help exclaiming after seeing it:
"Wow! So beautiful!"

At this time, there are four colors of feather decorations, one is the dark green of cucumber, the second is yellow cake slices, and the next is white meat paste and fiery red ham slices. The four colors look very beautiful. In addition, there is also a faint white between the cucumber slices and the cake slices, and the color layers are very distinct.

Shen Jiayue thinks that even without shark fin, she still looks great with this look.

At this moment, the temperature is too high, the cucumbers are easy to rot, and they need to be dried before they can be turned.

After the shark's fin is simmered, take it out carefully with a colander. When fishing, the integrity of the shark's fin should not be damaged, and it should be in a uniform filament shape, so as to make the shape of the dish more beautiful.

After the shark's fin was fished out, there was still a little broth left in the pot. Xie Baomin didn't waste it. He poured the selected and washed rapeseed into it, briefly blanched it until it was raw, and then fished it out.

After all these preparations are done, it's time to carve the peacock's body.

Lin Xu looked at it for a long time, and when he saw that there were finally steps that he could participate in, he immediately said:

"Let me do this step. I just carved radish a few days ago, and I will also try pastry carving today."

In the field of food carving, there has always been a saying that hard carving is easy and soft carving is difficult.

The so-called hard carving refers to the carving of radishes, lettuce, winter melon, pumpkin and other ingredients. These ingredients are easier to shape and relatively easy to use.

However, tofu, cakes, haw jelly, dough and other soft ingredients are troublesome to carve.

This is also the reason why Lin Xu was in an uproar after carving out the shape of Pisces with lactone tofu in the food competition. Overturned.

Xie Baomin did not doubt Lin Xu's knife skills, but reminded:
"You can use a kitchen knife to carve in reverse to make peacock curls."

Curly?

Lin Xu understood after a little thought.

He took out the slightly warm egg cake on the plate, the outline had already been drawn, and now he only needed to carve according to the process.

First cut the bottom flat so that the cake can stand up firmly.

Then start sculpting from the head.

When he was busy, Xie Baomin was not idle. Instead, he held a piece of carrot and dexterously carved it into a fan-like shape.

A small hole was purposely left at the top of the fan, just enough to stuff a rapeseed in. After everything was finished, Shen Jiayue discovered that it was actually a peacock crown.

She asked curiously:

"Brother, Xu Bao hasn't finished carving the peacock yet. You made the peacock crown so early, aren't you afraid that the size won't fit?"

Xie Baomin smiled and continued to carve the peacock earlobe:

"The outline of the peacock has been drawn, and my junior can only carve it to match the size of this crown. If it is too small, it means that my junior has missed it and there is room for modification."

He believed that Lin Xu would not make mistakes, so he made the peacock crown in advance.

In fact, there was no mistake. After Lin Xu finished carving the peacock's head and neck, Xie Baomin held the peacock crown and stuck it on the head.

Lin Xu's carving work did not come to an end until the peacock's breast was carved.

However, he remembered the curly hair that his brother reminded him of, so he changed a small knife, pushed a piece of cake from the neck upwards, and a piece of curly hair appeared immediately.

Then I pushed a few times in other places to make some curls on the neck, which not only looks more like a peacock, but also looks like a peacock just finished its activities and didn't care about grooming, which is more similar to a real peacock.

Finally, Lin Xu glued the carrot-carved earlobes, and glued two star anise seeds to the eye area, and hung two coriander leaves on the mouth, which looks a bit like a peacock holding grass.

Once the shape of the peacock is done, it's time to put it on the plate.

Xie Baomin put the peacock's body on the side of the plate, and then arranged the fried chicken shreds, bamboo shoots and sea cucumbers with chopsticks to make them as silky as possible, and then began to arrange them facing the peacock's head.

Arrange it in a large radial arched pile, and then take the blanched rape leaves and place them at intervals at the back. The leaves should completely exceed the head of the pile, and even touch the inner edge of the plate.

The green part of the peacock's feathers accounts for a large proportion. It is not enough to rely on cucumber slices alone, but also to use rapeseed leaves as embellishments.

Arrange the leaves and cover the peacock with a whole piece of shark's fin. The shark's fin at the tail can be spread out, so that it can show the effect of the peacock's tail better.

After the shark's fin was placed, Xie Baomin adjusted it, then picked up a small piece of rapeseed leaf, and wrapped it around the peacock's neck.

Finally, take the cucumber slices and evenly decorate them on the back of the peacock.

When everything is done well, the whole peacock becomes lifelike, especially the rape leaves around the neck and the faint green leaves at the tail, which look exactly like real peacocks.

"Is this all right, brother?"

Shen Jiayue couldn't help swallowing, the beautiful and delicious dishes made people panic!
"It's not good yet, I have to light it up again."

Xie Baomin poured the leftover broth into the pot, boiled it with sugar, and then added a little water starch to make the broth thick and golden.

Then pour in some chicken fat and push it a few times with the back of the spoon, so that the broth becomes brighter.

Taking advantage of this time, Xie Baomin picked up the pot and carefully poured the prepared soup on the peacock. The whole peacock suddenly became shiny under the light, making it look even more delicious.

Only at this time did Shen Jiayue realize that glowing food really exists.

Just look at the shiny shape under the light, it will definitely not be unpalatable.

"It's so beautiful, so beautiful!"

Lin Xu showed the plate to the camera, and then put it on the automatically rotating plate support to start shooting close-ups.

As for this vivid peacock shape, it is estimated that anyone who sees it will exclaim in surprise.

While Shen Jiayue was taking close-ups, Lin Xu looked at Xie Baomin and asked:
"Senior brother, why can't we see such high-end dishes at banquets now?"

Xie Baomin smiled and said:

"After the exaggeration is over, this kind of dishes will be withdrawn from the banquet. It can't be extravagant and wasteful. Ordinary rich people can't get enough of this kind of dishes. Maybe they still find it troublesome to eat. In addition, chefs are unwilling to make it, so just like high-end Huaiyang cuisine, it only exists in legends. It has not been lost, but it cannot be eaten.”

Lin Xu smiled wryly:
"It's a pity that such a good dish, but fortunately, it was photographed today, at least let everyone know how to make it, and also know that there is such a high-end dish with excellent appearance."

From this point of view, this video is quite valuable.

As for whether those netizens will remake it by hand, there is a high probability that there will be no such thing.

After all, what everyone believes is that "people lie on the bed, and the hearts of cooking skills rise", the most likely way of action is to just buy the vegetables, and then shout:
"mom!!!!"

After Shen Jiayue took the close-up, she couldn't help rubbing her fair palms:
"Since it's ready, shouldn't it be time to try it?"

Ho Ho, little peacock, this baby wants to eat you!

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