gourmet food

Chapter 801 The first artistic conception dish of Sichuan cuisine - Bamboo fungus and liver paste soup
"Haha, I can't hold it any longer. I've wanted to learn this dish for a long time, right?

Then don't worry, it's not too late for us to rest for a while. "

Seeing Chu Yunfeng's eagerness to fight, Mr. Li couldn't help being childish and began to tease him.

He was already preparing to go into the kitchen, but now he was not in a hurry. He placed the teacup in his hand on the kitchen table outside and stood there motionless.

Ah ~!

The three of them were all dumbfounded. How could they have imagined that this old man like Taishan would have such a playful side. They say that people become more naughty as they get older. The ancients do not deceive me.

"Mr. Li, here, here, hurry up.
I'll refill your tea, it's hot today, drinking more catechu is good for your health! "

Chu Yunfeng patted his forehead. What else could he do in the face of someone like Mr. Li?
He had no choice but to go up and flatter him and support him. Who told him to tease others for fun?
Hu Yue and Guo Kui also reacted quickly and immediately ran out of the kitchen. One pinched their shoulders and the other hit their legs, which made Mr. Li burst out laughing.

"Okay, okay, stop flattering me. Who do you three think I am? A landowner and a rich man?"
Lao Cai, a landlord in the past, was like this. He served tea and poured water, beat his legs for massage, and had to be waited on for everything. Am I that kind of person? "

Mr. Li commented on the actions of the three of them in a funny way, then secretly smiled and walked into the kitchen, making the three of them look at each other and shrugged helplessly.

Old kid
However, the three of them were very happy. It was really not easy for Mr. Li to joke with them like this. Mr. Li usually looked very serious outside.

Almost no one has ever seen him joking, let alone being very intimate with anyone. To be able to do this shows that the three of them have been approved by his old man.

In addition to his own efforts, it seems that luck is also a rare factor, and the main reason is of course Chu Yunfeng.

"Okay, let's get down to business. This dish is said to have been invented by Luo Guorong. He borrowed it from boiled cabbage and created this dish.

You should all be familiar with Master Luo Guorong. He is one of the four famous chefs in modern times appointed by Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou Enlai. Although this dish has only been around for a few decades.

But its cooking methods and artistic conception are worth learning and appreciating. The biggest reason why Sichuan cuisine shines lies in the innovation of chefs.

Continuous innovation is the source and motivation for a cuisine to maintain its development. You must remember this. "

It is rare for Mr. Li to speak to others in such a reassuring tone. This seems to be his ardent hope for the three of them, and is also a hope for the orderly inheritance of Sichuan cuisine.

"Understood!"

"understood!"

"understood!"

The three of them nodded heavily at the same time and responded. Although the answers were slightly different, the meanings were similar.

"Speaking of this bamboo fungus and liver paste soup, it reminds me of another dish called Tremella Fungus and Pigeon Eggs. Have you heard of it?"

After sighing with emotion, Mr. Li felt a little satisfied when he saw the sincere attitude of the three people and touched his mustache, and then started to recall the past again.

"It sounds like a banquet dish. It must be very exquisite, right?"

"I've never heard of it, let alone seen it."

"Can you show it to me?"

Chu Yunfeng, Guo Kui and Hu Yue were even more interested. Could this dish be so simple that he could tell from his mouth?
"Then let me tell you. Whether you do it or not will be discussed later. It depends on my old man's mood!"

Mr. Li's expression turned a little serious, as if he had remembered something unhappy, and he could clearly feel the bleakness in his words.

Then Mr. Li picked up the tea cup and took a sip before continuing: "Actually, boiled cabbage, bamboo fungus and liver paste soup, and this white fungus and pigeon egg are all dishes that have been served at state banquets.

In fact, there are many Sichuan cuisine dishes that have been served at state banquets, but you don’t know it, but that was all before the 70s. At that time, Sichuan cuisine was really in full bloom and competing for beauty.

The key to making Tremella Pigeon Eggs is actually simmering them. I wonder if the three of you have read Dream of Red Mansions?

There is a wonderful description in Chapter 40 of No. [-]. It is said that Grandma Liu entered the Grand View Garden for the second time and was immediately warmly received by Jia Mu and others.

However, Wang Xifeng, Yuanyang and others played tricks on Grandma Liu to their heart's content. They first gave Grandma Liu a pair of "old four-rib ivory chopsticks inlaid with gold."

Then, Sister Feng chose a bowl of pigeon eggs and put them on Grandma Liu's table.

Grandma Liu was about to praise the eggs for their small size and wanted to pick one up, but Sister Feng said with a smile: "It's one tael of silver each. Try it quickly. It won't taste good when it's cold."

Grandma Liu stretched out her chopsticks to pick it up, but she couldn't pick it up. The bowl was full of commotion for a while, and she finally picked one up, then stretched it to her neck to eat, but it slipped down and rolled to the ground.

I quickly put down my chopsticks to pick it up myself, but someone had already picked it up on the ground.

Grandma Liu sighed: "This tael of silver was gone without even hearing a sound."

This shows the preciousness of the pigeon eggs. In the feudal society, they were the treasures on the table in the families of princes and princes. For an elderly person like Jiamu, it is natural to eat pigeon eggs.

Yuan Mei's "Suiyuan Food List" also records the method of simmering pigeon eggs, and he highly praises it. However, these pigeons only lay a pair of eggs every month, and sometimes they were even used by the air force. It was really difficult to obtain them in that era. easy. "

Mr. Li actually used a younger word "air force", which made the three of them laugh immediately. This shows that he is still a bit up to date with the times. I didn't expect that Mr. Li, who is so familiar with Dream of Red Mansions, would also understand the vocabulary of young people. .

As he spoke, Mr. Li realized that he seemed to have gone off topic, and then coughed lightly, causing the three guys who were snickering to quickly shut their mouths.

"Okay, back to the topic, you should be familiar with the bamboo fungus, this is the bamboo fungus, not the bamboo shoots, the two are completely different ingredients.

Dictyophora is a fungus, and bamboo shoots are the buds of bamboo. If you talk about it this way, ordinary people can easily tell them apart.

The nutritional value of this bamboo fungus is very high. The amino acid content in the protein is extremely rich, and its glutamic acid content is very high, so it has its own umami flavor and is extremely delicious.

There are still many such fungi in our Sichuan mountains, but picking them requires experience and luck.

Because it takes a very short time from growth to withering, people who go up the mountain are often lucky enough to encounter it, but it is already withering, which is very depressing.

There are generally two ingredients needed to make liver paste, one is pork liver and the other is chicken liver. I have not researched whether foie gras can be used.

If you are interested, you can give it a try. In the past, there were relatively few foie gras, so no one has used it, and I don’t know how effective it will be.

Haha~! "

Having said this, Mr. Li smiled and stopped talking. The three of them also understood that the formal production was about to begin, so they all stared at the pig liver placed there to see how the "paste" was made. from.

Mr. Li first put the pork liver on the cutting board, then picked up the kitchen knife and started hammering it with the back of the knife.

When beating, Mr. Li would pull the exposed tendons with his hands, beat all the liver on them, and then pull out the tendons.

During the beating process, all the tendons were removed and the pork liver was beaten into fine liver paste.

Seeing this, Chu Yunfeng immediately understood that this was a method of molecular cuisine, which is very common in Sichuan cuisine.

For example, chicken breast is processed in this way and transformed into another form, which fully demonstrates the Sichuan chef's skill in using ingredients.

Beat the green onions and ginger vigorously with a kitchen knife and throw them into the beaten pork liver. Add a little cooking wine and start mixing with your hands.

When mixing, Chu Yunfeng clearly discovered that Mr. Li's hands were very strong, which could fully release the green onion juice in the green onions, thereby increasing the effect of removing the fishy smell.

Afterwards, Mr. Li washed his hands and began to chop minced chicken and pork. This was obviously to make soup. Since this dish is an artistic dish, clear soup is essential.

The stock in the store is always the most traditional one, so you only need to use these two kinds of minced meat to get a high-grade clear soup.

Half an hour later, the two kinds of minced meat had been processed, and the deodorized pork liver minced here had also been deodorized. Mr. Li used chopsticks to take out the green onions and ginger inside.

The next step surprised Chu Yunfeng. He thought that the next step would be to process the minced liver again, steam or fry it, but he didn't expect Mr. Li to continue beating it on the cutting board.

This process lasted for half an hour before stopping.
Chu Yunfeng was completely stunned, only now did he realize that the pig liver has completely turned into liver juice, which has become an extremely delicate watery state.

The previous one should be called liver puree, but now I understand that after the liver is beaten to the extreme state, it will turn into this kind of juice.

Long insight!

It seems that this dish is indeed extraordinary.

Then Mr. Li picked up the sunshine eggs on the table, shook his head slightly, and knocked six into the bowl, but only the egg whites were removed and the yolks were put aside.

Only Chu Yunfeng understood that Mr. Li disliked the fact that the eggs were too small and wanted to beat a few more. But did he know that one egg was made from two eggs? You can buy several kilograms of other eggs outside.
When Mr. Li was beating this time, he had already used a small pot to sweep out the high-grade clear soup. Now he wrapped the minced meat in gauze and continued to settle inside.

I had used a small bowl before, took some clear soup and left it outside to cool down. Now I poured it into the liver juice, and then added some pepper.

Then the egg whites were fully stirred and added in, and finally a little water and soybean powder was added and then started to stir by hand.

After stirring thoroughly, take a piece of gauze, pour all the liver juice into it, knead it with your hands, and filter out all the juice inside.

After all the juice drained away, I opened the gauze and found some residual residue inside. Only then did I understand how meticulous it was to make this dish.

After filtering the last residue, the liver juice has become very "pure", and after adding water soybean powder and egg white, it will become very delicate.

Chu Yunfeng was very curious about how to make it next. Since it is called "liver paste", it should be more reliable to steam it.

Sure enough, Mr. Li took out five small bowls from the pocket he brought. These small bowls looked very special.

It looked different from an ordinary bowl from the outside. It was obviously half shorter than the usual bowl for eating, and the inside of the bowl was cylindrical, which really surprised Chu Yunfeng.

However, Chu Yunfeng immediately realized that the artistic conception of "opening the window and looking at the moon" must have a moon. The moon must be perfect, so this small bowl is the key to making the moon.

It seems that I will have to order some small bowls like this later, and the small bowls that Mr. Li brought over are earthy yellow in color. They are obviously earthen bowls that were commonly used in the past. They have a sense of historical vicissitudes.

Then I saw Mr. Li smearing all five small bowls with lard, and then poured the liver juice into them. Each bowl was not completely filled.

Instead, just pour the liver juice just enough to fill the cylindrical part below, and then steam it in a basket. This bamboo basket can steam all five small bowls together.

During the steaming process, Mr. Li cut the previously soaked bamboo fungus into small sections, then placed it in the broth and simmered it over low heat, and took it out after about 15 minutes.

The five small bowls were out of the pot half an hour later. At this time, Mr. Li took out a very delicate disc from the cabinet below and nodded with satisfaction.

This is Chu Yunfeng's customization from JDZ this time. The bottom and both sides of this plate have blue and white patterns. Especially under the light, you can see that the glaze has a delicate luster.

Expensive things are indeed different, especially after Mr. Li poured the high-grade clear soup into it, the whole plate seemed to come to life and looked very high-end.

Next, Mr. Li took out a thin bamboo skewer, then used the bamboo skewer to gently circle around the edge of the small bowl, and then skillfully pressed the bamboo skewer with his hand to stretch it forward.

This was obviously to take the prepared "moon" out of the small bowl. The technique was very critical. Chu Yunfeng looked at it carefully, but he was not sure that he could succeed in the first attempt.

There is lard in this small bowl for the purpose of better demoulding, but even so, the steamed "moon" is still somewhat tightly attached to the small bowl.

You still need to use a tool to gently separate it, so after Mr. Li fiddled with it "easily" for a few times, he picked up the small bowl and shook it gently.

The "moon" inside was obviously loose, and it seemed that it was successfully removed from the mold. Then he was seen gently putting the moon into the high-grade clear soup.

A very magical scene happened, making the three of them scream instantly. The "moon" was actually able to float slightly on it. Isn't this a little bit magical?
Mr. Li then put two small sections of bamboo fungus in. It was obvious that the entire disk instantly played the finishing touch, and the bamboo fungus was also slightly floating in it.

artistic conception!

What is artistic conception?
This dish has perfectly explained how it can be pleasing to the eye just by looking at it, and you can experience an extremely beautiful state from it, as if you were standing in the night sky, looking up at the white and round full moon.

That kind of beautiful artistic conception can only be understood but cannot be expressed in words, which brought great shock to the hearts of the three people.
(End of this chapter)