"Don't be disappointed. You will be able to eat bear paws in a while. The first-grade bear paws I made are quite good." Yu Shan looked at a pot not far away. The steam inside was rising. It seemed that the bear paws were about to be eaten.
.
Nothing Han Peacock and the others ate this time was simple, and everything took time. After all, they couldn't eat hot tofu in a hurry.
"Is it ready to eat at this time?" Mu Ling asked.
Han Kongque said: "It's not enough yet, it still needs to be steamed with broth."
"So troublesome? Doesn't it taste good now?" Huang Shan said.
Han Peacock said with a smile: "Eating bear paws at this time is just like eating pig's trotters. The pig's trotters have been boiled in white water to remove the smell of oil. They will taste chewy after cooling. The steamed bear's paws are just like this pig's trotters."
Hooves are almost the same.”
Mu Ling reacted at this time: "The boss is saying that after the hair is removed from the bear's paws, it does not need to be steamed in stock. The texture will be similar to that of pig's trotters?"
"Yes, the bear's paw itself has no taste. It's like a large piece of beef tendon. The key is to cook it until it's tender and tough," said Han Kongque.
Looking at Huang Shan and Jin Yao as if they didn't understand, Han Kongque continued: "Some people say that bear paws are delicious, while others say they are not. In fact, it all depends on your cooking skills. It depends on how you cook them. If you are not good at cooking, you will not know how to cook them."
Everything cooked and cooked is not delicious.”
"Saying it's delicious is just hype. I don't know if it's true." Jin Yao said.
"Bear's paws were famous in ancient times. Who would speculate at that time? In modern times, it is quite interesting. What are the profiteers afraid to do for profit? What can't they do? Some small restaurants with bad intentions still dare to process pig trotters.
Counterfeit bear paws for sale," Han Peacock said.
"That's true, but it's still not delicious. I really don't know how they eat it." As he spoke, Huangshan laughed.
He knows how powerful the Red Mansion Restaurant is, and the founder of the Red Mansion Restaurant, wouldn’t the bear paws made by the founder of the Red Mansion Restaurant not be delicious?
Han Kongque didn't know why Huangshan was laughing. He said directly: "If this thing is not made well, it will smell like stinky feet, and it will be really inedible. It doesn't have much umami flavor, but the smell is very strong. First of all, it has to be
Get rid of the peculiar smell, and then cook it with delicious meat, such as old chicken, pork, etc. If you just use it alone without adding other meat, the taste will definitely not be good.”
"So, if it's not done well, will it smell bad?" Jin Yao asked.
Han Peacock laughed and said: "He did not hesitate to break the law and cruelly chop off the bear's paws and enjoy them. After making them, he found that they were not delicious. Many people would ask, what is so delicious about bear's paws?"
"Indeed, if you think about it carefully, there is nothing delicious about bear paws. Some people say that if you say it is delicious, you must have never eaten it." Han Peacock smiled a little weirdly.
Not to mention ordinary people, even senior people from the catering industry association or national cooking masters will say it is not delicious. In fact, it is not that they want to say so, but they must say so.
Han Kongque once heard that a master chef said that bear paws only taste very waxy, similar to cow paws. If they are not cooked well, they will have a strong smell.
There is an important point here. What he is talking about is that it is not done well, not that it does not taste good even if it is done.
As one of the eight delicacies of the Manchu-Han banquet, bear paw was mostly a royal dish in ancient times.
Because bear paws are thick with fat and have a very strong smell, even before the country banned the sale of bear paws, not all chefs could cook bear paws well. If they did not reach a certain level, the smell could not be concealed, which would be very serious.
Unpalatable.
Those who think bear paws are delicious are also because the people who cook the bear paws have good skills and use good raw materials.
Han Peacock knew how to handle bear paws entirely because he had obtained the notes of a person, a master chef who was active in the 1930s and 1940s. Until the 1970s, there was a record of handling bear paws in his diary.
record of.
This master has more than 40 years of cooking experience. He was still making braised bear paws in the 1970s, so he has rich experience.
At that time, the bear paws they used were mainly shipped from the Northeast. On March 1, 1989, the Wildlife Protection Law was officially implemented, and bear paws could no longer be used as cooking ingredients.
"Then why do some hotels or high-end catering establishments sometimes sell dishes under the sign of bear paws? Is it pretending to be pig's trotters as just mentioned?" Mu Ling asked.
Han Peacock said with a smile: "The technology of those big hotels is even better. Those bear paws are naturally not real bear paws, they just look like bear paws. They usually make bear paw molds, and then chop the chicken and beef into small pieces.
Then mix starch and eggs and put them into the mold. Later, some people also used camel paws and even tofu to look like bear paws."
"If it's really not that delicious, it doesn't matter if you don't eat bear paws." Mu Ling still feels that eating bear paws is a bit cruel, so she also agrees with many people's views that no matter how delicious bear paws are, they can't be said to be delicious.
.
"It's really nothing if you don't eat bear paws. Apart from the unique taste, there is nothing unusual in terms of nutritional value. The main ingredients of bear paws are fat and collagen, fat, carbohydrates, etc. In fact, this is different from chicken,
Compared with ducks, pigs, cattle, and sheep, they are almost the same in major indicators such as protein, carbohydrates, and energy.
The advantage of bear paws is that they are rich in fat and contain more smooth muscle and collagen. However, foods such as sheep tendons, beef tendons, duck feet, chicken cavities, pig feet, etc. also contain the same ingredients, but their appearance is better than that of bears.
The palm is small.
For example, if 30 duck paws weigh as much as one bear paw, then after eating 30 duck paws, the nutritional intake will be no less than that of one bear paw. However, things in the world are so strange, that is, some people
I like to eat bear paws but not duck paws.”
"So bear paws are not rare at all?" Jin Yao said a little disappointed.
"How is it possible? If there is nothing special about it, how could the bear's paw become one of the eight treasures passed down in ancient times?" Huang Shan said.
Han Peacock glanced at Huangshan, and he finally became wiser for a while.
"In terms of nutritional content, the collagen content of bear paw is relatively high. In terms of efficacy, bear paw meat is warm in nature and has the functions of strengthening the spleen and stomach, nourishing qi and blood and removing rheumatism, but eating it alone will not have any effect.
It needs to be paired with red dates, Codonopsis pilosula, Angelica sinensis, etc., so if it’s not done well, the bear’s paw will be wasted.” said Han Kongque.
These effects of bear's paw are actually nothing worth promoting, because pig's trotters and cow's trotters also have them.
Wild animals are used as food ingredients. If they are not cooked well, they will be very unpalatable. Just compare wild boar meat with domestic pigs. A survey said that 70% to 80% of people cannot accept the taste of wild boar meat. This is because of the amino acid content in wild animals.
The higher the content, the more fishy and peculiar smell it has, making it more difficult for people to accept it.
Of course, maybe it's because of the bear's powerful strength, so eating bear paws is like defeating this powerful guy, so it has been sought after by people from ancient times to the present.
Everyone knows about bear paws, but few people have eaten them. So when bear paws are mentioned, everyone feels it is very mysterious. Of course, there are also some promotional reasons.
Regarding the allusion of bear's paws, the most famous one is "Mencius Gaozi 1", "Fish is what I want, and bear's paws are also what I want. You cannot have both, and you would give up fish and take bear's paws."
.”
In "Mencius Gaozi 1", Mencius chose bear paws over fish. Of course, this was not because Mencius was greedy and thought bear paws were more delicious than fish, but because in comparison, bear paws were more precious.
Even more difficult to obtain.
So he went on to say, "Life is what I want, and righteousness is what I want. You cannot have both. One can sacrifice life for righteousness." The importance of righteousness is compared with a bear's paw.
Originally, Mencius was talking about the relationship between life and righteousness, but some gourmets took the words out of context, distorted Mencius's original meaning, and pushed the bear's paw onto the dining table.
Since then, bear paws have been hailed as the top delicacies, and many people feel honored to be able to eat bear paws.
Later, the bear's paw was made into the apple of one's eye and became one of the eight ancient treasures. It also became a delicacy that has been passed down by the palace for a long time.
The "palm" here refers to the paw of the black bear, a specialty of Northeast China. Naturally, there is a reason why we eat this palm.
Bears have the habit of hibernating. During hibernation, they make a living by licking their paws. The body fluids and gelatin in their palms seep into the palms, which is one of the reasons why bear paws are rich in nutrients. The front right paw is particularly plump because of frequent licking, with a "left"
It is known as "Yayou Jade".
Of course, although bear paws are a delicious product, if they are processed improperly, they will be difficult to swallow. If you want to eat the delicious food, you need to put a lot of effort into its preparation.
Bear paws contain a lot of colloid, so it is difficult to cook and mature in a short time. For this reason, many chefs have lost their lives in history.
"Mao Zi" records: When King Zhou ruled the world, "Xiong Qiu killed the cooks". This is an example.
"Zuo Zhuan" records: Duke Linggong of Jin once killed his butler because he was "a shy man and a bear." This is another example.
"Historical Records" records: Zhao Dun, a nobleman of the Jin Dynasty, "eats bears and eats bears, but he kills people." These are three examples.
Therefore, many modern people think that bear paws are not delicious. In fact, the reason is very simple, because there is no good chef. The above three examples make it very clear. Even the ancient emperor wanted to eat a delicious bear paw.
, are all so difficult, let alone modern people.
Bear paws are also very troublesome to deal with, not to mention making them. If Han Peacock hadn't been prepared in advance and waited until Huangshan killed them first today, we still don't know how long it would take to eat the bear paws!
Wang Shizhen in the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty wrote the "Eating Bear's Paw Method" in his book "Shi Xian Hong Mi".
He recorded it very clearly, "For those with hair, dig a pit in the ground, add half of it with lime, put your palm in it, add lime on top, and pour cold water on it. After it has grown, stop cooling and pick it up. The hair will be easy to remove and the roots will be gone."
Take it out immediately. Wash it and soak it in rice for one or two days. Boil it in lard wrappers and remove the oil again. Make these strips and eat them with pork."
It can be seen from this that when this dish is made, it must be defrosted with lime, soaked in rice juice, and steamed, so it must be crispy and delicious.
Of course, there are still many taboos about eating bear paws, such as the "Left and Right Jade" mentioned just now. Just listen to this. If you take it seriously, you will probably eat Xiang. (To be continued.)