"Red dates? Such medicinal materials and tonics can actually be combined with cured meat?!"
Nakiri Senzaemon quickly changed his clothes with the help of his servants, and looked incredulous after hearing Zhao Youqian's words.
You must know that in order to prevent embarrassment, he brought many servants with him. At this time, when he heard Zhao Youqian's words, he could not restrain himself as the head of the Nakiri family, and showed a surprised look. You can know how wrong Zhao Youqian's answer was. It was beyond his expectation.
Speaking of red dates, almost no one seems to associate them with the cured meat of Hunan Province.
Maybe some people add some wolfberry, but you can see it occasionally. For example, when stewing cured pork ribs or pork trotters, stew them in clear soup, add ingredients such as white radish, and finally end with wolfberry. I hope you can bring some wolfberry. The taste and lusciousness.
As for other ingredients of this type, no one has ever tried to combine them with cured meat.
After all, the impression is that cured meat, especially the cured meat from Hunan Province, must be combined with chili peppers. Even the original flavor is rich in flavor, and no one would add these nourishing things.
"Ah, actually I got the inspiration accidentally. In fact, the smoked flavor of cured meat cannot be combined with nourishing medicinal materials."
"In the past, there was the example of wolfberry, and in Europe there were also dishes that used smoked sausages and herbs like saffron."
In fact, it does not completely create a new taste world, but this method is indeed very rare for Hunan or Yaozhou cuisine.
In particular, the cured meat from Hunan Province has a strong smoky flavor. If it is smoked and barbecued over firewood after stewing, it will inevitably have the smell of wood smoke left in the mouth, with a slightly astringent taste.
In fact, this kind of taste can be alleviated by combining it with white radish and other ingredients, but even so, there is still a little bit of astringency at the base of the tongue. The best way is to pair it with chili peppers to use the heat of chili peppers to numb the astringency in the taste. taste.
But Zhao Youqian took a different approach this time, directly using the mellow sweetness of red dates to neutralize the astringent taste. This was very rare, and it also opened up an idea for Nakiri Senzaemon.
Since red dates can blend in such a smoky flavor, can longan, which is also a dry food candied fruit, do the same?
Thinking about it this way, it seems that many dishes can be studied again, and there is even room for improvement.
"Yeah!"
"The cooking this time really opened my eyes!"
Nakiri Senzaemon had already experienced his clothes exploding, so naturally he would not be easily shocked again. He continued to drink the soup in the bowl, and couldn't help but praise it again and again.
"Yougan, your idea is really extraordinary. The sweetness of the red dates combined with the vegetable sweetness of the white radish and winter melon perfectly rounds out the astringency of the smoke into a special aroma that no longer weighs on the taste buds. burden."
“It’s an unimaginable idea to open up the realm of taste!”
Realizing the food meaning of "opening up" the artistic conception contained in the soup, Nakiri Senzaemon could only describe Zhao Youqian's progress as amazing.
It is not such a simple thing to create a new way of making or even pairing tasteful dishes, but once it is completed, the feedback to the cook is unparalleled.
This kind of ethereal spiritual thing becomes more important the closer you get to Linchu.
Therefore, Zhao Youqian was able to challenge a different taste and subvert the cooking ratio in a short period of time. For Nakiri Senzaemon, the shock was far greater than anything else.
‘Where is this dragon? This is a real dragon species that truly lurks in the creek and turns into a nine-day divine dragon when it encounters a storm!’
Regardless of the turbulence in his heart, Zhao Youqian was very confident in this kind of cuisine. He also used a slotted spoon to scoop out a few pieces of waxed pig's trotters, daikon, and winter melon into Nakiri Senzaemon's bowl.
"Commander, try other ingredients, the taste is not bad..."
"After eating the original flavor, you can also try it with a dipped dish. There will be two different flavors."
When it comes to dipping dishes, Zhao Youqian still sticks to the same old method, minced garlic, spicy millet, chopped green onion sesame oil with a little light soy sauce and mature vinegar. This is his favorite dipping dish. No matter what hot pot ingredients are paired with it, it will add flavor.
The one prepared for Nakiri Senzaemon is different, a little shichimi powder, yellow mustard with yuzu vinegar and green onion powder.
It's more of a Tozakura-style dipping sauce, a bit similar to the 'Xiabu Xiabu' dipping sauce, but with the addition of yellow mustard, it's more like a dipping sauce that's used when eating oden.
After hearing Zhao Youqian's words, Nakiri Senzaemon couldn't help but feel a little more curious.
The cured pig's trotters themselves have been cut into pieces. In Zhao Youqian's method, he uses a steel ball to brush off the sediment and black ash on the surface, then blanches them in water and then boils them. It doesn't take too long, about fifty minutes, and it's done. Added radish and winter melon.
Winter melon is easier to ripen than radish, so it is added last. First add white radish and cook for about ten minutes, then add winter melon and cook for another five minutes. The time required for such a one-pot cooking is only one hour and five minutes.
However, when cooking, there is no need to add salt, and only four red dates, a little ginger, and a little cooking wine are enough.
The amber color is due to the addition of a little more light soy sauce at the beginning of the stew.
After simmering the pig's trotters for fifty minutes, adjust according to the taste of the soup to see if you need to add salt to increase the base flavor. Generally speaking, you don't need to, and it is usually just right.
At this time, the cured pig's trotters should be stewed until they are just off the bone, but the meat is still tight and delicate, and the skin gelatin is soft and tender after being baked and then boiled, and you can also taste a little bit of soft and crispy special texture.
This is one of the reasons why Zhao Youqian chose to use cured pig trotters as the main ingredient of cured meat hot pot.
After being cooked at the right temperature, the meat of the cured pig's trotters has become soft and tender, and the inner layer of fat is like a thick sauce. However, the outer layer still retains a special crispy and soft texture due to the smoke and air-drying. , this is also the delicious taste that gourmets most like to pursue.
The soft and tender lean meat turns into shredded meat bit by bit in the mouth. When chewing, it turns into meat paste without worrying about stuffing your teeth. This is followed by an extremely soft and glutinous fat layer under the meat skin, which turns into sticky meat in the mouth. The thick sauce ends with a thin layer of brown pig trotter skin.
It's like biting open a layer of heart tube, but it's much thinner than the heart tube. The taste is simply addictive.
At least Nakiri Senzaemon was also amazed by the taste of this rare cured meat ingredient.
The wonderful experience of having several flavors running side by side and fused in his mouth made him feel as if he had flown to heaven.
'Pig's trotters are already so stunning, what about white radish and winter melon, which are generally more impressive?'
Such a thought flashed through Nakiri Senzaemon's mind, and then he couldn't help but continue to stretch his hand towards the other ingredients in the bowl...