Chapter 19 Ham that is suitable for wine, rice, tea and porridge

Fu Kaisen, a former archeology expert in China, said: "Although the Germans boast that the sausage and ham made in Germany are good in taste and many styles, and can surpass the Eurasian countries, I can be sure that the Germans who say these words have not tasted it. If you have passed China’s cloud-legged Jianglegs, otherwise you will never dare to boast and boast that German ham is the best in the world.” Around the tenth year of the Republic of China, Dr. Di Boer of the German Hospital in Peking was not only an authority in the medical field at that time, but also a licorice in the social occasions of the gentry and businessmen.He once said that he especially loves Chinese food. All the ladies, rich and famous who have been rejuvenated by him, know his special taste. They are really Yezhong deer tails, stuffed with camel hooves, and they are lined up on the table every day, often for ten days and a half months. Eat Chinese food every day.He loves ham stewed soup, ham simmered dishes, especially cloud ham sandwich bread, which he thinks are many times better than hot dog sandwiches.

Chinese people are far away, such as Yuan Zicai, a famous gourmet chef. Most of his vegetarian dishes and meat roasts are inseparable from ham.When the madman Jin Shengtan was about to be executed, he still couldn't forget to tell his son that dried tofu with peanuts tasted like ham.It can be seen that this gentleman not only loves to eat ham, but also thinks that ham is a supreme delicacy when served with wine, so there is such a wonderful metaphor.The closest ones are "Emperor Hongxian" Yuan Xiangcheng. Although he is from Henan, he must cook ham and cabbage pier for every meal.Tan Yanchuang's shark's fin for fear of males is all made of ham and chicken soup. Without ham, it would not be the top grade of Tan's famous dishes.Judging from the above situation, no matter ancient or modern, Chinese or foreign, all gourmets have a special preference for domestic ham and give it a very high evaluation.

Most of the provinces in Southwest China will cured ham, but Jinhua ham in Zhejiang and Xuanwei ham in Yunnan are the most famous.Everyone thinks that Zhejiang ham is produced in Jinhua, so it is called Jinhua ham. If you want to buy it, you must name Jinhua products.In fact, Jinhua, Yiwu, Pan'an, and Dongyang in eastern Zhejiang are all good at making ham.Those who really eat ham feel that compared with other regions producing ham in eastern Zhejiang, the quality and aroma of Dongyang ham is really superior. At that time, in the area of ​​eastern Zhejiang, every year when Chongyang Festival was approaching, every ham shop began to be busy with cured ham.All the pork legs suitable for cured ham have been sold out. If you want a hoof to eat at this time, you will hardly be able to buy it if you don't have some friendship with the pork merchants.Pickled legs are also divided into seasons. The legs salted before and after Chongyang Festival are called autumn legs.At this time, the fat of the pigs is not enough, but the new stock of the leg market is open high, and the autumn legs are the first to be sold, and they can be sold at a good price.The legs marinated in November are called winter legs. At this time, the fat head is well nourished, the skin is smooth and the meat is thin, which is the best choice for legs.The legs marinated after the beginning of spring are called spring legs, because the winter cold has passed, and the pigs gradually lose weight, and the quality is slightly inferior.Regardless of whether it is autumn leg, winter leg or spring leg, the experienced farmer can tell at a glance. Everyone carries a sharpened bamboo skewer or a steel skewer with them. Regardless of the technique and time, as long as you insert the skewer into the leg, and then take it out and smell it, you can smell the quality.This kind of old master is highly paid and generous in the village, and has a high status and is especially admired by others.

Cured ham doesn't look complicated, but the way to make it is quite different.First of all, the whole pork leg must be cut off. If the knife skill is not good, the cut part is deviated, and if it is marinated well in the future, the leg shape is not standard, and naturally it cannot be sold at a good price.The whole pork leg should be coated with large seed salt and then rubbed carefully. When it comes to lean parts, salt should be added and rubbed more often.The so-called large-seed salt is sea-air sun-dried salt. If you use small-seed salt (stove salt) or refined salt, the freshness of the marinated ham will be poor.After the pork leg is marinated, it should be placed flat in a glazed tile vat, and the bottom of the vat should be raised with a bamboo grate, so that the marinade after the large salt marinade will slowly flow to the bottom of the vat, so as not to seep into the meat and affect the quality of the meat.

After about eight to ten days in this way (increase or decrease the number of days depending on the weather), add salt once, and the amount of salt will be halved from the first time.During the marinating period of nearly a month, the old master beat the skewers and thought they could be taken out of the vat. On a sunny day, he took out the whole marinated legs one by one, put them in a large wooden basin, soaked them in clean water, and soaked them in water from the river and well. can be.Just avoid using tap water, because there are chemicals in the tap water, which will make the meat taste bitter.The soaking time depends on the intensity of sunlight.After soaking the legs for several hours, all brine impurities attached to the legs should be gently washed and wiped off, and hung under the well-ventilated sunlight to expose them to the sun. When the meat of the legs turns red and the skin is hard, the shape of the feet should be trimmed. You're done.As for the quality of the legs, it all depends on the experience and skills of the masters.

Some people say that among the several hams to be marinated, there must be one Xu leg (dog leg) to enhance its freshness. If you ask ordinary leg-making masters, they always smile, neither admitting nor denying it.What kind of cat drowns in it is unpredictable for laymen.However, at a banquet in Taixian County, Jiangsu Province, the author did eat Xuleg, which was dark red in color and all lean meat, a bit like Peking green sauce meat.But wood residue, no umami.Mr. Yanshi said that the essence of Xu leg is completely absorbed by the pig leg, so it tastes like firewood, which is indeed credible and distinctive.

Now let’s talk about Yunnan’s Xuanwei legs. In Pingjin and other places, if you want to eat Jinhua legs, you can buy them at Nanhuo stores and Nanhuo burdens anytime and anywhere.But if you want to eat real Yunnan Xuanwei ham, you can meet it but not ask for it. You have to take a chance.During the Anti-Japanese War, all the tourists who came to Kunming for the first time felt that the market in Kunming was too late. After knocking at ten o'clock in the morning, the streets were still silent, and nine out of ten shops had not opened their doors.Kunming also pays attention to drinking tea in the morning, and a plate of ham is equivalent to peanuts and melon seeds elsewhere.Because cloud legs are usually eaten less, foreign visitors all eat a lot.In the past, I only heard that ham can be served with tea, but when I arrived in Kunming, I actually chewed ham while drinking tea.

Cloud legs are huge, and the number one cloud leg is half the size of Zhejiang leg.It is said that the pigs used in Xuanwei cured ham are not only excellent in breed, but also have processed feed, so the pigs raised are all thin-skinned and tender. The ham made from it is not only bright red and soft, but also has a mellow and fragrant taste, crisp and tender. .In addition, there is a kind of ham made of bamboo leaves, with red skin and white texture, fragrant but not greasy. It is delicious to drink two cups, and I like to use bamboo leaves to smoke it with wine.The old gourmets in Yunnan and Guizhou provinces are used to eating mellow and refreshing cloud gills, but when they occasionally eat Zhejiang leg, they feel that the taste is thin and greasy, not as good as cloud gills.

In terms of cooking, most people always think that its function is to enhance the taste and freshness, and it is a wonderful ingredient.In fact, good ham should be tasted alone as a main dish in order to appreciate its mellow and rich taste.Take ham as the main course, there are honey sauce fire party, Yipin Fugui and so on.Now it is true that good legs are rare and cannot be demanded, but as far as the general restaurants are concerned, whether it is restaurants in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, or restaurants in Hunan, Yunnan and Guangdong provinces, the cooking and knife skills are meticulous, and it can be said that very few can really meet the real standard.

Take the honey sauce fire recipe as an example, you must choose the middle girdle of the ham, because the middle girdle is where the essence of the whole ham lies, first you need to look at the size of the ham, then cut it into squares, peel off the fat, and only take the lean meat.Wash the whole scallops, soak them in Shaoxing wine and spread them all over the bottom. The function is to absorb oil, remove fishy smell, enhance freshness and enhance flavor.Then use another 30% of honey juice and 70% of rock sugar, and steam it in the pan first, and wait for the molasses to be fused for later use, because honey has a pollen smell, only 30% is used, too much will affect the flavor of the fire.The pot on the fire side is steamed to 80% of the heat before the honey sauce can be poured on. It can be served in the pot after only ten minutes of steaming.After steaming for a long time, the hot side will become sweet and greasy. Pay special attention to this dish. The ham is thick and the honey juice is sweet and moist. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to avoid adding ham fat so that it will be plump but not greasy.

Yipin Fugui is a filling dish that is suitable for both wine and rice. In the early days, this dish was served with lotus leaf rolls. Later, Mr. Chen Guangfu suggested that it be eaten with steamed bread and ham. It was designed for the elderly who have bad teeth. of.Unexpectedly, bread is now used instead of lotus leaf rolls.Yipin Fugui is different from Honey Juice Fire Fang in that although the skin is peeled, it needs to be slightly fattened.The fire side is to cut into cubes, but this dish needs to be sliced ​​to test the chef's knife skills.The ham should be sliced ​​as thin as possible. After cutting, it should be either loose or loose, let alone cut with a knife, because the ham in this dish is thin and fat. Although the floating surface is poured with lotus seed juice, it is just to get a little fragrance. .Now some restaurants use lotus seed soup as the base, while the ham is fatter and thinner, as thick as two silver dollars, which really tests the tooth skills of diners. Shredded ham on the girdle, mixed with shepherd's purse in sanhe oil to sip porridge, which can be regarded as a special dish in porridge.When Zhang Henshui wrote the novel "The Family of Jin Yu" in the "World Evening News", he thought he used a part of his brushwork. He was very proud that he wrote that Yanxi, the seventh young master of Prime Minister Jin's family, was ill and asked the kitchen to prepare some light porridge. There was a dish of duck feet mixed with it. When everyone was chatting at leisure, the author suggested to him that it is better to mix cloud legs with shepherd's purse, because the children of rich and noble families are sick, and they will never use indigestible duck feet as porridge.During the Anti-Japanese War, Zhang suffered from malaria in Chongqing. After the illness, he lost his appetite. He suddenly remembered to sip porridge with shepherd's purse. . As for serving wine with ham, heavy oil is often used in dishes in Yangzhen, and half-fat and half-thin ham is preferred.People in Suxi prefer light diet, and most of the hams served with wine are pure and thin, and they always pick out the so-called "glasses" to sip wine.In short, no matter it is Zhejiang leg and cloud leg, it can be regarded as the top-grade leg if it is plump but refreshing, crisp but not sluggish, pure and moist. Writing here reminds me of a little story about ham. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the author once stayed in Yang Town for a while. My friend Hu Guohua was in charge of the welfare club in Huang Botao's army. He gave me a glass brocade box. When I opened it, it was a pair of hams that were no longer than three inches long and looked like hooves and claws.Such a small ham is certainly not a pork leg, but what kind of animal has such hooves and claws, it really puzzles me.Later, Brother Hu explained it himself, and then suddenly realized.It turned out that in their welfare organization, there is a master chef of Dongyang salted legs. Not only is he experienced in curing hams, but he is also good at trimming the shape of legs.When he has nothing to do, when he encounters a pig with a particularly fat tail, he cuts it off, marinates it with other hams, takes it out of the vat, trims and shortens it, and then peels off the little finger at the back of the pig's claw and puts it on the tip of the pig's tail. On the top, the mini ham is done, it is really seamless, and it is not fake at all.After he explained it, he didn't think it was surprising, but at a glance, it really can scare people. After the author brought this pair of small hams to Shanghai, he was seen by the match king Liu Hongsheng, who thought it was novel and interesting, so this pair of miniature hams became his treasure chest.Although this little thing is not a real ham, it can be regarded as a funny story about ham.Now talking about ham, so I wrote it out.