Chapter 25 Chengdu maocai

Walking in the streets and alleys of Chengdu, whether it is in farmers’ markets, residential areas, or small street shops, there are signs for maocai, but I don’t know what maocai is. I asked my wife who lived in Sichuan.My wife told me that maocai is not a single dish, but a kind of small hot pot, where all kinds of dishes are boiled together and eaten together. After getting to know it slowly, I realized that maocai is a special folk delicacy in Chengdu, which means maocai is hot.In order to understand the specific situation of maocai, I went to eat maocai with my wife.Maocai used to be a street snack, satisfying the hunger needs of citizens of all walks of life.Now, maocai has been discovered by gourmets and the media, and it has gradually entered the store. With a special maocai shop, we have entered a specialty restaurant that only serves maocai.

On the street, there is a big soup pot in each house, which is very dazzling. The spicy and delicious soup is steaming, as if inviting guests to come and taste it.There is a large coal stove under the soup pot, which keeps heating the soup, and the pot is full of bamboo baskets that are bulging.The bottom of the bamboo basket has a big mouth, and the basket is full of vegetables. The strong fragrance drifts with the wind, attracting passers-by to stop.Under the instructions of the customers, the stall owner loads the vegetables, puts the same vegetables into the bamboo baskets, and then puts them into the boiling soup. Then lift the bamboo basket, pour the vegetables and soup into the bowl, and let the diners enjoy it.The Maocai restaurant we entered put the soup pot into the kitchen, and the sanitary conditions were significantly improved.We looked at the menu, but instead of choosing vegetables ourselves, we ordered a set meal for two, that is, the maocai prepared by the store.

Mao is a verb, which is related to the bubbling of boiling soup, and it is also related to the vegetables and vegetables in the soup.Mao is actually a Western Sichuan dialect, which comes from 芼, and refers to cooking raw and cooked ingredients in boiling soup.Mao and 芼 are connected. In Mei Cheng's "Qi Fa", 芼 refers to edible aquatic plants or wild vegetables.From this point of view, Chengdu maocai has a long history. Maocai is a practice of small hot pot, and it does not refer to a certain kind of dish. Vegetables and vegetables are meaty and vegetarian, and the fire is relatively heavy, so it is not suitable to eat often.My wife and I only ordered the mildly spicy set meal for fear of getting angry.In some old Maocai restaurants, in order to accommodate various customers, Chinese herbal medicines are added to the soup pot to become exclusive secret spices, mainly to dispel fire.The prepared maocai is not numb, spicy but not spicy, suitable for all ages, it strengthens the spleen and stomach, does not get angry, and does not lose the stomach.

Maocai originated from the folks in Chengdu, and was gradually copied and developed by people, and developed to the surrounding area of ​​Chengdu and even the whole province of Sichuan and Chongqing.There are roughly two types of maocai, hot pot-type maocai and brine-type maocai.The hot pot-type maocai is basically the same as the hot pot, but the bottom material configuration is different. It is a hot pot for one person; you must first boil the broth, use big bones to boil the soup, add the bottom material, stir and boil, and then it becomes the original maocai soup.The brine-type maocai is similar to the brine configuration of braised vegetables. After the maocai is finished, the soup base can be drunk. It tastes delicious and not dry and spicy. , put the frying pan on high heat, heat the vegetable oil until it is half-ripe, put down the Pixian County Douban crisps, put ginger rice and Chinese prickly ash to fry until fragrant, put in fresh soup, then put in tempeh, rock sugar, butter, fermented glutinous rice juice, cooking wine, refined salt, pepper Powder, dried chili, grass fruit and other condiments, after boiled, beat the foam and serve as maocai brine.

The popular maocai ingredients in Chengdu include pig blood, cuttlefish slices, kelp slices, white bamboo shoot slices, jelly noodles, potato slices, lotus root slices, white vermicelli noodles, yellow vermicelli noodles, lettuce, lettuce leaves, water chestnuts, leek stem slices, cauliflower, thick bean sprouts, Thin bean sprouts, Chinese cabbage, bean curd, lettuce, shiitake mushroom slices, straw mushroom slices, etc.Every maocai restaurant has its unique taste and main ingredients, that is, mao beef, mao duck intestines, mao vegetarian dishes, and mao naohua are always outstanding.The maocai shop we ate, the main ingredient is maocai beef.Large slices of beef with clear texture, tender and smooth, fragrant, bright red color and delicious taste.The base materials include kelp, bamboo shoots, potatoes, lotus root slices, lettuce, lettuce leaves, bean sprouts, cabbage, vermicelli, cucumber, etc.

The most particular way to eat Maocai is to use a dry dish, put dried chili powder in a small dish, add salt, monosodium glutamate and other seasonings, dip the cooked vegetables in the pot lightly in the dry dish, and put it in your mouth. It is fragrant and spicy, very delicious.I'm not used to this dipping method, so I canceled the dry dish and ate it directly in a bowl.For our set meal, the prepared maocai is served in a large washbasin. There is more than half of the basin, and we ate it for more than half an hour before we finished eating two-thirds. People in Chengdu all have a complex of maocai, which can be said to be known and eaten by everyone.Someone exaggeratedly said: hot pot is a group of people's maocai, and maocai is a person's hot pot.