Chapter 80 Jianshui Lin'an Tofu

Traveling in Yunnan, the climate is mild, the night markets in big cities and small towns are very prosperous, and all kinds of food are available.When I travel with my family, it is a compulsory course to go to the stalls in the night market to enjoy food.Walking on the streets of Kunming, I saw the night market thriving. Vendors grilled one-inch cubes of tofu with charcoal fire. They were small, exquisite and golden, which attracted the eyes and tempted the appetite.I asked my friends and found out that it was the stinky tofu from Lin’an Prefecture, which was produced in Jianshui County, Honghe Prefecture.

With curiosity and doubts, I set off from Kunming and arrived at Jianshui County by car for more than three hours.Jianshui is a city full of culture and history. It is full of carved beams and painted buildings, and it is very sensual. The food in the streets and alleys makes people full of desire. All tastes and impressions. Jianshui County was named Lin'an Prefecture in ancient times, and has a very long history of making roasted tofu.In the middle and late Qing Dynasty, Lin'an tofu has enjoyed a high reputation, and the name is still in use today. Lin'an tofu tastes the best and is the most popular.According to legend, the Zhou family started making roasted tofu in the ninth year of Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty (1883), and has persisted until now.Zhou's Roasted Tofu is strictly selected materials, using large grains of white-skinned soybeans as raw materials, and finely processed to make stunning tofu that is as white as milk, delicate and tender, and will not turn black when grilled.Zhou’s roasted tofu is wrapped with a small piece of gauze, and the wrapped tofu is pressed dry with a wooden board, then the gauze is removed, and put into a dustpan. Add a little salt to each piece of tofu, then cover with a dustpan, and turn it every other day until the tofu turns gray After that, you can take it to the barbecue.Roasted tofu is grilled over a charcoal fire. Put an iron kang sieve on the charcoal fire, apply sesame oil, and turn the tofu while roasting. When the tofu is fully expanded and roasted golden, put it into a bowl and dip it in soy sauce, minced chili, garlic, and monosodium glutamate. The seasonings made of spices such as chili, millet and spicy, can be eaten or taken away.

I lingered on the streets of Jianshui County, and I often heard children humming a folk song: "Yunnan stinky tofu is the most famous in Lin'an Prefecture. It smells stinky, tastes delicious, swollen, round, yellow and bright, with four sides and eight corners that make people want to eat. If you don’t eat three meals, you will panic.” After careful study, we know that the production process of Lin’an tofu is relatively complicated. From soybeans to tofu, it needs to go through screening, shelling, soaking, refining, filtering, boiling, pointing, forming, and dicing. 10 processes including fermentation, fermentation, etc. Each process must be done thoroughly without leaving any flaws, so that excellent roasted tofu can be made.The most important process of Lin'an roasted tofu is fermentation, which is the key to the success of roasted tofu.In general workshops, suffocation is used to speed up fermentation. The dried tofu is neatly stacked in a large bamboo sieve, wrapped tightly with white gauze or white earthen cloth, and placed in a ventilated place to wait for fermentation.According to different weather, corresponding treatment should be done. In winter, the new straw of the year should be covered to keep warm and reduce the fermentation time; in summer, only sand net should be covered to prevent the tofu from going sour.At room temperature, it will turn off-white in two to four days, making it an ideal ingredient for roasting tofu.If the tofu is not well fermented, it will be sour and hard, which will affect the taste and texture; if the tofu is too fermented, it will be too soft on the outside or rotten on the inside, so it cannot be baked.

Walking in the ancient and small Jianshui County, you can see tofu stalls everywhere.In addition to roasting tofu, they also roast leeks, tilapia, eel, pork belly, chicken feet, eggplant, small melon and other foods, but they are all supporting roles and accessories for roasting tofu.There are about three types of Lin'an roasted tofu that I have eaten: one is charcoal-fired tofu, which is grilled with tofu that has been fermented for two or three days, and is also the most common; the other is charcoal-fired dry tofu, which is only half the size of roasted tofu Afterwards, it will expand to three or five times the size, and it tastes stronger, chewy and tasteful. It is the best food for drinking; one is fried tofu, fried tofu in a frying pan, and it is a bit like The fried method of Changsha stinky tofu.

The tofu stall in Jianshui County has been surrounded by diners since the morning.They are sitting on small benches, surrounded by a small brazier, with iron grates on top, and the inch-sized tofu is lined up in rows, roasted until browned. Diners hold chopsticks and wait for the roasted tofu that has just come off the shelf, and grab a roasted tofu , Hastily dipped in the water, put it in his mouth happily, chewed it with relish, feeling the aroma and satisfaction brought to him by roasting tofu.Roasted tofu should be roasted slowly, the roasted tofu will be loose and delicious, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, smooth and quality, with a lingering aroma.When roasting, brush some cooking oil on the surface of the tofu. The tofu will be yellow and shiny, and the fragrance will be far away.Under the aphrodisiac of the charcoal fire, the tofu gradually swells and rolls on the iron rack in a ball shape, ostentatious to diners.The iron frame is larger, and the grilled tofu is lined up in one corner. The red charcoal fire grills the grilled tofu on the top of the head, making squeaking sounds and cheers, dancing and jumping with the chopsticks of the stall owner, and finally jumping into the diners bowl.One is roasted over charcoal fire, the diners pick and eat one, and the stall owner dials in a raw one to grill. In this way, there is a steady stream of coming and going, and the stall owner is not idle, often chatting with the guests about homework.The countless small jars in front of him corresponded to each diner, and every time he ate a baked tofu, the stall owner would throw out grains and grains.

Lin'an tofu is concentrated near Pubo Well, the west gate of Jianshui County. Pubo Well is commonly known as Daban Well. The well water is sweet and crystal clear.Lin'an Tofu Workshop is mainly a family workshop, with as many as a dozen or as few as five or six people, all of whom are hand-made. Each person can make two to three thousand roasted tofu a day, divided into two shifts during the day and night.The workshop uses the surname as a signboard and writes it on the tin box containing the tofu.Most of the tofu wrappers are women. They use two hundred pieces of small flower cloth to wrap a tofu and untie a pressed tofu. The movements are so fast that I can't see their techniques clearly.The largest processing tribe of Lin'an tofu is concentrated in Nanzhuang, and a corresponding chain of procurement, transportation and sales has been established.At 4 o'clock in the morning, Jianshui Ximen Farmer's Market began to trade and wholesale roasted tofu. Ninety percent of roasted tofu was shipped to various places in Yunnan, waiting for diners to visit; the remaining 10 percent of roasted tofu was sold in Jianshui. The county digests it by itself.At eight o'clock in the morning, Lin'an Roasted Tofu produced by Jianshui can be bought in the market in Kunming, entering the stage of food tasting.

There are two kinds of dipping materials for eating Lin'an roasted tofu, one is a soup made of curd juice, burnt spicy noodles, and coriander powder; the other is a dry ingredient mixed with chili noodles, salt, pepper noodles, and monosodium glutamate.I like dry ingredients, and I also add some spicy millet, which tastes very special and exciting.The soup also has a unique flavor. When the tofu is immersed in the soup, the small holes are filled with fermented bean curd juice, and the juice splashes when bitten down. The bean fragrance lingers in the mouth and cannot disappear for a long time.

When I eat Lin'an roasted tofu, I bite through the thin crispy skin, the heat escapes from the small honeycomb holes, and the aroma is tangy, so I will open my mouth to let the aroma reverberate naturally.I go to eat Lin'an roasted tofu with my friends or my lover. I also like to drink a little wine or a bottle of beer, savor it slowly, and eat dozens of them without getting tired.