Chapter 25 Huang Rong's tofu is not good

In Jin Yong's works, there are many women who can cook, such as Cheng Ying in Li, Azhu and Abi in Li, Mei Fanggu in Li, etc., all have their own unique skills.Some of them are good at making banquets, and some are good at making desserts, and among them, Huang Rong is probably the most famous and capable. There are also many gourmets in Jin Yong's works, such as Bai Fumei Zhao Min who loves to eat side-street boiled mutton, Duan Yu who is good at tasting pastries, and the most famous gourmet among them is undoubtedly Hong Qigong. Wouldn't it be wonderful if Huang Rong, the "No. 1 chef" met Hong Qigong, the "No. 1 foodie"?The answer is not necessarily.

In the movie, Huang Rong concocted her "best" dishes for Hong Qigong to enjoy. Logically speaking, it should be a combination of delicacies, chefs and foodies, right?But I always feel that this exquisite dish of Huang Rong is not very delicious. The name of this dish is very elegant, it is called "Twenty-Four Bridges with a Bright Moon Night", even Xiao Du's poems are used, but it is actually steamed tofu with ham.The purpose of making this dish was to trick Hong Qigong into teaching Guo Jing martial arts, so Huang Rong must have spared no effort and used all her skills.

The specific method is as follows (not suitable for intensive phobia patients): first cut the ham and dig 24 holes; then cut the tofu into 24 balls, which must fit into the holes.After being steamed, the ham is discarded and only tofu is eaten, so it is called "Twenty-Four Bridges with a Bright Moon Night". No wonder this kind of tofu tastes good! I remember that Cai Kangyong once wrote an article saying that he always felt that the food in Jin Yongli was not gluttonous, unlike Gulong's beef soup and white steamed buns, which really made people hungry.I think the reason probably lies in the over-processing of the dishes.

For example, the most expensive dish in Jin Yong's book is the "Mandarin Duck and Five Treasures Stewed" for a few miles.It is written that this dish can only be found in the imperial palace. Not only does it use expensive ingredients, but it must be made with special pots and bowls and charcoal fire.Hong Qigong hid in the palace for three whole months, and only ate it twice. Cai Kangyong said, who knows what "Mandarin Duck and Five Treasures Stewed" tastes like?If you don’t have experience, you can’t think about it, unlike the wonton stalls in the middle of the night.Indeed, for readers, this mandarin duck dish is not at all greedy, because the name is too convoluted and the process is too troublesome.In fact, whether a dish is delicious has nothing to do with whether the ingredients are expensive or the process is complicated.

As a chef, Huang Rong didn't need us to explain this truth to her.Otherwise, she wouldn't proudly claim that her best dishes are "four homemade dishes": steamed tofu, fried cabbage, stewed eggs, and pork.As Yuan Mei, a big foodie in the Qing Dynasty, said: "Tofu tastes better than bird's nest. Sea vegetables are not as good as bamboo shoots." Yuan Mei advocates that there is no distinction between high and low ingredients.He compared various dishes to the sons and daughters of the rivers and lakes, saying that chickens, pigs, fish, and ducks are "heroes" because they "have their own flavors and are in a family of their own"; while sea cucumbers and bird's nests are "vulgar people" and they are "There is no temperament, and I live under the fence."

He advocates avoiding "punching" in cooking, which means not to over-process - "Bird's nest is good, why bother to pound it into lumps? Sea cucumber is good, why boil it into sauce? Watermelon is cut, it is not fresh, and it is made into cakes Apples are too ripe and not crispy, and some people steam them into candied fruit.” These are “all pretentious.” Since Huang Rong is well versed in its principles, she couldn't resist the urge to show off her skills and made simple food complicated.It stands to reason that tofu is the most tolerant and easy-going food in Chinese cuisine. It can be eaten in any way, such as tofu brain, shredded tofu, skin, smoked and dried, frozen, It can be eaten if it is hairy, and it can be eaten if it is smelly.But Miss Huang Rong insisted on cutting the tofu into balls and steaming them.

Moreover, the original book says that in order to complete the difficult skill of chopping tofu into balls, one must also use the Taohuadao family-renowned martial art "Lanhua Fuxueshou". Isn't this a work? Huang Rong's cooking has always been a little over-processed.The "Yudi Who Ting Luo Mei" she made is barbecue beef strips. Each piece of meat needs to be put together with four kinds of small meat strips, one is lamb buttocks, one is pig's ears, one is calf's kidney, and One is roe leg meat and rabbit meat kneaded together, which is purely full.This is the same as pounding bird's nest into balls and boiling sea cucumbers into sauce.

To understand what is over-processed, you can look at the famous "eggplant" in the restaurant. One eggplant needs more than a dozen chickens. After marinating and frying, frying and mixing, it completely loses the taste and texture of eggplant. And nutrition, the only purpose of this dish is to scare Grandma Liu. In the original book, gourmet Hong Qigong ate this steamed tofu with ham and was "overwhelmed".As for whether you believe it or not, I don't believe it anyway. Jin Yong is a local tyrant who knows how to eat, and his son Zha Chuanti is said to be a gourmet, nicknamed "firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, tea, wine" "Eight Bags Disciple", which should have something to do with Naifu.When Jin Yong tasted snacks in Beijing, it is said that he even drank the bean juice seriously. He is really a dignified and respectable first-class gourmet.He commented on the food in his essays, "Poisonous snakes in the land of Cantonese make soup, old cats stew pots, grouper fish looks like mice, giant shrimps call dragons, fat oysters stir-fry ring snails, steamed worms with dragon lice, roasted piglets with crispy skin, simmered fruits The raccoon makes the meat red", which are also wonderful and precise.

In his novels, there are not no dishes that make people drool, and the centipede fried by Hong Qigong seems to be good.I found that the dishes he wrote with great effort are often not as attractive as those written in casual pens, and the most craving dishes are often hidden in the most inconspicuous text cracks. For example, the protagonist Shi Potian, who is good at cooking, was cooking on a boat. The oil in the pot was sizzling and the aroma was tangy. Aren't two slightly yellow fish better than Huang Rong's tofu?