Chapter 23 Bacon Lamb

Everyone has good memories of the food in their childhood. I think there is a first taste effect in it. I still remember how sweet the sorghum stalks were for the first time.People always ignore this first-eating effect, and think that everything is inferior to childhood when they are adults, and today’s children are also tasting the food that they will cherish for life in the future? Although we firmly believe that everything is now No taste anymore. It was the first time I ate mutton. From the perspective of today's food culture, it was of course a very high-quality tasting.I can't remember the age at that time, but I still have the memory of food.Is that a winter?Can't remember either.I just know that when my uncle went hunting that time, the hunters drove a wild goat to the paddy field, and the poor hoofed animal, which is very good at climbing rocks and jumping walls, got stuck in the mud and had nowhere to go. The meanings of the words are similar. At the time when I was learning this in the text, I thought the wild goats were driven to the center of the paddy field, which is the meaning of the two words) and were caught alive.Uncle shared a piece of wild goat meat and brought it back to braise in soy sauce with red pepper, fermented soya bean and pepper oil.In the library of recipes I remember, it is the most delicious meat.At that time, I had never faced the face of a sheep, but only saw illustrations of goats in textbooks. They all had beards similar to those of my grandfather with a narrow face, and they were long and curved, like corn whiskers in the breeze.

When I grew up and went to Hubei, I first saw goats, which were raised by a family. The adults said that their meat was stinky, but I said wild goats were not stinky.Later, mutton was sold on the street. It was said that it was pulled from Henan, and it was already half dry.At that time, Hubei people did not eat much sheep, and it was extremely cheap, with a leg of lamb costing 5 yuan.I just bought leg of lamb, cut it into very thin diced meat, and stir-fried it with dried peppers and green garlic.But it really laid the foundation for me to eat mutton, and made me deeply realize that mutton should be mutton.When I want to eat mutton in the future, the taste buds of my memory will first fade out a taste of white water. It seems that only mutton is enough to get rid of this mild taste.

Beijing mutton has no smell of mutton.At the beginning, I didn’t have any special feelings. Gradually, after eating mutton for a long time, I suddenly remembered the mutton with a strong smell in my personal dietary history. Cucumber, so tasteless.Therefore, I have embarked on a long journey to find mutton with mutton.In fact, mutton oil has a smell, so when buying mutton, I always ask the boss not to remove the mutton oil.But the mutton boss saw that I was from the south and thought I was an authentic food blind. He not only removed the mutton fat, but also taught me that the mutton fat must be removed, otherwise it will smell mutton.My God, what I want is the smell of mutton! After that, I feel that the mutton oil has no smell.what to do?

The idea of ​​eating mutton with bacon excites me. If you eat bacon, you won’t feel tasteless.So I went to buy mutton, marinated the mutton with salt and five-spice powder, and hung it on the balcony for several days. The mutton gradually turned brown under the wind and sun, and the smell of bacon came faintly.I cut some up first and steamed it in the rice cooker. The steamed bacon is indeed better than fresh lamb.It has a smell of wax and is quite tough. When chewed very finely, its taste is gradually released, and it circles leisurely among the taste buds, like savoring a story in the mountains deep in my memory, although I know where this sheep comes from. In the vast prairie of Inner Mongolia.

Later, I stir-fried the cured lamb with red pepper, celery sticks and shredded ginger, which has a long flavor.First fry the cured mutton in hot oil. When the outside is scorched and the inside is soft, add the ingredients, without adding salt, and fry for a while.At this time, the cured mutton is scorched and cottony, and the aroma gradually rises, and it is sent into the mouth. The old aroma accumulated in time permeates the mouth, and pushes me leisurely into the vast wilderness of the years.This kind of cured meat is indeed only found in the south of the Yangtze River, and this mutton is originally from the northern country, so it has become a specimen of northern cuisine and southern cooking.Or, it is a kind of nostalgia for being close to the southern country that originates from the depths of the soul.