The Garden Life of a Little Gardener

Pork belly chicken is a famous Hakka dish, and it is a dish that is a test of firework.

When they were seated, Zhou Quan saw the introduction on the wall of the small shop. It turned out that the whole chicken was stuffed into the pork belly, closed and put into the pot, with ribs, chicken feet and other ingredients, as well as goji berry and Codonopsis pilosula Stew together with Chinese herbal medicines to invigorate qi and nourish the body.

It is precisely because of this unique production method that pork belly chicken has the alias of phoenix reincarnation.

After seeing the introduction on the wall of the small shop, Zhou Quan began to look forward to the Pork Belly and Chicken Pot that was about to be served on the table. He wanted to taste what the stewed chicken wrapped in pork belly tasted like.

Ten minutes later, Aunt Lu, the proprietress of the store, came over with a large casserole, followed by a young cook who seemed to be holding something like a gas stove.

The two of them came to the dining table together, and the chef put something like a gas stove on the table, installed a small gas tank, adjusted it, and the fire started.

Watching the assistants arrange the kitchen utensils, Aunt Lu put the big casserole on the stove and said, "I'll bring you the pork belly and chicken pot first, and you can eat first, and the other things will come soon."

After seeing off Aunt Lu, Zhou Quan lifted the lid of the big casserole with great anticipation, wanting to see what the pork belly wrapped with chicken looked like.

As a result, after the casserole was opened, there was only a large pot of milky white soup in the pot, and the chopped pork belly and the whole chicken that were chopped into pieces floating in the soup.

"Didn't it say that the Phoenix was reincarnated? The introduction on the wall is clearly pork belly wrapped in chicken, why are they all turned into small pieces?"

Chef Bao, who was sitting on both sides, was busy scooping Zhou Quan the thick soup in the casserole with a spoon. Hearing Zhou Quan's question, he replied: "It is true that pork belly was wrapped in chicken and stewed together in the pot, but Before serving, for the convenience of diners, Aunt Lu will ask Uncle Jia to chop up the pork belly and cut the chicken apart, so that it is easy to eat."

While speaking, a bowl of thick soup was handed to Zhou Quan. Zhou Quan took a light sniff of the strong aroma, picked up a spoon and took a sip, the umami taste mixed with the gelatinous feeling slowly spread in his mouth open.

"It's delicious. This sticky taste is very similar to your stewed mutton soup."

"It's much more difficult to make than mutton soup. It's difficult to control the heat of pork belly and chicken. The firepower and time need to take care of the two ingredients of pork belly and chicken. If the firepower is not enough and the time is short, the pork belly is cooked, but the freshness of the chicken inside The taste is not forced out, there is no chicken flavor in a pot of soup, and the pork belly chicken cannot be called pork belly chicken. But if the time passes, the chicken inside the pork belly will become woody again, and the pork belly outside will not be soft if the fire is not enough , The mastery of firework and timing is only a fraction of a millimetre, and without a lot of experience summarization, it is absolutely impossible to do well."

"In order to avoid this disadvantage, many chefs have learned a trick when making pork belly chicken, which is to make pork belly, chicken, and soup separately, and stew them together when the guests eat, so that It’s a very flattering way to taste the same without being afraid of making mistakes.”

"But if you do that, is pork belly chicken still pork belly chicken?"

"Pork belly chicken is still pork belly chicken. After all, pork belly and chicken can be found in it, but it can't be called Phoenix reincarnation, because it can't be done, and the head chef doesn't have that skill."

"Oh, then this restaurant must be using the old method, that's why when you brought me here, you said that the food you eat is reincarnated phoenix instead of the usual pork belly chicken."

"That's it. Aunt Lu and Uncle Jia have decades of experience, so they can be reincarnated as a town store and make people never get tired of eating Phoenix."

As a chef, Bao Yan likes to go to different regions to find food with different styles and methods. If he can find something and integrate the knowledge he discovered into his own dishes, that is the most gratifying thing for him.

With the pride of a top chef, he is rarely convinced, but Aunt Lu and Uncle Jia's pot of phoenix reincarnations, he wonders if he can't do such a good job.

It's not that the skills are not enough, nor is there any secret recipe that outsiders don't know, it's because this dish requires a high level of proficiency for the cook. Make one pot with four different images.

The proportion of experience in exquisite kung fu dishes is sometimes more important than skill.

Chef Bao fully understood the meaning of what Chef Bao said, so he looked forward to it even more. Born in the Northland, he was not used to drinking soup from small spoons and small bowls.

The pork belly and chicken soup is as smooth as a good mutton soup, but it lacks the overbearing mutton soup and is a little more gentle.

Different from the northern sheep soup that emphasizes spicy substances such as pepper, chives, and coriander to enhance the flavor and aroma, the fresh aroma of pork belly chicken is from the inside to the outside, and it will be slowly tasted when the aftertaste is drunk. a taste of

However, these two soups are equally effective in warming up the body. After eating two bowls of pork belly and chicken soup, beads of sweat appeared on Zhouquan's forehead.

After drinking the soup, it is natural to start eating meat. It is said that the chicken in this pot of pork belly and chicken soup is made of three yellow chickens, which weigh more than one catty. It is tender and delicious.

Knowing that the meat in the soup will inevitably look bland, Aunt Lu also served the special dipping sauce in the store when serving the casserole.

There are a few rings of Thai pepper floating on the tan sauce, which looks quite small and fresh.

Following Brother Baoyan's example, Zhouquan picked up a piece of chicken, dipped it in some sauce, carefully put it into his mouth, and after chewing it twice, his eyes couldn't help but narrowed.

As expected of the three-yellow chicken, the piece of chicken in Zhou Quan's mouth did not dry out even after a long time of stewing. Instead, it was smooth and chewy.

What he caught should be the root part of the chicken wing, and he hardly chewed it after eating it. The meat slid off the bone after a sip, as smoothly as silk passing through the skin.

Pfft, Zhou Quan tilted his head and spat out the bone, then impatiently stretched his chopsticks into the pot again, intending to pick up a piece of chicken.

But this time his luck was not so good, he picked up a chopstick and didn't pick up the chicken, but picked up a large piece of pork belly.

Shaking the wrist and shaking slightly a few times, the slices of pork belly clamped on the chopsticks also swayed back and forth. It looked Q and elastic and very resilient, not as soft as Brother Baozhen said just now.

But after dipping in the sauce, Zhou Quan realized that the other party's performance of QQ on the chopsticks just now was just to confuse people. In fact, it had been stewed until it was very soft.

The proof is that after Zhou Quan bit down on it, there was juice oozing out from the sliced ​​pork belly. The sweet, sour, fresh and spicy taste mixed with the dipping sauce made him start to salivate uncontrollably as he chewed. stand up.

"It's delicious. It's also very popular in the Northeast. It can be eaten in spring, summer, autumn and winter. It feels nourishing to the body and stomach."

This pot of pork belly and chicken soup pot gives a pork belly plus more than a catty of Sanhuang Tongzi chicken, which is not enough for two Northeast men to eat.

In particular, Chef Bao is still a big eater. You must know that his food is still ordered according to his previous serving size.

Seeing that the contents of the pork belly and chicken soup pot were about to bottom out, Zhou Quan couldn't help but slow down his eating speed. Just at this time, the proprietress brought the serving boy to serve the dishes again.

The proprietress came to add soup to them, and after filling the soup pot halfway again, she began to serve them one after another.

"High-calcium mutton, chrysanthemum chrysanthemum baby vegetable platter, konjac powder, crab roe lucky bag, Ah Yan, your four favorites in our shop."

"Thank you, Aunt Lu, for your trouble."

"No trouble, I'll be very happy if you can come over to eat often."

The proprietress left, and Chef Bao, who was familiar with everything here, threw vegetables, konjac powder and crab roe bags into the soup pot to simmer, pushed the remaining high-calcium mutton towards Zhou Quan and said, "Those things need to be boiled for a while." It’s delicious when you cook it, just rinse the mutton directly.”

The so-called high-calcium mutton means that when the mutton rolls are wrapped, crispy bones are intentionally added to it, which not only increases the taste, but also strengthens the nutrition.

Zhou Quan, who often eats mutton and loves mutton soup, is very picky about mutton. This plate of high-calcium mutton here is really delicious, but it is still expected, and there are not many surprises for Zhou Quan .

The same goes for vegetables and konjac flour. Chrysanthemum chrysanthemum is crisp and slightly bitter, baby vegetables are crisp and sweet, and konjac flour is crispy and juicy. They are all delicious.

Chef Bao surprised Zhou Quan again among the four old items in the store, which was the crab lucky bag.

The crab roe lucky bag really looks like a lucky bag. Cut off a corner of the dried tofu to make it look like a pocket, fill it with crab roe and crab roe that has been adjusted in taste, and tie the mouth of the bag with shredded leeks. The crab roe lucky bag is made.

Because the filling is raw, the lucky bag of crab roe was stewed for a period of time after it was put into the pot. When Zhouquan took them out and put them in his mouth, his eyes immediately brightened.

The dried bean curd in the lucky bag is a very juicy ingredient. Its ability to absorb juice is no worse than that of vermicelli. After cooling down, take a bite together with the crab inside. in the mouth.

The aroma of soy products, the deliciousness of soup, the smoothness of crab roe, and the feeling of the crab roe popping in the mouth after chewing, all mixed together is indescribably magical.

Zhou Quan, who has always been unimpressed with crabs, actually kept his head in the lucky bag of crabs this time and ate it. He didn't even know when the claypot rice was served on the table.

Chef Bao, who was sitting on the other side, was mixing the food in the claypot with a spoon, and looked at Zhouquan with a smile on his face, as if it was a very happy thing to appreciate him eating, no matter whether the food was self-made.

When Zhouquan raised his head with grease marks on the corners of his mouth, he met Chef Bao's smiling eyes, which made him feel very embarrassed.

Compared with Chef Zhou Quanbao, he was much more at ease. It was his responsibility to feed Zhou Zhou, and soon a bowl full of bacon and sausage claypot rice was handed over to Zhou Quan.

Different from the rice in the north, this pot of claypot rice uses the long thin rice that is common in the south.

The oily and shiny fine rice is paired with thinly sliced ​​sausage and bacon, and a little crispy rice is added. Scoop it up with a spoon and put it all in the mouth. It is sweet, crispy, soft and chewy, the more delicious it is.

"Yeah, it's delicious. The sausage is sweet, and the bacon also has a sweet taste. Even the rice grains inside are sweet. Do people in Suizhou like sweet food so much?"

"The sweet taste here is the same as the salty taste in our hometown. It is a basic taste. In dishes, rice, soup, and even pickled cured meat, sweetness is a must-have taste."

"So that's the case, but the name Emperor Huang is so strange, does it have any meaning?"

"Because the sausage used in this claypot rice made by Aunt Lu is from the emperor's royal family. It is a well-known brand. Of course, it will be displayed for everyone to see."

"So that's the case, the proprietress is really willing to spend money."

"Good food can only be made with good materials. Foodies know this. Eat it quickly, this claypot rice needs to be eaten warm, and it won't taste good when it's cold."

After messing up the dishes for a while, Chef Bao left the small restaurant with Zhouquan caressing his belly, checked the time, and took a taxi directly to his ancestor's house without going back to the hotel.