China News Agency, Hangzhou, August 16th Telegram: Millennium Dongpo Meat: Recalling Jiangnan without a drop of water

  Author Guo Qiyu

  "The washing pan is clean, and there is less water, and the fire of the firewood can't bear the flames. Don't rush him when he is cooked, and he will be beautiful when the heat is full." Su Shi, a great writer in the Northern Song Dynasty, described in "Pork Ode", probably Dongpo The embryonic form of meat.

  The purple sand small cup is covered in a bowl, and the square meat is like agate. The entrance is crispy and fragrant.

  According to legend, when Su Shi was the prefect of Hangzhou, he built bridges and embankments to solve the flood disaster in the West Lake, and the people expressed their gratitude for sending pigs and wine.

Su Shi then instructed his family to cut the meat into pieces, cook it with wine and give it back to the people, and the oily red and soft Dongpo pork is also famous for this.

  After thousands of years, today's Hangzhou people still continue this cooking method.

  "Dongpo Pork is made with fat and lean pork belly, cooked with local brewed rice wine and soy sauce in Zhejiang, without adding a drop of water." said Chen Jianjun, a Chinese cooking master and executive chef of Xinxin Hotel in Hangzhou. , stewing, simmering, steaming and other steps, it takes at least two hours to cook a Dongpo pork.

  The slow-cooked Dongpo pork is crispy but not broken, fragrant and glutinous but not greasy.

The mouth is chewed carefully, the aroma of the wine blends with the juicy meat, and it overflows with a different back aroma.

  In order to ensure the quality and taste, Hangzhou Xinxin Hotel only limited supply of 60 squares of Dongpo meat per day.

This century-old shop opened in 1913 was originally a hotel. It was named after the famous sentence in "Book of Rites, University", "Gou Rixin, daily new, and daily new". It has hosted Soong Ching Ling, Soong Meiling, Jiang Jingguo, Lu Xun, Xu Shima, Hu Shi, American philosopher John Dewey, Japanese writer Akutagawa Ryunosuke and many other dignitaries and celebrities.

A Dongpo Pork traverses history, leaving the fragrance between the lips and teeth.

  Facing the picturesque West Lake, backed by Liuxia Gem Mountain.

In front of the huge floor-to-ceiling windows of Xinxin Hotel, Ms. Zhao, a citizen of Hangzhou, tasted Dongpo Pork surrounded by lakes and mountains, as if returning to the ancient south of the misty rain.

  "Xinxin Hotel is surrounded by mountains and rivers, and has a unique humanistic experience. We can only reserve a seat in advance." Ms. Zhao told reporters that the Dongpo Pork of Xinxin Hotel retained the old-fashioned Hangzhou flavor, and at the same time innovatively matched steamed bread, Side dishes such as cucumber slices relieve greasy and are more popular with contemporary people.

  Over time, Dongpo Meat has also appeared on the stage of state banquets several times.

  On the night of the founding ceremony of October 1, 1949, the Beijing Hotel hosted the "first banquet for the founding of the People's Republic of China".

Zheng Lianfu, the banquet director of the Beijing Hotel at the time, said that Dongpo Pork was among the six hot dishes at the state banquet at that time.

  At the G20 Hangzhou Summit held in 2016, Hangbang cuisine became the protagonist of the state banquet, and one of the dishes, "Dongpo Steak", was a combination of Chinese and Western.

  "Dongpo steak is inspired by Dongpo meat, but the traditional Dongpo meat is pork, and it is stewed with wine," said Zhu Qijin, a Chinese cooking master and designer of the welcome dinner for the G20 Hangzhou Summit, " In order to fully take care of the taste and health of leaders of various countries, we use beef instead of pork, extract the flavor of the original seasoning with relevant vegetarian dishes, and still draw on the practice of Dongpo Pork in the production process.”

  After more than a year of continuous adjustment by the chef team of Zhejiang Xizi Hotel, a Dongpo steak without traditional ingredients such as sugar, wine, onion, ginger and garlic presents the same bright oily color and sweet, soft and glutinous taste as Laodizi Dongpo pork. .

  In Zhu Qijin's view, this is a "delicious delicacy intertwined with history and reality", and an innovation that transcends history.

  Chen Jianbin, an overseas Chinese who has opened a Chinese restaurant in Paris, France since 2004, brought Dongpo Pork to France after attending an overseas Chinese cooking skill training course in Zhejiang Province.

"A simple braised pork, once it has a cultural background, will have a different taste, not only the price will be sold, but there will be stories to tell. This is the charm of Chinese food culture."

  Chen Jianbin said that he combined the production method of domestic Dongpo meat with local French dishes, and the Chinese food was served in the west, all of which were divided into meals, which was very popular with the locals.

  Thousands of years ago, in the land of fish and rice in the south of the Yangtze River, every household smoked from cooking and fragrant meat.

Thousands of years later, in Zhejiang, the hometown of overseas Chinese, Dongpo Meat has gone to all corners of the world with 2 million overseas Chinese with a story of thousands of years.

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