Jiangnan gourmet braised mutton: the taste of the New Year in a "stomach-breaking" dish

　　China News Service, Hangzhou, February 3: Title: Jiangnan delicacy braised mutton: the taste of the New Year in a "stomach-breaking" dish

　　Author Bao Mengni

　　In Linping, located in the northeast of Hangzhou, it is a customary custom among the locals to treat guests to a braised mutton meal before the New Year. February 3rd is the 24th day of the twelfth lunar month, and it is also the traditional "Little New Year" in southern China. Walking into the time-honored Linping braised mutton restaurant "Tapudang", there is an endless stream of customers rushing to eat braised mutton.

　　"When business is at its best before the Spring Festival, more than a thousand kilograms of mutton can be sold in almost a day." said Yang Yingdi, the intangible inheritor of the traditional cooking technique of braised mutton in Linping District and the founder of the "Tepodang" restaurant.

On February 3, Linping braised mutton was freshly cooked in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. Photo by Jiang Feng

　　In Hangzhou dialect, "Luowei" means "after eating a certain food, a person feels comfortable from the stomach to the whole body." Braised mutton in autumn and winter is undoubtedly a "stomach-reducing" delicacy with rich historical heritage.

　　Eating mutton was originally a hobby of northern Chinese people. In the 12th century AD, the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty was moved to Lin'an (now Hangzhou). A large number of residents in the Yellow River Basin moved southward, and they brought Mongolian sheep raised in the north to the Taihu Basin for breeding. The Taihu Lake area has unique natural conditions with lush mulberry trees, green beans, clear water and abundant grass. The local working people continued to select and improve the sheep, and gradually developed an excellent lambskin sheep breed that can adapt to the local environment - Hu sheep.

　　Different from the roasted whole lamb in Inner Mongolia and the water basin mutton in Shaanxi, the Linping braised lamb next to the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is more delicate and restrained. Deep red in color, rich in juice, mellow in flavor, tangy in aroma, oily but not greasy, crispy but not rotten, glutinous but not loose, these are the standards that authentic braised mutton should have.

　　The braised mutton is made from fresh Hu sheep that are about two years old. The mutton is finely cut into small pieces, soaked in cold water for about a quarter of an hour, and then simmered in a pot over low heat. As the firepower deepens, the waves of foam are slowly skimmed off. When the mutton gradually turns white and the foam becomes less and less, you can season and add the ingredients.

　　"We only use five spices, which are rice wine, monosodium glutamate, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, and sugar. After seasoning, the mutton needs to be stewed for three hours until it is crispy and delicious," Yang Yingdi introduced.

　　Times have changed, and Linping braised mutton has been fine-tuned in many aspects. Looking back at the time when material life was not yet rich, sugar was a "valuable" thing, so Linping people would throw the locally abundant sugar cane into the iron pot to increase the sweetness. With the maturity of sugar-making technology and the mass production of raw materials, brown sugar and white sugar are gradually used as seasonings for braised lamb, which does not increase the cost and avoids the problem of sugarcane bagasse affecting the taste.

　　According to Yang Yingdi's recollection, in the early years, when cooking braised mutton, an extra spice was needed to remove the mutton smell. This was also related to the limited material conditions at that time and the inability to feed Hu sheep with a variety of feeds. Today's animal husbandry pays more attention to adding corn, bean dregs and other feeds with higher protein content into the forage. The mutton smell of the Hu sheep raised will gradually fade away, so there is no need for more spices to remove the smell.

　　In fact, the local custom of eating mutton is not limited to the Spring Festival. There is also a saying that sheep are killed during the "four o'clock and eight festivals". It is precisely because of the affluence of life that the local people have the pursuit of "stomach relief" in addition to "comfortable living".

　　It is worth mentioning that with the support of convenient logistics, more and more customers from northern China have ordered Linping braised mutton in recent years.

　　In the afternoon market, Hou Wenqing (pseudonym), who was about to embark on a Spring Festival travel trip, met with his colleagues to end the year-end work with a meal of braised mutton. As a foreigner, he said that the "Jiangnan flavor" of braised mutton is the "ritual sense" of following the local customs. (over)