When I was studying, whenever someone heard that I was from Inner Mongolia, the first thing they would say was "Why don't you go to school on horseback?" The second sentence is mostly "Your lamb must be delicious." ”
Faced with the first question, I always joked: "Yes, we still have archery in the college entrance examination!" A joking ending, and the second question, I must have answered with 12 points of sincerity: "The meat is really delicious." "Say it all the timeIn my mind, the chubby and tempting mutton roast wheat like a white flower appeared, and the lamb stick bones with a straw to indulge in tender bone marrow.
In particular, the mutton skewers must be fat and thin to be fragrant, roasted until the translucent fat is almost melted into the tender and delicious lean meat, fully restore the Maillard reaction, and add a little salt and cumin These two soul flavorings, the fragrance and the smell of barbecue smoke are mixed together and float to the sky, it is estimated that even the gods can't help but want to come down and taste it. When the roast was almost done, the skewer master opened his bow left and right, took two skewers and shook them on the stove, and the mutton fat was poured on the hot charcoal fire, and my heart was already ready to eat meat.
In Inner Mongolia, pay attention to "make the best use of meat" (photo by the author).
And so on, I can't help but salivate. The sheep in Inner Mongolia is fragrant to the extreme, and between one tear and one product, the meat seems so pure.
If someone wants to ask the most delicious mutton in Inner Mongolia, then my answer must be the most fragrant in my hometown. My hometown is called Bayannu (nào), which means "rich lake" in Mongolian. The unique environmental advantages and material resources make agriculture and animal husbandry become the pillar industry here, Ba Meng is the most complete area of the national meat sheep industry chain, not only the number of sheep breeding and slaughter are the first in the country, there are also rich breeds of sheep, such as Bamei meat sheep, Hu sheep and so on, so,Bayannur is also known as the "sheep capital of China".
Maybe it's because I was born in Ba Meng, so I have developed a "food style" that is meatless and unhappy. For as long as I can remember, eating meat has become the most anticipated moment of the week. Grilled pork strips, stewed lamb with potatoes and cabbage, stewed sauerkraut with pork bones, pork hooked chicken, etc. are all classic meat delicacies in the hometown, but ifLet me choose the one in my mind, and it has to be haggis.
Haggis, to put it bluntly, is sheep into the water, including the "three reds" that is, the heart, liver, and lungs of the sheep and the "three whites", that is, the intestines, belly, head and feet of the sheep. The herdsmen on the grassland often drink a bowl of haggis soup on winter mornings to warm their limbs, and I grew up in the city, and I also like to use hot haggis to dispel the winter cold.
In Inner Mongolia, we pay attention to"Make the most of the meat",Mr. Wang Zengqi once wrote in the book that he ate the silk sheep's tail in the banner of the fourth prince, "This thing is only suitable for the Buddha, people can't eat it, because it's too delicious." "Even the tail of the sheep can be made to the level of craftsmanship, and the other parts of the preparation are quite varied, the lamb ribs can be fried, the lamb leg can be roasted, and the haggis must be boiled. The boiled haggis is fragrant but not fatty, oily but not greasy, and it is piled up in the mutton soup like a golden mountain, which is tempting and seductive.
Gu Deming, a Chinese national treasure culinary master (photo by Guan Haitong).
Haggis soup is actually not difficult to make, provided that the haggis must be processed in advance, otherwise the step of washing raw haggis alone will dissuade many people. For the sake of convenience, my father would always buy the haggis that had been cooked and tasteless, and at this time, the "three reds" of the sheep had been cut into small pieces, and the "three whites" had also been cut into small pieces or strips. Grandpa only needs to prepare stewed meat ingredients such as green onions, ginger, dried chili peppers and cut potato strips, and then he can directly fry the haggis.
The next steps are the same as how to stir-fry meat at home. Heat the oil first, then put the green onion and ginger in the pot, put in the blanched lamb haggis after the fragrance, and then put in the seasonings such as light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, pepper noodles, etc., fry almost enough to pour in the appropriate amount of water, put in the potatoes after the water boils, cover the lid and start boiling. If possible, you can boil the soup with the big bones of the lamb in advance, and then pour it into the fried haggis, which will be the icing on the cake, and the aroma of the mutton will be more intense. Low fire for about 30 minutesThe potatoes are boiled until they are soft and rotten, and the haggis tastes good to come, and a small handful of coriander or shallots can be added before the pot is ready to go.
In this haggis, the potato can be said to be the finishing touch, which is to the haggis what the white radish is to the offal, and they complement each other. In addition to making the haggis softer and more flavorful, it also makes the potatoes cotton and sandy, so that the haggis can be thick and fragrant, and people can't help but eat a bowl and eat another bowl.
There is a sense of hierarchy in the eating of haggis by the people of Ba Meng. The first step is to drink the soup. The yellow oil flowers inlaid this bowl of soup with pale yellow gold edges, and the circles are all essence. Because the potatoes are stewed enough, you can feel a slight graininess when you drink it with the soup, and you can warm up your body first in one bite.
The people of Pakistan have a sense of hierarchy when they eat haggis, and the first step is to drink soup (photo by the author).
The second step is to eat meatA spoonful, cut into small dices of the sheep "five organs" in the mouth taste is different, the lamb liver bite down hard, but the more you chew, the more fragrant; The sheep intestines are full of soup, and the oil and water have been integrated into the soup, which tastes very fragrant; The lamb's tripe has a unique smell, which successfully distinguishes this bowl of soup from beef offal and chicken offal.
When the meat in the bowl is almost eaten, it is time for the third step, the rice to soak in the soup. Before cooking, grandma will skim off the thick layer of oil on the haggis soup as much as possible, so that soaking the rice will greatly reduce the greasy feeling. When each grain of rice is soaked in the soup, a spoonful of haggis is poured over and covered with it, and the meal is sublimated, and the calories harvested after eating this bowl are enough to make people brave the winter of minus 20 degrees Celsius in Inner Mongolia.
Some people don't like to eat it with rice, so you can change the main dish to white baked seeds. White baked rice is a type of Hui dough cake that is said to have originated in the Ming Dynasty and is named after being baked over a bonfire. "Bake" itself is sweet and salty, and the word "white" is added in front of it to restore the original taste of flour, which is the same as steamed bread, and is suitable for eating as a staple food. White baked rice is also similar to Xi'an's steamed buns, which can not only "clamp everything", such as bacon, vegetables, barbecue, brown sugar, etc., etc., but also become a meat fairy, broken and soaked in haggis soup, eh, Xi'an's mutton steamed buns are also the same.
If you feel that the haggis is a little lacking in taste,You can add some oil to splash spicy seeds, or order raw garlic, pickled cucumbers, and rotten pickles to enhance the flavor. However, I prefer leek flower sauce.
Leek flower sauce is a seasoning made from fresh leek flowers, which is rich in flavor and salty, and is suitable for eating with hand-handled meat, shabu mutton, haggis and other meats, and is quite popular with our locals. Yang Ningshi, a calligrapher of the fifth generation in the late Tang Dynasty, once created a "leek paste", in which "when a leaf reports the beginning of autumn, it is the beginning of the taste of leek flowers, helping it to fatten, it is really a treasure" It is said that in early autumn, the flavor of leek flowers begins to appear, and eating with mutton can make it more plump and delicious. From this point of view, the more you eat leek, the more you eat, the more you have it, throughout ancient and modern times, it is really a good match. Not only does it relieve greasyness, but it can also mobilize the taste buds of diners and bring the aroma of meat to another level.
In the past two years, my grandparents have gradually stopped making hard dishes such as haggis, so we go to restaurants that sell haggis outside to fight tooth sacrifices. Ba Meng people love to eat meat, hometown often see this kind of home-cooked mutton restaurant, even if it is close to the Spring Festival, but the business is still booming, through the glass full of fog can feel the crowd inside, so lively. There is a restaurant that specializes in spring grass and haggis, which is a place I must go to every time I return home. In order to satisfy diners with different preferences, his haggis are divided into five-spice, three-spice and pure lamb tripe. Five incense includes head, belly, intestines, liver, lungs, and three incense is a little more expensive, according to the boss, three incense takes the "boutique" route, so it only contains three kinds of head, belly, and intestines.
Haggis soup (photo by the author).
There are two types of cooking to choose from, diners can choose either casserole or stir-fried, of course, the main character is haggis, and there are also specialties such as sheep's head pounded garlic and sheep's brain. Our family often chooses a five-spiced casserole for 5 people, and then a few stewed to soft, gelatinous sheep's trotters, and finally a pot of brick tea to remove the greasy, with the overall ** of less than 200 yuan, harvest all of them with round belly and endless burps.
It has been more than ten years since I left my hometown to start my career in Shanghai, and every time I miss the meat in my hometown, I take a taxi to the nearest Northwest restaurantGrasp the stick bones, tear off the flesh on the bones with a big mouth, and even the bones are exhausted with their lips and teeth, and finally the mouth and face are refined to relieve the pain of lovesickness.
Only haggis, after touching the wall a few times, I have not ordered it in a restaurant outside my hometown, although I can buy plastic encapsulated Inner Mongolia haggis on a lot of **, but the taste is according to the gourd painting scoop, lacking more than a star and a half. So I came to the conclusion that it is better to eat anywhere than in Ba Meng, and I can only go home and eat a big bowl every Chinese New Year, take pictures first, and then check in with my taste buds.
Many people should not like to eat haggis and think that it is dark food. At first, I was the same, picking only the tripe that looked the best. Until the winter vacation of that year, my grandmother brought out a bowl of boiled haggis from the kitchen, which was hot and wafting with wisps of white gas. From that moment on, haggis became a delicacy that I began to miss before I even left my hometown.
Whenever I think of haggis, I can recall that night, it was more than minus 10 degrees outside the house, but the heating at home made the house hot, and I didn't feel cold at all, grandma and grandfather looked at me at the dining table lovingly and smiled, "You don't have to eat so much (Hetao dialect, meaning greedy), no one will rob you." "And I held the bowl and ate it and still had a good time.