National Day holiday, no matter in the city or in the countryside, many couples will choose to take advantage of this holiday to hold a wedding. In Yaozhuang Township, Pingdingshan County, Henan, a lively and festive wedding ceremony has just been completed, and the rural chefs here have begun to be busy, and they have carefully prepared dozens of tables of traditional banquets at noon, which is a lively and festive way of feasting, which is deeply loved by the villagers.
According to local village chefs, the traditional feast here is composed of eight hot dishes and eight bowls of soup, commonly known as "sixteen bowls". The sixteen bowls are all freshly prepared, and the chef buys ingredients on the street two days in advance, prepares them through multiple processes, and makes dishes on the day of the feast using steamed or braised cooking methods.
Chef Zhao, who has been a chef for wedding banquets for more than 20 years, has been a chef for more than 20 years, and his cooking skills are exquisite, and the banquets he makes are quite famous in the local area. Today, Master Zhao brought several helpers, all of whom performed their duties under his command, and were busy in a tense and orderly manner, so that they could bring delicious dishes to the table at the agreed time.
According to Chef Zhao, seven of the eight hot dishes need to be basketed and steamed, these seven dishes are: steamed chicken, grilled lamb, braised beef, square lamb, small crispy meat, strips of lamb, eight treasure rice, etc., these dishes are made in the form of bowls, seasoned and basketed on the wedding day.
Sweet and sour carp is the only hot dish that does not need to be steamed, this dish is made of large carp of more than two and a half pounds, using the traditional method, before pouring the sauce, it is fried in the pan of oil. Usually this dish is the first to be served, with a particularly beautiful meaning, and this old dish is not common nowadays, so it is very popular with everyone.
The feasts made by Master Zhao are particularly "thick", and the ingredients used for only one table of meals cost about five hundred yuan, such as five pounds of local beef, four pounds of goat meat, and more than three pounds of chai chicken, which are freshly bought and made, rather than wholesale purchase of those quick-frozen dishes and reheated.
This is a steamed chicken that is about to be served on a plate, the chicken is steamed very badly, and it is very tempting to look after it is poured out of the pot and then poured with juice. Chicken and fish have always been hard dishes at rural feasts, but in recent years people have been more casual in the choice of chickens, not as particular as they are at banquets here.
The bowl should be taken out of the steamer first, and the backhand buckle is in the large bowl, and then pour the juice here. Most of the chefs on the scene wear thick gloves, because these bowls are too hot, and this heat also retains the flavor of the food to the greatest extent, so that everyone can eat it in the mouth or hot, this hot feeling can not be eaten in the restaurant.
In addition to the eight bowls of main course, there are also eight bowls of hot soup: lamb broth, haggis soup, belly soup, beef soup, small crispy broth, red date silver ear fungus, apple cherry and egg soup, these eight bowls of soup are sweet and salty, and the main dish is rotated to the table, so that guests can eat more comfortably.
Sixteen bowls of dishes on the feast, only one dish at a time, everyone eats almost when the bowl is changed to another dish, this way of eating is actually very good, let everyone keep fresh and then not much waste. Nowadays, there are some people in the countryside who will entertain guests at home, but many dishes are already quick-frozen and reheated, so the real old-fashioned practice like Master Zhao is now particularly precious. Photographic record | Zhang Gendong (picture and text of the native Henan original, plagiarism must be investigated)