Chapter 176 Garlic Pork

Everyone is busy.

Su Chen began to think about the system tasks.

There are 2,000 dishes containing garlic, and no less than ten of them.

Hmm...

It seems like quite a lot.

There are many types of pickled garlic, including Laba garlic, sweet and sour garlic, and sugar garlic.

Not to mention the classic cold dishes of Sichuan cuisine - garlic pork, garlic cucumber in Shandong cuisine, garlic scallop jerky in Cantonese cuisine, as well as garlic tripe slices, garlic pork elbow, and garlic oysters...

All of these are fine.

This was Su Chen’s first time setting up a stall here, and he wasn’t quite sure what the people here liked.

I plan to make some garlic pork for others to try.

This dish is very delicious when eaten during the dog days of summer. Many people order it in restaurants, whether in southern or northern Sichuan.

Learning from the past without being stuck in it, these restaurants have come up with a variety of unique features.

For example, cut the cooked meat into 15 cm long slices and slice them together with cucumber slices of the same size, hang them alternately around the waist on a specially made bamboo rack, put them on a plate and serve them on the table. This is called hanging white meat.

Cut the cooked meat into thin slices, wrap it with cucumber shreds in the middle, make it into rolls, place them on a plate in order, and pour seasoning on them. This is called garlic pork roll.

Su Chen now wants to make the most traditional one, with the red and white meat and garlic complementing each other.

Speaking of which, this dish requires careful selection of ingredients, precise cooking temperature, excellent knife skills, and fragrant seasonings; none of these four elements can be missing.

There are quite a few types of garlic.

If classified by ecological type, it can be divided into soft-neck garlic and hard-neck garlic.

Soft-neck garlic is the kind commonly found in vegetable markets and supermarkets.

Hardneck garlic is more difficult to find and can usually only be seen in farmers' markets in cold regions.

This type of garlic is easy to recognize. It has a hard, woody stem in the middle and a very sharp, super spicy flavor, more stimulating than softneck garlic.

Some garlic lovers are so obsessed with this type of garlic that they search for different cultivars like collecting playing cards.

Su Chen opened the system panel and selected some on it.

After selecting the garlic, he turned his attention to the pork.

It is best to raise this pig for about one year without any additives, and choose a local pig with thin skin, tender meat, and a proper ratio of fat to lean meat.

And you have to choose pork with skin.

The second piece of meat is the second piece of meat cut after cutting off the pig's tail when slaughtering the pig.

The meat in this part is of good quality, with even fat and lean meat, no bubbles and few tendons. After the dish is cooked, the fat and lean meat are tightly connected without any separation.

There are only about 3 kilograms of this meat on each pig, which is quite precious.

After selecting these two items, seasonings such as green onions, ginger, scallions, soy sauce, cooking wine, and spices must also be prepared.

After Su Chen checked some boxes, he waited for the system's delivery service to deliver the goods to his home.

An hour later.

The meal was served, four dishes and one soup, the same preparation as at Yuhu Jinyuan.

In such a short time, we didn’t prepare any fresh dishes, and Butler Ding bought all the ingredients from a nearby boutique supermarket.

After we finished eating, the food arrived.

Su Chen opened the package.

The pork needs to be boiled in water first.

When cooking, add ginger, green onion, peppercorns and cooking wine to remove the fishy smell.

Pour cold water into the pot and bring it to a boil over high heat. Once the water boils, add cold water to control the temperature so that the meat can be heated evenly from the outside to the inside to avoid the skin and meat being raw, which will affect the finished dish.

Two aunts were busy peeling garlic.

Butler Ding picked up a handful of garlic cloves and made garlic paste.

The garlic flavor of garlic-mashed pork is very strong, so it should be put into a garlic pounder and pounded by hand to release the garlic flavor to the maximum extent.

Accompanied by the muffled sound of knocking, the aroma of garlic wafted through the kitchen.

Soon, the aroma of meat wafted out.

Su Chen poked the meat with chopsticks and found no blood, so the meat was cooked.

Take out the meat and soak it in boiled water to prevent it from forming a skin.

Take it out and drain the moisture, then you can slice it.

"Mr. Su, let me do it!"

Butler Ding saw that he seemed to have a greater place to use his skills.

He immediately put down the garlic pestle in his hand and came to Su Chen to help cut the meat.

The meat in this garlic-mashed pork is really a test of your knife skills.

If the meat is cut too thick, the seasoning will not penetrate it at all. It has to be cut into thin slices of two or three millimeters thick.

Some great chefs cut the meat slices into a thickness of only one or two millimeters, so thin that you can see your reflection through the slices.

On the market, many ramen restaurant chefs have good knife skills.

Butler Ding felt that his knife skills were also quite good.

I saw him hold the knife flat, cut into the pig skin, and slowly cut the meat from right to left.

After showing off his skills by cutting a few slices of pork, Butler Ding looked up at Su Chen.

Su Chen nodded.

"Not bad! The piece is complete, thin but not worn through, and the fat and thin are connected."

This compliment almost made Butler Ding's face turn red.

The sound of hehe laughter kept coming out of his throat and he couldn't stop it.

This caused the two aunts to stop what they were doing and secretly glance at him.

Tsk tsk tsk, he's old but acts like a child.

Su Chen was also a little amused when he saw this, and the corners of his mouth curled up slightly, then he turned around to fiddle with the red soy sauce.

The flavor of garlic pork is garlic flavor, with a sweet aftertaste.

Its sweetness comes from red soy sauce, which is also a very important step in this dish.

This kind of soy sauce is generally not available in the market as a finished product. It is entirely up to the chef to mix it himself during cooking. Dishes such as Zhong dumplings, red oil chicken nuggets, and sweet water noodles also use this kind of red soy sauce.

First, take a pot and add half a ladle of water into it.

When the water boils, add star anise, cinnamon, galangal, bay leaves and cumin.

After about ten minutes, the aroma of spices will waft out of the pot. Then pour in soy sauce, bring to a boil and add brown sugar.

The ratio of brown sugar to soy sauce should be one to three. Cook slowly over low heat to boil away the moisture in the soy sauce. Turn off the heat when the soy sauce sticks to the ladle.

At this point the red soy sauce is just the right thickness.

You know what, the little taste is really delicious!

After the red soy sauce is cooked, add minced garlic, salt, regular soy sauce and red oil and stir, and the sauce is ready.

Nuonuo came to the kitchen at some point.

He stood with Butler Ding and a few others, staring intently at the pot.

The little boy looked so greedy that he was drooling.

"Woo woo woo~ Dad, it smells so good~ I'm hungry, I want to eat~"

"You little greedy cat, you just had your meal, why are you hungry again?"

Su Chen smiled and joked, then turned around and asked the aunts to bring a plate of garlic pork to the table.

This sauce can be used for dipping or pouring over.

If you want to savor the original taste and texture of the meat, dipping it is the best choice.

You can really taste the chewiness of the white meat, and you can also adjust the amount of seasoning yourself.

If you pour the sauce on it, each bite of white meat will taste fuller and look more tempting.

But if you really want to pay attention to it, you can't just pour the sauce on it. You have to put the previously cut meat slices into the pot and cook for 20 to 30 seconds. When the meat slices are slightly curled, take them out and put them on a plate, then pour the sauce on them.

The purpose of doing this is to allow the garlic flavor to be released more thoroughly at a certain temperature.

…

(End of this chapter)