What is the soul of Chongqing hot pot？

The real popularity of Chongqing hot pot has become a stubborn food memory of a generation of Chongqing people in just 30 or 40 years. One saying is that in the hot pot market in Chongqing, the taste of all hot pots can reach the passing line, but it is difficult to climb up the passing line.

The art of oil: butter and sesame oil

Chongqing hot pot is an art of combination. The first factor that determines whether a store’s hot pot is delicious is the soup base. Old Chongqing people often say that when you walk to the door of a hot pot restaurant, you can smell the color of a hot pot. The soup base determines whether a hot pot is a new hot pot or an old hot pot, which is also the division of power between the two hot pots: most hot pot brands that are familiar in other places belong to the new school, while the old hot pot is the absolute mainstream in Chongqing’s local market.

The soul of the soup base of the old hot pot is butter. The animal oil used in Chongqing people’s home cooking is usually lard, which is fine and smooth, while the fat particles of butter are large, rough to eat, with special fragrance and smell, and it is not used much. However, compared with lard, the melting point of butter is as high as 40℃-46℃, which is very easy to solidify, so it has strong adhesion and is easy to stick to ingredients, and it tastes rich and heavy, making it a natural spicy hot pot soup. Moreover, butter is highly blended, and even if the soup base rolls away, the grease will not all swing on the surface of the water, but will be mixed with water, clear and dense. Even if hemp is not spicy, the regenerated ingredients will roll through it, and the taste will be heavy and overwhelming, giving people a sense of satisfaction. In the past, there was only one kind of bottom oil in Chongqing old hotpot. In the process of improvement, some hotpot restaurants added a small amount of rapeseed oil and lard, which slowed down the solidification speed of the pot bottom and made the soup bottom smoother. Even so, in the soup base of Chongqing, the content of butter accounts for at least 80% of the base oil, usually 5-6 kg, which is equivalent to the proportion of broth in the bottom of the pot.

In other places, even the most authentic Chongqing old hotpot restaurant, generally speaking, the content of butter at the bottom of a pot is at most 2 to 3 Jin, or even as little as 1 Jin. In the words of Chongqing people, it’s called floating oil, just to get some butter flavor. People who are used to eating butter pot bottoms always feel light and empty when they eat other pot bottoms. However, it is precisely because butter is too "real" that even neighboring Chengdu people find it difficult to accept it. Different from Chongqing hot pot, Chengdu hot pot bottom is generally made of clear oil, that is, rapeseed oil, plus various spices. It looks like a red pot, but the foundation is completely different, and it tastes full of plant fragrance. That kind of aroma is easy to get on clothes, which is also the source of "hot pot flavor" in many hot pot restaurants. In addition, a big unsolved mystery for many foreigners is whether Chongqing hot pot really uses old oil. The answer is that for a long time, Chongqing hot pot did not charge the bottom of the pot, but "washed the oil" after the soup was used, that is, filtered off the residue, boiled at high temperature, evaporated the water vapor, and left the red old oil for recycling. In the early years, materials were scarce, Chongqing people loved to eat heavy oil, and hot pot was civilian. Using old oil was to solve the problem of ordinary people eating hot pot. However, for some Chongqing people, the old oil cooked repeatedly has become one of the sources of flavor at the bottom of the pot. Tan Tinggang, the owner of the hot pot restaurant, entered the hot pot industry in the 1990s. He once studied as a disciple in Dandan hot pot near Chaotianmen. He remembers that when he entered the hot pot industry, he not only used old oil, but also left a spoonful of soup base the day before and added a new pot, just like the old marinade of stewed vegetables.

When interviewed in Chongqing, the senior diners I met in Chongqing Hotpot supported many old oil schools, and even specially emphasized that old oil is not waste oil. However, times have changed. In 2011, Chongqing Hot Pot Association issued a notice prohibiting enterprises in the association from using old oil. Nowadays, even if you walk into those old hot pot restaurants that claim to be the most authentic, you can also see the statement of using disposable pot bottom specially hung. The old chafing dish parallel to butter comes standard with sesame oil dish, that is, sesame oil. Some stores will serve it on the table, while others will put a waist-high vat directly at the door of the store with a faucet, and customers will pick it up like tea. In addition to sesame oil, some stores also provide rapeseed oil, no matter which kind, only a small amount of garlic paste is used to cool down, smooth and enhance fragrance, and no other auxiliary materials are added. Of course, some people will add some vinegar to the oil dish in order to reduce the spicy degree, which is tolerable, but oyster sauce is absolutely not acceptable. For old diners, oyster sauce has a heavy sweetness and is suspected of ruining the taste of hot pot soup. I once chatted with a local waiting in line in an old hot pot restaurant. When I talked about dipping, I used the word "flavored dish" three times. The other person was still at a loss until I wrote it. He suddenly realized, "You said oily dish!" Later, I realized that for Chongqing people, dipping has no seasoning function.

Bai Jia Bai Wei hotpot Jianghu

There is no need to dip in the seasoning because the taste at the bottom of the pot is complicated enough. Someone told me that the earlier Chongqing hot pot soup base can be directly used to soak rice. Now no one does this, but there are still many people who directly put a few spoonfuls of soup in a bowl as dipping materials. The strength and aggressiveness of spicy taste can easily make people have the illusion that they are monotonous and rude. However, Zhang Zhengxiong, president of Chongqing Catering Association, told me that there are many kinds of spicy powder according to the taste and stimulation, such as spicy, hot and sour, clear and fresh, as well as old hemp, medium hemp, slight hemp, light hemp and fresh hemp. Zhang Zhengxiong also said that the bottom material of Chongqing Old Hotpot usually does not add spices, and even if it is added, the amount is very small. It must not overshadow the fragrance of pepper and pepper itself, and it must not affect the subtle reaction caused by the combination of the two, which is the foundation of the bottom material.

Chongqing people’s pursuit of hot pot spiciness has also gone through different periods. Zhang Zhengxiong remembers that in the early days of reform and opening up, the bottom material of Chongqing hot pot was fried with watercress, which contained starch, was highly dependent, and the ingredients were easy to taste. There was also a unique flavor of watercress, and the soup contained crystal sugar mash, which made the hot pot at that time mellow and sweet, which was not considered as hemp spicy. But then, Chongqing hot pot abandoned douban, and changed the main ingredient into Zanba sea pepper. Fresh peppers were pedicled, washed clean, and seasonings such as ginger and garlic cloves were added and smashed into balls, which looked like Zanba. Its characteristics were clear, dry and spicy, and pursued extreme taste. Nowadays, the vast majority of Chongqing old hot pot bottom materials will use watercress and Zanba sea pepper at the same time, and the final basic flavor is hemp, which is spicy, strong and delicious. A good hot pot boss must know the characteristics of pepper and sea pepper like the palm of his hand. Du Jian, the boss of the second hot pot, used to go to the market to taste pepper and pepper when he was free. He told me that pepper is relatively simple, mainly to see whether the black seeds are clean, and the clean pepper will not make the soup bitter.

The functions and types of peppers are extremely rich. In Shuang Fu International Farmers’ Market in jiangjin district, Chongqing, there are at least 20 kinds of peppers in any wholesale shop. Experienced Sichuan cuisine chefs know that there are three kinds of peppers on the market at present, one is the main spice, the other is the aroma enhancement, and the variety and quality of each different type of pepper are very different, and the combination depends entirely on the stir-fry master’s own exploration. This is why some hot pots seem to be full of peppers, but they are not spicy at all, while some hot pots can make their mouths spicy, but their stomachs are intimate and will not upset their stomachs. Du Jiankai’s second hot pot is a online celebrity store, and the taste is explored by himself. It is extremely spicy and spicy, and young people like it very much. The first time I went to his house to eat hot pot, I just felt that the dishes were soft and delicious at first, but after eating for 10 minutes, just as a mouthful of duck blood was put into my mouth, the pungent taste exploded in my mouth, so that I almost swallowed the duck blood. Immediately, sweat suddenly started from my forehead, and raindrops dripped down and never stopped.

Unlike Du Jian’s extreme spicy food for young people, Tan Tinggang’s "Guaner Hotpot" is a more traditional flavor. On the day I went to interview, a guest entered the store and shouted from a distance, "Yuanyang pot, add a little old flavor!" " Tan Tinggang knew from the sound that he was a regular customer, and shouted back loudly, "You can’t get used to the old taste." There shouted, "Take foreign guests to have a taste." After that, he disappeared into the lobby, and Tan Tinggang went back. "That’s even worse." Without waiting for an answer, he called to the waiter himself, "Give them a mandarin duck pot to lighten the old taste." The old flavor in the mouths of guests and Tan Tinggang refers to the unique paste flavor in Guaner Hotpot Restaurant. Spicy paste is a long-standing fixed flavor in Sichuan cuisine, which comes from the flavor emitted by pepper segments and peppers when they are fried to near zoom, and its representative dishes are kung pao chicken. Tan Tinggang also studied Sichuan cuisine before. He said that Mao Xuewang in restaurants around Chaotianmen before liberation was also that kind of paste flavor. Tan Tinggang opened a hot pot restaurant in Chengdu more than 0 years ago. At first, the business was booming, but because there was no characteristic, it gradually stopped. When he returned to Chongqing, he wanted to make a comeback. At first, he wanted to make pickled pepper, but he found that it had been made by another hot pot restaurant, so he had to turn to paste incense. First, he could catch the guests in the 1950s and 1960s, and second, he could find a differentiated route in the Chongqing hot pot rivers and lakes in blood shed. The secret of burning incense is to fry the pepper until it is slightly burnt, but it can’t be burnt to bitter. At the bottom of the pot, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds are fried and ground into powder, which is used to present the fragrance and mix with the burnt fragrance of pepper.

Zhang Zhengxiong said that Chongqing Sichuan cuisine used to be slightly spicy, while hot pot was extremely spicy. In the late 1980s, he worked in Beijing for a period of time. When communicating with others, the representatives of Sichuan cuisine mentioned were shredded pork with fish flavor, Mapo tofu, kung pao chicken and Sichuan style pork. But more than 10 years ago, when he went to Beijing again to communicate with people, the representatives of Sichuan cuisine had become authentic Jianghu dishes such as Maoxuewang, boiled fish and greedy frog. The same spicy flavor makes Jianghu dishes and hot pot known as brother dishes and sister dishes. According to Zhang Zhengxiong’s observation, it is the rise of hot pot that reshapes the taste experience and memory of Chongqing people and promotes the popularization and development of Jianghu dishes. From this perspective, Chongqing people choose hot pot, but in turn, hot pot is reshaping the lifestyle of Chongqing people.

Hairy belly praise

It is well known that hot pot is served with tripe. Chongqing people don’t eat hot pot, but say hot pot, mainly because of hairy belly. Hot pot restaurants in other places usually sell thousands of layers of tripe, that is, the tripe is processed after being autoclaved in an autoclave. Similarly, there are hairy tripes, which are soaked in alkaline water or liquid with specific biological enzymes to make them swell again. Melaleuca tripe and hairy tripe don’t shrink, they don’t get old after long cooking, and the taste is delicate and crisp enough, which is very popular in other places. However, in Chongqing, these two ingredients are basically not found on the menus of most old hot pot restaurants. Senior Chongqing hot pot diners only choose fresh hairy belly, which is not only crisp, but also has a unique beef stomach. Fresh hairy belly can only be scalded, which is known as "seven ups and eight downs" for 15 seconds.

However, Zhang Zhengxiong disagreed with this statement. He told me that different people scald their hairy bellies differently. Some people fly up and down, some people dangle from side to side, and some people think that chopsticks are caught in a fixed position, which affects the uniform heating of their hairy bellies. They will use chopsticks to turn around the pot with a piece of hairy bellies, which is as flexible as dancing with their heads covered. Old diners burn their hairy bellies not by time, but by eyesight. When they see that all the hairy bellies in the pot are stiff and slightly curly, they can’t cook any more. During the interview, I ate eight hot pots in Chongqing and listened to different people’s experiences in scalding their stomachs. I still dare not say that I have mastered this skill. In fact, Chongqing people have relatively low requirements for the freshness and flavor of raw materials, and hairy belly is a rare counterexample. In the local area, most people prefer buffalo beef omasum. Hot pot restaurants often go directly to the slaughterhouse to pick up the goods. The beef omasum brought back is stored in the store for cold storage, and some stores only order it when guests come. Tearing means tearing the hairy belly off the stomach wall by hand, thinking that the hairy belly cut with a knife will often be cut off together with the stomach wall, and the time of brittleness after cooking will be out of sync, which will affect the taste. Guo Jianping, who has been doing beef omasum business in Chongqing for decades, told me that getting a good fresh beef omasum is one of the tests of whether a hot pot restaurant can go on. When Guo Jianping was young, he cooperated with slaughterhouses in Chongqing, and all the tripes in the slaughterhouse were taken as a unit. When he killed the cow, he waited by the side, took the cow’s stomach out of the belly as soon as possible, cleaned it, dried it slightly, and immediately wrapped it in ice. In addition to time, technology is also important. The stomach pages of bovine flap stomach are leaf-shaped and arranged in the spherical stomach wall, like dense seaweed.It is full of semi-digested products of cattle, which is extremely difficult to handle. Therefore, even if employees of hot pot restaurants go to slaughterhouses, they don’t buy from butchers, but from beef omasum wholesalers.

Guo Jianping’s business can grow because he can handle tripe quickly, and he can handle a valve stomach in three or four minutes. If you are unhappy, the stomach page will easily rot and can only be used to make dry hairy belly or thousand layers of belly. Sometimes, after the cattle are slaughtered, if the workers don’t gut their stomachs in time, the quality of beef omasum will drop rapidly, and the price can be 2 to 3 times worse in a few minutes. In recent years, Guo Jianping has handed over his business to his daughter-in-law, and he drives to Jie Fangbei to play mahjong every day. His daughter told me that their hairy bellies come from Xinjiang as far as possible, and the workers they sent from Chongqing worked in the local slaughterhouse. After taking the hairy bellies, they immediately sent them back to Chongqing by shipping, and the fastest time was only 4 hours. Nowadays, most of the fresh hairy bellies used in hot pot in China come from Chongqing, because it is difficult to find skilled Russian communists in other cities. Sometimes these hairy bellies come to Chongqing fresh goods market and then return to the starting city.

Among the hot pot ingredients in Chongqing, only duck intestines and goose intestines can be compared with beef omasum. As an ingredient, duck intestines appeared in the hot pot in Chongqing during the Republic of China. At that time, the store cooked the duck intestines first, served them on the table, and the diners rinsed them when eating. Now it’s hot now, and what you want is a fresh and crisp taste. In fact, for the words "fresh, tender and crisp", Chongqing people have exerted their skills in excavating ingredients to the extreme and found many tricky ingredients such as yellow throat, waist slices, beef liver and pig root. The yellow throat is a large arterial vessel, also known as the heart tube. If it is not handled well, it is easy to get old and can’t bite. It is also one of the criteria to measure a Sichuan cuisine chef.

Lumbar slices and beef liver are relatively popular ingredients, which are extremely difficult to cut. The thinner you cut, the more brittle it will be when you burn it. Because of the good handling of waist slices, there is also a chain hotpot restaurant in Chongqing that put "broadsword waist slices" into the store name. Root was added to hot pot only after the 1980s. Although it was not scalded, it was cooked at the bottom of the pot for a long time, but the root was still on the menu of old hot pot restaurants for a long time because it was crisp. Most crisp foods are difficult to taste, so it is necessary to put on a dry dish. A dish of coarse dried Chili noodles with pepper noodles and salt, chicken essence monosodium glutamate, etc. can be used to match almost all ingredients that are not tasty, especially waist slices. Except hairy belly, because dry dishes will mask the aroma of hairy belly itself.

Jiugongge: Order and Freedom

A standard Chongqing hotpot should have a grid and a nine-square grid. Jiugongge originated from table-assembling, and Li Jieren recorded the hot pot division in detail during the Republic of China. It was said that roadside vendors bought cows to go into the water, picked a burden to go out of the street, one end was ingredients, and one end of the stove was served with a griddle, boiling the marinade, which was spicy, hemp and salty. Beggars or coolies surrounded the burden, and one person recognized one, eating while scalding, which was cheap and affordable. After the reform and opening up, hot pot was revived for the second time in the 1980s. Many Chongqing people still have the experience of eating hot pot at the same table, and they also use this nine-square grid. On the basis of patchwork, the early chafing dish was taboo, and the ingredients with heavy chlorophyll and high starch content were not put into the pot, because chlorophyll would make the soup black, and starch would easily precipitate and stick to the pot and make it bitter. With the disposable use of the base soup, the taboo of ingredients has long been broken, but the hot pot lattice, which was born out of practicality, has not left the market, but has developed a unique food vitality.

In the hot pot culture exhibition hall on the first floor of Hongyadong, there is a picture of the temperature of nine squares, which introduces in detail the stress of cooking different ingredients in different grids: the central grid has the highest temperature and is suitable for rapid blanching; The temperature of the square grid is the second, and it is generally used to cook ingredients that can only be eaten for 10 minutes, such as spicy beef, old meat slices, fat intestines, dried liver, potatoes, etc. The bottom of the cross-shaped pot has the smallest heating area, and it will not boil almost all the time. It is suitable for "simmering" brain flowers, bean curd and blood curd, simmering with slow fire, taking out when leaving the table, and feasting. It is precisely because of the slow simmering process that Chongqing people love old meat slices and spicy beef. Old pork slices, also called eyebrow meat and plum blossom meat, come from the upper shoulder blades of pigs and are muscles that pigs often use during exercise. Old meat slices must be cut thick, 5 to 10 mm is the best, and placed in four corners, it will be more tender and more delicious. The old meat slices emphasize meat quality, and the focus of spicy beef is "spicy". The cut beef will be marinated in advance, wrapped in a layer of Chili noodles, and then thrown into the pot for stew. Well-made spicy beef, the seasoning coded in advance will not fall off when taking out the pot, and it can double stimulate the taste buds together with the hot pot soup. It is because of these heavy ingredients that few people order fat beef and sheep rolls in Chongqing’s local old hot pot restaurants, and many stores don’t even see them on the menu.

In Chongqing, no hot pot restaurant dares to claim that its ingredients are perfect, but each one always has its own special ingredients. In Tan Tinggang’s shop, there are two ingredients that make him proud. One is tiger skin chicken feet, which is inspired by the soy sauce chicken feet of Cantonese cuisine; The second is a special ingredient of Chongqing hot pot, pure duck blood. Hot pots in other places often use fresh duck blood, which is made of duck blood mixed with water. When cooked, it has a jelly feeling and is tender and smooth. Pure duck blood is 100% duck blood boiled in water first, and then picked up and cut into pieces for later use. This kind of duck blood is full of pores, which will not melt in the pot for a long time, and its taste is soft and full of soup, which is completely different from the flavor of fresh duck blood. Today, on social networking sites, Tan Tinggang’s Guaner Hotpot is not highly rated, nor is it a online celebrity store, but the passenger flow is stable. During the interview, he showed me which tables were acquaintances and which tables had been eaten by him for ten years. One saying is that in the hot pot market in Chongqing, the taste of all hot pots can reach the passing line, but it is difficult to climb up the passing line. The wave of hot pot is wave after wave, but not many can last for a long time.

Lead author | Wang Haiyan　

Original title: What is the soul of Chongqing hot pot?

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