There is no fish in fish-flavored shredded pork. This starts with an allusion. Legend has it that there used to be a businessman in Sichuan who loved to eat fish and was very particular about the taste. Every time his family cooks fish, they add onions, ginger, garlic, wine, vinegar, soy sauce, pickles and other seasonings to remove the fishy smell and enhance the flavor.
Once his wife was a little lazy when cooking, so in order not to waste the ingredients, she put the leftovers into the dish and fried them. When he came back, he smelled the fragrance and felt it was very special. After tasting it, he thought it tasted very good, so he couldn't wait to ask his wife how to make it. The wife hesitated, thinking the dish was not delicious and didn't know how to explain. It turned out that the husband praised her repeatedly, so the wife told him everything about cooking. This practice has been retained since then.
The reason why it has fish flavor is because there are fish-flavored pickled peppers. This is one of the main traditional flavors of Sichuan cuisine. It is a unique faction in Sichuan cuisine. The Jiajiang area in southwest Sichuan produces the best Erjingtiao peppers. They are the first ingredient for making traditional fish peppers. A full jar of peppers, Zigong well salt, and a little brown sugar will enhance the freshness and aroma. Overflowing red rice wine, and finally, a live crucian carp was put in to seal the mouth of the altar. The jar should be filled with peppers as much as possible to ensure that the crucian carp cannot swim in the tank. The less it moves, the more delicious the peppers in the tank will be. Therefore, the dishes made with this vat of chili peppers have the flavor of fish, hence the name Yuxiang.
The taste of fish-flavored shredded pork is very similar to the famous Sichuan dish watercress fish, so the aroma of watercress fish is used to describe the taste of dishes made with pickled chili peppers and sweet and sour as the main condiments. Authentic and traditional pickled chili peppers require fresh crucian carp to be put into the marinade, so the pickled chili peppers are also known as fish spicy food.
Regular fish-flavored shredded pork only uses pickled chili peppers. It is no exaggeration to say that if it is not soaked in chili peppers, it is not considered authentic fish-flavored shredded pork. Pickled peppers contain water, are redder in color, take a short time to brew, have a spicy taste, require more oil, and need to be fried until crispy. Only by stir-frying on high heat for a short period of time, without interruption, and in one go can you have a fresh and spicy taste. If the cooking time is longer, the spicy taste of soaked peppers will appear in the dish. In addition, the pickled chili pepper itself has a fish flavor, so an important principle of fish flavor is formed.
The order of fish flavor is salty, sweet, spicy and slightly sour, with saltiness ranking first. If the salty taste is not enough, it will be difficult to blend the sweet and sour flavor and the spicy pickled pepper flavor. Either it will be too sweet, too sour, or too spicy. But the saltiness is very difficult to adjust, especially the fish-flavored shredded pork. Anyone who has made it knows that it is often overly salty and rarely not salty enough. Why is this? We need to analyze the composition of saltiness in fish-flavored shredded pork, which mainly includes the saltiness of soy sauce, the saltiness of shredded pork (shredded pork must be marinated), and the saltiness of pickled chili peppers. In fact, the saltiness is enough. If you add salt when seasoning, it will definitely be salty.
The best ingredient for fish-flavored shredded pork is winter bamboo shoots, which are magnolia slices. There are two reasons: first, the taste is unique. Winter bamboo shoots are crispy and tender, which goes well with shredded pork. Secondly, winter bamboo shoots do not contain other flavors, which is incomparable with other vegetables. If other vegetables are used in fish-flavored shredded pork, it is easy to The other flavors will affect the fish flavor; secondly, the colors are consistent. The brown-red pork shreds, the black-red fungus, the white-red winter bamboo shoots, and the green-red green onion all work together to make the colors consistent.
There are two reasons why pickled chilies should be minced: first, it can bring spiciness to dishes, which is the main function. This spiciness cannot be replaced by other condiments. The spiciness can be completely released; the second is the color composition. Fish-flavored shredded pork dishes are red, and the red color of pickled peppers is the color standard of this dish. If it is not velvety, the red color will be difficult to seep through the skin of the peppers, which will Causes poor color.
Use of onions, ginger, and garlic. Onions should be put into the pot last, because the onions will not have fragrance until they are six mature, and the spiciness will disappear. Ginger and garlic should be cut into rice and cooked early, because ginger and garlic can only produce fragrance when they are fully cooked. Usually garlic: ginger: green onion = 3: 2: 1. I want to emphasize garlic here. The spicy flavor of garlic and the spicy flavor of pickled chili peppers will form a unique aroma under the action of fire, so garlic is very important in fish-flavored shredded pork. The amount of garlic should be enough, but not too much. Usually 200 grams of shredded pork requires 20-30 grams of garlic.
When soaking chili peppers, stir-fry them to produce a crispy aroma. The crispy aroma has two meanings: crispy refers to the heat, and fragrant refers to the taste. Pickled peppers contain a lot of water, which adds a salty taste in addition to spiciness, but they are raw after all, so when frying, you need to use an appropriate amount of oil, warm the oil over a warm fire, and stir-fry with ginger and garlic to get the fragrance. Crispy is between cooked and burnt, which means that the pickled peppers must be fried until there is only a certain amount of moisture, not too much or too little. This requires long-term operation, which is also the importance of the heat of the fish-flavored shredded pork.