Why is rice rolls the king of breakfast in Guangdong?

Breakfast is a big pain point for contemporary human beings.

Many people living in Beijing have become accustomed to skipping breakfast. Even if we have breakfast, we often just stuff a few mouthfuls of bread or chew a street egg to fill the cake.

Young people who want to go to work don't have time to go to the teahouse to sigh for morning tea, but they can still walk into the steaming rice rolls store and start their day with a dish of rice rolls.

For Cantonese, rice rolls is not only the first choice for breakfast, but also the best food to dispel homesickness.

The mystery of rice rolls's life experience

rice rolls, also known as Juan Fen, rice rolls Pig and Lachang, is actually a thin skin steamed from rice pulp, which is made with various fillings.

Many foreigners are afraid to eat the name "rice rolls", because it is "pork intestines+rice noodles" just like pork intestines powder, but it turns out to be such a small and fresh food after serving.

The reason why rice rolls has such a fierce name is also because it was originally similar in shape and size to the pig's large intestine, so it was named "rice rolls Pig", which is simply called "rice rolls".

Compared with Regan Noodles, bean skin and noodle nest, the breakfast in Guangzhou is like being fished out of rice paste. Rice flour, river rice flour, rice rolls and Chencun flour ... all kinds of flour account for half of the breakfast in Guangzhou.

and the king of these powders is undoubtedly rice rolls.

A dish of excellent rice rolls should be glossy and shiny when it is produced. The ingredients wrapped in it are looming, and it should be smooth and delicious. It must not be too elastic and tough like rice noodles, and the seasoning should reach the soul of Cantonese cuisine-freshness.

Why is rice rolls the king of breakfast in Guangdong?

Breakfast is a big pain point for contemporary human beings.

Many people living in Beijing have become accustomed to skipping breakfast. Even if we have breakfast, we often just stuff a few mouthfuls of bread or chew a street egg to fill the cake.

In Guangzhou, 2,2 kilometers away, the breakfast with steamed chicken feet, shrimp dumplings, crispy egg tarts, barbecued pork buns and boat porridge is as grand as a ceremony.

Of course, young people who want to go to work don't have time to go to the teahouse to sigh for morning tea, but they can still walk into the steaming rice rolls store and start their day with a dish of rice rolls.

For Cantonese, rice rolls is not only the first choice for breakfast, but also the best food to dispel homesickness.

▲ Simple cooking methods, with countless ingredients, have brought rice rolls to the extreme

▍ The mystery of rice rolls's life

rice rolls, also known as Juan Fen, Pig rice rolls and Diarrhea, is actually a thin skin steamed from rice pulp, which is made with various fillings.

Many foreigners are afraid to eat the name "rice rolls", because it is "pork intestines+rice noodles" just like pork intestines powder, but it turns out to be such a small and fresh food after serving.

The reason why rice rolls has such a fierce name is also because it was originally similar in shape and size to the pig's large intestine, so it was named "rice rolls Pig", which is simply called "rice rolls".

▲ Pig rice rolls

Most snacks in China like to climb the dragon and attach the phoenix, and rice rolls has not escaped this fate.

about the origin of rice rolls, there are many "unofficial history" on the internet: one is that it originated in the Tang Dynasty and was unintentionally created by Hui Neng, the sixth ancestor; There is also a saying that Ji Xiaolan bewitched Qianlong to come to western Guangdong for tasting, and rice rolls came from this.

The first statement lacks the support of historical materials, while the second statement can basically be regarded as fiction, because Master Gan Long has never been to Guangdong.

Actually, there is no detailed official record about the history of rice rolls. Cooking books generally believe that rice rolls became a popular snack in Guangzhou only after 193s.

▲ rice rolls is an out-and-out street delicacy

According to Cantonese Cuisine, a famous Chinese food, published in p>27, rice rolls was created by Hexian Pavilion in Pantang, Xiguan, Guangzhou during the period of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression.

The Hong Kong Special Snacks published in 1998 thinks that rice rolls is actually a street snack made by mobile vendors in 193s. Later, it gradually appeared in restaurants and was accompanied by various fillings.

Therefore, the time (193s) and place (Guangzhou Xiguan area) when rice rolls became popular can basically be determined.

I want to talk about Guangzhou Xiguan, which is located outside the west gate of Guangzhou. It was under the jurisdiction of Nanhai County in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and now it belongs to Liwan District of Guangzhou.

in the Qing dynasty, Xiguan was the commercial center of Nanhai county and even Guangdong province, and the famous thirteen banks were located in Xiguan.

The developed commercial culture not only breeds the unique architectural style of Xiguan, but also makes it the birthplace of many Guangzhou cuisines, such as Boat Porridge, rice rolls, Wonton Noodles and beef offal soup ... Today, Xiguan is still a famous food landmark in Guangzhou.

▲ Xiguan, Guangzhou

▍ What's the secret of a rice rolls with a soul?

Compared with Regan Noodles, bean skin and noodle nest, the breakfast in Guangzhou is like being fished out of rice paste. Rice flour, river rice flour, rice rolls and Chencun flour ... all kinds of flour account for half of the breakfast in Guangzhou.

and the king of these powders is undoubtedly rice rolls.

A dish of excellent rice rolls should be glossy and shiny when it is produced. The ingredients wrapped inside are looming, and it should be smooth and delicious. It must not be too elastic and tough like rice noodles, and the seasoning should reach the soul of Cantonese cuisine-freshness.

▲ If the ingredients are good, rice rolls will be fine.

It is not an easy task to make such a rice rolls. Rice paste, steaming, stuffing and sauce should not be taken lightly.

rice paste

A good rice rolls vermicelli should be thin, fragrant in smell, smooth in the mouth and tough when bitten, which depends entirely on the selection of rice and grinding rice paste.

There is no uniform standard for selecting rice. Many stores may have to try more than ten meters before they can find the most suitable one.

There is no right or wrong choice between Xinmi and old rice. Some people choose to use new rice, while others prefer to use old rice. Generally speaking, the fragrance of new rice is stronger, while the rice rolls made in old rice is smoother and thinner, but these will also be influenced by different varieties of rice.

▲ There are not many shops in rice rolls that still insist on using stone mill rice pulp.

There is also stress on soaking rice. Generally, it should be soaked three to eight hours in advance, which is shorter in summer and longer in winter.

So, what kind of rice to choose, whether to use new rice or old rice or mixed rice, and how long to soak it all constitute the core competitiveness of a rice rolls store.

The 27th episode of Breakfast China records a rice rolls store in Shunde, Guangdong Province. It uses a mixture of new rice and old rice to grind the pulp, scoops it up and falls down with a hand spoon, and the rice pulp hanging on the wall bubbles slightly, and the viscosity is just right. It is all based on the operator's experience for many years.

However, it is very hard to make rice rolls with pure rice pulp. In summer, when the temperature is high, you only need to soak rice three or four hours in advance, and rice rolls's shop is engaged in breakfast business, so you often have to soak rice at midnight.

moreover, the quality of rice, an agricultural product, will be different in different years even if it is grown in the same plot, which requires very high experience of operators.

Therefore, in order to ensure the stability of the products, many restaurants use sticky rice flour instead of rice slurry, and then add cooked flour, chestnut flour and raw flour to improve its texture and taste, so that it can be used to make rice rolls.

rice rolls produced in this way actually tastes good, but it still lacks some rice aroma.

steaming

after the rice slurry is finished, the next step is to steam it in the pot.

According to different steaming techniques, rice rolls can also be divided into three types: nest basket sausage, bra sausage and drawer sausage.

▲ nest basket sausage

nest basket sausage is the earliest way to make rice rolls. Pour the rice slurry into a flat basket woven by bamboo sticks, sprinkle with stuffing, and steam it in a steamer. Because it takes a lot of effort and land, few people do it in rice rolls now.

instead of the nest basket, the sausage is pulled. The ground rice slurry is poured evenly on the finely woven cloth, covered with a lid, and steamed with steam.

▲ Bula sausage

Although it is not a food, "cloth" is indeed the key to making Bula sausage. Generally, you should use "Dacron" cloth, because it is smooth and can reduce the wrinkles on the surface of vermicelli.

However, because the surface of the cloth is generally fluid, it is very easy to make the thickness of the sheet uneven. Therefore, after pouring the rice paste, you should push it evenly in all directions by hand to ensure uniform heating, which is a great test of Master rice rolls's skill.

With the increase of demand, the production of traditional sausage is still too slow, so someone improved the multi-layer steamer, and there is a drawer-type sausage.

▲ Drawer-type sausage

The rice slurry is poured into an iron plate, covered with stuffing, and then steamed in a steamer. Because the fluidity of the surface of the iron plate is better, the product of drawer-type sausage is more thin.

No matter which way it is made, the steaming fire for steaming rice rolls must be strong, so that the taste will be smooth.

In recent years, there has always been a debate about which is better or worse: pulling sausage or pulling sausage in a drawer. In fact, what determines the taste of rice rolls is more important is rice paste, master's skill and steaming time. Steaming tools will certainly have an impact on the taste, but it is not as exaggerated as many people describe.

Of course, Bra Sausage requires more from Master rice rolls, which may be the reason why many people think it tastes better.

stuffing

There is a question in Zhihu, "What is the taste of rice rolls?" A friend from Guangdong replied: You can think of it as a steamed stuffed bun, which tastes just like what it is filled with.

eggs, pork, beef, pork liver, shrimps ... can all be used as fillings in rice rolls. Generally speaking, the fillings in rice rolls are not particularly complicated, and there are at most one or two fillings in one serving of rice rolls.

▲ Screenshot of the trailer for the 27th episode of Breakfast in China

The stuffing of the rice rolls store in Shunde mentioned in Breakfast in China is very distinctive. Generally, the egg rice rolls is spread with egg liquid on the vermicelli, while this store beats the whole egg on it, which makes it particularly satisfying to eat.

Of course, rice rolls can also be made into vegetarian rice rolls without any stuffing, also called vegetarian rice rolls. This can reflect the original rice flavor and smooth and elastic tooth taste in rice rolls.

There is also a special kind of rice rolls called "Fried Two", that is, rice rolls is wrapped in fried dough sticks, and two kinds of snacks are combined into one. Generally speaking, rice rolls stores sell less fried rice, but porridge stores sell more, because fried rice and porridge are a perfect match.

▲ Frying two sauces

Sauce is a dish of rice rolls's finishing touch.

Sauce is not a simple soy sauce, but it should be boiled with soy sauce, water, broth, rock sugar, oyster sauce and spices.

This method can reduce the salty taste of soy sauce, and bring out the umami flavor of rice rolls.

For many rice rolls restaurants, the unique sauce is also the core competitiveness.

▲ Sauce is also the core competitiveness

▍ In Guangdong, there are more than one kind of rice rolls

In fact, all of them are rice rolls in Xiguan, Guangzhou, while in Guangdong, there are actually Hakka rice rolls and Chaoshan rice rolls, especially in Chaoshan area, and rice rolls in each city is almost different.

Different from rice rolls's small freshness and high face value, rice rolls in Chaoshan gives people a confused first sight, but when you gently open the vermicelli, you will find that the stuffing is not generally rich. Not only traditional fillings such as pork, beef and eggs, but also various seafood are added according to local conditions. The practices in Chaoshan and rice rolls are generally the same, and the biggest difference is often the sauce.

Shantou rice rolls has the thinnest vermicelli in Chaoshan rice rolls, and is used to using soy sauce and marinated soup as sauces.

The biggest feature of Chaozhou rice rolls is that it will be topped with peanut butter or sand tea sauce, and its taste is very unique compared with other rice rolls.

Puning rice rolls will use garlic-flavored marinade, and there will be more soup.

When Jieyang people eat rice rolls, they usually eat it with stew.

Compared with other places, Chaoyang rice rolls will spread a layer of watercress or water spinach on rice rolls.

Chenghai rice rolls is similar to Shantou, but a layer of fried preserved vegetables will be sprinkled on the rice rolls.

▍ Why do Cantonese like rice rolls the most?

According to friends who are far away from their hometown in Guangdong, the flavor that I miss most when living in the north is not those big dishes or delicacies, but actually rice rolls on the corner.

The reason why rice rolls is so remembered is that on the one hand, it is the most daily food and the most familiar taste; On the other hand, it is also because every step of making rice rolls is sloppy.

from soaking and washing rice in the early morning to grinding rice pulp in the early morning, determine the consistency of rice pulp; The cooking time of steaming should be very accurate, the vermicelli will be too old after a long time, and the stuffing may be immature after a short time. Behind every rice rolls, it may be accumulated by years or even decades of experience.

Can such sincere food not make people miss it?