What is hard food?

I am the second sister, let me answer the question of what is the hard dish.

This sentence is often said in the Northeast. It is usually said to the waiter when ordering food in a restaurant: Waiter, what kind of hard dishes do you have here? Can you recommend it? Or when people in the Northeast are cooking at home, during holidays or weekends, family members say we should have some hard dishes. Here comes the question of what exactly are the hard vegetables we are talking about? So what are the hard vegetables in Northeast China?

The second sister thinks that hard dishes should meet several conditions, so the second sister will tell you what conditions can be called hard dishes:

1. It is not available everywhere at home. Food

Imagine that everyone usually eats sesame cakes with pickles and milk in the morning. After eating like this for a while, today I suddenly thought of making a delicious sesame cake with tenderloin. So can this be considered a hard dish? ? The second sister thinks that this is not a hard dish, but at most a more substantial meal. That is to say, if we usually eat relatively simple and convenient meals or meals that can be eaten in ordinary small restaurants, they are not called hard dishes, such as scrambled eggs with tomatoes, spicy and sour potato shreds, etc. that we can eat everywhere. We make a meaty dish called stir-fried pork with garlic and moss, which is not a tough dish. To call it a hard dish, it should be something you don’t usually eat at home. These are not ordinary meals. Only in this way can it show that this dish is extraordinary. This is also a basic condition for us to be able to make hard dishes.

2. There must be meat in it

Meat in it is also a necessary ingredient for us, and the meat in it is not when we stir-fry meat and vegetables, we add a little meat in it. Then stir-fry the vegetables together, which requires the use of large pieces of meat, and not only beef, mutton, pork, but also fish or unusual seafood are considered hard dishes. Therefore, there will be a large amount of meat dishes as the main side dishes of the hard dishes. The big fish and meat produced in this way are considered the hard dishes.

3. The cost is not low

Thinking of big fish, big meat or uncommon seafood, from the selection of ingredients to cooking, this is not a time-saving and labor-saving process, and the engineering is also relatively complex. It is cumbersome and expensive for us to cook, which means that the cost we spend when cooking is not too low. It can even be said that the cost of hard dishes is higher than the cost of several ordinary home-cooked dishes. Quite a few came out.

So what are the hard dishes? The second sister recommends a few delicacies that are considered hard dishes in the Northeast. For example, we can make soy stick bones. When these big stick bones are boiled into bone soup, in order to get a more delicious texture from the meat with tendons in the stick bones. In addition, the bones must be boiled to make the soup feel, so this will take a long time. After boiling the bone soup, you have to start making the sauced bones, which will take even longer. Therefore, generally speaking, sauced stick bones can be said It is a very expensive delicacy. Or when we are making fish head puff pastry, we will find that the production cost is not low, and when it is presented on the plate, it is always placed in the middle. These can be said to be hard dishes. In addition, for example, we ate fish stewed in an iron pot or grilled lamb chops. These are delicacies that we don’t usually eat, and they taste fresh, so the second sister thinks this is also what we call it. It has to be about the deliciousness of hard dishes, so when it comes to hard dishes, the second sister thinks that we must have some delicacies that we don’t eat often and that feel respectable when served.

The above is the second sister’s answer to what is the toughest dish.

Hard dishes refer to dishes that are relatively affordable, delicious, and fried with large pieces of meat; sometimes they also refer to powerful, expensive dishes that reflect one’s status.

This is Dongpo pork at a country banquet!

To be specific, for example, when we in the south hold happy events or celebrate New Years and holidays, chicken, duck, and fish must be on the table! These four dishes can all be said to be hard dishes.

Specific dishes, such as beer-roasted duck, three-cup chicken, boiled chicken, braised fish, steamed fish, braised pork, braised pork with pickled vegetables, etc. are all hard dishes!

They are all dishes that can be used to entertain guests. To put it bluntly, hard dishes are meat dishes, and it is best to have more of them. The more expensive the ingredients, the better!

What do we usually mean when we say someone is tough? It’s this person who is very strong, strong, and powerful. The same applies to dishes.

Food is the most important thing for the people, and eating can be said to be the top priority. A common meal at home, a banquet between Manchu and Han Dynasties; food and rice are indispensable for greetings and farewells, discussing business, chatting and drinking. Can we say that potluck is hard food? No; can we say that the "Manchu-Han Banquet" is a tough dish? Neither can. That's a general term, can we say that the chicken stewed with mushrooms in the potluck is a hard dish? This works!

Therefore, "hard" also means that it is very powerful, has face when entertaining guests, and everyone loves to eat it. Men and women, young and old, can serve this dish, which is called "hard". It doesn’t have to be very expensive dishes to be called “hard dishes”. There are also many hard dishes in ordinary home cooking. Of course, dishes such as "Buddha Jumps Over the Wall", "Steamed Deer Antler", and "Roast Suckling Pig" that ordinary people cannot afford are naturally tough dishes.

Stew - mostly stew chicken, duck, goose, fish, ribs, pig's trotters, etc.

Chicken stewed with mushrooms

Gushi goose cubes

Braised pig's trotters

Shandong cuisine with roasted sea cucumber and nine-turn large intestine

I wonder if you have watched the TV series "The Legendary Shopkeeper" about restaurants that was previously broadcast by CCTV. These two dishes are the signature dishes of the Shandong Restaurant inside, which shows the status of these two dishes. This kind of dish is a hard dish.

Braised sea cucumber with green onion

Nine-turn large intestine

Fish-flavored shredded pork, palace in Sichuan cuisine Ding Bao Chicken

A favorite among diners who like heavy flavors, Sichuan cuisine is probably more popular, and these two hard dishes can be found almost everywhere. But the degree of authenticity is another matter.

Kung Pao Chicken

Hairy crabs and sweet and sour pork ribs in Jiangsu cuisine

Jiangnan Suhang has been a gentle place since ancient times. , talented people emerge in large numbers. The cooking is also exquisite. Are these two hard dishes tough enough? Yangcheng Lake hairy crabs are even more popular.

Sweet and Sour Pork Ribs

Let’s talk about these hard dishes. Do you think they are “hard”?

Go out to eat with friends from the north

Do you often hear them say this

Let’s have two hard dishes

So what kind of dishes can be called "hard dishes"?

What is hard food? It is a dish that can be used, can control the scene, and can show sincerity.

For Northeasterners, hard dishes include pork elbows and a big bowl of braised pork ribs.

In Shandong, there must be a whole chicken, a whole fish, braised pork, and a big elbow on the table.

Shaanxi people said that chicken and fish are not very hard if they are cut into pieces, and they must be eaten whole.

In Gansu, small dishes are not enough, and hard dishes must be served in large basins.

In one sentence: Eat big mouthfuls of meat and drink big bowls of wine. It fully shows the heroism and enthusiasm of the northern people.

Going south, let’s take a look at the “hard dishes” of southerners.

Southern food is indeed not known for its large fish and meat. Although the portions are generous, you may not necessarily be able to eat much meat.

Take crayfish, for example. It weighs ten or eight pounds on a large plate. If you cut off the head and tail and peel off the shell, how much meat can you still eat?

Many northerners are not interested in hard food from the south, maybe because they can afford the food but not the stomach.

Look at this fish head with chopped pepper: the plate is big enough, and so is the fish head. However, most of the fish body, which is the most meaty, is discarded because southerners think the fish head is the most delicious.

If you follow the northern method: stew the whole fish and add some side dishes. This is certainly an incredibly tough dish.

Therefore, when it comes to hard dishes, southerners have to choose between portion size and taste, and they mostly choose taste.

In terms of cooking methods, the south tends to stir-fry, while the north tends to stew.

Take pork ribs as an example. With the same amount of meat, according to different cooking methods in the north and south, the pork ribs in the south are not as hard as the ribs in the north.

In the north, two pounds of pork ribs, with soup and water, some side dishes, and some pancakes can be made to serve four or five people; in the south, those side dishes are usually fried into large portions. One dish, so the amount of one dish seems to be small.

So, it’s not that southern dishes are not tough, it’s just that the north cooks them in one pot.