Yan Du Xian 腌笃鲜

Overview

Chinese Name: 腌笃鲜
English Name: Yan Du Xian; Pickled Pork
Category: Hui Cuisine徽菜
Main Ingredients: Pork

Yan Du Xian腌笃鲜 is a traditional famous dish that originated in Huizhou徽州 in Southern Anhui皖南. It belongs to Huizhou cuisine徽菜 among the eight major cuisines. This dish tastes salty and fresh, the soup is white and the juice is thick, and the meat is crisp and fat; The bamboo shoots are crisp and tender with a strong flavor.

Different places have different practices according to local culture and taste, and their food materials are increased or decreased, but they basically include spring bamboo shoots, pork (including various parts), bacon, ham, shutter knot, lettuce, and other food materials.

Pickled pork is mainly a soup cooked with bamboo shoots, fresh pork slices, and salted pork slices. “Pickled腌” refers to the pickled bacon; “Du笃” means stewing over a low fire; “Fresh鲜” refers to fresh meat (chicken, hoof, small ribs, etc.).

At that time, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement太平天国运动 broke out, and the people in the west were miserable, but Jiangnan江南 was a safer place. Zuo Zongtang左宗棠 was the governor of Hangzhou at that time. The court asked him to raise 100000 grains to calm the chaos. Zuo Zongtang has always been an official with clean hands两袖清风. He doesn’t know where to get so much food and is worried.

Hu Xueyan胡雪岩 was an upstart at that time and had a lot of money. He especially likes to eat ham. He eats hundreds of hams a year, and hams are hung all over his house. As soon as the weather is hot, the smell of ham comes out of Hu Xueyan’s residence.

Happened that one day Zuo Zongtang passed by Hu Xueyan’s residence and smelled the smell of ham. Looking for the aroma, he found Hu Xueyan. Governor Zuo Zongtang came to the door in person, and Hu Xueyan dared not treat him well. But his family had no other delicious food, only a lot of ham, so Hu Xueyan improved the “pickled pork” in his hometown.

Originally, the pickled pork in Anhui cuisine was stewed with bacon. Hu Xueyan replaced the bacon with ham and added spring bamboo shoots from his hometown in Anhui to stew it for Zuo Zongtang. Zuo Zongtang was very happy, so he talked with Hu Xueyan. When talking about raising food, Hu Xueyan said bluntly, “leave it to me.”

Later, Hu Xueyan became the richest man in China by virtue of his power and status with Zuo Zongtang. Zuo Zongtang relied on Hu Xueyan’s financial resources to make rapid progress in officialdom.

Zuo Zongtang was promoted to Shanghai because of his meritorious contribution to raising food. He also cooked this dish in Shanghai. Someone asked Zuo Zongtang what this dish is called, but because Zuo Zongtang is from Hunan and his pronunciation is not standard, he said “Yan Dun Xian腌炖鲜” as “Yan Du Xian腌笃鲜”. Since then, “Yan Du Xian” has become a famous dish in the south of the Yangtze River.

How to make Yan Du Xian?

Ingredients：

A strip of bacon
5 slices of Jinhua ham
A piece of streaky pork
A proper amount of spring bamboo shoots
An appropriate amount of shutter knot

Instruction:

Step 1, Soak the bacon in warm water for 2 hours.
Step 2, Put onion, ginger, and flower carving wine in a cold water pot, then blanch the meat, turn off the fire, and take it out.
Step 3, Slice the streaky pork after blanching, cut 5 pieces of Jinhua ham, put the salted meat after soaking in water into a boiling pot, and stew over low heat for half an hour.
Step 4, Then take out and cut the bacon separately, and then put it back into the meat soup pot. And skim off the foam.
Step 5, Peel and cut the spring bamboo shoots into hob pieces, boil a pot of water, put a little salt in it, blanch the spring bamboo shoots and take them out for standby.
Step 6, Put the spring bamboo shoots and shutter knot into the meat soup pot, boil over high heat, simmer slowly over low heat for 1 hour, take out the pot, and then sprinkle with scallion.

Tips:

This dish needs to be stewed slowly over a medium and low fire. Do not use a high fire, otherwise, the meat is not easy to crisp and age.
If you want to make the soup white, just leave a little oil (do not skim the oil) and open the high fire to collect the juice.