Su Zao rou

Suzhou-made meat is a special dish in old Beijing. It is neither cooked at home nor prepared for a banquet. The so-called "made in Suzhou" is not cooked according to Suzhou's taste. It turned out to be a practice from the Qing palace. With a variety of traditional Chinese medicines and spices, it has the effect of appetizing and strengthening the spleen. When cooking, it focuses on simmering, and "Su Zao" contains the meaning of "Su Zao". According to legend, in the forty-five years of Qianlong, the emperor visited the south and stayed at Chen Yuanlong's home in Yangzhou An Lan Garden. The dishes cooked by Zhang Dongguan, the chef of the Chen family, were very popular with Qianlong. Later, Zhang Dongguan entered the palace with Qianlong, knowing that Qianlong loved thick things, he cooked a meat dish with pork belly and nine spices such as clove, cinnamon, licorice, Amomum villosum, cinnamon, nutmeg and cinnamon. These nine spices are prepared in different quantities according to the different solar terms in spring, summer, autumn and winter. Because Zhang Dongguan is from Suzhou, the broth cooked with this kind of spices is called "Su Zao Tang" and its meat is called "Su Zao Meat". The main raw materials for making Su-made meat are pork and pig offal, and the key lies in using "old soup" and "Su-made soup". Whose sauce meat is famous depends on how well it is prepared and preserved. For example, the famous Tianfuzhai sauce elbow, Yueshengzhai sauce mutton, the door frame Hutong Fushunzhai sauce beef, and the "Bai Kui" home-cooked mutton in those days were all made from soup stock. Cook the meat with soup stock is the first process of making "Su Zao rou". "Su-made meat" is the second process and the finished product process. When the soup is mixed, a certain proportion of water, soy sauce and salt are also used. After boiling, the required Chinese medicinal varieties are ground into powder, sewn with a cloth bag and put into the soup for cooking. When the soup smells of medicinal materials and seasonings, it is made into a soup. For stewing meat. The method of storage, preservation and addition of the remaining Su Zao soup will be the same as that of the old soup, and it will be more reusable. When selling Soviet-made meat, cut it at zero price, and let customers choose what they want. Cut it and put it in a bowl (or basin, jar), pour the original soup, and you can eat it without any seasoning (add pepper sesame oil if you eat spicy food), or accompany it with wine, or eat it with sesame cakes and sesame fires. Its soup is very thick and fresh, and the meat is crispy and soft. It is delicious and flexible, suitable for all ages, and it is really unique. I still want to eat it after eating it, and I will never forget it.
Reprinted with attribution： https://cnlocality.com/(Chinese Specialty Products)