A Bowl of Jjajang, The Son-in-Law of Jegalse - Chapter 542
Only Noblemtl
Episode 542: Red-Broiled Ice-Crusted Sugar-Crusted Fish
-Crack.
Sister Maeng-hee, squatting down, poking the zara that Yeong-yeong bought with a wooden stick.
Eventually, when the angry Zara bit the tree branch, Maeng-hee shouted in a voice that seemed more excited than surprised.
“Whoa! This guy is biting!”
“Be careful, Sister Maeng-hee.”
“It’s okay. I caught a lot of gap-eo (??) when I was in Yunnan. But this guy looks delicious. It looks so full of energy and delicious. It’s sticking its head out… Hehe.”
“What’s sticking its head out?”
“No. I was thinking of a cheerful(?) Unrang.”
“?”
Garyeon is worried about her older sister Maenghee, who is growing up and playing next to her.
But it seemed like something else was going on, so I stepped between them and put my hand on their waist.
“What are you both doing?”
“Ah, Unrang! You’re here? I was letting out some energy so that Unrang could catch you.”
“Teacher, I was watching because Sister Maeng-hee said she was losing energy.”
‘No, why are you so poor that you’re satisfied with just draining my energy…’
A funny excuse from my older sister who was having a flirtation with Zara while holding the door stick.
He said with a worried look on his face and a smile.
“What if it bites your finger? They say if you get bitten by a cuttlefish, your finger will be cut off, Sister.”
“Hey, it’s okay. I’ve caught so many gae-o. It should be like this. It’ll be easier to catch Unrang later.”
“Really? Sir? Is it really easier to catch it if you let off some steam like this?”
Would a dog be beaten with a club?
However, it is a husband’s duty to believe his wife even if she says she made soybean paste with red beans.
I don’t know for sure, but in situations like this, it’s absolutely unacceptable to say no.
“Well, well, it seems like that’s how it is done in Yunnan, the hometown of Sister Meng Hee.”
“Are you saying what I said is true?”
“Then, let’s check if you’re really out of energy?”
“Trying to catch it?”
“Yes, sis.”
He took the stick his older sister had been playing with and held it out in front of Zara’s mouth again.
Then, I don’t feel any energy whatsoever.
-Crack.
Zara quickly bit the stick as if she was full of energy, and the moment the boy bit the stick, I grabbed the boy by the back of his neck with one hand.
This is because the beginning of catching a giraffe is when it grabs the nape of the neck while biting something.
“I’m sorry, but I guess I have to cook for you today.”
A tug-of-war between me and the guy trying to get into the shell.
Let’s quickly grab the guy’s neck and lift it up, because if we let go, he might bite our hand. The long, stretched-out neck of the gecko.
I gently inserted the knife into the long neck of the guy, near the thorax.
-Crunch.
The depth of insertion of the knife is about one-third of the neck.
As the knife passed quickly across the guy’s neck, red blood gushed out from it.
The standard way to catch a giraffe is to insert a knife into the aorta at the nape of the neck and drain the blood.
I held the guy upside down and waited. Blood spurted out where the sword had passed, and then he fell down and fell down.
Then, Soso, who was watching me, quickly praised my skills.
“Eun-gong, your hand movements are really fast. There is a blood vessel on the nape of the neck, which is a vital point for both animals and humans, but how can you be so accurate? It was like a skilled swordsman, or rather, a dark side.”
“Really? Haha, it’s not worth receiving Soso’s praise.”
“No, it was really fast and quick, I think I could buy it.”
It wasn’t clear whether this was a compliment or not, but Soso had reasons to praise.
Well, that makes sense, since I caught a lot of them in my past life.
Bingtang Gap-eo is also called Hongso Bingtang Gap-eo (??????) or Hongso Gap-eo (????), and as it is a fairly high-class dish, many people look for it at hotels.
The people of the Central Plains praise the meat of the turtle, calling it “five-flavored meat.” They say that the meat of the turtle has the tastes of five types of meat: chicken, beef, lamb, deer, and pork.
That’s why it was always on the hotel menu.
Well, from what I’ve tried, isn’t it?
After draining all the blood, Zara was already dead, so he put the guy in a wooden barrel and asked Soso to take care of him.
“Soso, can you bring me some hot water?”
“Okay, Eun-gong.”
After a while, Soso brought hot water, and I slightly blew off the steam from the hot water she gave me.
And then he poured the water, from which the hot steam had slightly evaporated, into a wooden bucket.
-Whoa.
Although it is invisible to the eye, it has a transparent shell that grows, and when you pour hot water on it, it rises like plastic and becomes easy to peel off, so pour hot water on it.
There is a reason why it blows a little steam.
If the water is too hot, the zara’s skin can easily tear, and if it is too cold, it cannot be peeled off.
Anyone who has ever touched a zara knows that peeling it is essential to cooking it.
If you don’t remove this, not only will it have a fishy smell, you won’t be able to cook it.
After rolling Zara’s body thoroughly in hot water.
A shell that lifts up like vinyl when rubbed.
After thoroughly peeling off the shell, the scutellum, and the skin, the squid was washed in cold water again.
“It’s the first time I’ve noticed that cuttlefish have skin.”
“Is this your first time eating Gap-eo, hyung?”
“That’s right.”
I peeled off the skin cleanly and placed the zara on the chopping board while my brother looked at me with amazement.
-Thud!
The next thing to do is to follow Zara’s back.
Most animals are slaughtered and bled, and their stomachs are cut open to remove their internal organs, but for Jara, it is unusual to cut open their backs.
Unlike a growing turtle, it has bones inside its soft shell, and the bones are not very hard, so it is common to cut open the shell to remove the internal organs.
-Crunch.
I inserted the knife slightly inside the edge of the shell.
This is the boundary between the bones and shell of the jara.
And as I turned the knife along the edge, the lid of the jar opened right away.
When we remove the lung attached to the lid and look inside with the lid open, the first thing we see is the red liver and small green sacs.
I took out the intestines of the gizzard and put them aside, then took out the entrails.
“Can I have just one small bowl?”
“Here you go. Eun-gong.”
I poured some cold water into the bowl that Soso had prepared and burst the gallbladder.
Then the water turns slightly green.
I stirred it up, set it aside, and started to prepare it for real growing.
-bang!
I trimmed Zara’s fingernails and toenails nicely, and then cut off about a third of her tail.
The tail is not eaten, so it was removed.
And most of the fat was removed from the area where it was most likely to accumulate, the inner thigh muscles near Zara’s front and hind legs.
If you don’t remove this oil, your dish may end up being too oily.
Once that simple task is done, the next step is cutting.
-Bang! Bang!
First, he struck down the deer with a club and cut its neck into three pieces. He also cut off its front and back legs into two or three pieces.
Finally, cut the remaining Zara’s body lengthwise and then cut it.
-Thud! Thud! Thud!
The reason we don’t cut off the remaining parts of the carapace or back plate and throw them away is because everything except the bones attached to the inside of the growing carapace or back plate is edible.
Unlike turtles that grow, their shells and bellies are soft, but when they ripen, they turn into something like collagen.
All of the Zara’s meat, excluding the separately prepared shell, was cut into bite-size pieces.
The next thing to do is to remove any remaining blood.
I soaked the cut meat in water to remove all the blood, then soaked the meat in water mixed with the gall bladder juice that I had prepared earlier.
Rather than being considered as a common meat that grows, it is used as a medicine, so the gall bladder is not thrown away and is used to marinate the meat.
If it were any other meat, there would be an uproar over the bitter taste in the meat, but with Zara meat, when you eat it and it tastes bitter, you end up saying, “Oh, they put gall in it,” and being thankful.
Once everything is done, including marinating the meat in the brine, the next step is to move on.
-Bubbling.
Bring boiling water to a boil, pour it into a wok, add crushed ginger, garlic, and green onions, and add the zara meat, then lightly fry.
Since it may have an earthy or fishy smell as it grows, it is blanched like this to remove the fishy smell once more.
I put the meat that was blanched to one side and also blanched the round pieces of the gizzard shad that I had set aside earlier.
It was a long process, but these are the steps you absolutely must take before you start cooking Zara.
To start cooking in earnest, I placed a wok on the stove and added lard to make lard.
-Whoa.
A wok with a rich aroma and oozing lard.
The smell of grilling pork belly filled the kitchen.
I took the round shell of the gizzard shad that I had just removed, blanched, and drained of blood, and made hexagonal cuts on its surface.
Because it has already been blanched once, it becomes slightly jelly-like and flutters softly, making it perfect for sheathing.
The reason for not cutting the shell of the zara into bite-size pieces but instead cutting it into cuts on the surface is as follows.
Originally, the lid of this jara was cut into bite-size pieces and spread out on dishes to be eaten, but since it was to be served at the Emperor’s Qujiang Banquet, it was intentionally left uncut.
Since Zara dishes are difficult to distinguish from other meat dishes unless you look closely, the idea is to leave the skin on and use it for decoration.
Anyone who looks at it will see that it is a Zara dish.
I threw the crushed ginger and crushed green onions into the wok, which was hot and fragrant.
-Chiiik.
The rich aroma of green onions and onions flows out along with the savory scent of lard.
The richness of the pork turned into a fragrant aroma, and I threw in the zara’s shell that I had prepared first.
-Chooowowowowowow!
The steam that comes out is probably because there is a little moisture in it.
As the vapors subsided, the shell of the jar was revealed.
The knife sheath that had been fried in oil had split open and looked like a turtle shell.
-Kak. Kak.
When I scraped the surface with a ladle, it fried crispy and made a delicious sound.
The shells of the zara, which will be used for decoration and texture, are ready.
I hurried to eat the dish I just saw.
-Chiiik.
The meats were placed in a wok filled with the aroma of ginger and green onions.
-Crunch.
Next, we added the Shaoxing liquor, Yueju.
When I put in the gizzard shad meat, the savory aroma that came out mixed with the medicinal aroma of Shaoxing wine, and when I thought the outside of the gizzard shad meat was sufficiently stir-fried, I added water.
-Whoa.
-Whew. Whoosh.
Step on the stove a couple of times to make the water boil quickly. The flames shoot out.
The characteristic of Zara cooking is that it starts with strong fire.
Once it starts to boil, reduce heat to low.
Zara cooking is done by slowly simmering food over low heat for a long time.
The rising flame quickly raised the temperature of the wok.
-Bubbling.
And when the meat was boiling, I took out the green onions and ginger that had already been added and added the additional ingredients.
Additional ingredients are soy sauce and sadang, a Song Dynasty sugar.
-Crunch.
-Whew!
As I added each ingredient, the richness and sweetness of the soy sauce slightly stimulated my nose.
That’s how I made the meal.
When the meats were cooked enough, the last ingredient, rice vinegar, was added to bring out the flavor.
The reason I didn’t put it in beforehand was because I was worried that the sourness of the vinegar would all disappear while boiling.
Finally, add starch to thicken the soup and you’re done cooking.
“It’s done.”
“Hmm. It smells delicious.”
“It smells really good.”
The voices of Yeong-yeong and Maeng-hee, who had come closer without us noticing, were full of anticipation.
I brought a large bowl and put the zara meat in it. Finally, I put the zara shell that I had fried earlier on top of it.
And then I sprinkled the remaining starch sauce on the turtle’s shell to complete the dish.
A dish filled with sauce seeping into the fried skin and hidden meat underneath.
This is the red-fried ice-cream fish, or red-fried ice-cream fish, that the people of the Central Plains consider a health tonic.
The test dish to be presented at the Emperor’s Qujiang Yan (???) was completed.
Now all that’s left is to give the wives a taste of this, and then catch some spotted squid to test it out once more on a giant scale.
He shouted at his wives.
“Come on, everyone, come and try it!”
The wives gathered on the first floor to eat a miniature version of Hongso Bingtang Gap-eo (??????) that would be served at the government office’s music lecture.