- May 02,2023
Taizhou, Jiangsu Province, is a laid-back city with a reputation as "Slow Life Water City". The locals have a custom of drinking morning tea, and one of obligatory dishes for morning tea is “hot dry silk”. Dried white tofu as main ingredient is scalded, cut into thin and uniform threads, then scalded in hot water until softened, after guests arrive, remove from hot water and put one by one on a plate. seasonings and grated ginger, etc. The taste is soft and delicate, tasty and timeless, and taste is very good. There are hundreds of morning tea shops in Taizhou, no matter size of morning tea shop, this breakfast will be there, and local people can eat two tons of dried grated rice every day. You must be wondering how this data is obtained. It's very simple, because to ensure quality and safety of raw materials, local government supplies all dry ground silk to morning tea shops by two companies. This has advantage that quality is maintained. Centralized production also reduces costs. The famous "Taizhou hot dry silk" has been listed as an Intangible Cultural Heritage by local government.
Taizhou Dried Shredded Tofu is delicious due to quality of Taizhou Dried White Tofu and Dried Shredded Tofu processing technology. Traditional hot dry silk, raw material for dried white tofu, is mainly pure soybeans from the Lixiahe region.
The practice of ironing and drying shredded silk seems simple, but it's actually very specific. First of all, it is necessary to horizontally cut special dried tofu into 20 layers of the same thickness with a knife. Taizhou people call this type of horizontal cutting “piao”.
Layers of tofu slices that have been "melted" are stacked obliquely and cut into matchstick-thick strands.
Knife skills are exquisite, and only experienced craftsmen can achieve uniform thickness.
After dried pieces are cut, they are scalded, which is also very important. The main thing is to withstand soaking time. After soaking for a long time, it turns into liquid water, and if it is not soaked, dry thread will not be soft.
Ingredients typically include grated meat, peanuts, grated ginger, coriander, mustard, shallots, etc.
Take hot, dried, crushed rice, put it on a plate, sprinkle with ingredients and pour special seasonings before eating, and you can feast on it.
We ate tangangshi at Gu Yuelou, which is a famous old shop in area. Special tangangshi, crab caviar buns, and fish soup noodles are three must-have dishes for Taizhou people's morning tea.
In open kitchen, visitors can watch process of making crab caviar buns through glass, as well as see real ingredients.
Crab caviar buns, rich crab roe in filling is soaked from skin of bun and is very nice to bite into and leave flavor.
Malantou Sioux May.
Steam dumplings with shrimp.
Vegetable soup with dumplings. Others include fresh meat buns, Wooding buns, red bean paste buns, rice seedling buns, etc., all of which are delicious.
Large boiled dried silk, relatively speaking, I personally prefer to eat hot dried silk.
