Purple Yang Grid Plank Meat from Shaanxi: Indulge and Enjoy!
In the southern part of Caoba Dam in Ziyang County, the Ugly Master and Jingjing went to pay a visit to a famous person in Ziyang County – the Folk Song King – He Yaoxin. At 66 years old, Mr. He lived on a hillside overlooking the Han River, with a variety of vegetables planted all around his house. He really enjoyed this pastoral life.
This is a representative work of Ziyang folk songs and also reflects the relaxed life of the people of Ziyang. Ziyang, a mountain town, has left behind this art form that has lasted for thousands of years because of this relaxed lifestyle.
Among the delicacies of Ziyang, there is a dish that is as ancient and rustic as Ziyang folk songs, and as relaxed and fresh as the homeland depicted in the songs – this is Ziyang's Plated Meat.
As for ‘Plated Meat’, it is actually a piece of cured pork. Making cured pork is a traditional practice in Shaanan, and almost every family does it.
This dish, simply a farmer’s cuisine, doesn’t require much cooking technique; the pork is simply cut into slices and steamed for 15 minutes before eating.
In Ziyang, there is also a method of making meat that can only be eaten during festivals or important ceremonies. Let’s take a look at how it’s made.
First, cut the pork with a fat-to-lean ratio into thin slices – this seems to be a standard procedure for making meat dishes. After cutting the meat, fresh orange peel is cut into fine granules, and fresh ginger is also cut into granules. Mix these two things into the meat basin.
Add a small amount of seasoning and sugar, as well as sweet rice wine. Mix thoroughly by hand. This is similar to marinating the pork slices, but in reality, it’s laying the foundation for the flavor. Once the flavor is well blended, then the things you add next will have a distinctive local taste. Look at the chef sprinkling powder on the meat – it’s made from black rice grown in Shaanan. It’s likely that foodies will guess the name of the dish should be ‘Rice-Steamed Meat’.
The steps are similar to those used in Guanzhong to make rice-steamed meat, but the two key ingredients are different: cured pork and black rice, instead of fresh meat and rice.
The side dish is diced red potatoes. All the red potatoes also need to be seasoned. When everything is ready, you can put them on the fire and steam them. The steaming method is also done by steaming over water, and the time is about an hour.
Rice-Steamed Meat is also called ‘Steamed Bowl’ in Guanzhong, meaning that before presenting it on a plate, you have to steam it in a bowl. After a long period of steaming, the fat from the cured pork will moisturize the rice and potatoes, creating a glistening dish – a plate of Ziyang Rice-Steamed Meat is thus completed.
As the saying goes, a single ingredient can create a single dish. Ziyang’s cured pork; Ziyang’s black rice; Ziyang’s red potatoes; combined with Ziyang’s sweet rice wine and orange peel. This dish can only be a genuine Ziyang delicacy.
Source: Shaanxi Broadcasting and Television Station Good Home
