Braised pork dish
However, due to different local customs and eating habits, everyone colors the stew in different ways. Generally speaking, the most important thing for people to color stews is to stir-fry sugar, and then wrap rock sugar or white sugar on the food we need to pickle, but many times the color of sugar is not deep, especially when it comes to water.
Moreover, when frying sugar, the heat is not well grasped, which is especially easy to fry sugar and make the food surface black. Although it is good to cook braised dishes with fried sugar, many novices can't do it well, so should we consider cooking braised dishes without fried sugar?
Fried sugar color
The answer is yes. Here is our secret recipe for coloring stews. We don't fry sugar or add soy sauce. Especially for novice stews, you don't need to fry sugar to color them. It is better to use "it" to maintain the true color of meat and color the skin. It's gardenia. In addition to frying sugar, many people will add some soy sauce because the brine is not deep enough, but we know that adding too much soy sauce is not only bad for your health, but also destroys the taste of the brine itself. Therefore, it is best not to rely on soy sauce to color the marinated vegetables, but to put some pure natural dyes-gardenia yellow.
Pot-stewed bense
Gardenia, the secret recipe for coloring healthy pot-stewed vegetables
Gardenia is a common spice for making braised dishes, but now many people don't know how to use Gardenia to color braised dishes, but want to use soy sauce, soy sauce and other seasonings to color braised dishes. Gardenia is generally abundant in Jiangsu and other regions. When I was a child, I planted many gardenia trees at home. At that time, gardenia was mainly collected and sold to businessmen, but I never knew what the use of gardenia was.
Gardenia flavescens
I didn't know until I saw my father put gardenia in salt water and asked my father that the color and brightness of the stew my father usually made were all due to the addition of gardenia, which tasted particularly good. Besides making stews, my father also likes to soak gardenias in water, saying that it is good for health. Because gardenia is actually a traditional Chinese medicine, it has the effects of protecting liver, lowering blood pressure, reducing swelling and calming down, especially in clinic, and it is also used to treat diseases such as hypertension and diabetes. Therefore, it is much healthier to use it to color braised dishes than soy sauce.
Huangzhizi Tiaotiao Decoction
Coloring skills of Gardenia jasminoides Ellis
The coloring method of gardenia seems simple, but if you don't understand the characteristics of spices and brine, you may not be able to reach the ideal state. If gardenia is used for coloring, it is generally necessary to use the water roasting method in salt roasting, because sugar and soy sauce are not needed for coloring salt roasted brine, and spices such as star anise cinnamon need to be put less. These spices contain melanin, but when ordinary traditional brine is put into gardenia, the yellow color only appears temporarily.
Keep the true color of pot-stewed dishes
However, the advantage of gardenia coloring is that it can keep the true color of meat well, and at the same time, it can also color the skin to make the braised dishes look more tender and delicious. So when we cook by ourselves, we can use gardenia to color the pot-stewed vegetables, which is healthier and more delicious. If we eat it ourselves, we don't have to be afraid of being left for a long time or being oxidized and blackened by the sun. Therefore, if the novice cooks with the secret recipe of colored braised vegetables, it is best to use gardenia yellow directly, because it can keep the meat.