Before serving, Fang spoke a little about the history of Chinese cuisine. Any tourist knows this at least once in Beijing or any other city in China.
These are the five main culinary schools, they are associated with the provinces of China. Sichuan, this is where I come from, said Fang. Smiling broadly, he loved his small homeland. The second cooking school in Jiangsu, Third Shandong, Fourth Zhenjiang, and Fifth Guangdong.
Chinese cuisine...
Baraz cut him short at a glance ... hey, I saw that you are eating, everything that runs ... in Shanghai, I saw barbecue from locusts, from scorpions. Sparrow soup to increase potency. Swallow nests are worth it. And all the rest ... What kind of forge is this?
... Fang shrugged, thinking to himself, what a rude man who thinks with tabloid clichés and does not want to learn new knowledge. He does not want to join the path of knowledge and enlightenment!
Fang continued as if nothing had happened - "Chinese cuisine, it differs from the rest of the world cuisines in that it is already 5000 years old! The basic concept of nutrition in China is the search for balance in cooking.
In China, the products of which a person prepares his own food are divided into three types - Yin (cold), Yang (hot) and non-trawl.
In summer, it was good to eat cold foods, so that the human body cools down from the heat - melon, watermelon, grapes.
And in winter, you had to eat less cold food in order not to get sick, but more hot, like ginger, pepper
In addition, we are Chinese, we divide food into - "Zhongshi" main food and "Fushi" secondary food
"Khushi" is food made from flour or cereals and "Fushi" is mainly vegetables (but not rice, not potatoes and sweet potatoes) and also meat or fish dishes.
"Fushi" can be replaced with hot or salty seasoning.
Dara, I thought, probably it's like Antreme, a transitional dish. Like the French. But Dara was not a pro, but only an amateur.
Fang "but" chunks "if it is not, then there will be no one!" That was of course only in the classic version, now the times have changed, fast food has appeared, so who, in part, has revised the changes. But traditional cuisine still preserves old rituals and culinary culture.
The basis for the "Zhushi" is five types of cereals, which include beans and root crops.
On this, Fang finished his lecture and made an inviting gesture so that everyone would join the meal. Shir Adi and everyone else enthusiastically proceeded to the feast.
...
After lunch, Shir Ali went somewhere on the plain. An hour later he returned. Went to the kitchen, began to cook. At midday, he brought out a large plate filled with pies.
These were the famous Persian pies with wild herbs that grow in the foothills. Usually, they are cooked in late winter and early spring. When all the vitamins have already ended, and just vegetation, fresh shoots, leaves appear.
Cakes are made from unleavened dough, but so as not to waste a lot of time, Shir Ali simply fried greens in oil - quinoa, alfalfa, shepherd's bag, mint, horse sorrel (and it contains a lot of oxalates, well, that's how it goes). And also dandelion, clover, purslane., Spinach, mountain onions, nettle.
By tradition, to wrap a fried mixture of herbs, the dough is prepared from flour, water, and salt. But Shir Ali, in order to save time, used a ready-made dough, rather flatbread like "pita bread". A thin sheet of finished dough, similar to a Russian pancake.
Shir Ali washed the greens well, under running artesian water, which came with great pressure from underground. Then he carefully dried the greens.
Taking his favorite chef's knife from Damascus steel, the finely chopped herbs, then added, for the juice, finely chopped yellow onions.
Then he added a mixture of spices - dried mint from Turkey, cumin from Iran, dry ginger from India.
In a preheated pan, in sesame oil, fried the whole mixture and then added greens. After a little poured artesian water, put on low heat, closed the lid. Stewed for 7 minutes.
Extinguishing greens is a mandatory process, as fat-soluble vitamins in plants must be processed in oil so that they are better absorbed by the body. Then the fire is turned off and set to reach under the closed lid for another 10 minutes. Then he spread a mixture of greens wrapped in pita bread in a lavish pan that reached under the lid, in the form of tubes, frying them for 1 minute on each side.
Then Shir Ali, prepared a mixture for dipping pies.
He mixed kefir with cottage cheese, added fresh and grated ginger, to taste, garlic, dill.
It was a Persian variant of healing cooking, and these pies served as good and tasty medicine for vitamin deficiency and anemia.
Shir Ali didn't say much, but he told something about the history of cuisine: Our culinary culture, Small-An, includes Persian cuisine, which is more than 4 thousand years old, as a basis. The basic concept is the ability to combine the medicinal properties of the substances of products during cooking. They differ in pure nutrients, absolute medicines, medicinal nutrients, medicinal nutrients, simple nutrients, substances with special properties.
It also includes the nomadic kitchen, which gives strength, power, makes bones, joints, and tendons stronger.
It is not surprising that part of the food has elements of a Chinese school, in particular steamed flour dishes and various types of noodles. And also part of the dishes (not very many) comes from the Blue Horde.
So here is my treat, try dear guests, and Shir Ali made an inviting gesture. Again, the people rushed for a treat, including Fang who managed to get hungry.