There is no wife in wife cake, but there is a real turtle in turtle jelly!

There is no lion in the lion's head, there is no wife in the wife cake, and donkey rolls have no blood relationship with donkeys... From ancient times to the present, countless delicacies that are "selling dog meat under the guise of mutton" have fooled us.

So, let’s draw inferences from one example: Are there oysters in oyster sauce? Is there chicken in chicken essence? Is there turtle in tortoise jelly?

When you see this question, are you hesitant? Should you have it or should you not have it?

This time, it’s real! And it’s all there!!

Oyster sauce is not oil, but it does contain oysters.

Let's first look at the national standard for oyster sauce: According to the national standard for oyster sauce GB/T 21999-2008, oyster sauce is a condiment made by concentrating the juice of steamed or boiled oysters or directly enzymatically hydrolyzing the oyster meat, adding raw materials such as sugar, salt, starch or modified starch, and supplemented with other ingredients and food additives.

The national standard is very clear. Oyster sauce is indeed not oil, but a condiment like soy sauce, and it really contains oysters.

Oyster sauce

Now go to the kitchen and pick up a bottle of oyster sauce and take a look. The first two digits on the ingredient list are mostly water and oyster juice (which one comes first depends on how much you spent on the oyster sauce).

In the ingredient list, the higher the ranking, the larger the proportion.

Photographed by: Wei Yiyi

Oyster juice is the core of a bottle of oyster sauce. During the Song and Yuan dynasties, people along the coast of Guangdong discovered that after shelling oysters, they slowly boiled them over fire until they became a sticky paste, which was very delicious when added to dishes. To this day, the method of making oyster juice is not much different from that of hundreds of years ago.

The oyster meat is added with salt and water and cooked over low heat. During the cooking process, the protein in the oyster meat will change and break down into small molecules such as amino acids and peptides with umami flavor.

Cleaning the oyster meat

Slow cook to extract essence

After cooking for a certain period of time, remove the oyster meat, heat and concentrate the remaining "essence", and finally filter it to make oyster juice. To make the oyster sauce we usually eat, you need to add pigments, seasonings, thickeners and the like.

It sounds very industrial, but in fact, it is not a big deal. The pigment is usually caramel color, which gives oyster sauce its dark and shiny color; seasonings include sugar, salt, MSG, etc., especially MSG (monosodium glutamate), flavor nucleotides, and yeast extract, which can double the flavor; and the most commonly used thickener is actually starch, which is why some oyster sauces are difficult to pour out.

How to shake out oyster sauce is an eternal problem

Image source: Internet

Why can't we make oyster sauce directly from concentrated oyster juice? The most direct reason is that the cost is unbearable. The documentary "The Taste of Old Guangzhou" once introduced the traditional method of making oyster sauce, which only uses water and oysters, and no other ingredients are added. It takes about 13 kilograms of oyster raw materials to produce 1 kilogram of oyster sauce.

Therefore, commercial oyster sauce does not need to be produced with 100% oyster juice. In fact, in many oyster sauces, the proportion of oyster juice added is not large. The Shenzhen Center for Disease Control and Prevention once conducted a survey and research on 7 oyster sauce manufacturers and found that the amount of oyster juice added in oyster sauce production is generally 10%-15%.

To buy higher quality oyster sauce, you still need to observe the position of oyster sauce in the ingredient list (it is best to be first) and increase your budget for purchasing oyster sauce.

The essence of oyster sauce lettuce is the oyster sauce

Chicken Essence, High-end Chicken Flavor MSG

Chicken essence is the most common seasoning in the kitchen. Its packaging usually has a picture of a fat chicken or the words "made from premium chicken" written on it.

But I never tasted chicken!

Image source: Internet

Yes, as long as you buy products from regular manufacturers, chicken essence does contain chicken ingredients. According to the national standard for chicken essence, chicken essence is a compound seasoning made from chicken or chicken bone powder plus salt, monosodium glutamate and other auxiliary ingredients with a fresh and fragrant chicken flavor.

However, the main ingredient of chicken essence is still MSG. Generally speaking, 40% of a serving of chicken essence is MSG.

At the same time, 10%-25% salt and 10%-25% corn starch or maltodextrin are added to chicken essence, which not only serve as fillers and carriers, but also improve the taste and prevent corrosion. These three ingredients constitute the main body of chicken essence.

The amount of chicken-related substances added is actually not much. The chicken-related substances in chicken essence are mainly chicken fat, egg yolk powder, chicken powder and paste chicken flavor, which together account for 10%-25% of chicken essence.

Chicken oil is responsible for making the aroma of chicken essence full, lasting, strong, and shiny; chicken powder is made from boneless chicken that is cooked, extracted, and air-dried. Adding it can make the chicken essence have a stronger chicken flavor; the main ingredient of paste chicken essence is chicken bone extract. Once it is added, the aroma of chicken soup comes immediately.

I don't know if this soup is good.

Here comes the point, why is chicken essence yellow?

Because egg yolk powder is added to chicken essence, the appearance of the chicken essence becomes light yellow, so that people will think that this thing is made of chicken...forcing the chicken to be more dramatic!

The yellow color of chicken essence comes from egg yolk powder

It can be said that chicken essence, which is made with ingredients such as salt, sugar, starch and chicken extract, is an upgraded version of MSG.

Of course, like MSG, there is no evidence that consuming chicken essence will have adverse effects on human health, but the amount must be controlled. Once you eat too much and exceed the sodium limit, it will still have an impact on your body.

How can we call it Guilinggao without a turtle?

Guilinggao is a traditional medicinal food in Guangdong and Guangxi. It looks similar to black jelly and grass jelly, but after taking a bite, you will find that it is extremely bitter. It is really impossible to eat it without adding a lot of sugar or condensed milk.

Guiling jelly is really bitter!

Guilinggao is a very honest food. Turtle and ling are its main ingredients, and the paste is its form. The name is as careless as "Xi La Dan", a home-cooked dish in Xinjiang, which is made of tomatoes, peppers, eggs...

To determine whether a tortoise jelly is authentic, you only need to take a look at the ingredient list. If the word "turtle" is clearly written on it, then this tortoise jelly is more reliable.

The guiling jelly with turtle is the authentic one.

The main material used in making Guiling Gao is the plastron of turtles, which is called "tortoise shell" in Chinese medicine. In the early days, Guiling Gao used to use the tortoise shells of golden coin turtles or flat-breasted turtles, but later, they became protected animals. Nowadays, the tortoise shells used are basically the tortoise shells of the easy-to-raise Chinese soft-shelled turtles (wild Chinese soft-shelled turtles are national second-level protected animals, and artificially bred ones are not national protected animals).

Chinese turtle

Image source: Internet

Another important ingredient is "Ling", which is made from wild yam. Wild yam is a plant called bá qiā, which is very common in my country's forests. The underground part of bá qiā is the traditional medicine "wild yam".

Smilax glabra

Image source: Internet

Although tortoise shell also contains animal collagen, what can really make the tortoise jelly "freeze" is the "immortal grass" grown in the southern region, which contains plant colloids that can be condensed into jelly. Boil tortoise shell, Chinese yam, licorice, honeysuckle, dandelion, raw earth and other Chinese medicines together and condense them into jelly, and you have to make tortoise jelly.

Nowadays, the amount of turtle in the Guiling jelly on the market is decreasing, which is a trend. If you look closely, you will find that in the ingredient list of most Guiling jelly, turtle is basically at the last few places, or even at the very end, or there is no turtle at all.

Of course, nowadays, no one really takes Guilinggao as medicine. Instead, it has become a refreshing snack to relieve summer heat. It can bring a different taste when paired with honey, condensed milk, red bean paste or even ice cream.

References: (Scroll up and down to view)

[1] Jiang Xionghui, Liao Guohong. Production technology of oyster sauce[J]. Food and Machinery, 2002.

[2] Ding Hongxia, Li Jiayin. Oyster sauce as a condiment[J]. Sichuan Cooking, 2004(8):2.

[3] Chen Yu. A thorough review of oyster sauce recipes: Which oyster sauce is truly "good"? — A comparative evaluation report of 12 oyster sauces [J]. Consumer Report, 2020(4):7.

[4] Hu Guochang, Liao Guohong. Production technology of chicken powder[J]. Chinese Condiments, 2001(9):31-32.

[5] Li Yao. Chicken extracts: Application in the production of chicken essence and chicken powder [J]. Chinese Condiments, 2011, 36(8):3.

[6] Zhu Niu, Zi Ronglu. A brief discussion on monosodium glutamate and chicken powder[J]. Chinese Condiments, 2013, 38(1):3.

[7]SB/T 10371-2003 National Food Standard Chicken Seasoning

[8] Liang Hongzhan. Basic research on Guilinggao[J]. Everyone's Health: Academic Edition, 2013(4):1.

[9] Mei Yuzhan. Guiling jelly and its preparation method:, CN104543637A[P]. 2015.

Written by | Three Cooks·Wei Yiyi

Some pictures | Tuchong Creative

WeChat Editor | Ah She Shuang

Source: Museum