So often in China, when we go out for supper we will see many BBQ skewer places. Go ahead. Go for it, it is delicious and fun.
We were in Libo in Guizhou but this could be anywhere in China.
The meats' freshness were in full display. Seasoned with a little salt, dusted with cumin powder when grilling, sometimes a bit of Sichuan peppercorn powder too.
Based on excavated tomb murals in Linyi city in Lunan district (Shandong province), grilling skewers in China go back at least 2000 years to the Eastern Han 東漢 dynasty (25 - 220).
Of course, cooking meat in a spit over fire is much older than that, going back to pre-historic times, before civilisation and not only in China. Once mankind tasted roasted meat from unlucky animals caught in forest fires, we acquired the taste of grilled meat. So, I guess grilled meat followed soon after early man learned how to make fire about one million years ago.
Anyway, it was thanks to the proliferation of lamb skewers 羊肉串 stalls from Xinjiang since the 1980s that the skewer grill trend spread like fire across China and wherever Chinese communities are across the world. Chinese skewers are now mainstream and I think entrenched in Chinese culinary culture for posterity.
Chinese skewers now have all kinds of ingredients. Anything goes. Anything edible including vegetables that can be threaded through bamboo skewers go!
Skewers are the grilled equivalent of Chinese hotpot.
Skewers are a pastime of all seasons. King of Supper in China.
Winter? No problem. Here we were in Changshun city in Guizhou province. The flimsy looking plastic sheet tents kept the wind and rain out.
Winter? No problem. They burn coal under your table to keep your feet and body warm.
The hot coal that kept the grill hot, cook our food and our bodies warm. Yeah, the restaurant we went to (we just randomly walked into one as there were so many) used good old hot coal rather than electricity or gas. That's right, electricity or gas takes away 50% of the fun, in my humble opinion lah.
We cook our own food on the grill. It's anything goes, some direct on the flat grill, others on skewers. There were dozens of varieties to choose from.
The food were already marinated or seasoned with spices and seasoning.
Cook them ourselves, the oil sizzle, dripping onto the hot coal below, sputter and spit sending out greasy white plumes and smokey aromas.
The fumes made our jackets smell like BBQ, so we took off the outer layers as it was warm enough inside the tent.
This grilled pork intestine tasted so good. Robustly savoury sweet spicy flavours from the lightly crisp, spongy, soft chewy bite. It just made us drink more beer and maotai 茅台 to wash more pieces down.
(Guizhou maotai is incredible. That's the story for another post.)
Pork belly heavily seasoned with a fermented bean paste sauce.
Tasted so addictively good when cooked.
Pork blood curd.
The staff grilled the lamb skewers for us. The smokey savoury sweet meaty skewers were perfect between fresh lettuce.
The skewers come with different dips but they're good enough on their own in my opinion.
Join in the fun with China's King of Supper.
Written by Tony Boey on 22 Dec 2024
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