Anchang

Warm a pot of rice wine, cut a plate of sausages, and enjoy the winter sunshine comfortably in the corridor where the awning boats come and go...

Such a lifestyle, It has long been integrated into the blood of Anchang people, and the rare waterside charm is demonstrated every day.

Before I even set foot in the old streets of Anchang, I was involuntarily wrapped up in the rich fragrance of soy sauce:

On the narrow and dark corridor, there are many hanging Only sauced duck, dried fish, bacon...even a whole bacon head!

Every household is selling homemade cured meat. Although the ingredients and techniques are roughly the same, the flavor of the sauce is still different when you taste it carefully.

Even now, for people in Anchang, whether or not they can make cured meat is still a test of a housewife’s ability to run the house.

Nowadays, Anchang’s cured meats are as outstanding as Shaoxing’s old yellow rice wine:

If you have to choose a representative among the many cured meats to introduce, it must be along the line. The river is densely packed with hanging sausages!

Anchang sausages are all made by hand, including scraping, selecting ingredients, dicing, rinsing, pickling, enema, and drying.

The production must start after the beginning of winter every year. It is not possible to do it too early. The tradition is still used today.

The weather must be sunny and the temperature is moderate for 3 days after production, otherwise the quality will be greatly compromised.

Use fresh pork slaughtered on the same day, take the front and rear leg meat, and mix it with a fat-to-lean ratio of 28%. It is paired with handmade soy sauce specially made by the local Renshou Sauce Garden, and then added with Shaoxing’s aged Huadiao.

The casings for enema should be made from pig intestines of even thickness, scraped until they are as thin as cicada wings.

Manual enema can maintain the shape of the diced meat to the greatest extent, and it will taste better. At the same time, in order to ensure that the meat is tight and even, it must be squeezed continuously by hand.

Dry in a cool and ventilated place for about 10 days. During the process, use a toothpick to prick the air where there is air to make the meat firmer.

Only after passing these strict procedures can it truly be regarded as Anchang sausage:

It is smooth in color, rich in aroma and slightly sweet. Oily but not greasy, special color and taste, better than ham.

Since its appearance in Bite of China, Anchang Sausage has become even more famous.

If you walk in the old streets of Anchang and look for ways to eat sausages, you will find that the simplest method of steaming them can bring you a long and fulfilling life.

In the ancient town, there are small stalls selling sausages every few steps. You can buy a bunch and eat them while shopping.

If you want to continue the taste memory of this cured meat, you can buy it home:

When you are greedy, make a delicious cured meat from Anchang Claypot rice...