中華乾麺千本ノック Hard cooking practice with Chinese Dried Noodles
中華乾麺を使って本格中華に挑戦という記事です。具体的なレシピの掲載は、次の記事からになります。
This article is about trying to make authentic Chinese food using Chinese dried noodles. The specific recipe will be posted in the next article.
はじめに
Introduction
ある時期から、極力冷蔵庫に頼らない生活をしている。人類の食の歴史では冷蔵庫のない時間が圧倒的に長く、エコロジカルにものを考える上でも、食の経済を考える上でも、冷蔵庫を大前提とする食生活を見直してみようというのがその動機だ。その中でも重要な食品の保存方法の一つが「乾かす」こと。乾物の活用である。今回は乾麺、とりわけ中華麺をテーマに取り上げてみようと思う。
白状すると、乾麺は圧倒的に生麺より安く保管に電気代が要らないから、僕が貧乏なだけというのが更に根底にある本音なのだけど。
Since a certain point in time, I have been trying to live without relying on refrigerators as much as possible. In the history of human food, there has been an overwhelming amount of time without refrigerators, so my motivation for this is to reconsider our eating habits that are based on the refrigerator, both in terms of ecological considerations and food economics. One of the most important methods of food preservation is "drying" - making use of dried foods. This time, I'd like to focus on dried noodles, and Chinese noodles in particular.
To be honest, dried noodles are far cheaper than fresh noodles and don't require electricity to store, so the underlying reason is that I'm just poor.
世界的に見れば、スパゲッティや米麺など乾燥麺は市民権を得ているのに、日本で食べられている中国麺はほとんどが生タイプだ。インスタントヌードルは日本の発明だけど、スナック扱いされていて、正式な食事の席では喜ばれない。それでも代々とびきり美味しく生麺に負けない乾麺を製造している会社も存在する。
有名なのが九州のマルタイ食品。「マルタイラーメン」の名で昔から親しまれてきた会社だ。少し前だけど、この会社は冷凍技術や生鮮流通技術で生麺が普及して乾麺の需要が落ち込んで、存続の危機に陥ったことがある。結果は、昔からの熱心なファンが救済を呼びかけて、事なきを得たのだが。その時に応援団が企画したのが「乾麺」を使った素敵なレシピの公開だった。この企画を継承して、乾麺でどれだけちゃんとした中華料理が作れるかチャレンジしてみようと思った次第だ。
While dried noodles such as spaghetti and rice noodles have gained popularity around the world, most Chinese noodles eaten in Japan are fresh. Instant noodles are a Japanese invention, but they are treated as snacks and are not welcomed at formal dining tables. However, there are companies that have been producing extremely delicious dried noodles that are just as good as fresh noodles for generations.
A famous example is Kyushu's Marutai Foods. This company has long been known by the name "Marutai Ramen". Not long ago, this company was in danger of going out of business when demand for dried noodles fell due to the popularity of fresh noodles due to freezing technology and fresh distribution technology. In the end, the company was saved by a long-time enthusiastic fan. At that time, the supporters planned to publish wonderful recipes using "dried noodles". I decided to take over this project and challenge myself to see how many proper Chinese dishes I could make with dried noodles.
例に挙げたマルタイ食品以外にも、代々細々製造を続けている乾麺メーカーもあり、そちらも活用してみたい。ほとんどのメーカーの製造している乾麺自体は小麦粉、カンスイ、塩が主成分で全くの自然食品なのだけど、附属のスープは必ずしもそういうわけではなく、僕は個人的に極力化学系調味料の類は使いたくないので、インスタントスープの付属していない製品の方が趣旨に沿っているので、主にそちらを使おうと思う。
In addition to Marutai Foods, which I mentioned as an example, there are other dry noodle manufacturers that have been producing noodles for generations, and I would like to use them as well. The dry noodles themselves made by most manufacturers are made mainly of wheat flour, kansui(lye water), and salt, and are completely natural foods, but the soup that comes with them is not necessarily the same. Personally, I try not to use chemical seasonings as much as possible, so I think that products that do not come with instant soup are more in line with my purpose, and so I will mainly use those.