Gansu mala Tang, why is it so fragrant？

Original yuki & Luqi ‘an Chihuo Institute

Mala Tang, a well-known snack, occupies a place in many people’s hearts. Northeast Mala Tang, Sichuan-Chongqing Mala Tang … Different factions of Mala Tang have their own characteristics and fans, just like fairy fights.

And the hottest mala Tang recently, but also the number of Gansu mala Tang. On the internet, it’s like a dark horse that suddenly comes out, and everyone is in a hurry. Gansu people just want to say: Gansu mala Tang has finally been seen by everyone!

Gansu hot spicy dip yi yi pai she

Gansu people who are away from home, the first thing to do when they go home is not to eat beef noodles, but to eat malatang. Because beef noodles can be eaten anywhere, but Gansu mala Tang can only be eaten when you return to Gansu.

Gansu hot spicy dip and spicy rice noodles.

01

Gansu hot spicy dip

/Potato flour and oil chili pepper is the soul/

In the world of spicy food in Gansu, there are two indispensable elements-potato flour and pepper fragrance. The two are integrated with each other to create a unique Gansu mala Tang.

Gansu hot spicy dip yi yi pai she

Gansu is rich in potatoes, among which Dingxi is the most famous potato.

The potato produced in Dingxi is Huang Cancan and round, which is called a golden and bright potato. It is also known as "the golden pimple in the yellow land". Moreover, Dingxi potato has high starch content, sufficient viscosity and good fusion. It can be used only with potatoes and water, and it is not suitable for processing into powder.

The potato powder made of Dingxi potatoes is naturally milky white, and it will not muddy the soup after being cooked for a long time, and the entrance is smooth and strong, so you can feel the full chewiness between chewing. The most commendable thing is the juice-hanging ability of this kind of powder. Before eating, soak it in the soup, soak up the fresh and fragrant soup in mala Tang, and then wrap it in chili pepper. It is really "spicy, smooth, strong, thorough, fragrant and refreshing".

On the right is a shot of fine potato powder.

Just like Lanzhou beef noodles have two fine, capillary and leek leaves, Gansu potato powder can also be divided into fine powder, leek leaf powder and large width, which fully considers the needs of diners.

Big width powder picture from the idea of the worm.

Moreover, in the Mala Tang restaurant in Gansu, you can order a spicy powder, pick up a piece of powder and eat it. The fragrance is confused!

Spicy rice noodles, sizzling and shooting

In the seasoning of Gansu Mala Tang, pepper is an indispensable part.

When I first saw Gansu Mala Tang, I was often shocked by the red chili pepper in the bowl. After I tasted it, I found that Gansu Mala Tang was very red, but it was fragrant, and it was the kind of spicy that slowly poured into the taste buds.

Hongtongtong’s Hot Spicy Dip Yiyiyipai

People in the northwest like spicy food, and each family has its own formula of paste pepper.

Grinding different varieties of dried peppers into flour, adding a proper amount of spiced powder, salt, sugar, white sesame seeds, etc., and finally just pouring hot oil, the fragrance locked in red chili pepper can be stimulated to the extreme, and the pepper is full of fragrance, and the spicy taste is strong without losing the sense of hierarchy, and the taste buds can be grasped instantly, which makes people unforgettable.

Gansu hot spicy dip yi yi pai she

There is no milk, sesame sauce or sugar in the soup base of Gansu Mala Tang. Only broth or bone soup is used. After a long period of boiling, supplemented by various seasonings, the soup base is clean and not muddy, and it pays attention to a "non-sticky mouth".

Shooting the soup of boiling hot spicy dip.

The most irresistible thing is the preparation of small ingredients for Gansu Mala Tang.

Fried peanuts and pickled mustard tuber are accompanied by Chili flavor, and a variety of flavors are wrapped around the tips of lips and teeth, which makes the taste of mala Tang more abundant. There are also some stores in Lanzhou that will add sour radish, which is very boring.

The Q-bomb of vermicelli, the richness of seasoning, the crispness of peanuts, and the fragrance of pepper … all the flavors are intertwined, forming an indescribable wonderful taste. It is no wonder that a bowl of hot Gansu Mala Tang can make countless Gansu wanderers dream about it.

Shooting on a small feeding table

Gansu province is long and narrow from east to west, so the mala Tang in different regions is also slightly different. Zhangye Mala Tang, which is quite popular in recent years, has added "sweet noodle sauce" to its sauce, which is sweet and spicy to eat. But if you want to ask which Gansu Mala Tang is the best, Gansu people will only answer you that the Mala Tang in their hometown is the best.

According to my colleague in Gansu, it was originally a Sichuanese who came to Jiayuguan to open a mala Tang restaurant. She grew up eating the first mala Tang restaurant. Sichuan Mala Tang took root in Gansu, and was further localized and improved, and finally developed into what it is today.

02

Sichuan hot spicy dip

/Snacks from the street to the table/

When it comes to mala Tang, Sichuan is absolutely unavoidable. After all, this is the birthplace of mala Tang.

As for how Sichuan Mala Tang came into being, there are many opinions, one of which is the most widespread and credible: in the 1980s and 1990s, the individual economy began to flourish, and street stalls put food slices on bamboo sticks for sale. Set up a pot next to it, rinse and cook it in the spicy soup base, and then dip it in. It’s cheap and charges by signing. This is the original form of mala Tang.

The original mala Tang was signed | The picture comes from the idea of the worm.

This small-scale business has strong reproducibility, low entry threshold, more and more employees, and some changes in form-from the initial street snacks into the store, it has become a dinner, cooked by yourself, served with oil dishes, and the variety of ingredients is also richer. In addition to the improvement in form, Mala Tang has gradually expanded from Leshan, the original birthplace, to Chengdu, and has a new name-"string string".

Today’s hand-held skewers are close to the original mala Tang eating method, and most of them are put out on the street in the middle of the night. After selecting the dishes, the boss will use a clip to fix the skewers on the edge of the pot and cook them. After the pot is put out, sprinkle chopped green onion and coriander as you like.

The picture comes from the idea of the worm.

Mala Tang and skewers are so similar that although I am a Sichuanese, I once thought they were the same thing, but they were called by different names, and eating them in my mouth was similar. Actually, their boundaries are really blurred, and you don’t have to worry too much when eating-delicious is the most important thing.

In the past, the roadside stalls in Beijing were also cooked with skewers in the soup base, and they were always hot. Pick out what you want to eat, and the boss will take the ingredients off the label and mix the seasoning, so you can eat it.

Roadside stall mala Tang | Image from the idea of the worm

Antimony pot mala Tang and plate mala Tang, which have emerged in recent two or three years, are mixed with dry dishes made of bean powder, Chili noodles and garlic paste, and their tastes reproduce the delicious and spicy memories of many Sichuanese children.

Pan Pan Mala Tang | Image from the idea of the worm

Cold pot string and maocai are also products derived from the deformation of "mala Tang-string".

Cold pot strings are cooked and served in soup. Although there is the word "cold" in the name, it is actually hot, the food is hot, the soup is hot, and only the pot containing the food is cold (actually at room temperature).

Cold pot string | Image from the idea of the worm

Maocai, on the other hand, abandoned "signing" and added some small bowls of dishes to choose from on the basis of mala Tang. You can choose beef, rabbit loin, brain flower, thousand layers of belly and other ingredients separately.

Beef | Image from the idea of the worm

Maocai can also be sold with rice, which is well-prepared and active in the streets in the form of fast food, providing many office workers with fast and rich lunch choices.

Maocai with rice | Image from the idea of the worm

03

Northeast hot spicy dip

/delicious after localization/

Mala Tang bloomed in the northwest, a spicy flower of Gansu Mala Tang. It can also go to the northeast, adapt to local conditions, improve and evolve into a brand-new genre-Northeast Mala Tang.

At that time, with the tide of laid-off, the small business of Mala Tang borrowed from Sichuan began to take root in the land of Northeast China.

In the choice of ingredients, most of the meat dishes in Sichuan Mala Tang are animals in the water, such as county liver, duck intestines, hairy belly, county handle, rabbit waist, etc. When they come to the northeast, the meat dishes are mostly meat slices and various balls. On the staple food, Northeast Mala Tang has also added corn flour, beef tendon noodles, potato flour, rice cakes, fried dough sticks and rich bean products according to local tastes.

Northeast Mala Tang | Image from the idea of the worm

When Mala Tang first entered the Northeast, it basically maintained the original heavy oil and spicy flavor, but later it was improved with the local taste, and the overall taste was more salty and spicy. This is the old-fashioned Mala Tang in the Northeast, and it is also the first and most popular form of Mala Tang after it came to the Northeast for localization.

Old-fashioned hot spicy dip

Nowadays, there are many hot "Northeast Sticky Mala Tang" on the Internet, and a large iron spoon of sesame sauce and peanut butter almost covers the whole bowl surface, giving people a strong visual impact.

Sticky mala Tang | Image from Xiaohongshu @ Occasionally Ungentle Sandwich Sister

In addition to the improved version of mala Tang, there is also a popular version of mala Tang in Northeast China.

Vegetables, meatballs, staple foods, mushrooms, etc. are cooked, drained, and then mixed with seasonings to eat. The optional flavors of spicy-hot mix are richer than those of spicy-hot mix, spicy, sour-sweet, sour-spicy and sweet-spicy, especially the sweet-sour mouth. Adding more vinegar and sugar to the spicy mix is very "Northeast"!

Spicy mix | Image from the idea of the worm

Many non-Northeast partners’ knowledge of Northeast Mala Tang mostly comes from two famous chain restaurants: Sean Mala Tang and Yang Guofu Mala Tang. These two brands not only took the Northeast Mala Tang out of the Northeast, but also promoted the iconic bone soup and milk soup base to the whole country.

Sean and Yang Guofu have actually opened many stores in Sichuan in recent years. This phenomenon is quite interesting. Mala Tang went out of Sichuan and returned to Sichuan after being improved in the northeast. When miscellaneous sauce noodles, a popular Chinese food in South Korea, were returned to China for sale, they were regarded as Korean food, which had the same effect.

Yang Guofu Mala Tang | Image from the idea of the worm

With the popularity of Gansu Mala Tang rising, many places outside Gansu are gearing up to open Gansu Mala Tang shops, and there are also many fast food versions available online. People who can’t go to Gansu, but are greedy for spicy food in Gansu, may be able to solve the pain of lovesickness-but there is no guarantee that they will be delicious in Gansu.

If you eat delicious Gansu Mala Tang in Beijing, be sure to tell me, because I want to eat it so much.

What kind of mala Tang do you like?

Original title: "Gansu Mala Tang (chewing), why is it so fragrant (chewing)? 》

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