Chapter 568: Chapter 554: A Brief History of the Sichuan and Chongqing Boiled Jianghu Cuisine

"Boss, that cumulonimbus cloud is still there. Are we going to try again?"

"Yes, we must try again! Yesterday was due to our lack of experience, but today we have to make it rain!"

At a meteorological bureau, two staff members were looking at a cumulonimbus cloud in the sky and talking.

Cumulonimbus clouds have a lower cloud base and a bulging body, resembling cauliflower in appearance, making them very suitable for artificial rain enhancement operations, second only to nimbostratus clouds.

"We got scolded all day yesterday because of that missed shot. Today, no matter what, we have to redeem ourselves! Aim carefully!"

...

When Wang Fan woke up in the morning, he found that the weather outside had finally returned to normal.

After washing up, he continued his culinary journey for the day.

He had already tried noodle dishes, grilled fish, and casual dishes, and on the first day, he had already tried hotpot. So today, their target was skewers and pot dishes.

Skewers, spicy hotpot, hotpot, mala soup, and Bang Bang Chicken are just like dumplings, wontons, wonton soup, and hand-swallowed noodles; figuring out their differences and connections is quite tricky. It took Wang Fan a fair amount of effort to understand the relationships and distinctions between them.

Skewers, spicy hotpot, mala soup, and Bang Bang Chicken can be said to have originated from the same master, called "hotpot." This school can be called the "Boiled School."

Hotpot, as the master, took on two apprentices, one named "spicy hotpot," and the other called "fragrant skewers."

Later, the two apprentices mastered their skills and went out to set up their own practices, gradually making a name for themselves. But since the two brothers had a good relationship and often collaborated, they jointly trained a disciple named "mala soup."

The characteristic of hotpot is cooking while eating, with freely adjustable seasonings. In the Sichuan and Chongqing region, people like dipping in oil, while in North China, sesame sauce is more favored. Hotpot in the Sichuan and Chongqing region mainly uses various offal, which has a stronger taste, and since the climate is humid, it’s heavy and flavorful.

In the North, it’s more about beef and lamb, teamed with clear broth pots and sesame sauce, appreciating the natural freshness of the ingredients.

As for their relationships, there really isn’t much connection between them. They all belong to the "Boiled School." There isn’t any master-disciple relationship among the major schools; it’s like how everyone practices martial arts, but Sanda, boxing, and freestyle wrestling have no connection with each other.

The feature of spicy hotpot is that it’s cooked first and then eaten, with cooking and seasoning done entirely by the chef. The seasoning of spicy hotpot is quite different from hotpot base, being relatively lighter; in some places, the soup of spicy hotpot can even be directly drunk.

Mala soup originated in Sichuan. Later, the Northeast Iron Pot school went to Sichuan to learn and, after returning to the Northeast, integrated their characteristics to create Northeast-flavored mala soup.

The now well-known A certain Liang and Yang certain Fu are representatives of Northeast-style mala soup.

Sichuan mala soup and Northeast mala soup have drastically different tastes. Sichuan mala soup is both numbing and spicy, while Northeast mala soup is neither particularly numbing nor spicy, and because they like to add a lot of sesame sauce, the numbness in Northeast-style mala soup has gradually been replaced by sesame sauce.

Wang Fan kindly advised his followers not to think that because they can handle super spicy Northeast mala soup, they can challenge medium spicy Sichuan mala soup; Sichuan mala soup can teach a lesson to anyone who thinks they can handle the heat.

Sichuan mala soup is widely spread, and in every place it reaches, it undergoes local transformations.

In North China, it has become roadside stalls, boiling spicy skewers in little grids, somewhere between mala soup and fragrant skewers.

In the Northwest Region, the essence of mala soup is a layer of chili peppers covering the ingredients. The previously viral Celestial Water mala soup is a representative of this.

In the North, many people easily confuse fragrant skewers with street-side spicy skewers, but the difference is relatively simple.

The fragrant skewers usually operate in storefronts, while spicy skewers are street food.

Fragrant skewers are typically enjoyed with three to five friends, with an average spending of 50 to 100 yuan, whereas street spicy skewers are more impulse-driven; you see it, you want it, you sit down, with an average spending around 20 yuan.

Fragrant skewers are like hotpot with sticks, but the base seasonings are quite unique to themselves, and the taste is entirely different.

Moreover, fragrant skewers aren’t content to remain obscure and have trained two apprentices, one called "cold pot skewers," and the other "Bang Bang Chicken."

Cold pot skewers and Bang Bang Chicken have the same origin, but the two apprentices didn’t learn the same set of skills.

The锅of cold pot skewers is cold, but the soup and skewers are hot, so don’t be misled by its name – cold pot skewers are actually hot.

As for Bang Bang Chicken, the ingredients are heated and cooled before being placed into the soup, so its pot is cold, its skewers are cold, and its soup is also cold, but not frozen; it’s more like a cold dish.

The reason it’s called Bang Bang Chicken is because it was originally made with chicken.

Wang Fan understands it as an artful apprentice, learning the skills and then combining vegetables and other meats into what is now Bang Bang Chicken.

Spicy hotpot is a one-person hotpot, with ingredients in a bowl; hotpot is a group spicy hotpot, with ingredients in a pot; fragrant skewers are a hotpot with skewered foods; Bang Bang Chicken is cold pot skewers, while mala soup is hot pot skewers.

Even with hotpot, there’s a big difference between Sichuan hotpot and Chongqing hotpot; don’t be fooled by their proximity, their origins and developments are totally different, but Wang Fan plans to study this difference further when he travels to Sichuan.