Go to Shanghai City God Temple (in front of Yuyuan Garden), where snacks are concentrated.
Shanghai snacks have been recorded in the Southern Song Dynasty. In the early Ming Dynasty, Shanghai became a famous city in the southeast, and the production became more and more exquisite. In the Qing Dynasty, as Shanghai’s business became increasingly prosperous, various types of rice and noodles were produced in season. The variety of snacks is more abundant. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, after Shanghai was listed as a foreign trade port, it successively absorbed the essence of local snacks, including the characteristics of almost all major places in the country, and developed and improved them to form its own characteristics. Shanghai snacks are characterized by a wide variety of varieties, with both northern and southern flavors; rigorous selection of ingredients and fine production; changes according to the seasons and seasons; and convenient and flexible supply.
Crab shell yellow
Use fermented flour and add oil to make shortbread with skin and filling. The color and shape of the cake resembles a cooked crab shell. The finished product is brown in color and tastes crisp, loose and fragrant. In the early days, most of the teahouses and Laohuzao (boiled water specialty stores) stores in Shanghai were equipped with a vertical drying cylinder and a flat-bottomed frying pan stove. While making them, they sold two snacks - crab shell yellow and fried steamed buns. The crab shells are yellow and crispy, and the fried steamed buns are fresh and tender. They are deeply loved by tea drinkers. In the late 1930s, specialized stores selling these two varieties appeared, such as Huangjiasha, Dahuchun, Wuyuan, etc., and they became famous for a while.
Jujube pastry
It is a fried and mature pasta made with pastry dough as the skin, black date paste as the filling. It is golden in color, small and exquisite, has a crispy outer skin, and has a sweet and delicious filling. It is very popular among compatriots from Hong Kong and Macao and Japanese tourists. Won the silver medal in the second national cooking competition in 1988.
Fried steamed buns
Shanghai calls steamed buns steamed buns, so fried steamed buns are actually fried steamed buns. Fill it with semi-leavened bread, put it in a pan, fry it in oil, spray it with water several times and it will be cooked. The bottom is golden in color, hard and crispy, the body of the bun is white, soft and loose, the meat filling is fresh and slightly marinated, and there is a fragrance of sesame or green onion when chewing. It is best to eat it hot. Pan-fried steamed buns were originally a variety sold by tea houses and Laohuzao (Kai Shui shop). The filling is mainly made of fresh pork and jelly skin. After the 1930s, Shanghai's catering industry began to have specialized shops for pan-fried steamed buns, and the fillings also included chicken, shrimp and other varieties.
Steamed Cold Noodles
It is a kind of pasta in which the noodles are first steamed and then boiled, then cooled by cold air and seasoned. In the Shanghai food market, cold noodles have always been the best-selling variety in summer. Around 1937, the method of making noodles was to boil the noodles and then rinse them with cold water. After 1949, the health department banned the sale of cold noodles because they were washed with raw water. In 1952, Siruchun Dessert Shop first steamed and then boiled the noodles, and then cooled them with cold wind to process cold noodles, which was a success. Not only does it meet hygienic requirements, but the processed noodles are hard, tough and smooth, making them popular among customers.
Yangchun noodles
Also known as smooth noodles. According to folk custom, the tenth month of the lunar calendar is called Xiaoyangchun, and the lingo in Shanghai is that the tenth month is Yangchun. In the past, each bowl of this noodle sold for ten cents, so it was called Yangchun Noodles. Onion oil noodles are also called sea rice and onion oil noodles. Mix the fragrant scallion oil and cooked dried shrimps (called Kaiyang by Shanghainese) with the cooked noodles. The noodles are tough, glutinous and smooth, the dried shrimps are soft and delicious, and the scallion oil is fragrant. After 1945, a vendor named Chen in the Chenghuang Temple used the daily method in his hometown in northern Jiangsu to boil scallion oil and use it to mix noodles. The rich and distinctive aroma of green onions made it very popular and has been passed down to this day. Now it is a specialty snack of Hubin dim sum shop.
Minzuo stuffing
Jiuniangyuanzi
It is made of fruit stuffing, small balls rolled with glutinous rice flour and cooked with fermented rice flour. The fermented rice has a strong and sweet flavor, the dumplings are glutinous, and the filling is sweet and fragrant.
Lard mincemeat
Song cake
Mixed with glutinous rice and japonica rice, ground into powder, and steamed with red beans, fruit ingredients, etc. It is a seasonal rice dish for the old year and the new year. The cake body is soft and sweet, waxy but not sticky, and the nuts have various flavors.
Pork Ribs Braised in Oil
New Year Cake
Pork ribs are served with small and thin rice cakes, cooked in oil and cooked. There are two ways to make this snack in Shanghai, represented by Shuguang Restaurant (formerly known as Xiao Changzhou, known as the King of Spare Ribs) and Xiandelai Dim Sum Shop. Both of these two are famous for selling pork ribs rice cakes, but their production methods are different and their tastes are very different. , each with its own characteristics, became famous in Shanghai in the early 1930s. Spare ribs rice cake is an affordable and unique snack in Shanghai with a history of more than 50 years. There are two famous pork ribs rice cake restaurants in Shanghai - "Xiao Changzhou" and "Xiandelai".
"Little Changzhou" pork rib rice cake uses pork backbone meat from Changzhou, Wuxi and other places, pickles it with soy sauce, and then puts it into an oil pan mixed with soy sauce, oil, sugar, green onion, ginger, wine, etc., until it becomes purple-red in color. Take it out when the meat is tender and fragrant. At the same time, cook the Songjiang rice, place it in a stone mortar and beat it repeatedly with a hammer until there are no more whole grains of rice. Take it out, cut it into 20 pieces per 500g, and wrap each piece with a small piece of blanched pork ribs. , then boil it in the sauce pan, and sprinkle it with five-spice powder when eating. It has the rich aroma of the ribs and the soft, glutinous and crispy rice cake, which is very delicious; the "Xiandelai" sparerib rice cake is made of flour, Stir water chestnut powder, allspice powder, and eggs together until they are coated on the surface of the ribs, then add them to the oil and cook. This kind of ribs is golden in color, crispy on the surface, and tender in texture. At the same time, add the sweet noodle sauce to the Songjiang rice, red soy sauce, and pork ribs, and top with the chili sauce. It is glutinous and fragrant in the mouth, slightly sweet and spicy, fresh and delicious. The "Xiao Changzhou" pork ribs rice cake of Shuguang Restaurant in Shanghai and the pork ribs rice cake of "Xiandelai" dim sum shop are the most distinctive.
Fresh Meat Cat Ears
Traditional Cat The ears are made into cat-ear-shaped lumps by mixing noodles with cold water, with diced chicken, diced meat, etc. as ingredients and eaten with soup. Shanghai Qiaojiazha's cat ears are unique. The dough is rolled out by hand, stuffed with meat filling or bean paste, and boiled in oil. It has a unique flavor.
Snail
Shanghai’s snail is a famous specialty snack. This snack is made from longan snails produced in Tunxi, Anhui Province, which are large and plump with thick meat heads. After entering the store, they are raised in clean water for two days to make them spit out the sediment, and then put into the pot with fennel. , cinnamon, etc. and cook for a longer time. Finally, put the cooked snails on the aged fragrant rice wine and make it. This kind of snail is brownish gray in color, with tender meat, mellow juice and delicious taste. It is very popular. This delicacy is a famous specialty snack in Shanghai Wuweizhai Dim Sum Shop and Xiandelai Dim Sum Shop
Little Shaoxing Chicken Porridge
The chicken porridge run by Xiao Shaoxing Chicken Porridge Shop is authentic Shanghai Flavored snacks. The store was founded in 1947 by a Shaoxing native. Since the founder and the main operator are both Shaoxing natives, a small Shaoxing people’s paradise has been formed here, so people named it “Little Shaoxing Chicken Porridge Store” . Xiao Shaoxing chicken porridge is a snack made of ground rice porridge cooked with chicken broth, served with chicken and various condiments. When eating chicken porridge, cut the cooked chicken into 3 cm long and 0.6 cm wide pieces, put them on a plate, put the chicken porridge into a bowl, add green onions, minced ginger and chicken oil, and serve together. At this time, the chicken porridge is yellow with green, and the chicken is white and bright, which is pleasing to the eye and greatly increases appetite. When you taste it, the chicken porridge is sticky, slippery, and fragrant. The chicken is tender and refreshing, rich in nutrients, and the more you eat, the more delicious it becomes. This delicacy is sold in Xiao Shaoxing Chicken Porridge Shop in Shanghai.
Nanxiang Xiao Long Bao
Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao, also known as Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao, is a traditional snack in Nanxiang Town, a suburb of Shanghai, with a history of more than 100 years. This dish is famous for its thin skin, rich fillings, heavy marinade and fresh taste. It is one of the popular snacks among domestic and foreign customers. The filling of Nanxiang steamed buns is made from sandwiched leg meat, without adding onions and garlic, and only a little minced ginger and pork skin jelly, salt, soy sauce, sugar and water are added. The skin of the steamed buns is made of unfermented refined flour. 50 grams of flour can make 8 buns, and 100 grams can make a basket. The steamed steamed steamed buns are small and exquisite, shaped like a pagoda, translucent and strong, crystal clear and yellow. Every bite of a bag of soup will fill your mouth with saliva and delicious taste. If you eat it with shredded ginger, balsamic vinegar, and a bowl of shredded egg soup, it will taste better. The fillings of Nanxiang Xiaolong Steamed Buns can also change with the seasons. Add shrimp in early summer, and crab meat, crab roe, and crab oil in autumn. Nanxiang Steamed Buns in Yuyuan Shopping Mall are one of the famous snacks in Yuyuan Shopping Mall.
Youjiu Steamed Buns
Youjiu Steamed Buns are a specialty snack made by the century-old Zaoshen Dacheng Dim Sum Shop in Shanghai. The shop's steamed buns draw on the best of many: the bun's scalp is made from Nanxiang Xiaolong Steamed Bread, rolled out with unfermented fine powder, and the filling is taken from Huaiyang's thin soup dumplings, with the meat filling added. The bone soup is mixed well, and seasonings made of onions, ginger, garlic, etc. are mixed; when fried, a technique similar to that of deep-fried shortbread is used. The steamed buns made through such careful processing have a small and exquisite shape, golden skin, and beautiful color. , crispy in the mouth, fresh and tender meat filling, soup overflowing when you bite it, fat but not greasy. After eating, the fragrance will linger on the teeth and cheeks, and the mouth will be full of saliva. If eaten while hot, the aftertaste will be endless.
Onion oil noodles
Onion oil noodles are a famous snack in Shanghai.
The method of making onion oil noodles is very particular. First, cut the white scallions into inch-long sections and fry them in a warm oil pan. (The scallion oil cooked in this way has a dark red and yellow color, a rich onion aroma, and can be smelled. Increase appetite). Then add the scallion oil with the onion oil that has been fried in vegetable oil and soaked in wine and sugar to make the scallion oil. Cook the noodles, drain the soup, and mix with onion oil to make onion oil noodles. This kind of noodles is bright in color, smooth and refreshing to eat, has a delicious shrimp flavor, a tangy aroma of green onions, and is rich in nutrients. It is very popular. Onion noodles are a specialty snack of Hubin Dim Sum Restaurant in Shanghai and one of the famous snacks of Chenghuang Temple.
Vegetarian Buns
Vegetarian Buns are a specialty snack of Shanghai Chunfeng Songyuelou Vegetarian Restaurant. This restaurant has a history of more than 70 years. It is a vegetarian restaurant that combines the flavors of Beijing, Jiangsu, Yangbang, and Shanghai. The shop's vegetarian dishes, fried mushrooms, Luo Han Zhai, mushroom rice crispy soup, fried crab noodles, gluten noodles and other dishes are quite famous in Shanghai, especially the vegetarian buns made by the shop are famous and very popular. Vegetarian buns are made of refined white flour as the skin, and the filling is made of chopped vegetables, gluten, mushrooms, winter bamboo shoots, dried spiced tofu and then mixed with sesame oil, sugar and other condiments. After the wrapped vegetarian vegetables are wrapped in a cage and steamed, the skin will be white and soft, and the filling will be green in the center, bright and pleasing to the eye. The room will be filled with fragrance as soon as the cage is opened. It tastes delicious and refreshing, and you will not get tired of eating more. This snack can be tasted at Chunfeng Songyuelou Vegetarian Restaurant in Yuyuan Shopping Mall in Shanghai.
Leisha Yuan
Leisha Yuan is one of the famous snacks of Qiaojiazha Dim Sum Restaurant in Shanghai, with a history of more than 70 years. It is said that in the late Qing Dynasty, there was an old lady surnamed Lei in the Sanpailou area of ??Shanghai. In order to make the dumplings easy to store and carry, she pioneered the method of rolling white powder on the surface of the cooked dumplings. In order to commemorate her, later generations made this dumpling. Named Leishayuan. The Leisha Yuan operated by Qiaojiazha Dim Sum Shop is made by boiling Dahongpao red beans from Chongming County and grinding them into sand, then drying them into purple-red powder. Then, they are filled with fresh meat or bean paste, sesame and other fillings. The glutinous rice dumplings are cooked, drained, and rolled with a layer of bean paste powder. This kind of dumpling is colorful and fragrant, has a strong red bean aroma when eaten hot, is soft and refreshing, and is easy to carry. It has always been very popular among tourists.
Shanghai Li Nong Xiaolong Shengjian
When it comes to dim sum in Shanghai, the first thing people think of is the famous four kings - fried dough sticks, flatbread, and rice cakes. Rice, soy milk. But times have changed, and now these titles have to give way to two other great sages - Xiaolong and Shengjian. You can easily see Xiaolong and Shengjian on the streets of Shanghai.
Regarding the origin of Xiaolong, I will transcribe the introduction on the Guyi Garden website: "Nanxiang Xiaolong is famous both at home and abroad and has a history of hundreds of years." It was first called "Nanxiang Big Meat Steamed Buns" and then called "Nanxiang Big Meat Steamed Buns". "Guyiyuan Xiaolong" is now called "Nanxiang Xiaolong". Its fame is related to Guyi Garden, but few people know it. In the 10th year of Tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty (AD 1871), Huang Mingxian, the owner of the Rihuaxuan cake dumpling shop in Nanxiang Town, changed his business to operate Nanxiang giant steamed buns. He carried the steamed buns to Guyi Garden every day to sell them. The steamed buns were famous for their delicious taste and popularity. The bosses in the same industry were inspired by the news and came to Guyi Garden to sell big meat steamed buns, which affected Huang Mingxian's business and could not be patented by one person, so he adopted the method of "heavy stuffing and thin skin, changing the big meat buns to small ones", using refined white flour to roll them into thin skins; Use refined meat as the filling, no MSG, boil the meat skin with chicken soup, mix in the jelly, and use the freshness, sprinkle a small amount of finely ground sesame seeds to get its fragrance; also take crab powder or spring bamboo, shrimp and meat filling according to different seasons. , each steamed bun can be folded into at least fourteen pieces, and one or two pieces of flour can be used to make ten pieces, which are translucent in shape like water chestnuts, small and exquisite; when they come out of the cage, pick any one and put it in a small dish, pierce the skin, and the juice will fill the dish. It is a good product. , gradually formed the characteristics of thin skin, fresh juice, tender meat and rich filling, and became a delicacy sold exclusively in Guyi Garden, known as "Guyi Garden Nanxiang Xiaolong". "There are many snacks similar to Shanghai's Xiao Long Bao across the country. The more famous ones are Tianjin's Goubuli Steamed Buns, Xi'an's Jiajia Soup Steamed Buns, and Henan's Kaifeng Steamed Buns. But relatively speaking, Shanghai's Xiao Long Steamed Buns are among them. It's all because of Shanghai's strategic location between the north and the south, so its taste can be accepted by both the north and the south. As for the shengjian, it seems that there is no way to test it, but I vaguely remember that there was a comparable restaurant on Haining Road in Sichuan Road when I was a child. At that time, the price list of the famous Shengjian restaurant was Danyang Shengjian (Danyang is located in Jiangsu Province, about an hour away from Nanjing). As for whether Danyang is the origin of Shengjian, I have no idea. It’s very clear. To make pan-fried food well, three elements must be achieved: the bottom is crispy and golden, the skin is soft, and the meat is filled with sauce and has a chewy texture.
It seems that Xiaolong and Shengjian are very similar, but this is not the case. Looking at the snack bars in Shanghai, there are very few restaurants that can make both Xiaolong and Shengjian very well. Therefore, many stores are also very self-aware. Basically, it is rare to see a snack bar that sells both kinds of snacks. Because if you are not careful, you will end up with fried dumplings or steamed and pan-fried buns. The first is the noodles. Xiaolong noodles generally do not need to be fermented, because when they are rolled out and steamed, the air holes will expand, which will affect the appearance of the Xiaolong and the soup. There is no room for any differences. On the other hand, the skin of raw pan-fried pan-fried pan-fried pan-fried pan-fried pan-fried pan-fried pan-fried pan-fried pan-fried pan-fried pan-fried pan-fried pan-fried pan-fried pan-fried pan-fried pancakes is very particular about the skin. Generally speaking, an experienced chef will control the time for proofing the dough. Generally speaking, it is two hours. It can't be done too early or too late. If it's too early, the skin won't be soft and hard. When eaten late, there will be a sour taste produced during fermentation. Although we will add vinegar when eating raw fried food, the sour taste is different. Next is the meat. Some diners may think that Xiao Long and Sheng Jian are actually wrapped in different ways, but the fillings are still the same. In fact, it is not the case. The biggest difference is in the filling. The dumplings in Xiaolong focus on freshness, thick soup, and some gravy aroma. After steaming, the Xiaolong soup cannot penetrate into the skin and must be covered by the skin. The aroma of the soup is retained in the meat, and when you take a bite, it slowly seeps out. The fried dumplings should have a flavor of sauce, because the fried skin is smaller and thicker. Thick, so the prepared dumplings should have a sauce flavor, so that the sauce flavor of the soup can penetrate into the skin. Take a bite of the golden pan-fried noodles, and the soup will overflow in your mouth along with the fragrance of the dough, and the aftertaste will be endless