"The quality of these is relatively poor." Yun Suji considered the words, "The meat used is not so, um... serious."
The so-called not so "serious" can be imagined. It is roughly the same as the way roadside stalls used to make steamed buns in the old days. It is collectively called "offal meat". The blood neck is considered good, and God knows what else. stuff. After Yun Suji became the director of a food factory, he fully understood why German sausages are said to be 'not a drop of blood is wasted'.
"Let's go quickly." Xi Yazhou's appetite suddenly lost its appetite. However, Chen Sigen was very interested and asked: "Is this the kind of dried sausage that is going to be supplied to the troops? I think the nutritional indicators are pretty good."
"The specific type of enema supplied to the troops depends on the needs of the troops and the procurement quotation of the joint logistics. Of course, it also depends on the supply of raw materials-meat supply has always been a pitfall."
"Old Yun, just tell me honestly, what kind of meat is in your so-called enema?" Xi Yazhou frowned.
"Theoretically, any kind of meat is fine, even... and I guarantee you won't be able to eat it." Yun Suji chuckled, "No kidding, pigs, cows, sheep, horses, donkeys, mules, fish, chickens, ducks and geese. I’ve used them all here. Of course, animal offal and blood.”
"Can it be customized?" Chen Sigen asked.
"Yes, depending on the purchase price and raw material supply, different raw material ratios can be adjusted in the enema filling. The simplest adjustment is the starch content."
"I think we can order more ham sausages. It looks like meat and tastes like meat..."
"No, ham sausage is meaningless. Because the main ingredient is starch, it's nothing more than a little extra fat." Chen Sigen categorically denied, "Now we need to supplement the soldiers with more protein."
"If the meat supply is sufficient, you can make Indian meat patties directly. It is very simple to produce."
“What is a Cajun patty?”
"I know, it's the so-called pemmican," Chen Sigen, who has been in the United States for many years, still knows this. "It is said to be invented by the Indians. The meat of North American bison is roasted, dried and ground, and then mixed with oil, ground nuts and other things. Mix it and make it into lumps. Later white people also learned to make it. This thing is very good, high in fat and protein. It is shelf-stable."
"Isn't that raw meat?"
"Why is it raw meat after it's been roasted dry? But it's probably hard to eat as a fast food. It should taste pretty good after cooking."
"It's a pity that there isn't that much meat." Xi Yazhou sighed.
"If you want to implement a cheap and big bowl, you must also have enough protein. You can consider fish sausage. Follow me."
The next production line is the fish sausage production line, which is called "surimi product" in the food industry. There are many types of product lines, such as fish balls, fish slabs, fish cakes, bamboo wheels, crab cakes, etc.
As soon as you entered the surimi workshop, you could smell a strong fishy smell, which you could smell even if you were wearing a mask. On the open ground are baskets of various marine fish shipped from seafood processing plants. Workers in work clothes are busy carrying raw materials and finished products. There is heavy moisture in the workshop.
"Surimi products generally use low-quality fish that are not economical," Yun Suji introduced the raw fish in the basket, "but only white-fleshed fish can be used, and the fish meat cannot have too much fat."
Chen Sigen and Xi Yazhou looked at the baskets of various large and small fish and felt dazzled. When they saw the fish piled neatly on the straw mat in a row along the wall, they recognized them: sharks.
Speaking of which, there are quite a lot of shark species here, at least seven or eight species, large and small.
"Can sharks be eaten? I remember that this thing urinates all over the body, and the fish smells like urine..." Chen Sigen has been abroad for many years and has experienced a lot. He recalled that he went to Norway. Horrifying experience as locals treated him to pickled shark, a local specialty.
“Because it doesn’t taste good, it’s used to make surimi products.”
Shark meat contains a lot of urea and has a strong fishy smell, so it cannot be used directly for beating. So the first step is to dismember the fish fillets and rinse them with 5% salt water for five minutes. After rinsing them, put them into a pool of acetic acid solution to deodorize them. Finally, rinse them and air them to remove the moisture.
"This is processed shark meat slices. If you smell it, it won't smell at all." Yun Suji picked up a piece of white fish meat and handed it to Chen Sigen, "This can be used to beat it."
They kept walking. A machine in front is running rumblingly, and the worker is pouring a basket of fish from the funnel. Below is a huge stainless steel roller, which is covered with dense holes. Many have been squeezed to a pulp. But it can still be roughly seen that the remains of a fish are rolling on it.
"What are you doing, beating?"
"This is meat harvesting, or meat squeezing. The hole on this big roller is a sieve. Through constant rotation and squeezing, the fish bones and skin are removed, leaving only clean meat."
"Damn. It's so advanced!" Xi Yazhou entered the food factory for the first time and was very curious. He stared at the machine for a long time, "Doesn't this mean that the problem of spitting out fish bones when eating fish is not a problem in the factory?"
"If you don't pursue the integrity of the fish and the taste of the fish meat, there are many ways to mechanically remove fish bones." Yun Suji said, "Otherwise, the power of industry is infinite."
Chen Sigen suddenly shouted: "No, you are not a sea fish, you are a catfish!"
"Yes, it's catfish." Yun Suji said, saying that catfish are very common in Guangdong and Hainan. Among the rice field fish farming promoted by Tiandihui, catfish are cultured - mainly leatherback catfish and large mouth catfish. They grow very fast, have very low requirements for survival water quality, and are resistant to low oxygen. The disadvantage is that the meat quality is not very good. However, it produces a lot of meat and does not have intermuscular thorns that are troublesome to deal with. Food factories use it as a filler for surimi products.
"I remember this stuff had a strong earthy smell."
"It only takes a few days to breed in clear water, and it also requires post-processing. Even shark meat can be used, let alone this."
After the meat is harvested, the fish meat is poured into a meat grinder and ground two or three times with a spiral reamer. Then several different kinds of fish meat are poured into a large stone mortar. The worker pulls the clutch, and the belt starts to drive a machine to stir and beat the pulp with three stirring rods. The stirring rods are controlled by planetary gears and can revolve and rotate. A large amount of minced fish meat can be blended into surimi with ease.
Yun Suji said: "This is a crushing machine. It is specially used to beat the pulp to make surimi. It can also be done manually, but the efficiency is naturally far behind."
As he said this, a worker took a spoon and poured a little water into the stone mortar.
"This is salt water, which can increase the viscosity of surimi. Adding salt is the key to making surimi products."
Seeing that the surimi became more and more sticky as it was mixed, and it felt even stickier than the dough, so the workers added some cooking wine and seasonings. Another bag of white powder was poured in.
"This is sweet potato starch, and it is also a filler. Generally, it does not exceed 25%. However, depending on the purchase price, you can also add 50% or more or not add it at all. By the way, the surimi products that our factory supplies to stores are not added at all. of."
"I think adding 25% for military use is enough. Adding more will be meaningless." Chen Sigen said, "How to preserve it? Things like bamboo wheels need to be refrigerated."
"Preserved in a similar manner to enema, cooked, dried and smoked."
Then they looked at the dried fish and fish floss workshops. Yun Suji said that these can be included in military food. He especially recommended various types of baked dried fish. It is recommended to carry it as a carry-on military ration.
"Where's the jerky?"
"It's easy to make, and I also have finished products." Yun Suji said, "It can also be made into products such as pork jerky."
"No, no, it can't be too delicious, otherwise the soldiers will eat it as snacks." Xi Yazhou shook his head, "It must be easy to eat, but it must not be delicious."
Originally, Yun Suji wanted to take them to other workshops, but the two, who were tortured by their sense of sight and smell, no longer wanted to increase their knowledge, so Yun Suji had no choice but to take them to the product research and development institute.
The product research and development institute is actually a workshop, but it is much smaller in scale and contains all kinds of small processing equipment. Yun Suji took them directly through the corridor and into a large room at the back.
Against the wall of the room was a row of bulky gas refrigerators and display cabinets. There are all kinds of food items inside.
"All of these are trial products, products that can be produced with our current production level." Yun Suji opened the cabinet and took out a cardboard box, "These are experimental military biscuits. You can try them."
The biscuits are small pieces and very hard. Xi Yazhou knew that military biscuits were generally baked dry to facilitate preservation. The disadvantage was that they had to drink a lot of water when eating them. He took a bite. It felt very hard. After chewing it for a few times, it smelled like sesame seeds. It seemed that it had added sugar and salt. It was not unpleasant to eat, and it was not as difficult to chew as expected.
"I think it's good." Chen Sigen said, "The taste is okay."
"That's it." Yun Suji said, "You can't make many things without flour. There is actually a lot of rice flour mixed in."
Yun Suji said that in addition to rice flour, potato flour, sesame seeds and hops are also added to the biscuits. Preservability and palatability are both good.
"It's good stuff, but it's a pity that it's worthless if it can't be mass-produced." Xi Yazhou said, "What other good stuff do you have?"
Chen Sigen said: "A small amount can be distributed to the scouts, they need this kind of food."
Yun Suji pointed to a glass display cabinet: "These are a series of dehydrated vegetables. They can all be used as military supplementary food."
The varieties are rich and colorful. At a glance, Chen Sigen can see more than a dozen varieties such as cabbage, white radish shreds, carrot shreds and slices, eggplants, potatoes, cowpeas, pumpkins, lotus roots, spinach, gourd melons, etc.
"It's a pity that we can't do low-temperature vacuum drying now, so this is just fine. Of course, the nutritional value is far inferior. Dehydrated vegetables are easy to store. They are better than bringing pickles. Although they are not ready to eat, they can be used to cook soup or cook while camping. The dishes and rice are all good." (To be continued.)
