Because this "Xinjiang Napoleon" is so good, we've solved the mystery of its origins!

There are countless stories of a halal bazaar near Changshou Lu (Penguin's office). On Fridays, it's filled with stalls, smoke and yelling. Lamb kebabs, hand-held rice, naan, baked buns, and a variety of dried fruits, preserves, and snacks ...... Every time I visit, I'm pleasantly surprised.

One day at noon, Penguin came back to this magical bazaar to forage for food.

Passing by a stall, found that many people in a mysterious dessert in front of a long queue, rectangular baking dish is a block of milky white soft cake stuffed with puff full, the surface was sifted a thin layer of fine powder, close to look at the cross-section of this thick guy was divided into a lot of fine layers.

The little brother who sells the cakes cuts the pieces with a small spatula, boxes them, and weighs them, and because there are so many people waiting, he moves as quickly as if he were operating an assembly line.

"Excuse me, what is the name of this cake?" A: " Na Pari Yong, it's delicious. "

Although Penguin's stomach was already full of mutton rice, steamed buns and roasted lamb loin, he couldn't resist the temptation of "very delicious" and let him cut two pieces.

Well, the fine soft center melts like butter, the middle of the pastry belt a little tough, the whole is still soft, no need to bite into how much slipped into the stomach, the layered sense of especially rich - like a New York netflix lady M (a kind of lasagna crepes) and French Napoleon (Mille-Feuille) born of hybrid. The hybrid.

Lady M (left) vsMille-Feuille (right)

Before you can get over the intoxication, some of my friends asked, "Why does the name "Napoleon" sound so much like "Napoleon"? The name "Napoleon" sounds so similar to "Napoleon".

Open Baidu, type in Napoleon, it turns out that this dessert is a regular program in many Xinjiang restaurants ah! A netizen who said he had eaten it at a restaurant in Xinjiang noted that the English translation is napoleon.

Oh, Xinjiang actually have their own Napoleon? So, Xinjiang's Napoleon, and that kind of from France, and is known for the complexity of the thousands of layers of aristocratic dessert is considered... Is it a relative? (Mille-Feuille, the French word for thousand layers, is also known as Napoleon in English)

After turning all the Chinese search engines upside down with no luck, we decided to look for veteran Xinjiang natives to find out.

The story of its origins: a "native" Xinjiang dessert?

By relying on the penguins of Xinjiang in the office to shout in the circle of friends, Penguin was lucky enough to hook up with an old driver who knew his way around this dessert.

And the old driver to talk to the sky, then suddenly realized: the original, Napali Yong is not at all what people think of what "traditional Xinjiang dessert" ... ...

In fact, it's only been seven years since Nappa Rayon was introduced in China. It debuted at the 2010 World Expo Food Fair, and was the result of an exchange between Shanghai's Xinjiang restaurant chain, Yerishali, and the Uzbekistan National Pavilion.

So, as a neighbor of Xinjiang, Uzbekistan was a key route along the Silk Road, and a member of the former Soviet Union, I'm sure Napaliyon's earliest life had something to do with geography, right?

Later, in the study of French Napoleon, Penguin Jun really found a called Наполеон (Napoleon)? s Russian rip-off.

It first appeared in the 19th century, making its name in 1912 when Russia celebrated 100 years of victory over France. The structure of the Наполеон lasagna takes its cue from Napoleon's Grande Armée, and the white powder sprinkled on the top of the cake symbolizes the snowstorm that helped the Russians win the war.

This patriotic, iconic dessert of the former Soviet Union is none other than Napalit Yong!

Yerichali's Napaliyon

After the Expo, through an exchange of opportunities, Yerichali managed to get the recipe for Napaliyon and applied for a patent to make this pastry. Recognizing the potential of Nappa Rayon to resemble a Western dessert with an ethnic twist, they invested heavily in promoting it as a signature.

Then Nopaliyong really took off.

The pastry chefs who left Yerichali either looked for other places, or simply went out and opened their own workshops, centralizing the supply of the pastry for other Xinjiang eateries, and in the blink of an eye, Naperiayong quickly spread its wings in Shanghai.

What's amazing is that it only took a few years for Napaliyong's success to go from uncomfortable when consumers were first introduced to it, to being passed on by word of mouth by diners, and now being misrepresented everywhere as a "traditional Xinjiang pastry" as it is known in the Magic City.

Deep into the back of the kitchen, delicious is so

Neither like lady M cream light, puff pastry is not like Napoleon as thin as a piece of feather, the goose only know that this Napalit Yong delicious, as for it in the middle of the filling and crispy skin in the end what is done, is really confused.

Curiosity got the better of us, and we headed straight to the back of the kitchen at Yerichali to ask the most experienced pastry chef how to make this dessert.

Inside the kitchen, a giant mixer rumbles to life: a chef's machine half the size of a bread machine, with what looks like a mixture of eggs and flour whirring at high speed.

Master Wang, a pastry chef, explains that the filling being whisked is the creamy center of the Napalit Yong, which is made from a mixture of eggs, butter, flour, and sugar, which is steamed in a steamer and then whisked for at least 30 minutes to give it a soft, creamy texture.

On the other end of the board, there is a sheet of crispy skin full of air holes, and the master gently presses it with his hand, making a crisp "click" sound.

"Not like the French kind of pastry, to fold ah rolling ah so tortuous, our kind of crispy quite easy to do, not so many layers, but also quite delicious." Master Wang said, to do this kind of crispy skin, the eggs, butter, flour and proportionally rolled out, and then baked in the oven until the golden crispy on the good.

As she spoke, she skillfully copied the spatula, and smeared a layer of creamy filling on the crispy skin. She smoothed it out and then spread the next one, repeating this operation several times.

Wang keeps emphasizing that the Uzbek version of Napaliyong is too heavy on the butter and sugar!

"When we improved the recipe, we cut out at least half of the butter and sugar. People over there are big and they love sweet and oily food, but we have to adapt to the tastes of city people... Originally, they put 8 pieces of butter in a whole plate of cake, who can afford it?"

In order to standardize the size and height of the layers, they also standardized the Napalit Yong into a "standardized seven-layer pastry": seven layers, meaning that from bottom to top, the pastry filled with milk should be stacked seven times.

Seven layers, sprinkled with "snowflakes", and then put into the freezer for four hours, out of the Napalit Yong, is what you see.

As a side note, the softened Napalit Yong is much tastier than the one you just took out of the freezer.

Compared to a French Napoleon, who wins?

If you still do not quite understand the process of French Napoleon and it has what is the difference, give you a step-by-step diagram, easy to see:

So, the two go to the route is inherently different. French Napoleon is sold in the complex process, layers of taste, you can label it as "exquisite", "high-level" label; relatively speaking, Napoleon "from the barbarians", the practice is also much simpler, but it is not the same as the French Napoleon. The practice is also much simpler, but it is with no ambiguity in the ingredients, not losing the excellent pastry model.

Compared to the French Napoleon, which can cost $50 or $60 a piece, the Russian Napoleon is a lot more affordable with less labor. 6 dollars for a small piece of Napoleon, dine-in 4 pieces per serving, and a la carte can be packaged in 2 pieces to take away.

Yerry Charley vs Xinjiang Market, Napalit Yong "orthodox" struggle

Out of different schools of Napalit Yong, the shape and flavor of a thousand different:

From the Yerry Charley out of the master, and later have their own school. Compared to the Yerli version, which has seven layers, the Macau Road version has more layers and is denser, and I've heard that many Xinjiang restaurants in the market only make four to five layers to save costs.

The first time I ate the amazing Na Pali Yong at Xinjiang Bazaar, Penguin never encountered it again. After that, every time I visited the Xinjiang bazaar, the little brother's cut pieces are very casual, the crunchy skin is sometimes hard, sometimes sticky, and sometimes even slightly with the flavor of raw flour. In addition, in the Xinjiang market, two pieces of Napali Yong cost me 40 yuan, the price is almost as high as the cake, ah Hey!

In contrast, the "seven layers", which are very stable in terms of length, width and height, look more elegant and can maintain the texture of crispy skin and soft filling for a long time.

That said, there is one caveat to the debate over which is the "more authentic" Na Pali Yong: it is not the only snack that has been mistaken for "traditional Xinjiang cuisine".

Like the other dessert we had at the restaurant the other day, the baklava, made with walnuts, raisins, puff pastry, and lots of frosting, which is known in the Middle East as baklava, and is a sweet that was slowly introduced to Xinjiang via the Silk Road, and which has taken on its own form in a number of Eurasian countries, or the flatbreads from the Middle East, which are similar to the ones you've eaten, but have a different flavor than the ones you've had. The Middle East flatbread and you have eaten naan, tracing the roots is actually a family ...

Baharava and naan

Foods with a story have a way of spreading and evolving into all sorts of shapes and forms, and there is no one true originator, even if they are patented.

In any case, from a sentimental point of view, it's hard to argue that it's a bad thing that a small group of exotic, niche cuisines have managed to gain a foothold in a modern city, and that they're being embraced by consumers and passed on in new ways.

What's more, without competition, there's no progress. In the past two years, "lasagna" this hot wind mouth, Jeremiah is ready to expand the product line of Napalit Yong, the first to do out to test the waters of the new flavors, is in the filling with a large piece of durian pulp, topped with a square lasagna with crushed badan wood, has just been launched in the Disney neighborhood of the Yi Ou Lai store, soon to be in other stores will also appear.

The texture of the durian is already dense, and when mixed with the steamed filling, it adds a lightness to the aroma. Durian lovers will naturally appreciate it, but some with conservative tastes may stay away.

And in the future, perhaps another dessert will be introduced to China, replacing the Napalit Yong as a new generation of legends to satisfy the increasingly discerning palates of diners, which is something we can't predict.

In the end, in this fast-paced society, the only thing that can stand the test of time is innovation itself.

Written by Judy

Photos by Xinyue and Yiren

Photography by Michelle