Chapter 68 68. Hometown Flavor

In my hometown, there is a polder area surrounded by Qingyi River, Gufeng River and Zifu River, and there are many fish, shrimp and lotus root.Where in the south of the Yangtze River can we pick lotus?Of course it's my hometown.Clear ponds, fields of lotus leaves, emerald green covers, red skirts and flying clothes.The dense lotus leaves spread out from near to far to connect the sky and the ground, and the wind blows the leaves back white waves, forming a clear and green world.After the great heat, when the lotus blooms, the lotus root that looks like a baby's arm is called "huaxiang lotus root". It is white and tender, watery, crispy and crispy, and the meat is tender and sweet. There is no trace of dregs in the mouth, which is comparable to the best fresh pears. .And when the winter year is approaching, the lotus leaves are gone, the lotus ponds are all dried up, fish and shrimps are caught, and the fat and branched lotus roots are dug up.All kinds of special lotus root dishes are convenient to present on the table: stir-fried lotus root shreds with red pepper, fried lotus root hoof, braised lotus root, steamed lotus root with glutinous rice, and the most popular ones are deep-fried lotus root balls before the Chinese New Year.

For fried lotus root balls, choose the kind of big white lotus root in the middle that is as thick as an arm. Of course, the red rusty lotus root with red sauce is the best.Generally, people have a piece of coarse sand broken vat, grasp the washed lotus root in their hands and rub it vigorously on the broken vat, rub it into lotus root mud and drop it into the basin, then add tender green onion, salt, monosodium glutamate and appropriate amount of glutinous rice rice, stir well.At this time, the oil in the stove pot that had been blazing with firewood was just hot, and when the foam on the oil surface disappeared, the fire was turned on, and the kneaded balls were put into the pot one by one, and the room was filled with fragrance.The fried lotus root balls not only have the mellowness of lotus root, but also have a smooth entrance due to the high starch content.If minced meat is added to the lotus root paste, the fried lotus root balls will be crispy and compact, with a slight burnt yellow in the green and brown, and the lips and cheeks will be particularly refreshing after eating.

At the end of Dongla, the cured goods hanging under the eaves are warmed by the sun during the day, and dried and frozen by the north wind at night, even the color is so smooth and strong. When the sun was setting and the birds were chirping in the forest, my grandmother smiled and scooped out the freshly milled glutinous rice from a millet altar, which was crystal clear and round like pearls. , After it has absorbed 20-30% of the water, add water to the pot. Grandma told me not to put too much water, just submerge the rice about one fingernail deep.I turned to the stove and lit the pot.Boil the pot to increase the rice soup. When the water is slightly dry, use chopsticks to dig out a hole in the center of the pot and pour water until the hole is level.My grandmother spread the dark red salted duck cut into cubes on the rice in the pot, covered the pot tightly, and asked me to continue the fire.When the heat in the pot is steaming, turn to low heat and simmer for five or six minutes, and then simmer for another seven or eight minutes.At this time, the house is full of the strong aroma of salted duck.When the lid of the pot is opened, the salted duck is deep red, and the glutinous rice that has soaked through the oil juice is plump and white under the kerosene lamp... Before you have to eat it, the strong fragrance has already made you salivate.Steamed glutinous rice with salted duck, the drier the rice, the better. Inhale the mellow aroma of salted duck in the shiny, hot glutinous rice, making you unforgettable once you eat it!

Sometimes, my grandmother would also chop up the three-part lean and two-part fat rib bacon with a small amount of moldy dried vegetables, spread it on the slightly soaked glutinous rice, sprinkle with chopped green onion, put dried lotus leaves on the bottom, and steam it in a steamer.The mellow and fragrant smell, as well as the fun of the winter night, including the hazy yellow light of the kerosene lamp in the fog...all have been integrated into my best memory. In the twelfth lunar month in my hometown, in addition to pickling the cured goods and hanging them outside the house for fumigation, some families also use distiller’s lees to serve a jar of fish. .

The twelfth lunar month has just entered, and the weather is usually good. Those big and small ponds have been dried up by cars, and all kinds of lively fish and shrimps are caught into baskets with mud and water.Carp, grass carp, herring and other large scale fish were selected, disemboweled, gutted and washed, most of them were scaled off, put into a large bowl and salted directly.Other fish with good quality will be kept with the scales removed, the head, tail and fins will be cut off, washed and drained, and the salt will be evenly applied on the surface and inside of the fish, and then the fish will be placed belly up and stacked in layers In the tank, marinate for several days.Wait for the fish to dry in the sun until the skin is shiny and the flesh turns red. Cut it into four or eight pieces, and then cut open the thick part.At this time, you can scoop out the homemade distiller's grains, cover each fish with a layer of grains, sprinkle with pepper, press the grains layer by layer into the altar, and press them tightly.Finally, pour in bad juice or liqueur to measure (sometimes some shochu needs to be added appropriately), tie up the mouth of the jar with dried lotus leaves, and seal the outside with mud. Generally, after ten and a half months, an attractive aroma will emerge from the mouth of the jar. escape.When eating, take the fish scallops, mix them with finely diced lard suet into a bowl and steam them thoroughly.The slag is white, the fish meat is dark red, the taste is sweet and salty, and the salty taste is indescribably mellow and delicious!

Meat such as pork and chicken can also be bad in the same way.Raw fish should be used for cooking, but pork, chicken and other meat must be cooked.But people in my hometown seem to only be keen on bad fish.If there is an exception, it is the bad pig's large intestine. Because the pig's large intestine produces its own oil, it is extraordinarily soft and plump.On the dinner table during the Spring Festival, when the hostess brings out a bowl of red pig intestines with white dross sticking to it from the rice steamer, you take a piece with your chopsticks and put it in your mouth, be careful not to bite off your tongue!

Glutinous rice balls are steamed from glutinous rice flour.But it is difficult for outsiders to imagine that a large basket of ground wet rice noodles is steamed all at once, and then dumped on a chopping board sprinkled with a thin layer of raw flour, until the large lump of cooked noodles gradually softens. , when the heat dissipates almost but the inside is still hot, the aunts and girls who are making glutinous rice balls will dip their palms in water or put some lard on them, and lean over to quickly pick out one by one from the big lumps of cooked noodles. Xiao Tuan flung it around the chopping board, his posture was like throwing rice seedlings by a skilled hand, landing on the ground at a fixed point, dotted and scattered.The other people on the side grabbed it and flattened it in their hands, filled it with sesame stuffing, bean paste stuffing or pickled vegetable oil residue stuffing, rounded it, and then rolled the layer of cornstarch on the chopping board. In the bamboo stick with raw powder.This kind of glutinous dough is sticky, very soft and soft, and can be eaten hot or cold.Both steaming glutinous rice flour and rubbing glutinous rice balls are carried out on those warm nights in winter, and usually several families gather together to make them.The stove is booming, and the burning bean stalks are crackling briskly, the kitchen is steaming, with the dim light of the oil lamp floating, and the excited children are running around, even if they overturn and knock down something , and will not attract the reprimand and scolding of adults.When lumps of rice noodles were steamed and dumped on the chopping board, the children stopped arguing. When the first and second glutinous balls were rubbed out, they couldn't wait to grab them and stuff them into their mouths. Because they were too sticky and delicious, So much so that the neck was stretched and shrunk by choking, so the adults laughed and scolded: "Slow down. There are many, no one will come to snatch it!"

There is also another kind of glutinous rice balls that are "beaten" with a wooden pestle in my hometown.That is, wash the glutinous rice, soak it in water until the next day, pick it up and drain it, put it in a steamer and steam it over high heat, put it in a stone mortar and pound it while it is hot until it becomes a sticky mass like cotton balls without the rice, and then dump it On the chopping board, roll it to the thickness of a thin book. After it is cooled, cut it into squares or strips, and the glutinous rice balls are made.Adding sugar before pounding makes it sweet, adding salt makes it salty.In the future, it can be eaten with vegetable soup, and it is often fried with bacon.The best glutinous glutinous rice balls are always smooth and tender, soft and fragrant, with the natural fragrance of glutinous rice, and never lose their true colors.If it was cut into small pieces the size of a fingernail, it can be fried in oil after drying, or it can be directly fried in a pot with sugar, or it can be scalded with sand to make it crispy.But when I was young, I like to steal it from my grandmother and poke it on the iron fork that burns the fire. I put it in the stove and bake it. When the belly is swollen, I put a pinch of brown sugar in it and then bake it. When the syrup flows out, it is burnt and sweet. Waxy, but often make the lips black.

"March 3rd, eat wormwood cake." In March in Yangchun, clumps of gray wormwood on the edge of the ditch stretched out their juicy young leaves, and the air was filled with the fragrance of wormwood. Girls and children mentioned it one after another. Pick artemisia seeds in the wild with a bamboo basket.People in my hometown call picking wormwood as "pinching wormwood" because only the young shoots of the second and third leaves of Artemisia annua are picked. After picking up a bamboo basket full of wormwood with a strong rural atmosphere, wash it, put it in a stone mortar or directly place it on a flat bluestone, smash it into a ball of wormwood mud, and then use a Shake to slightly float away the too thick wormwood. Juice, that is, pour in an appropriate amount of glutinous rice flour and fine salt, and mix well.At this time, a fire is lit in the stove, rapeseed oil is poured into the pot, a ball of Artemisia rice noodles is pinched, rolled into a ball in the palm of the hand, stick it into the hot oil pot with a prick, and slightly press it into an oblate shape with fingers.One pot can be pasted with seven or eight cakes at the same time. After one side is browned, scoop it up with a spatula and fry the other side of the kang.When both sides are golden and fragrant, Artemisia baba will be cooked.

People who are particular about it will also mix chopped fat and thin bacon into the raw materials, and the artemisia cake from the kang is green and yellow in color because of its continuous oil spill.Artemisia seeds are fragrant, bacon is thick, and rice noodles are soft and glutinous... the smell makes people salivate, take a bite while it's hot, it's really delicious! In Zhouzhuang in the spring of that year, I saw a stall selling green balls. I stood by and looked at it, and finally figured out that the green flour cakes in the pot turned out to be made from the juice of Artemisia annua.Obviously people in southern Jiangsu don't make full use of Artemisia annua. If they have eaten the Artemisia Cinnamon in my hometown, it may be difficult to get that kind of Qingtuan again.

It is said that Artemisia Cake, which is used for "Ba Hun", is not only full of fragrance, but also full of human touch.If someone in the village or relatives made haoziba, the children would serve it in bowls under the branch of the adults, and those who were far away would use shiaoji, and they would walk around and give each other gifts.It is probably because Artemisia chinensis of the tansy family does have medicinal value for clearing away heat and detoxifying, so Artemisia sagebread can really hold the soul and prevent it from being lost.