Although the sweets that were common in Beijing in the old days were not eaten often, they were not inferior to the level of Jiangnan sweets.
Although Jiangnan people like to eat sweets, if it is stimulated, there is no old Beijinger wolf!
Jiangnan people are generally used to adding a little sugar to flavor what they do, while Beijingers are salty and salty, and the habit is a spoonful of soy sauce and a spoonful of salt.
But if you eat sweets, Beijingers must be sweet enough to be happy at home, and if they are not sweet enough to eat sugar! This is the living habit of the old Beijingers in the old days, usually the relief is not spicy or salty, once there is a sweet, it must be sweet and happy!
In the old days, the elders of the Beijing people often said when disciplining their children: "What else do you want to eat?" Then you still want to have a piece of sugar in your mouth all day long! "In fact, this is due to the lack of raw materials in the north in terms of sweets, and it is precisely this reason that Beijingers like sweets to sweets to the deepest, because sugar is precious, so Beijingers can make exquisite sweets."
Sauté the red fruits
Beijingers divide hawthorn into two types, a wild hawthorn and a large hawthorn with a lot of domestic meat. Wild hawthorn is best medicated, and this seed has the highest content of meatless hawthorn vitamin C and pectin and a variety of organic acids. Hawthorn is formed after many generations of artificial culture, not only the meat is large and slightly sweet in the acid. Hawthorn is also known as red fruit, mountain red, generally Tianjin people are used to call red fruit, while Beijing people are mostly called mountain red. Although the name is mostly called Mountain Red, the food made has its own title. In addition to the fried red fruits we introduced today, there are also warm dumplings, sugar gourds and hawthorn cakes, etc., and there is no fried mountain red, sugar mountain red and mountain red cake. Hawthorn cake also has an elegant name called "golden cake", the so-called Wen Bao'er is marinated with white sugar juice to pit the mountain red, in fact, similar to today's hawthorn canned, about the name "Wen Rao'er" is the Beijing flag people said the taste of the Manchurian transliteration.
Choose a pound of big mountain red to wash and core, and sit in the steamer with a big fire. After the pot is boiled, put the pitted mountain red on the drawer covered with drawers, steam for ten minutes and turn off the heat to get out of the pot. When the cage drawer is not hot, you can tear off the red skin of the mountain and put it on the bamboo curtain to dry for half a day. Be sure to look at the moderation of the weather, if the weather is not dry enough, you can also take longer.
Use a copper pot or stainless steel pot to sit on a medium heat, add water two or two, and then add cotton white sugar three two. Use chopsticks to turn the sugar to melt, and when you see the sugar juice in the pot, add the dried mountain red tumbling several times out of the pot.
Stir-fried red fruits are served in small deep plates made with various pastels or glassware, and taste better when left cool. It is best to use a silver fork or a long-handled small-headed silver spoon to eat fried red fruit, which is generally used as a dessert after meals.
At present, there is only one dairy store in Meiyuan in Beijing that sells fried red fruits on behalf of others, and Daoxiangcun food stores can occasionally be seen. Although some Beijing-style rice zhuangzi can see fried red fruits, the production level is like canned hawthorn, which is completely famous but not real. Most of our ordinary home-cooked sweets are ready-made candies, so the fried red fruits with complicated production procedures are naturally on the verge of extinction.
Beijing's best golden jujube is produced in Miyun County, in modern times, due to the establishment of a people's commune in the countryside to change to collective ownership, the "grain-based" agricultural policy has caused many jujube trees to be cut down, as a result, the brand of "Miyun Jujube" in Beijing has gradually disappeared, and can only be replaced by the golden jujube in Cangzhou, Hebei.
Speaking of "rose dates", we must first introduce the rose sauce, and the rose sauce pickled in Beijing's Miaofeng Mountain is the best. The rose sauce produced in the southern provinces is not as good as that of The Miaofeng Mountain in Beijing, which may be due to the local climate.
There are two ways to make rose dates, one is the original flavor and the other is to add sugar and rose sauce. The original rose dates are made without rose sauce or sugar, because it is difficult to find sugar in the mountains or rural areas of the early years, and only by making rose dates can you eat sweets. This sweet dish is often eaten by the Taoist monks in the temple, perhaps because of the preparation method passed down from their cultivation. The old daoists of the Quanzhen sect always have to cultivate Dan and have the habit of "scorched pear fire jujube to welcome immortals", so they have always treated jujubes as the elixir that the immortal family must use, in fact, the nutritional value of jujube is indeed no less than that of the elixir.
Choose half a catty of gold silk jujube to wash, use a copper pot or stainless steel pot with water to sit in the middle of the fire. After the water has boiled, put the golden jujube into the pot, roll it with a spoon several times, and then use a colander to remove and dry. Change the pot for about a pound of water, and add the dried gold silk dates. After the water boils, add a little salt, and then use chopsticks to dip a drop of sesame oil into the pot. At this time, turn the heat to a slow low heat, you can shake the pot, do not use a spoon or chopsticks to turn the pot, so that the date skin will be scratched.
When the water in the pot is reduced, slowly dry the soup over low heat.
Serve on a four-inch small white porcelain dish when it comes out of the pan and cut it with a thin bamboo toothpick.
Sprinkle a little sugar and rose sauce before receiving the soup, and when the saccharification sauce is released, it is the so-called "honey juice rose dates". Chefs in Beijing don't put real honey in their dishes, because honey doesn't taste as good as sugar when heated, and it also destroys the nutrients in it.
This kind of "honey rose jujube" can still be common in tea houses or rice villages, and some have long changed the production method, not only putting honey in it but also putting artificial essence. This kind of jujube is beautiful and sweet, but after eating it, it is a little sour in the mouth.
In fact, the original rose jujube tastes the best, not only purple red as rose, but also the faint jujube fragrance also has a rose flavor, and the aftertaste in the mouth is sweet and has no sour taste. At that time, the house often ate this kind of rose jujube, and the rose jujube with rose sauce and sugar was commonly used by ordinary people. In fact, this is the habit of "so elegant" in Beijing's zhamen mansion, just like fragrant pieces of jasmine tea, high-class people never drink jasmine tea.
Pluck the lotus seeds
"Pulling silk" is one of the best things in Beijing's home-cooked sweets, which is a money-making dish of Rice Zhuangzi and one of the chef's signature dishes. At first, only lotus seeds and yams were the standard for pulling silk vegetables, and later any sweet potato, potato, taro, apple, banana, pineapple, honey orange, etc. could be made of silk. In terms of raw materials, only lotus seeds are the most expensive, while others are cheaper. Now the general silk pulling dish uses the latter, and the key is to get seven or eight times the profit. Now you can still see the lotus seeds at the Liuquanju Restaurant at the west entrance of the Gokokuji Temple, because it is the assembly line style of the rice village, and the taste is slightly different from the plucked lotus seeds we introduce today, but after all, it is a rare and unpopular dish of other rice villages.
Take the dried lotus seeds and soak them in warm water, wash them and put them in a bowl with water on the steamer. Steam over a large fire for about 30 minutes, and then turn off the heat to control the dry water after the lotus seeds are soft.
Sit in a wok over Chinese heat and add peanut oil to eight or two, and when the oil is 50% hot, slowly add the dried lotus seeds. Use a spoon to slowly push it clockwise, and when the skin of the lotus seed is tightened, use a colander to fish out the dry surface oil.
Remember not to blow the lotus seeds golden or fried, and also to make sure not to blow the lotus seeds to pieces.
Pour out the remaining oil in the pot and control the net, add a little water and then add the cotton sugar two or two. Use the spoon clockwise to rotate the bottom of the pot, see that the sugar liquid in the pot has no bubbles, use the spoon to stir up no sound, and the sugar juice changes from white to yellow. At this time, put the lotus seeds into the pot with the control of the net oil, and use the spoon to push and roll to roll the sugar juice to wrap the lotus seeds.
Apply a little oil to the surface of the blue and white round porcelain dish and put the lotus seeds out of the pot.
When serving, it comes with a small white porcelain bowl with cold boiling water, and when eating, it is dipped in water to avoid sticking teeth and hot mouth.
The above procedures should be fast, and this dish should be served immediately in winter. Eating pulled silk vegetables is also necessary to pay attention to the speed, if the sugar juice is slow, you will be able to eat the plate.
Another way to make plucked lotus seeds is to use fresh lotus seeds from July to make silk. The method is simpler than dry lotus seeds, which is to pluck the fresh lotus seeds wrapped from the lotus canopy. The difference is that instead of frying lotus seeds, you just need to boil the sugar juice to make it. Place the lotus seeds on a large lotus leaf and support it on a large white porcelain plate.
Eating silk lotus seeds is also a kind of elegant taste of eating river fresh, and at that time, it was important to drink wine and appetize in the embankment ponds of the Second Gate, Lingjiao Pit, Shichahai, West Sea and other places. Looking at the 10,000-stalked hibiscus of the lotus leaves, enjoying the scenery of the different red curved shores of the lotus flowers on the day, holding the lotus liquor in his hand, playing and singing with three strings: a line of egrets taking off...
This kind of beautiful scenery of mountains and rivers reflecting the sky is indeed a blessing for today's Beijingers.