Stuffed skin is a traditional folk snack in Yongchang, also called noodle skin.
It's simple. After mixing the fine wheat flour from the Hexi Corridor with water and forming the dough, knead it repeatedly, and then set aside to let the sleeping dough wake up slightly. After that, the dough is scrubbed over and over again in pre-prepared water, washed around, the dough is washed smaller and thinner, and finally all the starch in it dissolves into the water, and what is left on the washer's hand is the best plant protein - gluten. This protein is porous, soft and tough, like an imitation sponge, with a good adsorption capacity, laying a natural foreshadowing for its later deliciousness.
In addition, the starch that dissolved in the water after being separated from the dough was settled on the bottom of the basin after a period of time. Above is a layer of white floating water, carefully pour it out, and mix an appropriate amount of edible alkali water into the paste starch under the precipitation. All alkaline water is best made from local self-burning natural fluffy ash. Local flour, local lye water, there is an innate kinship, get along together, know the roots, have no guard and exclusion from each other, appear cordial and harmonious, and it is easy to reach a consensus on the depths of the taste.
After mixing with the lye water, use a wooden spoon to scoop the paste evenly into the pan, then steam it, remove it, cool it slightly naturally, and form a dough. When eating, cut the dough into strips or lumps, put it in a porcelain bowl, and then sprinkle the gluten mentioned earlier and pour "garlic water". Don't think of this garlic water as an idle thing, it is made by the Yongchang people boiled soil vinegar (bran, chaff and other fermentation brewing), sesame oil spicy seeds, garlic paste, mustard juice and so on. The garlic water is poured into the bowl, first absorbed by the porous gluten, the remaining juice is then soaked down along the gap of the dough strips, and finally stirred with chopsticks, the garlic water and all the gluten and dough are integrated and intimate. Most of the mystery of the delicious stuffing skin is in the garlic water.
The pure wheat aroma of the dough seems to be specially made for garlic water, and the garlic water seems to be more valuable because of the presence of the dough, and it knows that without the dough, it will be lonely because there is no taster. This is like the relationship between the verse and the rhyme foot, the verse supports the rhyme foot, and the rhyme foot sublimates the verse. The dough is the verse, and the garlic water is the rhyme.
After the garlic water is mixed, it can be eaten.
After stirring, the dough skin is still yellow and bright, and it is sour and spicy to eat, smooth and refreshing, so it naturally produces a sucking and sucking sound. The texture is elastic and feels particularly chewy. The porous gluten, because it absorbs a full amount of garlic water, becomes the forefront of the taste. Chewing on it, the taste of sour and spicy, flax oil, and fragrant mustard juice stirs and cooperates with each other, overflowing from the hole, and led by it, the whole bowl of flavors is synthesized into a symphony of taste, performed on the stage of the tongue. In particular, the mustard juice mixed into it is gray and white, there is a soaring spicy taste, if you do not exhale and swallow, but inhale and eat it, it will be sharp and sharp, pulling a mustard strange fragrance, choking your tears. If it happens to be the most hungry time, it will flow with saliva and tears, and the saliva will spread over the tip of the tongue, almost in danger of breaking the embankment.
Depending on the season, the hot summer eats cold, cool and cool; the cold winter eats hot, warm tongue and warm teeth. Dough is a kind of civilian food, and when the laborer is hungry, he eats a bowl of solid food, which relieves both hunger and hunger. It has thick piers and solid porcelain, and is the most honest of the various foods available today. It only sells its own reality, and disdains to play fancy postures. The name brewing skin is to confess a kind of earthy custom and thickness. Just as pig skin and cow skin are the skins of livestock, it is also a kind of skin, the skin of the new life after the peel of the grain wheat is removed, and it is the skin of the delicacy brewed by the farming civilization, wrapped around the tongue and tongue of the farmer, wrapped in spring, summer, autumn and winter. Calling it a stuffed skin, like calling the nickname of a villager, is kind and heartfelt.
Because it is directly processed from wheat flour, it is a typical low-carbon food, and eating more of it is beneficial to reducing carbon emissions and cultivating virtue with thrift. As for health, it is not to mention - clean the stomach and intestines, discouragement.
Decades ago, when I first joined the work, I was poor, my salary was too low, I ate very little meat, I often felt hungry, hungry, just in the small market in Zhuwangbao Town, I ate a bowl of Qinghe stuffed skin, and suddenly the hunger disappeared, the stomach was squirming freely, the intestines were stretching contentedly, and people suddenly had spirit. At that time, the most eaten was a master named Mao Run, who sold a lot of stuffed skins, which had a lot of flavor, good taste, and enthusiasm, so it was the most popular. Later, the job was transferred, and he could no longer eat his dough. Later, I went to a few times, did not see anyone, and heard that because I was old, I rested at home.
I also ate at the food stalls in the county town, and I always felt that I couldn't catch up with that time. Perhaps, the taste in the memory has been ignited for a long time, and the vinegar aroma of the stall owner's newly opened altar is difficult to reach.
The distant taste is also a kind of "taste" nostalgia. Today's stuffed skins are sometimes solemnly served to banquets, and after eating a table full of meat, it is also a good match to relieve the taste of the big vegetarian for the battle. However, that is only a foil, in the position of a servant, between seven plates and eight bowls, the status of the plain face stuffed skin does not rise but falls. According to my observation, some eaters almost always taste shallow, and after drinking and eating, the tip of the tongue cannot taste the true taste of the stuffed skin. But there are also those who are as precious as I am, and the seven plates and eight bowls of the table are always overflowing with joy when they see it, and the wine and flesh are added to the consummation.
At the end of this article, swallowing saliva, I wrote the following lines for our stuffed skin:
The skin of the noodle stuffing
Watered with garlic water
Pour a large piece of the taste buds into flowering
The eater is thus full of spring light
The skin of this face
Heng has an ageless face
Let it shine
Life becomes younger
Author: Wang Zeyu
Edit: Lan Rui
Editor-in-Charge: Jin Zhaofei