Xincun Village, 186 kilometers away from the county seat of Jingning, Zhejiang, is a village inhabited by the She ethnic group. Shemin has moved into this place for 1200 years, and the accumulation of years has overshadowed the small village with a layer of vicissitudes and a bit of simplicity. The white-walled Dewa and the towering ginkgo biloba bear witness to the joys and sorrows of the people's lives.
In addition to the unique festivals of the She, the most anticipated here is the "sunning autumn" during the yellowing season of ginkgo biloba every year. Corn cobs and peppers hang from wooden beams, dried mochi on wooden sills, dried red beans, dried brown vegetables, dried fish with sauce color... The view from afar is a colorful palette, so the style is not inferior to the huangling autumn.
Every dried food, the shemin will keep it well, in case of emergency. Although they don't like spicy food, they always make some paprika from dried chili peppers by hand, which they use as a daily condiment or give to their juniors.
Dried chili peppers cut off the pepper stalks, cut in half and then put into the stone mill to grind, and soon the finely crushed chili powder will be poured out, and the aroma and spiciness will jump into the nasal cavity, and then bottled for a year or two.
【Ingredients】
chili pepper.
【Directions】
1, fresh peppers after cleaning and slightly draining water, with threads, hanging on a wooden platform to air dry, with a wet towel to wipe away the floating dust on the surface of the dried peppers, a little dry, let the peppers become drier.
We are accustomed to making chili peppers into various forms of dishes and then further processing them. The average person's home, basically will be prepared with chili powder, chili oil, dried peppers, etc., although the taste of Zhejiang Jingning is light, it is inevitable to use chili peppers to add color to the dishes.
Shexiang people make chili powder, using Guizhou Erjing strips. This variety of chili peppers is moderately spicy, the pepper flavor is strong, the taste is spicy and sweet, the color is bright red, the skin is thin, the flesh is thick, the seeds are few, both the color and the form are beautiful, and the texture is crisp and refreshing. In addition to being used to boil red oil, the dried two thorns are mostly used to make chili powder.
2, after 10 days and a half months of exposure, with the fingers can easily crush the pepper, it means that the dried pepper has been almost sunburned. Pick out the dried chili peppers that are intact and remove the stems with your hands or scissors and cut them slightly twice.
3: Put the chopped dried peppers into the stone mill, while pushing the pole to grind, while sweeping the scattered pepper seeds into the stone mill to continue grinding.
Almost all the paprika made now is ground by machine, which is fast and convenient, but the taste of chili powder is far less delicate than that of stone grinding. The heavy pressure and friction of the stone grinding can maximize the release of the aroma of the pepper while keeping the chili seeds intact.
Grinding chili powder, generally two people can work together to complete, one person pushes the stone mill, one person puts dry peppers in the middle of the stone mill, seemingly simple actions, in fact, there is also a lot of learning:
(1) Stone grinding chili powder, can not add too much dried pepper at a time, and to maintain the speed of rotation every three seconds, otherwise the grinding powder will be relatively coarse.
(2) Can be recycled and milled. After the first grind, the large particles of peppers are sifted out and ground again, which can be ground to a relatively fine level.
4, grind for about 10 minutes, the pepper will become a finely crushed paprika, bottled and preserved for one or two years.
This way out of the chili powder, fried with oil will also be fragrant and spicy, usually you can put the prepared paprika into a large bowl, put the wok after heating into the rapeseed oil, wait for the rapeseed oil to heat up and smoke, take out the direct pouring in the paprika, the first pouring of rapeseed oil when the amount can not be too much, and in the pouring of hot oil to constantly stir, wait for the chili powder to absorb all the oil, stop a second pouring, rapeseed oil can be particularly good to stimulate the aroma of chili powder, can make the fried paprika fragrant and spicy.
Paprika, rich in antioxidants and extremely high in vitamins A and B. It can also add smoky, ripe and spicy flavors and is suitable for mixing spices in chicken or pork barbecues, as it effectively suppresses their unpleasant odors with a strong smoky taste.
Chinese has been eating chili peppers for more than 400 years, initially as an ornamental crop and medicine, and then people began to explore the role and deliciousness of chili peppers, and began to "plant as vegetables", which integrated chili peppers into the cuisine.
Nowadays, everywhere either likes sour and spicy, or likes spicy, or like sweet and spicy, which shows the diversity and richness of the taste of pepper. It can be said that for the people of Zhejiang and Guangzhou, who have always been light, they do not dare to guarantee that they can not use a little pepper when cooking.
The people of Jingning Shexiang, Zhejiang Province, make chili powder, from sowing seeds to drying autumn, as far as the eye can see, it is the fruit of labor. Such a scene is not only a beautiful decoration, but also a kind of thought, but also a kind of evidence of past life memory.