Zhou Min
In the Sichuan-Chongqing region, or Bashu, when it comes to the New Year, the first thing that every household is busy with is necessarily to fill sausages and make bacon. This is the most intense flavor of the year.
Making sausage and bacon, over the years has also experienced a process of doing everything yourself, and now everything can be customized.
I remember when I was a child, in order to eat this bite, my mother would be busy for most of the month from beginning to end: selecting the best pre-sandwich pork into cubes and marinating it in a family recipe; scraping the casing as transparent as a cicada wing, using an iron or bamboo tube to prop it open to fill the meat, and then tying it up with thick cotton thread section by section; then lighting cypress branches to smoke the unique and charming aroma of sausage bacon. Finally, hang in the ventilation place and blow for ten days, you can eat.
Cypress branches are the soul auxiliary materials for making authentic sausage bacon The pictures in this article are all by the author Zhou Min
Nowadays, bacon is no longer allowed to pollute the air in the city, and many meat vendors also provide a one-stop service of irrigation and smoking, making sausages has become much more convenient. There are also many brands that supply pickled wax products, and every year in the wax month, the supermarket will set up a special area for customers to choose. However, many families will still choose "homemade", not because the price is cheaper, but more enjoy the fun of hand-picking, the customization of tastes and the feeling more assured.
Most of the pork stalls provide a one-stop service of irrigation and smoking
Sausage processing is a big business at the end of the year in the wet market
Sausages usually come in three flavors: Sichuan, Spicy and Cantonese.
Many outsiders think that Sichuan flavor is spicy, which is a big misunderstanding. In fact, the use of chili peppers in Sichuan cuisine began after the introduction of chili peppers from the Americas to China in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and the long history of sichuan cuisine has been very short. Even in the entire Sichuan cuisine, only about a quarter of the dishes are spicy and spicy. The real Sichuan-flavored sausage, pepper and pepper only put a little, taste is salty and fresh slightly sweet, very fragrant.
The left is Cantonese sausage, the right is Sichuan sausage, the real Sichuan sausage, spicy taste is actually very light.
There are many pickled wax products. In addition to the most mainstream sausages and bacon, you can customize it according to your own preferences, such as pork head, wax heart tongue and so on. Chongqing also has a special preference for eating pork ribs and pork trotters, and stewed soups such as dried radish, dried cowpeas or kelp are particularly fragrant and delicious.
Chongqing people are particularly fond of pork ribs and pork trotters
In my hometown of Pi County, Sichuan, my grandmother's family would also make a special New Year dish called "pop-up smoked meat".
In fact, this is a variant of bacon, the previous pickling process is similar to making bacon, but after marinating, it is hung directly in front of the stove, using the earth stove firewood when cooking in the countryside to directly "autumn" (autumn is the Sichuan-Chongqing dialect, which is the meaning of smoking. In daily life, we all say "autumn bacon", not "bacon" in one day.
Compared with bacon, pop-up tobacco meat is softer and sweeter, so fragrant that I eat an extra bowl of rice every time I eat it; but this meat has a short shelf life and is a real limited edition.
Sauce meat is also a standard for many families for the New Year, although it usually feels like a companion room. This is a simple recipe: pork belly is marinated with ready-made sauce and meat seasoning for a week, turned over once a day, and then hung up and dried for ten days.
Pork belly is marinated with ready-made sauce and meat seasoning for a week, turned over once a day, and then hung up and dried for ten days.
Sauce meat is a good choice for lazy people and is fairly simple to make
For many Sichuan-Chongqing people who have settled in other places, sausage and bacon are the strongest nostalgia during the New Year. At this time, receiving a box of pickled wax products made by family and friends from my hometown is the best comfort for not being able to return to my hometown for the New Year.
In addition to sausage bacon, "three steaming and nine buckles" is also indispensable for the New Year. In Sichuan cuisine, the name of the common steamed dish is specially given, which shows our love for steamed vegetables. In the "Chinese Cooking Master Sichuan Cuisine Technology Appraisal Textbook" compiled by Chinese cooking master Zhang Zhengxiong, it is introduced as follows: "'Three steaming and nine buckles' has a wide influence in Sichuan, red and white happy events cannot be separated from it, and it is indispensable to the New Year's Festival, which is an important part of sichuan people's food customs and hobbies, and has an indissoluble relationship with Sichuan people." ”
The name "three steaming and nine buckles" vividly shows the way to eat steamed vegetables. Whether it is the most popular roasted white, tamales or steamed pork ribs, or the old people's favorite sand meat (also called sweet roasted white), when steaming, it is the original bowl basket, the bottom of the bowl is made of potatoes, sweet potatoes, taro or fresh green beans, the meat is placed on top, and the combined bowl is steamed for two or three hours on a high heat.
When eating, take a plate, directly buckle the bowl back, steaming, the oil is red and bright, the meat has been steamed for a long time, the entrance is melted, the fat is mostly decomposed and not greasy, and the appetite for food is wide open. "Nine" means that the steamed vegetables are extremely rich.
The biggest advantage of steamed vegetables is that they can be prepared in advance, reducing the workload of handling night meals in Chinese New Year's Eve years. In addition, in the mother and other older generations, there is still a traditional custom: do not move the knife on the first or second day of the New Year, it is said that this can avoid hard work in the new year. At this time, steaming vegetables that only need to be simply heated are one of the best choices.
Tamales. Steamed vegetables are also the highlight of Sichuan-Chongqing New Year cuisine.
No matter how people pay attention to healthy eating today, but in the Chinese New Year's Eve meal, it must be hearty: chicken, duck and fish meat, indispensable, but also pay attention to a good color, send a good expectation for the coming year.
A typical Chinese New Year's Eve meal is also the most fully embodied in the true characteristics of Sichuan cuisine: "fresh and thick, spicy and spicy; one dish and one grid, hundreds of dishes and hundreds of flavors". The following dishes are often eaten by me from childhood to adulthood Chinese New Year's EveChinese New Year's Eve dinner table, just say a few:
Braised fish: This is a must, and it must be used carp, which means "more than enough every year" and "carp leaping dragon gate".
Cold mix chicken: chickens have to use native chickens, that is, rural free-range running pheasants or walking chickens, the meat quality is chewy, and it is best to be young roosters, which are tender to eat. If you use broiler chicken, this dish will have no taste at all. Sichuan-Chongqing customs, chicken feet mean "good planing food", symbolizing the coming year will be rich.
Pickled pepper chicken offal: In the Sichuan-Chongqing region, there are several kimchi jars in the kitchen, and a small dish of pickled ginger and sea pepper is fished out, plus a handful of fresh garlic seedlings that are quickly fried, which is a delicious appetizer. Duck offal is also ok, the same as the practice.
Meatballs: Needless to say, it represents "reunion". There are many ways to eat it: directly boil the ball soup, steam the lion's head, or add glutinous rice to steam, then called "pearl balls".
Crispy broth: This can also be done in advance. Cooked with sticks, it is a perfect match.
Back to the pot meat: "Sichuan home-cooked first dish", at this time there must be a row of noodles!
Compared to the north, one of the great benefits of winter in the Great Southwest is that fresh vegetables are in abundant supply and there are many varieties. "The land of Heaven", the frost-free period of up to 300 days a year, coupled with abundant rainfall and moist land, so winter is the peak season for vegetable production.
Small vendors selling vegetables usually close before Chinese New Year's Eve, and they don't reopen until after the fifth day of the Chinese New Year, so buying vegetables is also an important task a year ago. Resistant to storage of carrots, white radish, lotus root, potatoes can buy more, fresh leafy vegetables such as seaweed moss, cabbage moss, winter amaranth, lotus white, spinach, artemisia, Chinese cabbage, lettuce, etc., each should also buy some, in order to ensure that the big fish and meat at the same time, can consume sufficient vitamins every day.
Nori moss
White radish
Special mention is the children's dish. This vegetable looks very strange, and on the thick and short stem, small fat buds grow out of the clump, looking like a mother with multiple sons. This is a special vegetable in the Sichuan-Chongqing region, during the epidemic last year, Chengdu sent several truckloads of vegetables to Wuhan, and as a result, the people of Wuhan did not know how to eat, which was also on the news, and the children's dishes also made a splash in front of the people of the whole country.
The taste of the dishes is delicate, the taste is sweet, and the way to eat it is also diverse. The most common is boiled in white water, the most degreasing. You can also fry bacon or cold mix, both delicious.
In the heart of Sichuan-Yu Wanderer, children's dishes are also the taste of nostalgia. Every time I see me sharing children's dishes, my old classmates who go to Guangdong will say that they can't eat in the local area and are homesick.
One day, I actually saw a Chongqing friend who moved to Barcelona post her dishes, and I was surprised how I could eat them in Europe, and when I asked, I learned that it was the Chinese compatriots there who planted it themselves, and one tree sold for 5 euros. She laughed and said, "Although the flesh hurts, the whole kitchen is filled with the smell of hometown, which is really good."
Baby dishes
White-boiled children's dishes are especially popular during the Spring Festival when eating more big fish and meat.
Folded ear root is a southwest specialty. This wild vegetable in the botanical proper name is bracken, also called houttuynia cordata, the smell is special, in the Sichuan-Chongqing area, cold mix folded ear root is almost the standard in restaurants, very popular, appetizing and greasy, under the wine under the rice, are excellent. At this time, the wild ear root has just sprouted white and tender new shoots, which can be picked in the countryside, the most delicious, and the vegetable market is also widely supplied for cultivation.
Folded ear root, botanically properly called bracken, also called houttuynia cordata
In addition, the supply of fruits during the Spring Festival is also quite abundant: Fengjie navel oranges, sweet sugar cane, freshly marketed strawberries, grapefruit with a beautiful meaning, a variety of citrus, everything.
"Orange grapefruit autumn yellow, Kawachi victory also." Chongqing's locally produced Navel Orange for the Spring Festival.
After talking about so much food, in fact, I think that the most beautiful taste of the New Year is not the unusually rich meal on the table Chinese New Year's Eve, but in the process of carefully preparing this meal, watching the New Year get closer and closer every day, and the family who misses from afar is returning.
Always swap the new peach for the old charm
As the popular animated film "Spiritual Journey" told us some time ago, the most enjoyable life is not the moment when the goal of ardently hoping to be achieved, but the moment of full anticipation into the present day. When we started preparing for the New Year, the flavor of the New Year spread.
(Zhou Min, veteran media personality, museum enthusiast, is now a freelancer.) Participated in the compilation of the "Understanding chinese Plants Southwest Edmbian". Personal public number: plant addicts)
Editor-in-Charge: Wang Yu
Proofreader: Yan Zhang