Text/Meng Zehui The twenty-ninth day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar in the year of Xin Ugly
Eating noodles is not only the eating habit of our locals for hundreds of years, but also the way to eat it is very exquisite. Noodles are eaten in different ways throughout the year, which is why foreigners must have a full meal here. When you see the title of "noodle braised sauerkraut", perhaps the reader will understand, is not braised sauerkraut? In fact, this sauerkraut is very different from the sauerkraut you have eaten or understood.
In my vague memory, this tea dish was taught to my mother by my grandmother, so she used this cheap "noodle stewed sauerkraut" to feed us to grow up. This practice is not even known to the locals.
To say that this meal must first introduce the origin of the raw materials. Every year after the Mid-Autumn Festival, the cabbage (local dialect called: large vegetables, fennel white, cabbage, knotty white) of the vegetable team on the outskirts of the town is basically harvested, and only the 1 to 2 layers of old leaves (commonly known as: side leaves) that are yellowed on the edges of the vegetables are left in the field, which is the main raw material of sauerkraut. Most of the side leaves are fed to pigs and sheep, and they can go to the field to pack a few sacks, and even if the team charges a fee, it is a piece of eight cents.
The sauerkraut making process is not complicated. First wash and dry the side leaves, then chop them, put them in a large lid altar with a small belly, and then pour boiling water into it, and press a washed round stone on it, because it does not put salt, so it is called sauerkraut. For about a month, the brewed sauerkraut has a fragrant sour taste, the vegetable soup is transparent and clear, the leaves are original, and the food is crisp. On the contrary, the taste is sour, the vegetable soup is brushed (commonly known as: beef water), the leaves change color, and the hair of the food is not crisp. The selection of sauerkraut is extremely important, it is necessary to choose the best side leaves in the field after harvesting, and the green leaves on the appearance of large vegetables are generally not easy to make, during which the vegetable altar is taboo to be contaminated with meat.
The excipient of braised sauerkraut is potato (commonly known as: yam, potato), first peel and wash the yam, wipe the silk with a bed, and then wash it with water (the yam silk that is not washed is easy to paste the pot). Put the yam shreds and a certain proportion of sauerkraut and vegetable soup under the pot, and then add mutton oil, peppercorns, dried ginger, shredded green onion, black sauce, salt, generally do not simmer the pot, add water in an appropriate amount.
The noodles are generally prepared in advance with cold water and noodles, rubbing fish and fish, pushing nests, and cooking in the pot for 15 minutes. When eating, sauerkraut is mixed with noodles, and chili noodles or garlic are added according to their taste. In the winter, take a small pot and boil the remaining sauerkraut on the stove, and then tear the noodles and fish out of the pot, and when stewing a little, the taste of food is better.
My mother was alive, and every autumn came, she would spread a large altar of sauerkraut, almost once a day, until the following spring. To tell the truth, any kind of food, eaten every day, dilutes the appetite. When we were children, we often said: "When you enter the door, you smell the smell first, and it is braised sauerkraut", and the helplessness in the tone reveals obvious boredom. The mother was gone, wanting to eat it, leaving only a distant reverie. Many years later, I also tried to use the big vegetable green leaf to make sauerkraut, but the results ended in failure, and I never thought of it.
In that era, that sauerkraut, the taste that had long been immersed in the heart of childhood, was taken away by the mother. The braised sauerkraut that I once forged a hand in hand with still has that memory in my mind.