Mung bean balls are an authentic traditional snack, it is mainly popular in the eastern part of Henan and northwestern Anhui, very popular with the locals, during the Spring Festival, every household basically has to croquettes, use it as a side dish in the hot pot, or make ball soup.
After harvesting the wheat, autumn crops and field plots began to be planted with high-yielding crops such as soybeans, corn, and sweet potatoes. Some corners and scattered plots grow some cash crops such as peanuts, mung beans and sesame seeds. Like most of us here grow some mung beans, usually burn mung bean porridge with points, mostly in the New Year, take to fry mung bean balls.
Autumn went to winter, and in the blink of an eye it was the waxing moon. As the saying goes, "After eating Lapa Rice, I will do it for the year." After lappa people began to get busy, buying what they should buy and selling. Diligent people began to fry steamed buns, mung bean balls and other Food for the New Year. At this time, the big stone mill in the village began to turn, and there were three or five people in front of each of them, waiting to grind the green beans into two petals to croquettes.
Put the mung beans ground into two petals, put them in a large basin, pour warm water into them, soak the mung beans for about one to two hours, rub the mung beans with your hands a few times, and then stir the warm water with your hands, the mung bean skin floats up with the waves, and then use a small fence to wash the mung bean skins.
Rinse the clean mung beans, put them on the small stone mill, grind them into foam, and then put the mung bean foam in the basin, add salt, five-spice powder, chopped ginger and chopped radish, and finally add the right amount of flour, (flour should be less, not more, more hair, hard and not delicious, you can add more radish) to fry.
When frying again, first put in one or two balls to see if it is formed, if it is spread out, then add flour or steamed buns (steamed buns with dry kneading) and other balls are floated out in rows, cooled, and re-fried for a second time.
I remember when I was a child, when I fried steamed buns and balls, I didn't let the children be in front of me, saying that children sometimes spoke unluckily, which was easy to offend the gods, and let the children go out to play. Now that I think about it, it may be because the oil temperature is too high when frying things, and I am afraid of burning children.
Now, every winter in our town, there are people who sell ball soup, set up a large stove on the side of the road, set up a large iron pot, and make a living. Every morning, a large soup is cooked, with pork bones, chicken racks and some fatty meat, and a large handful of red peppers, which is particularly beautiful and tempting. When guests come, take out the mung bean balls that have been fried at night, pour the hot soup rolling, sprinkle with coriander, garlic sprouts, and like to eat spicy and then put in the chili oil, the taste is particularly good. If you accompany the burnt bread next door, it costs three or five yuan, and a breakfast is complete!
(The mung bean balls in the picture are made of machines, and families can make them bigger)