Before and after the Qingming Dynasty, the rain is pouring, and everywhere spring is budding,
There is a plant whose growth touches the hearts of countless foodies,
That is the protagonist of the Qingming Season, wormwood.
The resulting dumplings —
Shanghai Ningbo called Qingtuan,
Nanjing is called the Spring Regiment or the Qingming Regiment,
Wenzhou called to make Qingming cakes,
Shaoxing is called Qingming,
The Guangfu and Hakka people called the Youth League Ai Fin.
Cantonese people pay attention to not eating from time to time,
It's a good time to eat mugwort,
Let's take a look at it
Magical health herbs
Mugwort leaves, also known as wormwood, wormwood, thistle, mugwort, sexual taste bitter, spicy, warm, into the spleen, liver, kidney meridians, can disperse cold and dehumidification, warm menstruation to stop bleeding. It is suitable for cold bleeding and abdominal pain, and has obvious curative effect on women's cold menstrual irregularities, abdominal pain, and leakage, and is a gynecological medicine. In traditional Chinese folk medicine, mugwort has been used to prevent plague for thousands of years, and it belongs to the one-flavored Chinese herbal medicine that is easily sourced in situ.
Fresh mugwort leaves can often be used as dietary therapy, external washing for skin itching, etc.; while dried mugwort leaves are used in pharmacies to dispense medicines or often mashed to get moxa velvet, made into moxa sticks, through the meridians, warm meridians to stop bleeding, etc., both of which are commonly used in Chinese medicine.
Both the mugwort stem and the leaves contain volatile aromatic oils. It produces a unique fragrance that repels mosquitoes, flies, insects and ants, and purifies the air. In the folk, in order to cure diseases and ward off evil spirits, there are customs of eating mugwort on march three, hanging mugwort leaves at the door of May 5, and washing mugwort leaves in medicinal baths.
Qingming Mugwort incense
The Qing Dynasty gourmand Yuan Ming wrote about the practice of qingtuan in the "Suiyuan Food List": mashing grass for juice, and powder as a dumpling, the color is like jasper.
Green juice is different?
To make green dough, you need to have 3 raw materials: green juice, dumplings and filling, of which the production of green juice is particularly critical. The wormwood before and after the Qingming Dynasty is the most tender, and the most seasonal and most suitable for making green juice. In Jiangsu and Zhejiang, it is generally based on sage as the main raw material, while amy fruit and moxa are generally based on wormwood as the main raw material. Since wormwood does not exist every day, most of the green doughs on the market are colored with wheat green juice.
What shape?
The shape of Qingming fruit in different regions is different, ranging from dumpling-shaped, round, triangular, and mooncake-shaped. The Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas are usually wrapped in bean paste or other sweet fillings to make a ball; the Hakka generally press the mugwort into a flat circle, which is mainly sweet; the Jiangxi region likes to wrap the meat filling and knead it into a dumpling shape.
What filling?
Among the strange fillings of mugwort, sweet and red bean paste are the most common, don't forget to add lard and osmanthus flowers. Sautéed soybean paste, sautéed black sesame seeds and crushed peanuts in lard also have their own places. There is a simpler and purer, peanut sugar directly wrapped in, just out of the pot when the sugar has not been fully melted, a bite down that is the sweetness of the sound.
Salty, dried maran head, cabbage meat filling, bamboo shoots clove mushroom clove pork filling, are seasonal side dishes, with the aroma of wormwood, eat into the belly is a unique spring flavor.
How does Ai Fin do it?
Wormwood has so many effects,
But do you know how to make ai fin?
Today Xiaobian teaches you by hand!
1. Pick mugwort leaves
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The first step in making "mugwort" is to pick mugwort leaves. Mugwort leaves should be fresh, choose a good ecological environment, no pollution in the field, you can pick it at will.
2. Wash mugwort leaves
The freshly picked mugwort leaves are selected and sorted once, leaving the young leaves and young stems, and washed with water a few times before being put into the pot and boiled. (Generally three times on it, pay attention to washing when the hand does not twist out the mugwort too hard, otherwise the taste of the mugwort made is not good)
3: Boil the wormwood leaves
The mugwort leaves are cleaned and put into the pot to cook. Cook until the mugwort is rotten enough, you can pick it up, rinse the cooked mugwort leaf with cold water, remove the bitter taste, mash and set aside.
4. Make the dough
Slowly add the cooked mugwort leaves to the prepared glutinous rice flour and sticky rice flour (the sticky rice flour is added to reduce the stickiness, so that the mugwort is not too soft, and the sticky rice flour can also be replaced by flour), while adding and stirring, you can knead the mugwort and rice flour more fully. Rub until the two are fully fused. This step requires relatively large toughness and can also be replaced by a machine.
Tips
Relatives may have doubts, the dough made is green, is it put in the pigment? Put your ears together, Xiaobian secretly tells you a little trick: put a little "alkali water" when cooking mugwort leaves, which can not only increase the softness of mugwort leaves, but also maintain the original color of mugwort leaves
5. Prepare the filling
The filling is generally divided into salty and sweet. The crushed and sautéed peanut rice, plus sesame seeds and powdered sugar (brown sugar and white sugar are available) to make a sweet filling;
The so-called "taste of fresh and unequal spring shoots", during the Qingming Dynasty, spring shoots are the most tender and fresh. Hakka people like to put in spring shoots when making salty fillings, and you can add pork, shiitake mushrooms, and fungus to taste better! According to personal preferences, it can also be made into ginger candy, lotus paste and so on
6. Bao Ai Fin
It's time to get your hands on it. Knead the kneaded moxa into small dough of comparable size and set aside, then rotate the moxa to form a bowl-shaped fin embryo. Make a bowl shape can put more filling, and the thinner the fin embryo, the better the taste of the moxa, but be careful not to cross the thin bottom line, otherwise it will "dew" Oh!
7. Steamed moxa
This is the last step in the complex process, put the steamer into the pot, usually steamed for 15 to 20 minutes (less time, glutinous rice will stick to the teeth, and it is not good for the stomach; if the time is too long, the surface of the moxa will be like bubbling bubbles, and it is important to master the heat);
After 15 minutes ~ the moxa is freshly baked ~ the whole house is full of mugwort leaves. Brushing a layer of pure peanut oil on the finished moxa not only maintains the luster of the moxa, but also prevents the moxa from sticking together.
These three groups of people eat with caution
People with poor blood sugar control
Even if the merchant claims to sell sugar-free varieties, regardless of the filling, its skin contains a lot of starch, itself belongs to high-calorie food, its GI value (glycemic index) is not low, and the glutinous rice food itself is very high in blood sugar, which will push high blood sugar.
People with high blood lipids
Whether it is the traditional bean paste filling or the current new favorite salted egg yolk meat pine filling is high in fat content, so if you want to eat with peace of mind, you may wish to make a low-fat, low-salt and low-sugar healthy version of moxa fin yourself.
People with poor gastrointestinal function
Because it is a glutinous rice product, the texture is sticky, the texture is tighter after cold, and with the addition of oil, it is more difficult to digest. Moxa is easy to stimulate gastric acid secretion, so gastric motility is insufficient, excessive stomach acid and gastric ulcer patients should be controlled. Pancreatitis and gastritis should be tightly controlled, because the glutinous rice in mochi can cause the recurrence or worsening of these inflammations.
Does your family Qingming do ai fin?
Do you prefer sweet or salty?
Go to the comments section and leave your family's delicious secret recipe~
Source: Integrated from Guangdong Communist Youth League, Foshan Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shaoguan Release, Fruit Shell, Family Doctor and Network
Editor: Jia Chen
Editor-in-charge: Chen Guangtai