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The spring of Jiangnan people is packed in a vegetable basket

author:Southern Weekly

Seven heads and one brain, toon is the most victorious

The grazing feast of Jiangnan people kicked off, "seven heads and one brain" occupied the plate, and the "seven heads" included wolfberry heads, malan heads, camelina heads, toon heads, alfalfa heads, pea heads, and small garlic heads.

"Tsubaki buds are tender and silkless before the rain, and woody shoots are woody after the rain", the toons are like blossoms in vegetables and vegetables, and only half a moon appears. While it is tender, pick two handfuls of toon sprouts, wash them first, blanch them in boiling water, finely chop them into finely chopped, beat two eggs in a bowl, stir the Tsubaki segments and egg liquid evenly, boil the pot over high heat, the Tsubaki segments are wrapped in egg liquid, "croak" slide into the oil pan, stir the spoon until fried. A plate of golden and green toon eggs was served, and the saber rattling fragrance could not help but break into the nostrils, pick a chopstick, put it in the mouth, and the teeth were fragrant.

My grandfather had no hobbies in his life, and the only thing he enjoyed was "two sips of old wine". When it comes to drinking, you can't eat it. In that era of material scarcity, he made "articles" on the toons in his small courtyard, such as toons can be mixed with tofu, Wang Zengqi's article "Tofu" wrote: "Put in boiling water slightly hot, the stems and leaves turn turquoise, take out, knead with fine salt, wait cold, chop into minced pieces, mix with tofu, add a few drops of sesame oil" can be put on the plate. Toon boiled edamame is also a good accompaniment to wine, the method can refer to the "Bean Drinking Water Zhai Idle Pen": "The tender head of the toon is slightly blanched in boiling water, drained, chopped, and salted; Edamame is boiled with salt, mixed well with toon, cold, stored in glass bottles, and eaten every other day", the taste of "one mouth, three spring do not forget" is the most "top".

Every time during the tsubaki season, my grandmother would make a variety of toon delicacies to urge me to eat more. For example, toon egg pancakes, toon pork dumplings, toon fish... When I was a child, I was in a hurry to go to school in the early morning and refused to eat breakfast. Grandma got up early in the morning to spread toon egg burritos, she first chopped the toon, mixed it with the egg liquid, then mixed it with flour, added the seasoning according to the taste, mixed it into a batter, spread it on a pan, made a cake, and when I woke up, a fragrant toon egg burrito had been packed and put into the food box. Take it out and eat it between classes, delicious and hungry.

Speaking of "toon fish", I think of the gimmicks of "no wife in the wife cake" and "no snail in the snail powder", and similarly, there is no fish in the toon fish. Grandma stirred the egg liquid, flour and water into a paste, hung the toon paste, and fried it in a hot pan until golden brown.

My sister-in-law is an authentic Beijinger, who came to Jiangnan for the first time as a guest, and did not eat old Beijing fried sauce noodles for a few days, so he kept talking. At that time, it was the toon season, and my grandmother chopped the fresh toons into finely chopped pieces, blanched them in boiling water, mixed them well into the noodles, drizzled them with a few drops of rice vinegar, and the fried sauce noodles accompanied by toons suddenly rose a few positions. The diced meat in the fried sauce is fat and lean, added with toon, degreasy and fresh, eaten in the mouth, the pork is wrapped in the fragrance of toon, hot in a bowl of belly, the beautiful little sister-in-law is as comfortable as possible.

The spring of Jiangnan people is packed in a vegetable basket

Toon scrambled eggs (Visual China/Photo)

Pickled tuk fresh, "tuk" a pot of spring fresh

In the fifty-eighth episode of "Dream of Red Mansions", when Qingwen was laying vegetables, she brought a bowl of ham and fresh bamboo shoot soup to Baoyu. Baoyu took a sip on the table and said, "It's so hot!" The raider smiled and said, "Bodhisattva, if you don't see meat for a few days, you can get up like this." ”

It can make the rich and noble son eat such a "ham and fresh shoot soup", which is called "pickled tuk fresh" in the free postal area, "fresh meat and bacon stewed together, plus flat pointed shoots" (Wang Zengqi). "Pickled" means salted meat, "fresh" means fresh meat, and "tuk" is the sound of soup gently boiling in a pot under a slow simmer. The name of the dish "pickled tuk xian" does not mention "bamboo shoots", but spring bamboo shoots are the soul of this dish. If there is no spring shoots, you will not be able to achieve "pickled tuk fresh", after all, this pot of fresh nourishing spiritual energy is all in the water of spring shoots.

Foodie expert Li Yuquan Spring shoots are "clean, clean, fragrant, crunchy", and push it to the altar of "the first product in vegetable food". And the combination of fat meat and spring shoots is even more golden CP, "with meat, then cattle, sheep, chickens, ducks and other things, are not suitable, only suitable for pigs, and only suitable for fat." "Just because" fat does not want to be greasy, the fat of meat can be sweet, and the sweet taste is into the bamboo shoots, but it is not sweet but feels that it is fresh. ”

The method of marinating tuk tuk fresh is very simple, salted meat, fresh meat with a large amount of spring shoots, simmering for two or three hours, there is no technical difficulty, the only thing required is to stay in front of the stove and wait patiently.

A piece of good salted meat is the foundation for a good pot of marinated tuk fresh. In the old days, salted meat was all pickled at home, but now to eat a good piece of salted meat, you must go to the township farmhouse in advance to book. Fresh meat can choose five flowers, small ribs, Wudi people use more hooves, because the skin of the hooves is thick and fatty, lean meat is chestnut meat, more resistant to stewing than pork belly, and the elbow bone and salted meat stewed together is more fragrant, spring shoots are used to fresh, absorb oil, absorb taste.

My father was very good at "pickling tuk fresh", and I remember when I was a teenager, I would accompany him every Spring Festival. Before going to the pot, first peel the bamboo shoots, cut the hob into pieces, blanch the water to remove astringency, take it out and then cool it for later, and then blanch the fresh hooves and salted meat separately, remove blood impurities, wash the salted meat and cut it into small pieces. Put the hooves in a casserole, submerge with clean water and raise them a little, bring to a boil over high heat, add cooking wine, turn to low heat, cover and simmer for an hour. Then add bacon, bamboo shoots, lettuce, shiitake mushrooms, egg dumplings, fungus... Use a simmer to "tuk" slowly for two hours.

During this long wait, my father flipped through books or asked the neighbor's uncle to play Go for fun. Gradually, from the casserole came "grunt", tickling people's hearts, like countless insect hooked out of the stomach, each "grunt" sound, means that the soup is more delicious. Water vapor slowly emerged from the small hole in the lid of the pot, and the fairy mist between the stoves was shrouded, and the incense filled the room, and then filled the entire corridor.

The pickled tuk is fresh as soon as the pot is opened, but see the jade-white spring shoots, emerald green lettuce, and red and white salted meat, and the bamboo shoots are mixed and matched, and the beauty is indifferent and not conventional. The breadth and depth of Chinese cuisine lies in the "harmony of taste", and the perfection of pickled tuk chuk lies in the fact that a pot of soup can be surprisingly successful and penetrate each other, the salted meat is crystal clear, and the wax fragrance is overflowing; The hooves are crispy and rotten, fat and fresh and glutinous; Spring shoots are tender and crisp, water spirit, sweet and relentless, which can be regarded as a treasure among bamboo shoots. The hoof is fresh, the salted meat is fragrant, absorbing the freshness of the bamboo shoots, removing the greasy, and the spring shoots melt the fat aroma of the meat, helping it refresh, suddenly reminiscent of the Dongpo poem: "It is better to eat without meat than to live without bamboo". The relationship between bamboo and meat is either one or the other, water and fire are incompatible; In ordinary life, a simple single dish allows the two to blend with water and milk.

When you first taste it, the hoof is crispy and fat, the salted meat is thick, and as a fresh thing for the soul, spring shoots are even more crisp and sweet, and the taste is better than meat. Of course, the most amazing thing is the pot of soup that touches the tongue, scooping a mouthful of piping hot and fragrant milky white soup, the meat shoots are crispy and fragrant, and the knots are clear, even lettuce and leaf knots absorb the fresh aroma of meat and bamboo shoots, in the words of Shanghainese: fresh eyebrows will also fall off!

The spring of Jiangnan people is packed in a vegetable basket

A bowl of pickled tuk fresh, so fresh that the eyebrows fall. (Visual China/Photo)

Knife fish fresh, pond fish fat

The prophet of Spring River Warm Fish, the knife fish with the reputation of "the first delicious dish in spring", is the earliest and best seasonal fresh fish in this season. Su Dongpo has a poem "Looking at the silver knife that comes out of the net", because it is as white as silver and resembles a knife with a sharp sheath, it is called "knife fish".

"The shoulders are shrugged, the gills are red and freshly emerged, accompanied by ginger pepper, and the unripe fragrance floats the nose. The puffer fish is ashamed of its poison, and the river bass gradually loses its taste. "Some people praise the knife fish for being fragrant before it is cooked, comparing puffer fish and sea bass. The more exaggerated folk proverb "It is better to go to the tired house than to abandon the fish forehead", which means that it is better to give up the ancestral home than to give up eating the leftover knife fish head.

Although the knife fish is "sluggish but not greasy, delicious and beautiful", the fly in the ointment is that its fish bones are dozens of times more than ordinary fish, more than a thousand thick and thin fish bones are thick and thin throughout the body, and the entrance spines are as dense as needles, and people who cannot eat fish are easy to jam their throats. In order to solve this problem, Yuan Zhen provided two methods in "Suiyuan Food List": one is to "scrape the fillets with a very fast knife and use tongs to remove its thorns", and the other is to "cut the fish diagonally with a fast knife to break the bones, and then fry it in the pan... I didn't know there were bones when I was eating."

When my grandfather was alive, he bought back a large knife of more than two taels, processed it, and steamed it directly on the rice, or pasted it on a vegetable pot and let it steam. Such a precious knife fish, overcooking is a violent thing, steaming can maintain the original freshness, no salt, only "simmered with ham soup, chicken soup, bamboo shoot soup, wonderful". And steamed knife fish does not need to scrape off the scales, because the scales of knife fish contain a lot of fat, after steaming, the fish scales oil and the taste is fatter. The chopsticks hold the head of the fish, slowly lift, shake gently, the fish bones and meat are naturally loosened and separated, and the knife fish after the bones are removed, drizzled with a spoonful of farmhouse hot lard, and can be eaten.

In the eyes of Suzhou people, knife fish, like Biluo Chun, is not used to eat, but to taste. Therefore, my grandfather had his own ritual before eating knife fish, first rinsing his mouth with green salt, sitting down, using special bamboo chopsticks, picking a little fish meat and putting it in his mouth. Mingqian knife fish has a special grassy aroma, the meat is fresh and tender, the thorns are dense and dense, the tongue purses, the meat is pushed off the thorn, and the tender fish meat slips through the throat, which can be described as "not looking for thorns in the meat, but finding meat from the thorns".

The knife fish soup at the bottom of the plate is full of fish fat, which is both fat and fresh. Reluctant to throw it, let the kitchen next Soviet-style small wide noodles, drizzle with oily fish juice, wrap the noodles, and release the umami for a second time. As for the skeleton of the knife fish that was taken off, it was fried in the pan, sprinkled with pepper and salt, and the fish bones were golden and crispy, turning into a small snack with a unique flavor that can be eaten.

If you want to eat the meat of the knife fish quickly, you can skillfully remove its thorns, chop it into fish mushrooms, add salt, chopped green onion, pepper and other condiments to remove the fishy and fresh, stir well, wrap it in wonton skin, cook it in a pot, and the knife fish wontons after plate are crystal clear.

The spring of Jiangnan people is packed in a vegetable basket

One phase and one food, knife fish wontons (Visual China/Photo)

The rape blossoms are when the meat of the pond snakehead fish is the most delicious and fat, so Suzhou people call the pond snakehead fish at this time "cauliflower pond fish". Growing in wild streams, the pond fish are fleshy and tender, and do not have the slightest bit of earthy smell.

Wang Zengqi mentioned in his book "Talking about Eating": "Suzhou people are particularly heavy pond fish... When the pond fish is mentioned, the eyebrows are flying", Yuan Zhen recorded in the "Suiyuan Food List" that this thing "has the most tender meat." Frying, boiling, and steaming. "This seasonal dish has fallen into the hands of Suzhou people, and there are endless varieties. Tang snakehead fish stew egg is the most common practice, break the egg, stir the egg liquid, select the thumb-sized pond fish and put it in the egg liquid, directly steamed, the freshness of the fish meat with the steam into the egg liquid, the meat of the pond fish is whiter and tender than tofu, the stewed egg is also stained with the fresh aroma of fish, tender and soft, and the taste is extremely fresh.

Xuecai pond mandarin fish is a peasant dish, the ancients said that "meat is not as good as vegetables, those who can live above meat, only in one word". Catch the pond mandarin alive, dig spring shoots freshly, and put fresh snow mushrooms together in an iron pot, put handmade rapeseed oil, lard, and add straw to the earthen stove to burn, so that the burned pond fish is white and tender, the vegetables are golden, and the soup is milky white, this dish should only be available to farmers. I remember when I was a child, my grandmother cooked a pot of snow vegetable pond mandarin fish, specially put a bowl for me to bring to the next room to treat the domestic cat, left and right waiting for the cat figure, the bowl wafted a burst of fresh fragrance, tickled my heart. Can't help but stretch out a finger and dip some soup in the mouth, tongue roll, the soup taste is very appetizing, and tear some meat, piece by piece of watercress meat tender and plump, tear and dip, can't stop. When the cat wandered around and returned to the house, only the soup was left, and the cat didn't care to jump into my arms and lick my face after licking the basin.

The black and autumn pond fish may seem difficult to climb the hall of elegance, but Chinese cuisine is broad and profound, and a "pickle bean soup" makes it a national banquet. The so-called "douban" is the first half of the moon-shaped two pieces of meat on the gills of the pond snakehead fish, the size of the nail but white and tender, a bowl of pickle bean soup, need to gather dozens of pond fish about two taels. The method is simple, cut the wintering snow vegetables into fine pieces, first stir-fry them with lard, then add fish soup to boil and then boil over low heat for a while, put the marinated watercress meat into the pot, and then blanch it slightly to get out of the pot. At this time, the bean paste meat was as tender as tofu, and the poets of the Ming Dynasty left "smooth and tender and extremely beautiful fat, and the throat three or two gold" praised. When Prince Sihanouk came to Suzhou, he ate "pickle bean soup" twice, which shows that its taste is unmatched.

The spring of Jiangnan people is packed in a vegetable basket

Gangnam style spring dining table (Visual China/Photo)

Aquatic snail

"Jin Shu Zhang Han Biography": "Han saw the autumn wind rising, and he thought of spinach, water soup, and sea bass in Wuzhong." Zhang Han resigned and returned home for the thought of lettuce, which shows the charm of lettuce.

Ulva comes out of the Taihu Lake Dongting Mountain, and spring lettuce is the best. Ye Shengtao said: "In the spring of my hometown, I eat lettuce almost every day... There are always one or two boats without canopies resting in Shibutou, full of lettuce, fished from Taihu Lake. If you get it so convenient, of course, you can have a bowl of Japanese food." An easy word for "fishing" shows that the "laborers" do not know the hardships of the people. Picking lettuce is a chore, just imagine, the spring is cold, the hands of the lettuce are immersed in the cold and biting lake water, reaching into the lettuce bush, picking the young shoots under the leaves, the shoots are wrapped with a layer of sticky gum, smooth and greasy, it is not easy to pick, a skilled picker can only pick about 20 pounds a day.

Dongting Ulva is comparable to Dongting Biluo Spring Tea, both of which are equally turquoise, curled, fragrant, and the same bud and leaf, so they are called "water snails". "Wu Jun Years Hua Jili" recorded: "The lettuce came out of Taihu Lake under the Dongting Mountain... It is famous and delicious. Yuan Shigongyun's crispy and silky, like fish pith and crab fat, its quality is not right. Because the lettuce secretes an agar-like mucus, it is tender and smooth to eat. In fact, the lettuce itself has no taste, and the taste is all about the ingredients and a good pot of soup.

In Jiangnan, the golden partner of Taihu lettuce is Taihu whitebait. To make this dish well, one must have a good soup and freshness, chicken soup, fish soup; The hook between the two should not be heavy, and the hook into a paste is not beautiful; Finally, it is best to "cross the bridge", that is, after the lettuce is added to the seasoning in oil, it is fished in another utensil for later use. Once the soup is served, gently slide the lettuce into the soup so that you can eat the green and fresh lettuce.

It is said that the gourmet Wang Zengqi first tasted the lettuce soup in the outer building of the West Lake Tower, he was already standing at a young age. My father is an authentic "family cook", he often "creates" the cooking method, renovates the pattern to coax me to eat, such as fish balls, shredded meat and other meaty soup. My favorite is the three-shredded soup of lettuce, that is, shredded chicken, shredded ham, shiitake mushrooms into the soup, my father's knife skill is skillful and delicate, the three shreds are finely cut without connecting, and the lettuce that comes out of the soup is green and refreshing. Serve it on the table, scoop a mouthful of soup, slippery through the tip of the tongue to the throat, chew while hot, the lettuce is fresh and tender, mixed with the fresh aroma of shredded chicken and ham, which makes people have a great appetite.

The spring of Jiangnan people is packed in a vegetable basket

Taihu lettuce (Visual China/Photo)

Ming Qian snail race fat goose

The snail is a thing that can be found all year round, but the snail meat is the fattest and tenderest. At this time, the snail is still lying in the shell in a state of hibernation, accumulating a rich meat, the taste is at its peak, sauce, drunk, bad, stir-fried can be all kinds of samples.

When I was a child, it was just dawn, and my cousin dragged me to the river to touch the snails. Walking down the river steps, bending down, reaching out along the edge of the stone steps, pulling it over, a row of snails was held in the palm of his hand, and in a short time, a large basin was harvested. My brothers returned home carrying the basin, not in a hurry to get off the pot, but to put it in clean water for a while, drizzle a few drops of sesame oil to encourage the snail to spit out the sediment, and then cut off the "tail".

There are too many ways to make snails, and the most common one is the sauce popping snail. First heat the oil pot, add green onions, ginger and stir-fry until fragrant, then pour in the cleaned snails, add soy sauce, cooking wine, star anise, salt, etc. to stir-fry together, and finally add white sugar to collect the juice, if there are conditions, add bone broth to simmer, it can be fresher to the eyebrows. The cooking trick of this dish is to control the heat, if the heat is not enough, the meat will have a fishy smell, and if the heat is too much, it will be easy to age and not delicious. The sauce on the plate is fresh and scalding, thick oil red sauce, adults and children, each hand a bowl.

The snail is called "canned meat" by my hometown, and the shell of the snail is like a very miniature can, with a cup of soup and meat boiled inside, and the image is extreme. To eat snails with raw hands, prepare a box of toothpicks in advance, lift the screw lid, gently pick, and the fresh and firm snail meat pops out, and the snail meat mixed with the soup brings a full and powerful impact to the taste buds. And the real gluttonous snail is disdainful of using tools, I Jiangnan more "snail" master, with three fingers to pinch the snail shell to fix, pick off the snail cover, aim at the snail mouth a sigh, a bite, the tender snail meat wrapped and soup in response to the mouth, the beauty of "ho" is in this soup with meat a mouthful.

This seemingly simple way to eat is also a "kung fu unique skill". Use the tongue against the screw mouth to suck, its force is wonderful, can be described as "one heart", too strong strength, will suck the snail intestine into the mouth, the strength is insufficient, then the left and right can not come up. Chen Xiaoqing, the chief director of "China on the Tip of the Tongue", wrote in his book "The Taste of the World": "A local woman at the same table stretched out her slender jade hand, held a snail with her first three fingers, gently approached her lips, her cheeks trembled slightly, and only an empty shell remained at her fingertips... The whole process is like a flying kiss, frivolous and elegant..."Can turn the snail into a "hiccup", this "hi" kung fu has been perfected.

I learned to "snail" and not be decent. In a burst of "booming" sound, the fatty snail meat was poured out, and the fresh and thick snail soup was poured out, one after another, the taste and flavor, and the soup was sipped in one hand. "Raw is a bowl, cooked is a bowl; If you don't eat it, it's a bowl, it's still a bowl if you eat it", this is a nursery rhyme in my hometown describing snails. Wudi has a saying: "The wind is cool and tuk-tuk, the salted egg is snoring, and the snail is snail". At six or seven o'clock in the evening, the single young man living across the door from my house began to move tables and stools, set up round tables and benches in the courtyard of the mansion, a plate of cold cucumbers, half a salted duck egg, a bowl of sauce and popping snails... They are all excellent accompaniment to wine, the guy leans on the rattan chair, takes a sip of old wine, snails, and is very comfortable. The neighbor's uncle looked at it and quipped: What is the meaning of drinking yourself? Why don't you find a girl to play with? The young man said with a playful smile: I have a girl from Tian Luo as a companion.

Snails are a seasonal dish in Gangnam restaurants, which require higher quality snails, often choosing greener snails with larger sizes. Dark red ham, turquoise lettuce, pale yellow spring shoots, big red pepper... The snails are soaked in milky white stock made with pork bones, and the taste is disgusting when you think about it. When a skilled family cooker cooks fish stew, she will also put a few snails to "hang fresh".

The spring of Jiangnan people is packed in a vegetable basket

Chicken sauce roasted snail lion (Visual China/Photo)

It is said that "seafood is fresh, Jiang fresh is delicious", and when it comes to the snail season, on the night stall on the corner of Jing Street in Jiangnan City, the snail has become a "net celebrity" for supper because of its "complete range of condiments and many colors, and the taste is cheap and can be used for wine". Two or three friends, ten or twenty yuan to order a plate of sauce snails, and then a bottle of beer, chat about homely and hoo snails... The atmosphere came up, and in the endless sound of "ho" sound, "ho" broke the rule of "food without speaking" on the table set by the saint, and also broke the slow life of Jiangnan people.

Shen Gongjing

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