In Xi'an, there is a noodle dish with a darker and yellower color called soba noodles (pronounced huo·luo)
It is a type of noodle dish in which soba noodles are pressed into a cylindrical slender strip of soba (a wooden tool with many round eyes, which are now made of steel and plastic).
Xi'an Huokou, Xiekou and Puhua Street in Lantian County are the most famous soba dumplings. If you go out for a walk, it is not difficult to find that wonton is more common in northern China, in addition to Xi'an, Henan, Hebei and other places, the difference is in the thickness and the choice of flour is different, and the name is not the same, such as I have eaten in some areas of Henan, the local people call it he leak (pronounced hé · lou), in some places on a street door to door restaurant wall, the door is written on the river leak. Of course, there are also places called river leaks. In the twenty-fourth episode of "Water Margin", it is written that Ximen Qing asked the princess, "What does the wall sell?" Wang Po said, "His family sells steamed river leaks hot and mild and spicy pastry." Among them, "river leak" should be the name of "Bird" in Hebei at that time.
Li Shizhen said in the Compendium of Materia Medica: "Buckwheat is found in both the north and the south... Grind it into noodles, make pancakes, eat them with garlic, or make soup cakes, called river leaks, for regular food."
Even the Qianlong Emperor during the Qing Dynasty was particularly fond of eating dumplings, which were once paid as tributes to the imperial palace, and the Qianlong Emperor also recruited cooks who made birds to enter the palace to make dumplings.
Xi'an's soba noodles are most famous for their openings, slanted mouths and Lantian Puhua places, which are said to be because of the large amount of buckwheat grown in these places before, and until now there are skilled craftsmen who can make wonton beds, so pressing and selling wontons has become a very important source of local economy.
Originally, Xi'an rarely sold dumplings, to eat dumplings have to wait for the Sunday Baqiao set, at that time as long as it is Sunday, as soon as you arrive at the Baqiao set, you can see the Baqiao street along the road, from east to west are full of dumpling stalls, there are pre-pressed in the basket to weigh the pounds to sell, there are canvas tents under the support of the dumpling bed bowl a bowl of fresh pressure, my understanding of the dumplings was the earliest from about thirty years ago on the Baqiao set began.
Two thousand years or a few years I can't remember clearly, anyway, after the opening of Lifeng International in the East Second Ring Road, before the opening of Xiaozhai Saige, I saw for the first time in the Xi'an area other than Baqiao Ji, and until now I still remember very clearly, the restaurant that my friend took me to at that time was in the south of the gate of Lifeng International Signal Factory. The reason why I say this is because I drove a taxi with the master in Xi'an about 200708, and I had never seen a restaurant selling soba noodles in other places in Xi'an before, and at most I occasionally met a tricycle or a 28 bicycle on the road with a basket while shouting and selling the kind of dried soba dumplings that had been pressed in advance.
Later, with the successive withdrawal of counties and districts around Xi'an, such as Lintong, Chang'an, and Lantian, the economic level of people around Xi'an has been continuously improved, and slowly those places in my consciousness are no longer the "outer counties" in my previous consciousness.
No matter where the bird is in Xi'an, the noodles used to press the bird must be soft and soft, and when pressing the bird, the pre-reconciled noodles are kneaded into a long column and put into the big hole on the top of the bird bed, and then the wooden plug on the top is aligned to the dough, and the person sits on the bird bed and presses down hard by gravity, and the bottom of the big hole on the top of the bird bed is pressed out of a bunch of noodles thick and thin...
Pressing the bird is a strong work, the strength should be evenly proportioned, and the strength on the arm cannot be made, so we used to see people sitting on the pressure rod on the top of the bird bed. If it is difficult to sit and press, it means that the face is too hard! If you use brute force again, it is easy to break the bird bed.
The bird bed is generally more than a meter long, bulky and heavy, and gradually appears to be incompatible with modern dining, plus in the past when the carousel is pressed people often sit on the rowl bed, some people think it is unhygienic.
In the ninth year, a simple dough press with iron pipes appeared on the market, and there was a hand handle to drive the sprocket to press the dumplings
At that time, with its low price and high efficiency, this machine quickly appeared in some restaurants at that time.
It was also at that time because of the high efficiency, especially in the crossroads at the north end of Beihuo Lane on the south side of Anrenfang that brought fire to the stick noodle business.
Later, in the light industry market, there was a smaller and simpler dough press.
Some people use it to press the dumplings, it is indeed more convenient, some are also equipped with multiple square, round iron sheets that can press out noodles of different thicknesses, and more and more patterns are pressed out, but this is no longer a bird bed
And, along with the kind of bird that was pressed out with a long handle, it also changed its taste!
Later, there were hydraulic machines for pressing birds
People just need to put the noodles in and press the switch, it is easy, but they can no longer eat the feeling of the past.
In the past, people felt that white bread white noodles are the best, in the eyes of the vast majority of people, can not get the table noodles of soba noodles compared to white noodles, just the color is black, people can not love, and then with the continuous change of people's health concepts, more and more people realize the importance of coarse grains for health, many people feel that soba noodles for the balance of the usual high oil, high sugar, high fat nutritional intake is helpful, so the restaurants selling soba noodles in the streets and alleys of Xi'an are also more, especially in recent years, Many catering enterprises such as Yuanjia Village, as well as large and small food cities and snack cities, are also selling soba noodles and dumplings, and more talents can taste the traditional cuisine with local characteristics of Xi'an.
I think that Xi'an's soba noodles are roughly divided into three types: hot (soup) birds, cold birds and sheep blood birds. Hot dumplings are generally called steamed dumplings in Xi'an, pay attention to hot soup hot dumplings, mix salt and oil spicy seeds, see a little vinegar, soup just covered the bowl of dumplings, and then sprinkle a handful of garlic seedlings; cold dumplings are similar to cold noodles, after cooking well, fished into cold water to ice, and then put into a bowl, spices, when eating the seasonings can be evenly mixed, cold dumplings and steamed in the seasoning, there is one biggest difference between the cold birds and the steamed dumplings, that is, to eat the cold birds to adjust the mustard to be authentic, eat into the mouth, a mouth, a suction, The taste of mustard choking from the throat can make people cry and snot flow out, and sometimes they can choke out a lot of sweat, but the authentic eater wants that feeling. Although there is one more process for cold birds, it is more likely to cause people's appetite when it is hot; sheep blood birds are rarer than nine years ago, and the biggest difference from birds is that more sheep blood is cut into small pieces or small pieces. I generally eat dumplings, as long as I sit on which stall I usually want two bowls: a bowl of hot, a bowl of cold, a hot mouth, vinegar more, spicy more, cold dumplings must put mustard beauty, eat the first bite to choke sweat, to make the sweat glands of the body are free, people who have not eaten it must not dare to learn from me, because that choking is not something that anyone can bear.
Have you ever eaten soba noodle dumplings in Xi'an? Where do you think the soba dumplings in Xi'an are delicious? Welcome to leave a message in the comment area and share with more people.
I am Huang Kun, a native of Xi'an, "Huang Kun Says Xi'an" is about my personal understanding and understanding of Xi'an, as a Xi'an person born in Xi'an, I plan to take "Huang Kun Says Xi'an" as the theme, through video and graphics to introduce the history of Culture and people's lives in all aspects of Xi'an, hoping to let more people understand Xi'an through their own efforts, more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of Xi'an!
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