"Come to the cup of tea, Kaichi Potato Mud!"
Milk tea is incomplete without taro puree
How many people are a "taro brain" when they eat desserts and drink milk tea, but when they were young, they didn't like to eat steamed potatoes at home. Actually, it's really a waste to only love to make taro paste and eat it! At least the Fujian people are the first to disagree.
What is taro paste made of?
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Lin Zexu, a native of Fujian, was transferred to the governor of Huguang and was invited to a banquet by the British consul. There was an ice cream in the middle of the banquet, which was slightly white, and Lin Zexu thought it was hot food, so he blew into the bowl and was ridiculed. He remained silent, and turned around to invite the foreign guests to dinner and serve a dessert. Foreigners saw that the color of the thing on the plate was pink and purple, delicate and even, similar to ice cream, so they rushed to stuff it into their mouths. Unexpectedly, this ice cream was piping hot, and it made them look so bad!
Taro cream
When my friend told me about this famous legend of Fujian, we were trying to make this "hot ice cream" - a Fujian specialty, "taro paste" made with betel nut taro.
Most of the taro in the north is only the size of a fist, but the betel nut taro is like a rugby, which really scared me at first sight. It gets its name from the purple "betel nut pattern" in taro meat, and it is said that the more textures, the better it tastes.
Hokkien people have their own rugby
The betel nut taro flesh is glutinous, after steaming through and peeling, press the pulp with a spoon, mix in lard and sugar, stir well, and then pour a layer of cooked lard, and the upper drawer is steamed through the fire, and it becomes a delicate and sweet taro paste. If you add dried fruit preserves, you can also make a luxurious "eight-treasure taro paste". Lard is the finishing touch of taro paste, on the one hand, it adds flavor and moisturization, on the other hand, because the lard is covered, the surface of taro paste is smooth and clean, and it does not emit heat, but it is hot inside - this is the secret of Lin Zexu's success in the story.
Pressed taro puree, a sweet way to decompress
Source: Documentary "Flavor World"
Taro paste has a long history as a Fujian cuisine, but it also has no "traditional" baggage, and now it has become a filling in various desserts and milk tea, so that it is known to more people. The taro paste in desserts is often also added with milk powder, which is a fragrant "milk taro".
Now the purple taro paste is added with purple potato powder
Fujian's betel nut taro, especially produced in Fuding, was also used as a tribute in the Qing Dynasty. It is an annual crop that is usually sown in February and March in early spring, and is not ripe and harvested until the end of the year, and some even do not wait until January of the following year. Therefore, for the Fujian people, it is the delicious taste of the winter solstice and the Spring Festival. On the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner table of Fuzhou people, taro paste is often the finale, and in addition, there are rice cakes made with betel nut taro.
Fight with you Fujianese
In the Fuzhou dialect, this rice cake is called "meatball". It is a sturdy reddish-brown round cake inlaid with peanuts and red dates, interwoven with taro silk inside. Cut it into slices, fry it in a pan until the edges are slightly charred, and bite it hot to bring out a meaty aroma in the sticky and elastic texture. In fact, "meatballs" are made of betel nut taro shreds, fatty meat, brown sugar water, and starch, and fat meat is indispensable, but it is turned into fat in the process of steaming in the upper drawer, and when it is integrated into it, only the meat fragrance is left and the meat is not visible.
Hanging industrial taro balls purple potato balls
Is Lipu taro betel nut taro?
More than 300 years ago, some people introduced betel nut taro from Fujian to the Lipu area of Guilin, Guangxi. The local climate is warmer and wetter than that of Fujian, and excellent varieties have been cultivated.
Guangxi taro field
In the childhood hit TV series "Prime Minister Liu Luoguo", the witty and humorous Liu Luoguo personally spoke for this kind of taro, and praised me while gnawing, and I drooled in front of the TV, and the name of "Lipu Taro" also resounded throughout the country because of this drama.
The taro is hot, but it's delicious
Lipu taro further carries forward the advantages of betel nut taro, which is larger, more "dough" in flesh, and has a stronger fragrance. Guangxi people take advantage of its characteristics of flour and oil absorption, cut Lipu taro into slices, sandwich it in pork and braise it, and make it into a fatty but not greasy "taro button meat". The chef of Chaoshan, Guangdong, used the "return to sand" stunt on the taro, cut the Lipu taro into strips and fried it, then wrapped it in white sugar and boiled into a syrup, and fried it quickly until the syrup became frosty, and it became a crispy white sweet and glutinous back to the sand taro.
starved to death......
Source below: Documentary "Flavor of the World"
The sweet and salty pie controversy over eating taro
Taro is a perfect match for sugar, but it's not just for sweets. One spring, I was at the Hakka people in the mountains of western Fujian and ate a taro delicacy that was not sweet at all. The appearance of this dish is very beautiful, with a large bowl of clear soup with green chopped shepherd's cabbage floating in it, and white balls with sharp mouths the size of eggs floating in between. If you look closely, the ball skin is translucent and crystal clear. Scoop one and bite it, dried bamboo shoots, dried tofu, diced meat, and pickled cabbage, and pour them out.
One eats one without squeaking
This kind of food, called "taro buns" by the Hakka people, is actually between steamed buns and meatballs, which can be steamed and eaten directly, or boiled into soup. The filling is rich and delicious, but the crust made of taro and tapioca flour is worth savoring: it is extremely soft and elastic, and it retains the aroma of taro very well. The fragrance of taro and the fragrance of shepherd's cabbage are mixed together, just like spring after snow, and the sky and earth are clear.
QQ bullets can also be drawn
Taro is the underground bulb of taro, and its axillary buds will form smaller bulbs, and when digging taro, it is often dug into a nest, like a chicken clustering a hen. Therefore, the large bulb is usually called "mother taro", and the small bulb is called "child taro" or "taro egg". The taro paste is made of female taro, but the taro bag must be made of female taro, in order to have a softer and more sticky texture.
The little round cub lying on its stomach is the taro
When it comes to tender and smooth taste, Jiangnan's red taro is also excellent. Red taro is named because the young buds are red, but the taro is still white, especially milky white and smooth after cooking, it is not choking to eat, and the "osmanthus sugar taro seedlings" in Jiangsu and Zhejiang are made with it.
When you go to Nanjing, you must eat osmanthus sugar taro seedlings!!
Taro likes heat and humidity, and the mainland planting area is mainly in the south, and there are few taro producing areas in the north of the Yangtze River Basin. The exception is Laiyang, Shandong Province, where the alluvial water of the river has created a special sandy soil that allows the picky taro to grow. Although Laiyang taro is harvested in autumn, it is also an essential ingredient for local Chinese New Year's Eve dinners. Because taro is homophonic to "yutou", eating taro on Chinese New Year's Eve is to ask for a mouthful, indicating that the coming year will be rich and have "yutou".
I like to eat spicy and chopped peppers steamed together, and there are red color heads
The ancients often ate taro in the cold night of midwinter. "There was a fire in the middle of the night, and the Hun family group was sitting. The taro is ripe after simmering, and the Son of Heaven is not as good as me. "At the end of the year, when farming is suspended, the wanderer returns, and the whole family sits around the fireplace, chatting, and burying taro in the ashes to simmer and eat, which is the most traditional and simple happiness of the Chinese. Taro can be ever-changing, made into a variety of delicacies, but there are also some flavors, eat in the most simple way, the most touching.
Finally, add a taro shrimp ball
Source: Documentary "Flavor World"