#我来唠家常#
▲Ah! I really want to eat chestnuts!
-The Legend of the Gentleman of Things-
July star fruit and August hawthorn
October chestnut laughs haha
When the stall selling watermelons at the door of the unit turned into fried chestnuts with sugar, I knew that autumn had arrived, wrapped in a bumper harvest and deliciousness.
▲The autumn wind blows gentle chestnuts. Photo/ Visual China
"Since ancient times, autumn has been sad and lonely, and I say that autumn is better than spring. ”
If you want to give ten reasons for "I say that autumn is better than spring", I think chestnuts must be one of them.
Fried chestnuts, roasted chestnuts, osmanthus chestnuts, chestnut chicken, chestnut duck, chestnut cake...... As soon as the cold dew passes, chestnuts suddenly transform and fill the streets and alleys, becoming a limited stunner on the autumn table.
▲ "I love to eat too". Photo/ Visual China
With a history of more than 3,000 years, chestnuts are a delicious food that can be shared without having to fight. "Delicious, hot", whenever people mention chestnuts, they will carry such expectations.
▲The city is full of traffic, and chestnuts are the warmth and comfort of the heart. Photo/Visual China
The autumn wind is swirling, the chill is in the heart, and at this time, a small chestnut can often wrap the cold world, like a winter quilt as indulgent.
Chestnuts + meat, perfect CP
When a small space is set aside for chestnuts among the colorful vegetables in the vegetable market, it always attracts people's attention. Whether it's a nutritious recipe for mom or a seasonal dish on the chef's menu, chestnuts are starting to be added. The little chestnut adds color to the dish with the sweetness of the glutinous taste that he has saved, and if there is an Oscar in the food industry, the chestnut must be a well-deserved "best supporting actor".
▲The home of the chestnut has arrived. Diagram / Diagram Worm Creative
Wuhan people's favorite pork rib lotus root soup has a few more yellow and clear garnishes, which is the fresh chestnuts that my mother bought from the morning market, and after a complicated peeling process, it has become a "surprise" in the pork rib lotus root soup. In the past, the children were fighting for the small ribs, but now they seem to be turning a blind eye, and they both look at the golden chestnut kernels.
▲Red dates, Huaishan chestnut chicken soup. Diagram / Diagram Worm Creative
The ribs are tender and the lotus root slices are crisp and sweet, but at the moment they can't resist the temptation of chestnuts. In front of all kinds of "big dishes", although chestnuts are the ingredients, they often become the most tempting finishing touch, just like putting some seasoning when cooking, and the deliciousness is about to come out.
Chestnuts and high starch attributes of sweet potatoes, potatoes and other foods, bear high calories but also give them an excellent taste, no matter how you cook will not "step on thunder", at the same time chestnuts are sweet, perfect to modify the flavor of the main dish, small but not easy to deform, so the dishes cooked with chestnuts are always extraordinarily delicious.
▲Chestnut roast chicken. Figure/Marketchart.com
For example, chestnut chicken, which is deeply loved by the masses in the north and south of the country.
Chestnuts and chicken are stewed, the chicken is fragrant, the chestnuts are soft, and the color is ruddy. Many people don't like chicken, but they like to pick the chestnuts in the chestnut chicken to eat, and they can't tell whether the chestnuts improve the sweetness of the chicken, or the chicken improves the deliciousness of the chestnuts.
▲ Chestnuts + chicken, fairy companion. Figure/Network
What's even more amazing is that chestnut chicken has conquered different "appetites" in the north and south by virtue of the perfect combination of chestnuts and chicken, and almost all chestnut chickens can be found in Shandong cuisine, Sichuan cuisine, Hunan cuisine, Jiangsu and Zhejiang cuisine.
▲Which kind of chestnut chicken is yours?
There is also a kind of canned pork knuckle with shiitake mushrooms in Xiamen, Fujian, which is fried and then stewed, with a unique taste. After making the canned noodles, a little bit of topping is put on when the noodles are boiled and boiled, and the boiled white noodles are immediately so excited that they stand up and dance on the tip of their tongues. But the soul in this can is actually a chestnut hidden in it, the chestnut absorbs the oil juice of the pig's feet, and keeps the canned food fresh, and the surprise of suddenly sandwiching a chestnut is not too much to describe as "discovering a treasure".
▲ Chestnut braised pork. Photo/Visual China
The combination of chestnuts and meat is sometimes not so direct, but it still doesn't affect their love for each other. For example, Hangzhou's famous button pork, the square pieces of meat are cut into thin slices, layer by layer, and the crystal fat permeates the pagoda-shaped plate more attractively, and the plate is surrounded by bamboo shoots and dough cakes. The exquisite dough cake will be decorated with chestnut grains, and the fat button meat is stuffed into the dough cake full of crushed chestnuts, which dissolves the greasy greasy and increases the sweetness of the dough, like lovers who are looking for a hard time, and finally find the right person, and from then on hand in hand into the palace of happiness.
▲Chestnut yellow eel. Diagram / Diagram Worm Creative
The combinations of chestnuts and meat are endless, in addition to chestnut roast chicken, there are also chestnut yam duck soup, chestnut beef stew, chestnut stewed mutton, and I once had chestnut pork wonton in a small wonton shop in Shandong......
▲ Boiled chestnut salad. Diagram / Diagram Worm Creative
The low-key and calm chestnut is like a perfect public lover, no matter who is standing next to him, whether it is boiled or stewed, he is still graceful and moving.
Chestnuts + rice, the wind blows the rice flowers on both sides
If the combination of chestnuts and meat is an impressive flow of small life, full of its own light, then the combination of chestnuts and rice is like a pure sister next door, without embellishment, but people can't help but want to talk a few words.
▲Eight treasure rice and laba porridge. Photo/Visual China
Since the Song Dynasty, the popular "Laba porridge", chestnuts have been used as a very important material to bring people sweet warmth in the cold winter wax moon.
The Qing Dynasty scholar Fucha Dunchong recorded in detail the complex practice of Laba porridge in the Qing Dynasty in the "Chronicles of the Yanjing Years": "Laba porridge is cooked with yellow rice, white rice, Jiang rice, millet, water chestnut, red river beans, peeled jujube paste, etc., and externally dyed red peach kernels, almonds, melon seeds, peanuts, sticks, pine nuts, white sugar, brown sugar, and trivial grapes for point dyeing. ”
▲Chestnut porridge. Photo/Visual China
Nowadays, the custom of drinking Laba porridge on Laba Festival has gradually lost its solemn and complex ritual, but the simple "chestnut millet porridge" will still appear on the table of ordinary people, and the crumpled chestnut kernels will be rejuvenated in the boiling millet porridge, and the porridge will become sweeter because of the addition of chestnuts.
▲Very "material" zongzi. Photo/Visual China
Chestnuts are also popular in Jiangsu and Zhejiang to wrap zongzi, most of the time with pork belly or meat sauce, and more advanced ones with scallops, shrimp and abalone.
▲Have you ever eaten chestnut meat dumplings?
Jinhua people used local materials and invented Jinhua ham and chestnut dumplings. The ham is fragrant, the chestnuts are soft and glutinous, the whole chestnuts are broken between the lips and teeth, and the friction between the glutinous rice and the chestnuts stained with ham fat has undergone a wonderful change.
▲ Chestnut cake that is common in temple fairs today. Diagram / Diagram Worm Creative
When glutinous rice and chestnuts are transformed into powdery forms, they combine with each other to give birth to the "Osmanthus Sugar Steamed New Chestnut Flour Cake" in "Dream of Red Mansions", I am afraid that only Cao Xueqin, a native of Nanjing, can come up with such a delicate way to eat, a "new" word, the freshness and mellow fragrance of the season are vividly and vividly reflected.
▲ In "The Legend of Zhen Huan", when Concubine Qi murdered Zhen Huan, she gave chestnut cake with oleander pollen. Photo/TV series "The Legend of Zhen Huan"
In addition to osmanthus chestnut flour and glutinous rice flour, lotus root flour and honey are added to this dessert, and the chestnut cake is so fragrant and glutinous that anyone will not be able to hold it in their hands.
▲Convenient and delicious chestnut steamed rice, a must-have for the handicap party. Photo/Visual China
If you don't have the patience and skill of a master, you can try the simplest dish, chestnut steamed rice, and experience this seasonal delicacy. A few peeled chestnuts are thrown over the simple rice, and the rice fragrance is mixed with the chestnut fragrance, which is enough to comfort people's hearts in the steamer. Just like the old Cai Lan would be moved by a bowl of lard bibimbap, a bowl of chestnut steamed rice on the dining table in late autumn is also warm.
Chestnut to the nth power
"Three autumn laurels, ten miles of lotus", if you catch up with the osmanthus falling to Hangzhou, the West Lake, the most wonderful thing is not to meet Xu Xian, but to drink a bowl of osmanthus fresh chestnut soup.
▲ looming chestnut kernels, dried osmanthus like gold leaf. Figure/Network
The thick lotus root flour is like Chang'e's back garden, with red, yellow and white dotted with sugar roasted chestnut slices, sugar osmanthus, green plum slices and roses. The chestnuts are crispy and the soup juice is thick, so enjoy it to the fullest. Thousands of years ago, Wu Gang knocked the osmanthus down in the chestnut porridge in the back kitchen of Lingyin Temple, and the story and legend loomed.
▲ The shiny black sand and brown chestnuts dance together. Photo/soogif
Compared with the innocent romance of osmanthus fresh chestnut soup, sugar-fried chestnuts seem to have more fireworks. Crystal black sand and brown chestnuts are accompanied by the skillful and powerful hands of the stall owner, rolling back and forth in the large iron pot. From south to north, from ancient times to the present, sugar-fried chestnuts have captured people's hearts as always.
▲Osmanthus chestnuts. Photo/Visual China
It's just that the chestnut shop in Hangzhou and Shanghai will always have two more words "osmanthus" than the chestnut shop in the north. The cinnamon is fragrant, and the chestnuts picked when the osmanthus is in full bloom absorb the aroma of osmanthus, and this "osmanthus chestnut" has a unique sweetness after experiencing sugar frying, like the lingering of love.
▲The charm of chestnuts. Photo/TV series "April Day in the World"
The last scene in "April Day in the World" came to mind, Lu Xiaoman, who was wandering on the streets of Shanghai, was nibbling on fried chestnuts with sugar, while reminiscing about the romance and sweetness in love. I think that the chestnuts at this moment must be the flavor of osmanthus.
▲ The hands are sticky, and the heart is sweet. Figure/Network
The chestnuts in the south are sweet in the artistic conception of osmanthus, while the chestnuts in Kunming are sweet in the sugar water of the white flowers in the hands of the master. Wang Zengqi described the Kunming fried chestnuts with sugar water as the first in the world, "Kunming chestnuts are big, and the big pot of fried chestnuts is supported outside the store, fried with coarse sand as big as corn beans, and a bowl of sugar water is poured into the pot from time to time." The shell of the fried chestnuts in Kunming is sticky, and there is sugar juice on your hands after eating, so you must wash your hands. The chestnut meat is soaked with sugar and is very sweet. ”
▲Is a little expert at peeling chestnuts a kind of talent?
But I still prefer the fried chestnuts in the north without sugar water, which are clean and neat. In the night of drifting north alone, waiting for the Huairou chestnuts that had just come out of the pot in the cold wind, they were so hot that they couldn't hold it, and they had to toss back and forth with both hands, "pop", and pinched with both hands, and the golden chestnuts were exposed to the air, and there was a hot white gas. Fragrant and sweet, a chestnut belly, the wandering and loneliness alone in a foreign land are instantly offset.
▲ Chestnuts are warm elves in autumn. Photo/Visual China
"In Shaoxing, Chen Fugong and Qian Shangge, sent an envoy to the court, to Yanshan, and suddenly two people held ten wrapped chestnuts each to change their ...... praised himself and said: "Li He'er also." 'Waved away. Lu You expressed his expectations for the reunification of the motherland by frying chestnuts in "Notes on Lao Xue'an", and when later people poured out their love for chestnuts, they always couldn't get around, but not everyone understood the heavy blood of the family and country.
▲The food is full of nostalgia and warmth. Photo/Visual China
In this country where "food is the sky", the meaning of food has long gone beyond the appetite of the mouth, and in addition to the satisfaction of the tip of the tongue, it also carries hope and blessings more often. It is nostalgia, memories, warmth and expectation.
▲Fried rice and baked chestnuts. Figure/Network
Red bean and chestnut thick fish roast, chestnut lotus root soup, chestnut egg tart, chestnut Daifuku, chestnut mooncake, chestnut glutinous rice wine, chestnut paste, fried rice baked chestnuts, chestnut black chicken soup...... Sometimes I even think that chestnuts have no personality, and they can enter into different dishes in almost any way, which is surprisingly ordinary, but perhaps it is this ingenious character that is why people can't do without it.
▲ Small Forest version of "candied chestnuts". Picture/Movie "Little Forest Summer and Autumn"
Now you can enjoy the delicious taste of chestnuts all year round without having to wait. In the summer, we can even eat bigger "ice chestnuts". But out of the bleak and cold autumn wind, the taste of chestnuts has also changed. After all, what is hidden in that big iron pot is not only the delicacy of chestnuts, but also the love between lovers, the affection between father and son, and perhaps the warmth between strangers.
Anyway, I'm going to line up to buy chestnuts!