If a foreigner first came to my hometown, was retained by the master, and said to cook porridge for him, it would be a great honor. Because this is the highest specification of my hometown to entertain distinguished guests, it looks like an ordinary bowl of porridge, but it embodies the owner's affection. The porridge here is the unique dish of tofu in our hometown, and according to those who went out to work, they have traveled all over the country, and only our hometown has vegetable tofu. Compared with the tofu in our hometown, tofu in other places is not a taste at all, and there is no habit of cooking porridge with tofu.
The raw materials used in the vegetable tofu in our hometown are extremely ordinary, just three things: soybeans, sauerkraut, and rice. The most important thing is in this sauerkraut, the tofu in other places is far less delicious than the tofu in our hometown, and all the secrets are also in the unique sauerkraut in our hometown. The method of sauerkraut is usually to use the best green leaves, blanch in boiling water until five or six minutes cooked, fish it up and put it in a pot while it is hot, and add boiling water to completely submerge. You can even put the washed green leaves directly in the basin, add boiling water until completely submerged, soak for three or five days, and the sauerkraut will become. In the summer, a day or two is enough. The longer the soak, the stronger the sourness. There must be old sour water in the pot, and other places also have the habit of making sauerkraut, but it is always not the taste of our hometown sauerkraut, the fundamental reason is that there is no old sour water in our hometown. Sauerkraut can be fished up and eaten directly, or mixed with ginger, onion and garlic, add some red oil, sesame oil, in short, all by your own taste. Especially when the table is full of big fish and meat, or when drinking too much, a plate of such sauerkraut at the right time is often snatched up. After getting drunk, you can also directly scoop up half a bowl of sour water and drink it, and the wine will wake up halfway through a spirit. In our hometown, sauerkraut is a veritable wild dish, whether it is stir-fried, or soup, fried rice, steamed meat, shabu-shabu, no one can refuse. It is the unique sour taste of such an extremely ordinary sauerkraut dish, but it is a hometown feeling that can never be forgotten.
To cook the old vegetable tofu, the soybeans are first soaked in water (or warm water) for half a day, finely ground into a pulp with stone grinding, and then filtered out the okara with a fine gauze. Filtered soy milk with clear oil to remove the above foam, put in an iron pot with wood fire until bubbling, slowly add sour water and filtered cold soy milk, simmer slowly. This process is called tofu, how much tofu is out, and the taste of tofu is all here, which is the most test of human patience. There is a saying in our hometown that "you can wait to kill cattle, but you can't wait for tofu", which means that it is very time-consuming and requires patience. This is probably the reason why cooking tofu porridge shows the enthusiasm of the owner, right? How much acid water is added each time, when to add it, is all up to you, and it is impossible to say. In short, we must be slow, so that the amount of tofu that comes out is more, the taste is delicate and tender, otherwise the amount of formed tofu is small, the taste is coarse and woody, so our hometown also has the saying that "I can't eat hot tofu in a hurry". Until the tofu is completely separated from the soy milk, gathered into a ball like cotton, and a pot of milky white soy milk becomes water, the process of ordering tofu is complete. At this time, you can directly add rice to cook porridge, add chopped sauerkraut when the rice is cooked, and there are also those who do not like to eat sour, so add cabbage. If you want to eat tofu, fish out the tofu like cotton wool in the pot, wrap it with gauze, and squeeze the water inside. The amount of water retained in the tofu also determines the old tenderness of the tofu, which depends on their own eating habits. Soy milk also has no filtered okara, the nutritional composition is more complete, but the taste is far worse, and the tofu will not form.
The golden partner of our hometown dish tofu porridge is homemade spicy oil, which does not require any other dishes. Mix the dried chili powder (you can also use chopped tender peppers), mix well with the minced ginger, onion and garlic, add the right amount of table salt, drizzle with hot clear oil, and the oil will be spicy, if you add some chopped coriander, it is even more beautiful. There are also those who like to add potatoes or hand-pulled dough to the vegetable tofu, which is another flavor.
It is such a simple ingredient, such an ordinary bowl of porridge, but it is extremely tempting, and it is indispensable when entertaining distinguished guests or important festivals such as the Spring Festival. Some patients, with a bad appetite, as long as they come to a bowl of vegetables and tofu porridge, their appetite increases greatly. Several times I ate vegetable tofu outside with some friends, and my friend first put a large bowl in a porcelain jar and said that he wanted to bring it to his leader. I also often pack it for my wife, who says that after eating vegetable tofu, she doesn't know the taste of chicken and fish.
The Spring Festival is getting closer and closer, and the sound of every household grinding tofu when I was a child, and the aroma of tofu everywhere, completely occupied my memory. (Zhang Yongle.)