Prepare to write a series about a small city in Sichuan, and decide the name is "Taste of a Small Town". In every small county in the Sichuan Basin, there are her unique delicacies, which are unforgettable. The food I choose, mostly for the local market food, non-tourism Internet celebrity punch card point, nor high-end restaurant, is the daily choice of the local people, benefit without fee, its ingredients are also ordinary, more prolific in the local area, is for the authentic cuisine.
Tart noodles
01
A common taste of a city
Lu Ji Tart tart face photography | Liu Qiankun
In Xingjing County, one of the foods that everyone is familiar with may be tart noodles.
In 2009, when I went to Xingjing County for an interview, a local friend invited us to eat tart noodles, and Yin Kaipu, a botanist in the interview group and a researcher at the Chengdu Institute of Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told me a story. In the 1980s, he and Japanese experts visited the Kawanishi area and ate a bowl of tart noodles at the Yingjing, which was very happy. After the car drove for more than ten kilometers, Japanese experts still remembered the delicious taste of tart noodles, asked the driver to turn back, and ate another bowl. What he meant was that this delicacy could no longer be eaten in Japan, and even if he came to China to investigate in the future, he would not necessarily come to Xingjing, and if he held it up, he would have to eat a bowl!
In this regard, the people of Xingjing are extremely happy, and every day they can start a day of life and work from the enjoyment of tart noodles. Everyone's preferences for food are not the same, in the Xingjing, there are tart noodles with various surnames everywhere, I have the opportunity to eat one, and finally I choose "Lu Ji Tart Noodles". I learned a way to eat with a local friend: beef soup and sauce.
Miscellaneous sauce, fried sauce, these two extremely common kinds of cheek noodles are found in many cities, and if you don't figure out the local miscellaneous sauce, you may be considered to not understand the local cuisine. Xingjing miscellaneous sauce noodles are pork belly roasted bamboo shoots, bamboo shoots are local specialties, every August to pick bamboo shoots, the local people have always been called "nailed bamboo". The Chinese name of the nailed bamboo is now called August bamboo, which is actually a kind of square bamboo genus, which was previously called Washan square bamboo in classification, and there are 17 species of square bamboo in China. Every August, the mountains of Daxiangling are very lively, and the Yi people from Xiaoliangshan begin to dig bamboo shoots and eat and live on the mountain. The harvested bamboo shoots were handed over to local merchants, who began to sell fresh shoots and make dried bamboo shoots.
The miscellaneous sauce eaten at Lu Ji Tart noodles is this kind of dried bamboo shoots. Hair dry shoots are very exquisite, Boss Lu said that every 2 hours to change the water, it takes 12 hours or more to make, dried bamboo shoots "eat" enough water and meat roasting, the same is also a small fire slow burning, white sauce to maintain the many of the original taste of the ingredients, is very delicious. But for us who are spicy, we chose the miscellaneous sauce, and the red flavored soup of the braised beef cheeks selected for the bottom soup became a new combination: beef soup miscellaneous sauce. More than ten years have passed, and every time I pass by Xingjing, I always find an opportunity to eat a bowl: beef soup and miscellaneous sauce.
Green beans roasted chicken offal
02
Knowing and not knowing are confused
Green bean roast chicken miscellaneous photography | Liu Qiankun
In August 2020, Mr. Zhuang Ping, a researcher at the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Shen You, vice chairman of the Sichuan Provincial Youth Literary association museum, were invited to Visit Daxiangling together, and at noon the next day, I went to a home-cooked restaurant that I often eat, "Laote Hotel". This restaurant has a home dish: dried chicken, spicy and fragrant. There is chicken offal, Shen You and I are both chicken offal love family, usually restaurants have a dish: pickled pepper chicken offal, is a hot stir-fried home cooking. Speaking of rapid fire stir-fry, this is the unique process of Sichuan cuisine: no change of pot, no change of oil, rapid fire small stir-fry, one-pot into a dish, everyone often eats hot waist flowers, green pepper meat shreds, braised fried lotus white and so on.
When I was saying the pickled pepper chicken offal, the waiter said that we have a very popular dish here: green bean roast chicken offal, and I looked confused: I have not heard of it, let alone eaten, and blurted out: "And this dish?" Shen You also looked confused: "Bashi, our family often burns it to eat." "Know and don't know are ignorant, this is the regional characteristics of Sichuan cuisine, do not think that you are a foodie, or a gourmet, each small town has its own unique cuisine, some even unheard of."
This dish is the last, soft roasted dishes need a certain amount of time to cook, delicious roast dishes are slowly cooked over medium-low heat, and traditional Sichuan cuisine is more emphasis on simmering slowly. Now the restaurant is a fierce stove, a few clicks can be out of the pot, the taste is not strong enough, there is enough of this essence that poured into it, I saw more than half of the stir-fried spoon chicken essence into the pot scene, eating is not craftsmanship, but additives! Nowadays, many exquisite restaurants have pot stoves, which are specially used for simmering and stewing.
Green beans roasted chicken offal, the best to eat is green beans, small green beans in the firing, absorb a lot of animal fat and spice flavor, plus tender slag, and small, need to pick up one grain, if you take a spoon scoop up a large bite to eat, always a little ugly, and can not slowly taste. No matter how small the green beans are, they can't stand the picks of a few of us, the soup is soaked in rice, and the rice is made with the store's homemade red tofu, Bashi!
Wild leeks wrapped in dumplings
03
Delicious summer to eat in spring
And botanists go to the wild, can not miss the opportunity to learn, in the Macao River Nature Reserve, the beech family plants have been shallow learning, from the natural point of view of the beech family has some intuitive understanding: beech family also known as shell hoppers, usually evergreen or deciduous trees, plants straight, smooth bark, hermaphroditious flowers, there are total buds developed into a hard shell bucket, wrapped seeds 1 to more grains.
When returning to the Zhuying Mountain Villa, there is still a little time to eat, and Teacher Zhuang walked along the road, the local residents will plant some plants in the flower terrace, there are many native plants on the side of the road, under the guidance of Teacher Zhuang, soon got to know drunken fish grass, hyacinth flowers, three seven flowers, gynostemma orchid, etc., and botanists to the wild, there are always many surprises!
Teacher Zhuang suddenly saw a few white flowers and said, "This is a wild leek, and it is delicious to wrap dumplings in spring." "Leek dumplings are often eaten, wild leek dumplings are indeed not eaten, asked the owner of Zhuying Mountain Villa Hu Taiyong, he said that his family has more mountains, when he leaves, cut points to take away. By the way, he was the local friend who tarted tart noodles with beef soup and sauce.
Rock Spoon Photography | Liu Qiankun
Duck Plantages Photography | Liu Qiankun
Three Seven Flowers Photography | Liu Qiankun
Wild Leek Flower Photography | Liu Qiankun
Wild leeks were brought back to Chengdu on the same day, late in the day, and placed in the refrigerator. In ancient texts, the Southern Qi Zhou Dynasty has a famous saying: "Early spring early leeks, late autumn and late autumn pineapples", but if you want to wait until spring to eat wild leeks, there are still many months to go, you can't wait. The next day, he chopped a pound of pork's front leg meat and half a pound of wild leeks. The aroma of leeks in the mouth is quite strong.
Wild leeks are distributed in the north and south of China, the leeks in the north eat flowers, eat the lamb of the perfect wild leek sauce is made of wild leek flowers in the north, the south is divided into two categories of wide leaves and narrow leaves, in Guangxi, the local people plant a large number of wide leaf leeks, and hold a leek festival every year.
I want to plant a pot or two of wild leeks on the balcony, both as a landscape and as an ingredient, and just do it!
END
Written by | Liu Qiankun
Photography | Liu Qiankun