There are only 9 days left in 2019, but in everyone's heart, there may be a person, a tree, a dish, an old house, a hometown, they are unchanging monuments. In every retrospective, every encounter, there is a little light, a little taste, a little warmth, a little hope.
A view of Yuexi Mingtang Mountain
I remember one evening two years ago, mr. "bang, bang, bang" banged on the door of the house, opened the door, only to see him sweating, holding a red plastic bag in his hand. As he walked into the house, he shouted loudly, "Morning morning, come out!" I brought the best chicken soup! As he untied the plastic bag, he gently lifted the two layers of towels, then revealed the lid of the vermilion casserole pot and began to say the origin of the pot of chicken soup.
It turned out that Mr. Yexi town of Yuexi on a business trip, at noon a friend invited him to eat in the farmhouse, during the meal, he found that the vegetarian dishes there can eat a faint fragrance, especially the old hen soup has a special mellow aroma, he thought in his heart: "Such a delicious chicken soup, if the family can also drink, it will be good!" ”
So he instructed the chef to stew another chicken soup, and he went to the town's wet market to buy a medium casserole, thinking that it was already a slightly cool weather at the end of September, and this chicken soup should be drunk while hot, so he ran to the small shop, bought two towels, and then put the chicken soup spoonful into a washed casserole dish, wrapped the towel around the casserole and wrapped it tightly, and then put it in two layers of plastic bags and placed it in the back seat of his car.
It was a four-hour drive, and Mr. Li deliberately drove a little express, all the way to and fro, and it took more than three hours to drive to Hefei. He hurriedly held the casserole, climbed seven flights of stairs to the door, and then slammed the door with his body, cautiously, for fear that chicken soup would spill out.
Yuexi native chicken soup
Looking at the beads of sweat on his forehead and sitting happily admiring the eating of me and my son, he showed a happy smile. The son said while drinking chicken soup, "Well, this soup is delicious!" It is stronger than the chicken soup in the old chicken, and it is also fresher than the soup of the fat west old hen, and the meat is so bad! You see for the first time I've seen such a thin black claw! The gentleman said: "This ingredient is authentic, I heard that it was simmered over a small fire for three hours, it must be delicious, and the black chicken feet are native chicken!" That's why I'll try my best to bring you back so far to drink! ”
When the gentleman said this, when we drank the soup, we took a small sip, with a feeling of touching, rejoicing, not to be disappointed, and cherished, and tasted the still warm chicken soup that had traveled a long way. That day, the lights lit, the family sitting and laughing, the warm breath with the mixed taste of chicken and ginger, filled the whole home, for a long time, cute and amiable.
Hens in a bamboo forest
I think ah, I heard that this yuexi county located in the southwest of Anhui Province, Anqing City, is a pure mountainous area, is a national ecological demonstration area, a national advanced county of scientific and technological progress and the first batch of strong tourism counties in Anhui Province, where there are not only "the first mountain of Zen Buddhism", the national sports training base and many tourist attractions, but also the national forest park, national nature reserve, Chinese environment model award, but also China's top ten most beautiful villages, China's beautiful leisure villages, vegetables and melons in Yuexili must have absorbed the essence of green mountains and green waters. Pigs, cattle and sheep and other livestock also live in natural gardens, and hens and roosters are freely raised in the mountains or bamboo forests, otherwise how can there be such extraordinary ingredients and delicacies?
A view of Yuexi in Anhui
These days, I took my parents who have lived in the city for a long time to come to a winter family leisure self-driving trip, and I went to Yuexi to find fun and taste! Not to mention how the family likes the fresh air and rural scenery along the way, not to mention that when they see one or two old mud houses along the way, they will get off the car to see and touch, as if they have seen their dream hometown, not to mention that when they stand on the glass overlook of the Rainbow Waterfall Scenic Area, they are excitedly looking for rainbows and playing rafting on the Monkey River, just to say that at noon that day, we ate lunch in a hotel near the scenic gate.
A view of Yuexi Rainbow Waterfall
The decoration of the store is simple but clean, the waiter is warm and hospitable, we ordered two home-cooked dishes, scrambled eggs with tomatoes, fried eggplant, the waiter recommended several Yuexi specialties for us, cold bracken, chili fried dried fish, bean sprouts fried vermicelli, braised pork, three fresh pots of soup, noodle fish. The last big dish is mr. must-order the project - old chicken soup.
When I eat crisp purple bracken, small red tomatoes with a strong juice, purple eggplant skin with a little hardness and soft eggplant meat, chewy golden dried fish, elastic vermicelli and deeply hidden the taste of yam, my mouth and heart are suddenly very satisfied, and I feel that these farmhouse dishes do not know how many times better than foreign spaghetti western food!
When the braised meat with the red skin of the sauce is fat and not greasy, the meat is fragrant and sweet, and the entrance is melted, when the silver fish tofu shredded meat and egg soup is poured on the semi-circular yellow pot, making a subtle sound of "nourishment", our family is amazed and praiseworthy, and says, "Well, it's really good, delicious!" Subsequently, everyone's heads were buried in the vegetable bowl in front of them, only to hear the collision of chopsticks and porcelain bowls.
Braised pork
What surprised me was the dish called "noodle fish", I thought it was fish meat, who knew that the fish was not fish, tasted a small bite, sweet and salty, crispy skin and soft inside, only to find that it had nothing to do with fish. Therefore, after asking the waiter, I carefully observed it again, and I learned that it was the tofu skin that wrapped glutinous rice, meat foam, tofu, vermicelli, red beans, ginger foam and pesto foam tightly into long strips, and then put it in the pot until the two sides were golden or slightly scorched, and then cut into squares, like the shape of a fish, and put into the plate, implying "there is face, there is more than one year".
Yue Xi noodle fish
After waiting for some time, the last "big dish", an old chicken soup in a large yellow casserole pot, was served on the table. In the steaming heat, the native chicken stretches its arms, lying in the golden color of chicken soup, with oil beads floating around, small circle, large circle, and it is cute. Take a sip, instantly warm, between the lips and teeth rippled with an indescribable unique fragrance. Immediately, while the family took a sip of chicken soup, they listened to me talk about the past when my husband brought home the casserole chicken soup that fall.
chicken soup
When I finished "reviewing" happily, I saw my father sitting across from me sigh deeply, and there were a few tears in his eyes. After a while, he said slowly that when he drank the chicken soup, he remembered his mother.
When my father was in elementary school, there was a Mid-Autumn Festival, my grandmother killed an old hen in the family, dried it on the wall for a morning, put the chicken into a large iron pot, poured a pot full of water, and then went down to the field to work, instructed my father to collect firewood and burn it in front of the stove. Father gulped and added firewood, simmering over a small fire for an afternoon, and the pot "grunted" and boiled, wafting out steam. Every corner of the home is wafting with the aroma of chicken soup, as if it has drifted to the field... The cooking smoke on the night fluttered suddenly, when the grandparents finished the farm work and the father's three brothers returned home from school, the grandmother would put the chicken soup out, and each person could only drink a small half bowl and eat a few pieces of zero diced chicken, which was the most grand festival! Father said, "Your grandmother actually likes to drink chicken soup the most, but every time she only drinks a few bites, eats chicken heads, and then leaves us with soup and meat..."
Cooking smoke from home
We are suddenly silent, yes, food in addition to the appetite, warm the stomach, strengthen the body, healthy body, how can people suddenly miss a person? In this life, if you can have a dish that fills your heart and memories, so that you can eat the dish of crying, your life must not be lonely!
Nowadays, I sit in the buildings of the city, and I can often think of the good scenery of Yuexi and the table of native dishes, and I always think obsessively: Su Dongpo, a Chinese historical celebrity, was frustrated and was relegated to Jiangnan, and in the good mountains and waters of Jiangnan, a bowl of sweet and fragrant Dongpo meat was burned. That year, after visiting the Sanzu Zen Temple in Qianshan, if he went forward for more than forty kilometers and came to Yuexi to stay, it would be good! Then, he will definitely develop Dongpo soup, Dongpo tofu, Dongpo green vegetables, and Dongpo sauce in the mountains and rivers, so that the folk phrase "green vegetables and tofu, keep peace" will leave more fireworks in his life. Or "Artemisia annua try the spring plate, the taste of the world is in Yuexi", engraving more memories in his life!
Yuexi's old house
Even mr. Wang Zengqi, a contemporary writer who has written works such as "Travel Food Sketches", "Grass and Trees on Earth", "Eating Food and Literature", if he came to Anhui, pushed open the wooden door of Anqing, walked into the green courtyard of Yuexi, and looked at the bitter melon, he would be sure that this was an edible melon; taste the salted duck egg, a chopstick poked through the eggshell, full of red oil; drink the mushroom pickle soup, warm, the plum blossom suddenly opened on the snow! Among the four-square cuisine of east spicy west sour, south sweet and northern salty, there will definitely be the most unique taste of Yuexi!
Winter in Yuexi
So, I thought that Anhui Anqing only had scenery, who knew that the local dishes and special foods of the farmhouse were actually small and beautiful in the trip! There is a scene in the world, and there is a taste in Yuexi!