▲ Wontons, as pure as exquisite southern dim sum. Photography / Kong Yan, Photo / MarketMap Network
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Without a 256G stomach, I advise you not to eat the noodles
We brought a bag of noodles and ate them for a meal... After a while, the noodles were steamed, and the room was filled with white steam, very warm, making people lazy... The noodles that just came out of the drawer are so fragrant! ...... I've never eaten anything so delicious in my life.
——Wang Zengqi, "Seven Mile Tea House"
It was so delicious that Wang Zengqi, an old gourmet from the south, never forgot it, and wrote it into a novel 20 years later, perhaps only noodles.
This oat plant prefers cold, drought and salinity, and can only be grown in parts of northwest and north China. In the past, these areas rarely could eat fine wheat noodles, and could only be fed with noodles, "there is no good tea and rice in the mountains, only the noodles and yam eggs."
Nowadays, it seems that a single product does not seem to have caused trouble to the locals, on the contrary, they have concocted noodles in a different way over the long years, and they have eaten the coarse grain of the noodles to eat the richness of "full han meals".
▲ Wuchuan County, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, all kinds of innovative noodle cuisine. Photo/Visual China
Three lives and three cooks, "thirty miles of noodles"
The noodles are delicious, but the noodles are not easy to make. After thousands of years of experience accumulation, people who are good at eating noodles have summed up the method of "three lives and three cooks":
After harvesting the yarrow, the grains that come out are raw and "a lifetime"; the shelled grains need to be fried in a pot to grind the noodles, which is "one cooked". The fried wheat grains are ground into flour and returned to life, which is "two-life"; with boiling boiling water and noodles, it is "two-cooked". The good noodles are kneaded into various forms while hot, or raw, it is "three lives"; after the steaming of the kneaded noodles, it can be eaten, it is "three cooked".
▲ The third raw noodles can be eaten by steaming them again. Photo/Visual China
If it is not cooked properly, the taste is not right. It is precisely because of this pursuit of taste excellence that we can eat a variety of noodle delicacies.
The noodles themselves are coarse grains, containing a high amount of dietary fiber, coupled with complex preparation methods, making the noodles extremely "anti-hunger", so there is a saying of "thirty miles of noodles and forty miles of cake". Shanxi people say that the noodles are "heavy", and it will be uncomfortable to eat too much, which is the meaning. In the past, people who went out to eat more noodles would fill their stomachs with nostalgia before they set off.
Shanxi Inner Mongolia Hebei, where is the best noodles to eat?
China's noodle production areas are mainly in the areas of northern Jin, Hetao Plain and Bashang (the southern edge of the Inner Mongolian Plateau, located at the junction of Inner Mongolia and Hebei).
▲ Guess where this is? Photography / Xiaofeng F, Photo / Figureworm ・ Creative
According to incomplete statistics, there are 17 common ways to make noodles and 5 ways to cook. Because of the difference in region, products and food culture, the noodles are slightly different in different places, such as the same noodles, the people on the dam will pour potatoes with eggplant, mushrooms boiled into soup, and people in the Hetao area like to mix potatoes and lamb into a paste-like marinade.
Different methods and eating methods make the noodles have a thousand flavors, and only by eating everything can you meet the one that you are most comfortable with in the thousands of noodles.
Rub it together and rub it out of shape
The most classic noodle delicacies are inseparable from rubbing.
▲ Making a noodle chestnut is a technical job. Graph/Network
It is the main noodle food of Xibei Noodle Village, which is actually passed down from Shanxi. In the northern Jin Dynasty, the 莜面栲栳栳栳栳 is also called the Yingmian Nest. Boiling water and good noodles, pull out the agent, the left palm of the hand to rub forward, and then roll on the right index finger, the hands are skillfully coordinated as if they have practiced left-right wrestling. After steaming one by one in the cage drawer, adding potatoes, radishes and pork cheeks, or a simple tomato and egg marinade, in the words of the Shanxi people, "Let's just have a noodle chestnut, delicious!" ”
▲ Noodle fish, come to a bowl? Photography / Kong Yan, Photo / MarketMap Network
In addition to the nest, Shanxi people's favorite food is the noodle fish. Fish is also called Yu Yu or Yu Yu, no matter how it is called, it is a ball of noodles pulled down, rolled into the shape of a fish with two pointed middle circles, the length is up to you. If the dough is not kneaded long, but is pushed forward with the thumb, it is "cat ears".
In the Northern Jinbei region, there is a kind of noodle cuisine that resembles a cat's ear, which is locally known as "Tun Tuan". This kind of food, which seems to have a contour line, is more troublesome to make than cat ears. The cat's ears are rubbed directly on the oily stone or flat plate, and the dough is combined by the thumb with the index finger and the middle finger, and the dough is also larger than the cat's ear.
▲ Round ball, full of contour lines. Photo/Visual China
Make strips, hot and cold
Because the noodles are "hungry", it is not easy to digest at night, so they are basically eaten at noon, so they appear to be more "formal". In the past, there were relatively few beds for birds, and housewives who were good at making dumplings could rub out long and thin noodle ropes similar to birds with their bare hands, and now every household has beds to suppress birds, and noodle dumplings have become the simplest and most common noodle delicacies.
It can be eaten with hot soup like the birds made of wheat noodles in Guanzhong and Longdong. As for whether the meat soup is delicious or the vegetarian soup is delicious, then the benevolent see the benevolent, and the wise see the wise. If you don't want to eat the soup and water noodles, you can also eat them fried. This is hot to eat.
▲ Pressed noodles. Photo/Visual China
In the area of Wuchuan in Inner Mongolia at the northern foot of the Yin Mountains, "cool tone" is advocated - that is, cold mix. There is still a local saying that goes by: cold-tuned noodles mashed shochu, mountain treasures and seafood are not as good. A sip of wine, the aroma of people drooling. The incense of the noodles and the boldness of the Inner Mongolian people are vividly reflected in this smooth sentence.
In the border area of Linfen and Lüliang in Shanxi, cold mixed noodles are also eaten, but the method is slightly different.
Roll the good noodles into thin slices, smear them with cooking oil on both sides, put them in the cage drawer and steam them, take them out to cool, cut them into strips, mix with green pepper shreds, cucumber shreds with salt, a little chili oil, and a little soul condiment old vinegar, which is called a beauty. But if you covet the delicacy of the noodles, chopsticks only stretch into the cold noodles, geng zhi master will persuade you to eat more things else, for them, the cold noodles are equivalent to vegetables, wheat noodles are the staple food.
▲ Cold mixed noodles. Photography / davidyou, photo / market map network
Wrapped in rolls, hoarded, dumplings and cute
In northern Jinbei and some counties and cities in Bashang, after the noodles are reconciled, rolled into a large thin skin, wrapped with shredded potatoes, gourd strips and other seasonal vegetables, rolled into rolls, cut into small pieces, placed in the cage drawer steamed, a basket of fragrant wontons (also written as hoarding) is ready.
In the past, these areas were relatively poor, mostly going out to make a living, and the wontons looked like bundled rolls, so they were also jokingly called "begging rolls". The name of this noodle delicacy sounds vulgar, but it tastes like a delicate dim sum, giving people a "plain" feeling.
The dough skin of the wontons is cut into pieces, the potatoes and gourds are cut into pieces, and a little seasonal wild vegetables and vegetables are added, and a packet is wrapped and pinched, and the noodle hoarding becomes the dumplings.
The older generation of Shanxi people eat dumplings and like to mix a little "Jai Jai Miao'er" so that they can eat authentically. ZhaiZhai Miao'er has all over Shanxi, the name is different, in fact, it is a wild spice, looks a bit like a leek, plucked when flowering, dried, with hot sesame oil poured, is an excellent partner for eating dumplings.
▲ Dumplings. Photography / Kong Yan, Photo / MarketMap Network
What cPs can be composed of the surface?
In Shanxi, where "eating noodles", yam eggs (potatoes) and noodles are a perfect pair.
Steamed yam eggs are mashed into puree, and steamed together with the noodles, which can be made into a yam cake; raw yam eggs are ground into a paste, mixed with the noodles into silk and steamed, which is a "round egg". The most classic way to eat noodles + yam eggs is to make cave barriers, cave bases are the name of Linfen and Lüliang, the northern Jin region is called block barriers, and jinzhong is called Gulai. Cooked yam eggs and noodles are mixed into small pieces, and the shallots are fried in a pan of simmering oil and then served on a plate.
▲ Stir-fry cave base. Photo / 2014jinhua, Photo / MarketMap Network
If the yam is a little thinner with the noodles, you can also do the rubbing of the noodles. If the rubbing board is replaced by a dough bed, there is no potato in the noodles, and the noodles are made of noodles. In the Northern Jin Dynasty, the noodle squabble is also known as the Eight Strands, and when served with marinade, it is called a delicacy.
In the Guanzhong and Longdong regions, in the middle of summer, they will eat a delicacy called churning. After the water is boiled, pour the flour into the pot, stir while pouring, and when it is cooked, put it out to cool, cut into pieces, and eat it cold. At the junction of Shanxi and Inner Mongolia, flour is replaced by noodles to make stir cakes, which can be eaten with sauerkraut soup or eaten coldly, which is similar to the churning dough.
▲ Lamb boiled with dumplings. Photo / 2014jinhua, Photo / MarketMap Network
Eat all kinds of noodles, there is no best, only more delicious. In the recent season, when the wheat is newly ripe, the aroma of newly fried wheat and freshly ground noodles is wafting from the autumn colors of the northern country...
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Wen 丨 Zheng Li
Covered | Jing Xiao Man, Huitu Network