Snow Pickles: Preserving the "Taste of Winter" in Memory

As the saying goes, "Small snow pickles, big snow pickled meat." For northerners, many people remember that the taste of winter often starts with pickles. We grew up watching my mother pickles, and the pickle jar was filled with memories of our taste buds. Pickled vegetables that have been tested over time still bring us a different freshness in the cold winter. It is not only the thought of the taste buds, but also the feelings. The more ordinary, the longer. Perhaps, this is also another kind of longevity that is as ordinary as a pickle.

As the saying goes, "Small snow pickles, big snow pickled meat." Unconsciously, the xiaoxue festival is coming, and Wang Zengqi mentioned "pickle mushroom soup" in "Hometown Food". "When I woke up in the morning and saw the snowflakes, I knew: It was pickle soup at noon today." This pickled green vegetable is called "yellow sprouts". Yuan Ming was also mentioned in the "Suiyuan Food List". "Pickled winter vegetables yellow sprouts, light is fresh, salty is evil." However, if you want to put it for a long time, you must put salt. It is often pickled when a large altar is opened at three volts, although the upper half is smelly, while the lower half is fragrant and abnormal, and the color is as white as jade. ”

As soon as I entered the early winter, I couldn't eat a plate of small pickles for breakfast. This year, my blue and white jar is pickled with screw vegetables, also known as pagoda dishes, "ginger is not spicy". With your own steamed steamed buns and a bowl of millet porridge, it's a beautiful morning with a fresh breeze.

I pickled the pickles myself because my friend Lingling was in poor health this year, and her "Bluk" pickles did not arrive as promised. Over the years, I have been enjoying the gift of this friend of Ulanhot, and in the past, every November, the dusty "Bluk" came, usually two boxes, one box of original flavor, which can be fried with shredded meat or eggs; one box is saucey and eaten directly.

"Bluk" is a transliteration of the Russian language, the scientific name is turnip cabbage, and is now abundant in the Daxinganling region. With a "stinging" sound, he tore open the bag, and the "Blük", which was soaked with salt and turned into wisps of gold, bloomed with the smiling face of his friend. A small dish of "Blük", accompanied by a drop of sesame oil, instantly bombards your visual and taste buds, crisp, tender, fresh, and the taste is indescribable.

The pickles that my mother had pickled in those years were filled with memories of my taste buds

Chinese started picking food very early, and each place has its own unique pickles, which are naturally most related to local specialties. Northeast people pickled cabbage, northern region pickled garlic, Gaoyou people pickled duck eggs, seaside people pickled fish pickled crabs, southwest region marinated meat... It's all a bit of a "local material". The initial production of these pickled foods is, on the one hand, to eat less in winter, and on the other hand, to be frugal about not being able to bear to see the food spoiled.

The word "pickled", from the moon, has a literal meaning about to meat. There is also a "菹" character in the ancient books, which represents the pickling method, which means that the food is coarsely cut with a knife, and then refers to the sauerkraut, kimchi, etc. that have been processed in this way. The method of pickling vegetables or meat is actually very simple, the pickling ingredients are smeared on the ingredients layer by layer, the most common are salt, soy sauce, chili, vinegar, and some to use mash. To marinate just the right taste, you need to find a balance between saltiness and freshness, you need to keep testing, and you need to verify it with time.

For northerners, many people remember that the taste of winter often starts with pickles. We grew up watching our mother pickles, the pickle jar is filled with memories of the taste buds, and the winter without pickles can be said to be incomplete.

When I grew up in Xinjiang, there were only cabbage, potatoes and radishes to eat in winter, and pickling snow was an important job for my mother. Because three meals a day are "old three", at that time, I was also disgusted with my mother's pickles, until I grew older, and I began to miss the "winter taste" that my mother had pickled.

Pickled snow red. Later, I learned that the red in the pickled snow is also called "pickled spring is not old". A bundle of fresh sherry, washed and exposed to the sun for a day, mixes vegetables and salt in a 10:1 ratio, stacks them in a layer of salt and serves after 1 month.

When eating, the pickled snow is washed to remove the bitter and salty taste, stir-fried with the cooked soybeans, added red peppers, and finally added sugar and monosodium glutamate.

Pickled leek flowers. The leek flowers in late August and early September are the most suitable for pickling. Half-opened and seedless leek flowers, ground with fresh ginger and salted; some can be put in tender cucumbers that have not grown up, or white pears and apples. When you eat it, add a little sesame oil or chili oil, it is very delicious.

Pickled sugar garlic. It is best to use a six-clove garlic with white skin, because the white skin garlic meat is tender and spicy, remove the leaves, and the "stem" close to the garlic head is still tender, cut into sections and marinate together with the garlic head. If the "stem" has hardened, it means that the garlic is old and the taste is too spicy, so it is not suitable for pickling. White sugar and white vinegar make the spicy garlic successfully transformed, and the sugar garlic with soy sauce is ugly but more mellow. If paired with a bowl of strong and silky hand-rolled noodles, it is more pleasing than dried garlic.

Pickled mustard lumps. To choose the root part of the mustard, it is best to stubble hard, fine skin, tender and crisp. There are two kinds of salting and sauce pickling, the salted water mustard is pickled, which is light brown; the pickled water mustard is peeled and then pickled with yellow sauce and noodle sauce to form the sauce mustard, which is the red sauce.

Fresh mustard lumps are spicy and spicy, and the spicy taste is lightened and softer after marinating. Cut into thin strips and topped with freshly fried chili oil, it's the perfect accompaniment to an early breakfast, with a smooth and tender tofu brain or a fluffy bun to give you a full morning.

Northeast "ten thousand vegetables can be pickled, the cylinder contains a hundred flavors", pickled out a warm "private taste"

To say that the crown of pickles, but also belongs to the northeast people. Every traditional Northeasterner's home has several pickle jars. As soon as it is cold, every household begins to hoard vegetables, as long as it is a vegetable on the market, there is no one who cannot get out of the tank. Anything can be pickled and the flavor is varied.

Pickles extend the life cycle of vegetables and accompany every northeasterner through the long and lack of vegetables in the cold winter. And the pickles that have been made twice in time have produced a flavor and texture that is very different from that of fresh food, which is also a delicacy given by time.

Spicy cabbage can be described as the main force in the pickle world, it is marinated with rich spices, red pepper, garlic and ginger to lay a spicy base, lactic fermentation of acid blessing flavor, cabbage, sugar, apple and pear to create a sweet, become the soul of spicy cabbage.

Not only can raw vegetables be pickled, but northeasterners will also pickle cooked vegetables. There is a mouth-watering "eggplant" in "Dream of the Red Chamber": "Cut the skin of the eggplant that has just come down, as long as the meat is cleaned, cut into nails, fried in chicken oil, and then used chicken breast meat and fragrant mushrooms, new shoots, mushrooms, spiced dried rot, various dried fruits, cut into cubes, simmered with chicken soup, the sesame oil is harvested, plus the bad oil is mixed, sealed in a porcelain jar, when you want to eat, take it out, and mix it with fried chicken melon. ”

That's right, steamed, original eggplant, in addition to dipping sauce, can also be pickled into garlic eggplant. Choose a tender small purple eggplant, steamed and torn into two cloves, the salted minced garlic and coriander are stuffed into the eggplant, yard into the jar, and the garlic flavor will slowly penetrate into the eggplant. When eating, use chopsticks to pick them into strips, and eat the rice with special flavor.

Peeling small potatoes is very troublesome, making sauce small potatoes is different. Beef tendon meat cut into small pieces, stir-fried with green onion, ginger, garlic, pepper and large ingredients until it is broken, and then fried with small potatoes, beans, peppers, etc. with skin sauce, put sugar, salt and soy sauce, stew a large basin, let it cool, it is a delicious pickle that is eaten with it.

Today's urban people almost do not pickle vegetables at home, or have no time, or feel that pickled food is not very healthy. With the increasing improvement of living standards, many old pickles have gradually withdrawn from our lives, but those that belong to the taste of winter in our memory are salty and warm.

Pickled vegetables that have been tested over time still bring us a different freshness in the cold winter. It is not only the thought of the taste buds, but also the feelings. The more ordinary, the longer. Perhaps, this is also another kind of longevity that is as ordinary as a pickle. (Poplar)

Source: China Women's Daily