Qianjiang Evening News hourly news reporter Shi Wen
What is the best match for milk tea in winter?
Recently cooled down, the milk tea shops on the streets of Hangzhou, the popular starting point of a cup of milk tea, with two glutinous rice balls of the latest way to eat.
The main raw materials of balls processed with rice flour are glutinous rice and japonica rice. In the northern suburbs of Hangzhou, in the processing plant that produces balls, the output in the last two months has been three times that of usual.
For Zhejiang people who like to eat rice products, in winter, rice cakes, soup dumplings, and potatoes, which are made of glutinous rice, have always been the standard for warming the heart and stomach.
Why when it is cold, we especially want to eat glutinous rice, today, let us from consumption to production, from modern to ancient, trace back to the source to explore this topic.
1] Selling 3 tons of glutinous rice balls a month, the production of secret recipes is frequently inquired
In the food factory on Saturday, workers were working overtime to produce orders, and the glutinous rice balls on the assembly line looked very tempting.
Original white balls, Teriyaki sauce black balls, red bean balls, chocolate balls, spinach juice green balls, cherry blossom powder balls, each of which is very popular.
About three years ago, a Japanese-funded convenience store approached Hangzhou Zhiwei Food Co., Ltd. in Yuhang and wanted to cooperate with the company to produce Japanese-style ball products.
The taste of Japanese glutinous rice balls is similar to our Zhejiang mochi, but slightly different, in order to maximize the pursuit of the taste of Japanese balls, the company spent nearly 2 million yuan to import balls production line equipment.
The glutinous rice flour and japonica rice flour used to make balls are also customized by a company in Shanghai. The balls, made with original Japanese equipment and custom-made ingredients, have a soft, silky, elastic texture and are indeed delicious.
Originally, the factory's orders were mainly from convenience stores, milk tea shops, and dessert shops, and the balls produced every month were about 1 ton, and the monthly output in winter would reach 2 tons.
In the first half of today, the order-based production in the factory was affected by the epidemic, and the company opened its own ball shop online to open up the retail market, but the business in the first half of the year was relatively flat.
In the two months when the weather turned cold, the sales of online balls can be described as a surge, and the production of the factory has tripled.
Now, the factory produces 3 tons of balls per month, and a box of 10 pounds of balls is equivalent to 200 pounds of production per day, which is already the highest load of production in the factory.
Because the balls sell crazy, many food factories also want to concoct according to the law, but unfortunately, there is a gap in the appearance and taste, so people who come to the company to inquire about the secret recipe are endless.
However, the person in charge of the enterprise frankly said that in fact, we do not have any secret recipe, but the production equipment is good, plus the raw materials are exquisite, which has achieved the popular delicacy.
2] Purple glutinous rice sold for 10 yuan / catty, and even the rice seeds were out of stock
Glutinous rice is very sticky, especially suitable for making rice cakes, mochi, soup dumplings and other foods, and our preference for it may originate from traditional food culture.
This year's newly beaten glutinous rice is already on the market. In the past two years, the price of glutinous rice has also risen somewhat, like this year, the minimum purchase price of glutinous rice is 3 yuan / catty, and the better ones have to sell for 5-7 yuan / catty.
The price mentioned above is only ordinary white glutinous rice, if it is blood glutinous rice, the price will be higher, and Zhejiang has sold to 10 yuan / jin this year.
Purple glutinous, black glutinous or blood glutinous, in fact, are relatively old rice varieties.
For example, according to the literature, the black rice in Yangxian County, Shaanxi Province, was selected and bred by Zhang Qian in the Han Dynasty to be dedicated to Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and it was a tribute from successive dynasties. Another example is Yunnan Mojiang purple rice, 2 pounds a small bag, online to sell more than 30 yuan.
Wang Jianjun, deputy director of the Institute of Nuclear Research of the Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, has been engaged in rice breeding research. Three years ago, through the collection and breeding of local planting resources, he launched the 'Purple Glutinous 18' purple glutinous rice variety.
Prior to this, since 1994, Zhejiang has not newly approved colored glutinous rice varieties, and the old varieties bred in the 1980s that farmers have been using are also facing serious degradation.
Purple glutinous rice breeding directions have two, the more black the color, the taste is often not sticky enough, will be a little slag, the color is not too black, but the taste is soft and sticky, the quality is better, 'purple glutinous 18' belongs to the latter.
In 2017, Wang Jianjun's 'Purple Glutinous 18' had just come out, at the beginning, it was only a small-scale production of 2,000 catties, and a big grain grower in Wuyi bought all the seeds in one go after hearing the news.
Wang Jianjun feels that in the past two years, the market demand for glutinous rice is still very strong. Like 'Purple Glutinous 18' In addition to Zhejiang Province, henan, Hubei and other places of large grain growers also heard the news to snap up.
This year, seed companies and experts are making seeds on both sides, a total of 20,000 catties of 'purple glutinous 18' rice seeds, sold out early.
3] Why do you want to eat glutinous rice when it's cold, we have to start from the theory of evolution
Glutinous rice differs from the taste of indica and japonica rice, derived from its starchy structure.
We divide the starch in rice into two categories: amylose and amylopectin, and the amylopectin content of glutinous rice is very high.
If you compare starch to children in kindergartens, the molecular structure of amylose is like children holding hands and forming a spiral-shaped circle.
If we look at it from a microscope, amylose is a long-chain structure, and after the long chain is constantly circling, its shape looks like a square, and the taste will be harder.
The structure of amylopectin is different, it is short-chain amylose, just like the children in the class playing a game of stacking, and everyone is huddled together.
Under the microscope, the amylopectin looks like a small dumpling, and the taste of them will be softer and more sticky.
Ordinary rice, after oral chewing, digests into the stomach for 20-40 minutes and will enter the small intestine.
Glutinous rice because of the soft and sticky texture, let people subconsciously be lazy to chew more, such as soup dumplings, many people eat, just bite the skin, taste the taste of the filling, almost swallow the stomach.
Glutinous rice that has not been fully chewed by the mouth reaches the stomach, and with the difference in starch structure, it is easier to deposit, and the digestion time is longer than that of ordinary rice. This is also the reason why people with gastritis eat glutinous rice without digestion and are prone to stomach pain.
The cold of winter makes our human blood sugar rise to resist the invasion of low temperatures, so we will also want to consume more calorie foods.
Human beings have experienced the test of extreme cold in their long biological evolution, and those who are not hardy have been eliminated, and the rest of us can better withstand the test of severe cold. Glutinous rice, which needs to be digested for a longer time, brings us a stronger feeling of fullness, and starch is converted into sugar in the human body, helping us resist the cold of winter.
Perhaps, this is why we like to eat glutinous rice.
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Source: Qianjiang Evening News Hourly News