▲ The days of the Northwestern people are hot because of the oil and spicy seeds. Photography / Lan Lan, Picture / Figure Worm · Creative
-Fengwujun Language-
Without oil and spicy seeds, how can the northwestern people live their lives?
On the table of the northwestern people, there can be no meat and no vegetables, but it must not be without oil and spicy seeds.
Oil spicy seeds, in the northwest also called oil spicy seeds or cooked oil spicy seeds. What is called is not important, what is important is the "splash" - a sound, the spoon up and down, the hot oil wrapped in chili noodles, like a storm wrapped in yellow sand in the bowl tumbling up, the moment of sudden change, the weather is thousands, and the calm as a knifeman in the northwest, then see the timing, pick up the chopsticks, just gently stir in the bowl, the "wind" stopped, the "sand" was also fixed, at this time everything was quiet, only the aroma of the oil splashed spicy slowly rose like a rainbow...
▲ A bowl of oily "bath oil rebirth". Graph/Network
A bowl of oil and spicy seeds will show the pride and calmness of the northwestern people to the fullest. And that oily, red and bright color is the sunshine that will never fade, illuminating the days when the northwestern people are red.
The elegance of the spicy oil is a metaphysics
More than 400 years ago, after the pepper crossed the ocean into China, Chinese began to "eat spicy in a fancy way":
Sichuan people like spicy, for the pepper to find a partner - pepper; Yun Gui people like sour and spicy, the pepper made into a dip; the northwest people like spicy, so the head is a spoonful of boiling oil, seemingly ruthless but affectionate, hard to let the ordinary pepper noodles "bath oil rebirth", become the "supreme taste" that every household can not do without.
▲ Spicy seeds in oil, bright red and bright in oil, illuminating the lives of northwestern people. Photography / Rainie, Photo / Figure Worm Creative
The taste of regular food should not be satisfied. Of course, the oily spicy seeds have to be exquisite, but not much, only two:
The first one, is the pepper. Qin pepper is used in Shaanxi,Gansu, Ningqing, and Xinjiang is more used in line pepper. After the peppers are red, they are picked back and dried, cut into segments, and sautéed in a hot pan to make chili noodles. In the past, to make chili noodles with a milling groove, put it under the feet and pedal back and forth, with the strength of the small mill coarse point is the slag spicy, with the strength of the big milling point is the noodle spicy, the thickness is up to their own grasp. Now that the machine is popular, there is no need to work hard as before to suffer from sin, and a spicy seed is crushed down and sod.
▲ The name of the scumbag spicy is so cute. Photography / Lan Lan, Picture / Figure Worm Creative
The second is oil. Rapeseed oil must be used for oil, and other oils cannot spill that fragrance. Whether it is a scummy spicy or a noodle spicy, as long as it is made of oil and spicy seeds, it must be mixed well with salt, pepper powder, minced garlic, sesame seeds and other ingredients in a bowl, which is the basic recipe handed down by generations.
Pay attention to the specific amount of ingredients, how many ingredients to add, but there is no unified standard. Therefore, there are as many households in the northwest as there are, and there are only good and better, not the best, and the flavors are varied and varied.
▲ One splash and one stir, the oil is spicy. Graph/Network
It is this "thousand flavors" of oil and spicy seeds that give Northwest cuisine a rough and varied and intriguing character.
No oil and spicy seeds, what is the head of the rice?
Spicy seeds are the finishing touch of Northwest cuisine.
Whether you eat noodles, meat or vegetables, as long as you add a little oil and spicy seeds, the dishes are suddenly "new". That touch of shiny red not only makes the food "plummet", but also can arouse the hungry worms in the stomach and make people's fingers move.
Spicy seeds with carbs, you say beautiful or not?
Bad appetite in hot summer weather? Eat spicy seeds in oil!
Whether it is cold noodles, cold skin or cold powder, as long as it is a "cool character generation", in the northwest region, you have to humbly accept the "teachings" of oil and spicy seeds. In the restaurants and stalls in the streets and alleys, the oily spicy seeds "occupy the mountain as the king", and in these cold mixed carbs, they "show their skills" and adjust this bowl and mix that bowl, which is more than the curding of the cattle.
▲ Whether it is cold skin, cold powder, oil and spicy seeds must give you a "lesson".
The hotter the day, the more you have to add more oil and spicy seeds. Eating and sweating, as if opening up the second vein of Ren Dou, that is called a refreshing.
In guanzhong and Longdong areas, sour soup noodles and sour soup dumplings are also made. Finely cut the leeks, stir-fry with rapeseed oil and salt, pour a few spoonfuls of water into the pot, bring to a boil over high heat, add vinegar, pour on the noodles and dumplings, add a little oil to splash spicy seeds, coriander, sour and spicy refreshing, relieve the summer, is the "Tianzi No. 1" summer artifact.
▲ Gansu Lingtai handmade sour soup noodles. Photography / Zhu Rui
Beef noodles, biangbiang noodles, and large plates of chicken noodles are the three most well-known and widely circulated noodles in the northwest region, two of which are inseparable from the oily spicy seeds.
Beef noodles, known as "Lanzhou ramen" in other places, although the image is image, but Lanzhou locals only recognize "beef noodles" or "beef bowl". Beef noodles pay attention to one clear two white, three red, four green and five yellow, and the red of which is the oil spicy. In authentic beef noodle shops, the noodles are all self-picked. When queuing up to pick up noodles, the first thing that catches your eye is a large blue and white bowl with a bowl of oil and spicy seeds.
Lanzhou beef noodles
"How much spicy?" It is the only communication between the ramen chef and the diners. At this time, we must be calm and calm, and we must not be provoked by not being good at eating spicy, the spicy seeds that have been spilled in oil have lost their sharpness, and they are not spicy, and they can increase the aroma of the noodles. If the oil is less spicy, then what else is there to eat in this bowl of beef noodles? If you look at the lanzhou people, each bowl is red like a floating Danxia, and it is called an incense.
Compared with beef noodles, which are well versed in the way of "becoming famous early", biangbiang noodles, although they have always been popular in Shaanxi, are really widely known and circulated after the launch of the TV series "White Deer Plain" in 2017. The scene of Bai Jiaxuan, played by Zhang Jiayi, squatting in his own yard and slamming the biangbiang noodles, let the bowl of noodles successfully "out of the circle".
▲ Bai Jiaxuan slammed the biangbiang noodles. Photo/ Screenshot of the TV series "White Deer Plain"
Biangbiang, is an elephant sound word, refers to the sound of the noodles being smashed on the board, and when the oil is splashed, it is the oil splashed on the noodles. The oil-soaked noodles can be biangbiang noodles or other noodles. The noodles are served in a bowl, with chili noodles, salt, five-spice powder, green onions, minced garlic, bean sprouts, and eaten with boiling oil, which is actually a ready-made oily spicy seed on the noodles, but it is easy to make people get greasy when the oil is splashed.
Spicy seeds in oil with meat, the icing on the cake
In the "carbon water world" such as fish water, to the "meat world" must not be easy to mix, right?
No! Spicy seeds have a strong "cross-border ability", and they are still mixed up in the "meat eating world". Who let the northwestern people do not live without it.
A bowl of Xi'an lamb bubbles, even if you get up early, the bun is broken well, and you don't put the chili sauce, that is a corrupt thing. The reason is the same, a bowl of small stir-fry (beef and mutton small stir-fried steamed buns, locally called small stir-fry), even if the side dishes are rich, the vinegar is fragrant, do not put oil when frying, without that taste and color, it is not a small stir-fry. The same "well-known Xi'an" gourd head (gourd head bubble bun), is also this theory.
▲ Xi'an small stir-fry. Photography / Zhang Qiang 559, Photo / Figureworm · Creativity
Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai area, eat clear soup lamb, lamb and offal slices sink at the bottom of the bowl, in addition to adding a lot of pepper in the soup, oil spicy seeds are resolutely not less. Whether it is three or three or nine days, the first thing to do when the clear soup and lamb are served is to open the container on the table containing oil and spicy seeds, and add spicy seeds to the bowl with vigor. The spicy oil floats on the soup, the spicy noodles seep into the soup, the steamed buns, the meat, and the spicy taste hits the mouth, and this bowl of clear soup lamb can be regarded as "eating it".
▲ Gansu Pingliang clear soup lamb. Photography / Han Shiyang
When it comes to cold meat, the oil is not intimidated, and it turns around and throws it into a bowl with vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil and other spices, transforming it into a sauce. You think it "lost itself" in the juice? That's too small to look at. Whether it is cold mixed beef or cold mixed pork, it can always "dress" a plate of sour and spicy cold mixed meat with its own bright red, with emerald green coriander.
Spicy seeds, is it the main dish or the ingredients?
Eight hundred miles of Qinchuan dust flying Yang
Thirty million old Shaanxi Qi roared Qin Cavity
Serve a bowl of noodles with joy
No oily pouts
Oily spicy seeds, who are sought after by the northwestern people, meet Zhiyin in the Guanzhong area. One of the eight monsters in Guanzhong is "a dish of spicy seeds in oil". This "dish" can be used alone to mix noodles (but water noodles), potato knots, churn dough, or it can be used alone to sandwich steamed buns. At this point, the oily spicy seeds have reached the "peak of ingredients".
▲ Heat the steamed buns with spicy seeds in oil. Photography / Life said to me, Figure / Figure Worm Creative
However, it is clear that people in Guanzhong and Longdong do not think so, and they have also developed a delicacy that makes outsiders squeamish: spicy water. Spicy water is actually a kind of dipping water, Qin pepper chopped into minced, add a spoonful of oil to pour spicy seeds, pour vinegar and stir, can be used to cook alone, can also be used to cold mix eggplant, cucumber and other vegetables.
Is the spicy seeds a main dish or an ingredient?
This question is unanswerable to northwesterns. Because the oily spicy seeds have seeped into every corner of their table, it doesn't matter whether it's the main course or the toppings.
▲ Spicy seeds, the color of northwestern people's life. Photo/soogif
What is important is that the Northwestern people will point to the oil on the table and tell you that without it, most of the food in the Northwest will be tasteless; without that bright red, most of the Northwest cuisine will lose its soul.
Northwestern people will also tell you: as long as the oil is not eaten, the motivation and meaning of life will never be lost!
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Wen 丨 Zheng Li