Author: Jin Yongyan
Pepper sauce is a classic dish in Dream of the Red Chamber. In the seventy-fifth time, Madame Wang mentioned: "But it is all a common thing." Today I eat fasting and nothing else. Those gluten and tofu old ladies did not like to eat, only picked a kind of pepper oil and sauce. "Lettuce is very unfamiliar to everyone, but lettuce is believed to be familiar to everyone. The pepper sauce is made by chopping fresh lettuce and marinating it with salt, ginger, shallots, pepper oil, etc.
The opening of the night feast is a strange omen of sadness
A small song sung by Bao Yu in the twenty-eighth "Jiang Yuhan Love Gift to Qian Xiangluo, Xue Baochao Shame Cage Red Musk String" in the twenty-eighth time of "Dream of the Red Chamber": "Drops of acacia blood and tears throw red beans, can't finish the spring willow spring flowers full of painting buildings, can't sleep unsteadily after the wind and rain in the screen window, can't forget the new sorrows and old worries, can't swallow the jade grain gold choke full throat, can't see the diamond flower mirror to describe thin." The brow that cannot be opened is even more leaky. Among them, the "lettuce" that "can't swallow the jade grain and choke on the throat" and the "lettuce" in Madame Wang's filial piety to Jia Mu's pepper oil lettuce sauce both refer to the same thing - lettuce.
Jiang Yuhan gave Qian Xiangluo
Lettuce, also known as "horseshoe grass", aquatic root herb, sexual warmth, leaves in the oval shape floating on the water, summer pumping flower stems, small flowers, dark red, young stems and leaves back with a gelatinous transparent substance. Spring and summer as vegetables, autumn plants are old and decaying, small and bitter leaves, mostly used as pig feed, Song Dynasty poet Lu You has "the old but silk is the most annoying" said. The "齑齑 sauce" is to cut the stems and leaves of vegetables finely, add salt or other spices, such as fennel, pepper oil, ginger, wine, etc., to marinate, and make a home-style pickle. The Song Dynasty's "Tokyo Dream Record" Volume IV "Restaurant" has clouds: "The vegetables are delicate, and they are called 'making dragons.'" To make pepper oil lettuce sauce, select the lettuce with tender stems and leaves, wash it and put it in boiling water to blanch the water, then rinse it in a cold water basin, wrap it in a cloth and squeeze the dry water and chop it, add pepper oil and other spices and mix well. The sauce is mixed with pepper oil, and the taste is not under the lettuce soup.
Lettuce, aka "horseshoe grass"
West Lake lettuce soup believes that Hangzhou people are no strangers, this is a famous dish in Hangzhou from ancient times to the present, and has always been beautiful for freshness. "Thousand miles of lettuce soup, salt soy sauce at the end", the plump and thick taste can be compared to stuffed with yokan soup. West Lake lettuce has been on a par with Songjiang perch since ancient times, and there is a record of "lettuce perch" in the Book of Jin; Bai Juyi also left behind the ancient famous sentence "There is a sea bass lettuce, coming to spring or planning to go to Jiangdong". Su Dongpo has served as a magistrate in Hangzhou twice in his life, and his lettuce is different, "If you ask sanwu shengshi, not only a thousand miles of lettuce soup", from another side, he praised the delicious taste of lettuce soup. Wen Tianxiang was quite pleased with the "lettuce soup", and he had a sentence in the "Poetry in the Mountains" that "lai has a wind and can be chopped".
West Lake lettuce soup
It is understood that lettuce mainly grows in the West Lake, Xiang Lake and Taihu Lake in Jiangnan. In the Ming Dynasty Li Shizhen's "Compendium of Materia Medica" recorded: "In the southern lake of The Birth of The Wu yue people like to eat it." The leaves are round like spinach and shaped like horseshoes. Its stem is purple, as large as a stalk, silky and beautiful. In the summer month, it blooms yellow flowers, fruity blue-purple, as large as tang pears, with fine seeds. In spring and summer, the young stems and leaves are called juveniles, and the juveniles are small. The leaves are slightly shu older name silk, and its stem is like silk also. In the autumn, it is called Aoi, or as a pig lettuce, and it can be fed to pigs. And it is a treasure, a turtle. "
Lettuce cultivation
Lettuce has a long history of growing lettuce in west lake. According to the Ming Dynasty's "West Lake Tour", the West Lake Su Causeway Wangshan Bridge once planted West Lake lettuce. In the local area, in addition to the big volt day and the ice period, West Lake lettuce can be planted throughout the year. Generally choose a lake pond with a water depth of about one meter, fertile water quality and convenient drainage and irrigation. The germination rate of Lettuce seeds in West Lake is low, and the stems are generally used for cuttings propagation. Cut cuttings from the overwintering underground stems in the mud or the aboveground parts of the growth period. There are two kinds of planting methods: oblique cutting and flat cutting, and the water should be shallow before planting. From the beginning of May to the end of October every year is the picking period of West Lake lettuce, especially from mid-May to mid-July, the stems and leaves of West Lake Lettuce are fat, tender, protein and the best quality. Modern technology can make the picked West Lake lettuce long-term preservation after processing. But in ancient times, lettuce was difficult to preserve. It is said that Hu Xueyan sent lettuce to Zuo Zongtang, who was far away in Xinjiang, and wrapped it in layers of cotton paper and spun silk, and then passed it on a fast horse for six hundred miles. In "Dream of the Red Chamber", the lettuce is chopped up to make pepper oil lettuce sauce, which is a clever preservation method.
West Lake lettuce is not only fragrant in taste, but also rich in nutrition. Its young stems, shoots, and curly leaves are surrounded by a white, transparent gelatinous substance that is high in colloidal and other components. It has been measured that each 100 grams of fresh West Lake lettuce contains 900 mg of protein, 230 mg of sugar, as well as more vitamin C and a small amount of iron. If the West Lake lettuce and crucian carp are mixed together, in addition to the delicious taste, there are also effects such as anti-gas and vomiting, treatment of heat gangrene, and removal of sores.
Crucian carp soup with lettuce
Fresh West Lake lettuce can be used to make Hangzhou famous dishes such as West Lake lettuce soup, lettuce yellow fish soup, shrimp mixed with lettuce, lianpeng tofu and so on. Cooking West Lake lettuce is also very exquisite, taking the West Lake lettuce soup as an example, first put the fresh West Lake lettuce into boiling water, quickly fished out, put into the soup bowl, and then put the chicken, ham soup and salt together in the pot to boil, pour on the fished dish, and then sprinkle chicken shreds, ham shreds, drizzle with cooked chicken fat. Lettuce is emerald green, chicken white legs red, bright colors, fragrant taste, refreshing West Lake lettuce soup is complete. Legend has it that when the Qianlong Emperor traveled to Jiangnan, he would taste the West Lake lettuce soup, and there was also the recitation of "flowers full of Su Causeway to suppress smoke, and it was a sunny day when picking lettuce".
Lettuce
At present, lettuce is no longer produced in West Lake, and most of the West Lake lettuce is produced in Shuangpu Town and its surrounding areas in the West Lake District. Shuangpu Town has been growing lettuce since the 1970s, and there are now nearly 1,000 mu of lettuce paddy fields in the area of Tongjian Lake Village, with an annual output of about 1,000 tons. It is also a reserve of origin for Lettuce from west lake.