In the Junggar Basin, the wind blows wheat waves, which are not only poetic and beautiful, but the real existence created by the hard-working and wise military reclamation people who shed blood and sweat and dig canals to drain alkali.
How big is the Junggar Basin, how big are the wheat fields on the edge of the Junggar Basin! Monocotyledonous plants, wheat of the family Poaceae, show excellent growth in the Junggar Basin between the Altai Mountains and the Tianshan Mountains in Xinjiang, green to the end of the world in spring and yellow to the sky in autumn. Thanks to the special climate of long sunshine hours, large temperature difference between day and night, and the soil structure of the brown calcium soil, meadow swamp soil and meadow salt soil of the basin alluvial fan edge, the flour grinded by the wheat here is good, the gluten is good, the taste is good, and the temptation of the thin skin bun crystal clear, the crispy yellow and shiny oil of the baked bun is enchanted, the right way of the river and lake, the soft and crispy aroma of the oil tower and the happiness of the dumplings.
Pasta, in my hungry childhood in my hometown, had a great allure.
Rice blossoms say that in the hometown of the harvest year, the terraces are superimposed from the foot of the mountain to the mountainside or even the top of the mountain, and these terraces with beautiful lines are rich in rice and are not suitable for growing wheat. In my hometown, related to wheat, I have only seen buckwheat; and the food related to the hometown called "noodle fat" xinjiang called "flour", I have seen steamed buns and noodles, but other noodle products other than noodles, I really have not eaten.
The location of our commune is an ancient town called Dutou, where there is a public restaurant that sells sugar buns, steamed buns and fritters. I occasionally went with my grandfather to the Dutou Pharmacy to grab medicine, and walked through the bluestone street in front of the store, trying to absorb the fragrance that floated in the air.
I finally met and "met" my father, who left me when I was a decade old. One day, my father took me to eat fritters at this restaurant in Totou. I took the golden fritters and took a careful bite, and as soon as my teeth touched, I keenly felt the crispness of the fritters, followed by the tendons that resembled the skin of the fried meat that soaked soft, and immediately the presence like oil tofu or fried eggs spread between my upper and lower teeth that I had never had before, and the scent of the noodles and the mixture of oil aromas also filled the corners and crevices between my lips and teeth at this time, straight into my heart! These aromas are fragrant and warm at first, but the aromas on the remaining fingers are delicate and warm. My father asked me if it was delicious? I didn't dare to open my mouth to answer, afraid that the aroma would slip away, and only nodded like a kowtow. My father asked me if I had eaten before? I didn't say a word, just shook my head. After a while, my father asked me if I knew what it was made of. I slowly swallowed the churries that had turned into pulp and said, "Is it an egg?" The father smiled and said nothing. When I finished eating, my father asked me if I could get used to it if I ate noodle buns at every meal. I stared at my father widely, couldn't believe that there was such a good life in the world, and firmly replied: I can!
I followed my father to the coal mine on the northwest edge of the Junggar Basin, and sure enough, the dinner table was full of white, plump, elastic steamed buns, and I had one left hand and one right hand, bulging cheeks, glaring, and chewing on the steamed buns with fierce tearing. These steamed buns have a rich aroma of noodles and alkali, and after eating, there is a faint sweetness that remains at the base of the tongue. My height of less than one meter and five meters reached the following year, and in the spring the willows were like strips of willows that flew to more than one meter and six meters.
From his hometown on the edge of the Dzungar Basin, his father, whose sad gaze was actually a picture of Shonan farming that was "full of water and rice leaves, and daylight through the trees and smoke was low", so that later he planted vegetables in the yard I built for him in the city, using the way of his hometown, completely ignoring the characteristics of the local water and soil, and the result was that it was planted year after year, and the harvest failed every year. Father's disposition and connotation of wheat and flour only stayed at the level of steamed bun dumplings, and there was no higher and deeper understanding. Of course, this is what I learned after I arrived at Karamay TELEVISION in 1984.
The beauty of Karamay on the northwest edge of the Junggar Basin, in addition to being rich in oil, in addition to The most magnificent Yadan in China, in addition to siliconized wood and dinosaur egg fossils, there are thin-skinned buns and baked buns. I have always thought that the thin-skinned buns, which are bright in color and shiny in skin and tender and rich in meat, are the sisters of the grilled buns, while the golden, crispy and juicy buns are her brothers, and the thick and simple naans are their bosses.
In the mornings in Karamay, known as the oil city, there is a hint of laziness in the tranquility, when people need hot milk tea and thin leather buns sprinkled with black pepper called "Pitimanta" by locals to wake up. The fragrant milk tea, which is made up of brick tea and fresh milk, is a unique memory belonging to the Dzungar pot people. After taking a sip of milk tea and grabbing a thin-skinned bun and eating it, I think even silicified wood will rejuvenate.
The skin of the thin skin bun that makes the lips and teeth fragrant is made of warm salt water, which is made of hard noodles, that is, dead noodles. The noodles are reconciled, made into dough and rolled into a translucent crust; as for the filling, it must be lamb meat, which is called "no marriage" in the local saying. The lamb is hand-cut into small diced meat, and then added is also cut into small diced sheep tail oil, skin and tooth diced naturally indispensable, the ingredients are salt, pepper and cumin powder, of course, but also add the right amount of water filling; with a delicate dough skin will be the raw and fragrant filling gently wrapped, basket steamed for a quarter of an hour. The thin skin is full, the filling is original and tender, and the gravy is overflowing, which is the standard for a good thin-skinned bun. The thin leather bun that has just come out of the basket is crystal clear and faintly visible. As the saying goes, you can't eat hot tofu in a hurry, in the face of the breathtaking thin skin bun, you need to install Sven, with the posture of kissing with the opposite sex for the first time, the lips will be tentatively close to the bun, the small bite is like a paper thin skin, accompanied by the thick aroma of skin buds and black pepper powder, the meat tender oil rich filling has seduced the taste buds restless, but don't rush to eat it, first slowly suck the hot mouth hot tongue gravy, and then the bun is shallowly dipped in black vinegar to eat, only to feel the wheat aroma of the dough and the oil aroma of the filling blend with each other, Closing his mouth and taking a deep breath and then slowly exhaling, the rich fragrance filled the mouth and nasal cavity for a long time, so that people had no other thoughts at this moment, but only satisfied and reveled in the pleasure of this mouth and abdomen.
In my understanding of buns on the edge of the Dzungar Basin, if thin-skinned buns are crystal clear temptations, baked buns are crispy yellow and shiny. Under the grape racks on the street side of Karamay and under the apple trees in the alleys, there are roasting pits of baked buns everywhere, and the baked buns that appear on the edge of the grilling pits are freshly baked, and the golden skin shows its crispy caramel, under the thin puff pastry, full of fresh and juicy lamb, mixed with the spices of onions and cumin, and the juice is fried in one bite, and all the dissatisfaction and desire on the tip of the tongue are instantly soothed and satisfied.
The skin of the grilled bun is also made of dead noodles, and the filling is similar to the thin-skinned bun, except that the diced meat and lamb's tail oil are more realistic. The hungry roast bun does not come to the table alone with its lonely figure, but enriches our happiness with the momentum of the family.
At the foot of the Tian Shan Mountains on the southwest edge of the Junggar Basin there is a city called Dushanzi, which is a district of Karamay City. There is a small and cute baked bun called "Palmudine". This kind of grilled bun in the shape of an artistic saddle bridge, its secular name is called a handful of scratches. To make a handful of scratched dough, a certain proportion of eggs and oil dough must be mixed with the dough, and the shape of the saddle is to make its shape more appropriate to the Name of "One Grab". Unlike the grilled bun, after grabbing the bun pit, it is necessary to apply a little refined mutton oil to make a "mask" to make it a cute face with a shiny yellow color.
In the grilled bun family, just in contrast to the petite and cute Palmudine, is a large, round and thick grilled bun. This big baked bun is a strong man who crossed the Tianshan Mountains and rushed from Hotan to the Dzungar Basin, and when I first ate it, I saw this guy bulging and looked down on it, thinking that this guy was just a stupid roasted bun. When I turned the bun over, I learned to spin the bottom of the bun with a knife, and at the moment of unveiling the charred yellow shell like a small bowl, I was immediately drunk by the fresh aroma of meat wrapped in flesh in its chest and abdomen, squeezing into the nose straight into the heart and spleen. When the heat dissipated, I saw that the boiling hot meat filling soup in the "small round bowl" in my hand was shining with an oily bright light that threatened my lips and tongue, so I had to carefully eat the fragrant meat filling, and then sip the filling soup in the small round bowl while chewing on the small crisp and crispy small round bowl...
The fried baked bun "Sambusa", which is shaped like dumplings, is actually not a native pasta in the Junggar Basin, and the biggest difference between it and other baked buns is that the filling is first placed in the pan and fried in oil, and when the skin is foreskin, a lace knife is used to press out a neat pattern on the edge of the bun, making it more like a work of art. Although it is a family member of the baked buns, it is actually a golden dumpling that has been fried in oil. In recent years, the innovative nuts and dried fruit roasted buns are avant-garde members of the baked bun family, a little cool, a little fashionable, quite popular with young people on the edge of the Junggar Basin, and those girls who are obsessed with love especially like to sit in the soft light, a cup of milk tea on the left, a plate of dried fruit roasted buns on the right, sipping and chewing while losing a small temper with a pet dog-like pleasing boy. Dried fruit roasted buns are of course related to various dried fruits, raisins, walnuts, badan wood and other dried fruits are chopped, mixed with mutton oil and sugar into a filling, wrapped in the dough and roasted, fruity, oily, dried fruit sweet into the pulp.
The most tempting taste bud in the baked bun family is "Kumachi", which is the big man of the baked bun family. Kumaiqi is a Chinese-language barbecue. This traditional large grilled meatloaf is the size of a washbasin, completely local tycoon,000, and domineering. It was born on the edge of the Taklamakan Desert and later migrated to the edge of the Junggar Basin in the footsteps of time. Kumaiqi divides ash buried Kumaiqi, pit buried Kumaiqi, Naankeng Kumaiqi, oven Kumaiqi and the pot Kangkumai that evolved. Ash buried Kumaiqi is the most primitive, it is a principle with ash buried lamb belly stew. Lamb belly stew is stuffed into a washed lamb tripe with chopped meat, seasoned and vegetables, and then buried in the pre-hot sand and grilled. The same is true for the ash buried Kumaiqi, after the meatloaf is wrapped, the whole is buried in the sand of the firewood fire, baked and pulled out, and the dust on the surface of the meatloaf can be eaten. This kind of meat cake, which is called "the bread of the earth", if the meat filling is not removed, it is actually an essentially thick bun!
With a history of more than 2,000 years, it is simple and simple. This does not need to be embellished to dress up a luxurious bun, and it was actually liked by the high-ranking official Bai Juyi, who chanted in "Sending Hu Cake and Yang Wanzhou": "Flax cakes are like learning Kyoto, and the crispy oil is fragrant out of the new oven." Sending food to Ambassador Yang, taste it to complement it. "The bun is also a large family, with about fifty varieties, mainly including meat buns, oil buns, nest buns, piya buns and sesame buns. But the most primitive and authentic naan, the tapa bun, which gives the first impression of rough and brash cow dung, is a staple food of steppe herders, and the Kazakhs in the Tori steppe on the northwest edge of the Junggar Basin are the best roasted. The herders here are good at making the most of their belongings, cow dung is not just a bubble of in their eyes, it can be a building material, but also the best fuel. Kazakhs believe that as long as there is a fire, there is a delicacy, "Taba" naan of course can not be without fire, and it is the cow dung fire roasted is authentic. The tamba made of pig iron is a tool for baking bread, looking like two separate pans, the bottom cover is difficult to distinguish; the edge of the pot is deeper, and the bottom of the pot is thicker. At noon, the heroine of the herdsman's family with a flower turban and a silver bracelet used an appropriate amount of warm water to dissolve the appropriate amount of salt, and then soaked the old noodles as yeast, and added some milk, eggs, ghee and sheep's tail oil to the flour to make the noodles to ensure that the finished bread was crispy and delicious. When the sun is about to become the setting sun, after the heroine has milked the milk of the goat's milk and camel milk, she will light a cow dung fire outside the felt house, and when the wisps of cooking smoke rise, the fermented noodles will be kneaded into a smooth dough and pressed into the tabari, and then a taba of the same size will be buckled upside down, and after the seams are tightly sewn, buried in charcoal ashes and simmered. Freshly baked beef dung buns baked from old-fashioned hair noodles are scalding hot and perfect, exuding a unique fragrance given by the prairie and sun.
Another delicacy that contrasts greatly with the shape and color of the naan is called the oil tower, which is a typical Muslim-style noodle oil dish, which can only be authentic in Changji on the southeast edge of the Junggar Basin. Authentic, superior oil tower, must be shaped like a tower, white and shiny; the surface is thin like paper, rich in layers; the entrance is soft and fragrant, the oil is more than greasy, and the fragrance is soft but not sticky.
To make an oil tower, it must be warm water to open the old noodle yeast and noodles; the noodles are fermented for about an hour, add alkali water and knead, and then let the noodles stand; the noodles are good, rolled into a flour agent, and the oil is wiped out and set aside. Take one of the pieces, roll out the tile case, and use the good elongation and toughness of the surface to thin it as much as possible - the thinner the better. At this point, a key step is to apply refined mutton oil to the thin surface. There is a special, when the weather is hot, you need to add an appropriate amount of coagulation in the easy-to-melt sheep tail oil, so as not to melt the sheep tail oil due to the heat and flow out of the surface layer to affect the appearance; when it is cold, you need to add a little clear oil to the sheep tail oil, the sheep tail oil is easy to solidify, the solidified sheep tail oil can not be evenly applied to the blank, and the clear oil can prevent the sheep tail oil from solidifying. The oil tower made in this way is full of oil and does not leak, maintaining the natural flavor of the oil tower and the appearance of the finished product white oil. Spread the oil, sprinkle a little salt and pepper powder on the dough, then roll the edges of the dough, roll it up and roll it into thin strips, then cut it into several small pieces, twist it into a tower shape, and steam it in a cage drawer. When the lid of the cage was lifted after twenty minutes, a strong aroma suddenly came to the face, making people hungry! There is mutton fat in the oil tower, and it can only be eaten hot to obtain a very good taste, and only then can you taste the mellowness of the wheat, the length of the clear oil, and the strong integration of mutton fat, which is refreshing and wonderful. People on the edge of the Junggar Basin are used to treating the oil tower as an early snack, eating this kind of oil tower that looks similar to the flower roll made by my stepmother, of course, there is a bowl of powder soup or ball soup - powder soup or ball soup is the perfect match for oil tower!
I love wheat, I love pasta, I love cooking, but I am far behind my father and stepmother in pasta making, and my stepmother is good at rolling noodles by hand and can also make flower rolls like oil towers. My father was good at making dumplings, making dumplings, just as skillfully as he was when he rolled up mohe cigarettes. In the coal mine, my father usually chose to make dumplings on days when he could not go to work in wind and snow, and later after living in my city, he chose to celebrate the holidays or the weekend when I took my son to visit them. As for Chinese New Year's Eve Night, dumpling making is a traditional program that he and his stepmother must stage, and its status is like CCTV's Spring Festival Gala throughout the Spring Festival, until the Spring Festival before they leave this world! My father and stepmother were making dumplings while chattering among my parents, who didn't sound marginal.
However, when I was present, my father often told me about my hometown while making dumplings. My father and I would talk about every mountain and every stream and every family in the small mountain village of my hometown, there was a lot of content that I had talked to him for decades, and the reason why I often repeated the people and things in my hometown was not that he was old and I was also getting old, but I hoped that time could return to that month in the repetition of language! When my father talked about affection, he would stop his hand, roll a cigarette, pour a glass of wine and drink it, and then maybe he would take the erhu and close his eyes and play a song that he liked, which was also my favorite "Erquan Yingyue", "Listening to Pine", "Moon Night" and so on. After his father let go of the erhu and sighed a short sigh, he saw that the eyes under his long eyebrows were full of homesick tears. I know that at this time, he must have regarded the neat rice stubble of his hometown as the strings of the earth, playing his shallow chant to his relatives... It is about the father who wraps his thoughts of his hometown, his relatives, and the expectations of our children into the dumplings, so his dumplings are full, boiled in the pot, with the boiling water or tumbling or floating, full of round happiness.
About author:He Xianxue, born in 1964 in Zixing, Hunan Province, graduated from Hunan Normal University, and has successively engaged in underground coal mining, film screening, teaching, newspaper editorial and municipal government secretary, and is now retired. Loves cooking, loves photography, but hasn't achieved anything.