In my hometown of Liaozhong, there is a delicious dish, that is, "home stewed crucian carp", one of the secrets is to put mint when grilling fish. After getting married, the mint from my hometown "introduced" my small family in the city, so my wife also became "mint powder", and when we cooked, mint became the best accessory.
In the market in the city, we rarely see mint, as long as we go back to our hometown, the first thing we do is to pick a lot of mint to take home. After the mint has dried, store it for later.
Knowing that my mint was always "in short supply," my nephew had sent some mint seedlings the previous spring to plant in our flower bed downstairs. Peppermint has a particularly strong reproductive ability, and by this year, peppermint is already a good piece. In this way, there is no longer a shortage of mint.
Speaking of mint, I always have a stem in my heart, there is a thing like mint, but I have not been able to figure out whether it is mint or not?
I have a good friend in Taiwan, Boss Chen, who came to the mainland more than a decade ago to open up the catering industry. The Han Palace ginger hen duck hot pot invented by him is very distinctive, that is, nourishing and delicious. Boss Chen is dedicated, enthusiastic, able to speak, the biggest advantage is that he and strangers see the same way, sing very well, especially the Minnan song, the vibrato of "The Mood of the Prodigal Son" is more flavorful than the original version. Boss Chen loves lantern riddles, and his restaurant hangs special riddle lanterns for guests to guess every traditional festival. Boss Chen and I made friends through a riddle.
One year, my friend and I went to his Xiamen main store as a guest. Brother Chen personally took charge of the spoon, and in addition to the ginger hen duck, he also made us a few dishes. One of the "three cups of chicken" has an accessory, like the mint in the north, but the pungent taste is not as strong as the mint, after the main dish is cooked, add it, stir-fry a few times to become. It has a special fragrance to eat. It can be used to make many kinds of dishes, especially the "three cups" series, not to mention indispensable. Brother Chen said that it is called the "Nine-Story Tower".
Three cups of chicken
Later, I traveled to Kunming on business. When eating, I found that many dishes put something similar to the "nine-story tower", which the locals called "mint", but it was definitely not the mint of the north. The people we go with all love to eat. Before returning home, Ms. tl and Miss Flai actually ran to the market to buy me 5 pounds to take home, which can be called real "air freight"! After going home, I imitated and made "three cups of shrimp", which was really delicious. Because there were too many, it was not fresh for a long time, and Madame flooded it with pickles. Wow, didn't expect it, also delicious.
So the question is: Is the Nine-Story Tower a mint? Is the mint in Kunming a nine-story tower?
I can't help it today, but I still asked "Du Niang".
Some information on the Internet says: The nine-story tower is also known as basil, and the basil leaves are not mint, but they can generally be replaced in the cuisine, and they are all very delicious spices. But in terms of efficacy and other nutritional value, the two are different.
The nine-story tower is described as follows:
"Nine-story pagoda is also known as "fish coriander", "basil", in Teochew cuisine also known as "golden does not change", Hakka people call it "full garden incense", "man aunt incense", the nine-story tower is an annual herb of the lip-shaped family plant Ocimum basilicum L, its flowers are multi-layered tower-shaped, so it is called "nine-story tower". It is an annual upright herb, aromatic in its whole body, and is 20 to 70 cm tall. The stem is square, the upper part is multi-branched, the surface is usually purple-green, and it is softly hairy. The leaves are conjunctive; ovate or ovate lanceolate, 2 to 6 cm long and 1 to 3.5 cm wide, sharply pointed or tapering at the apex, wedge-shaped at the base, sparsely serrated or full margin at the edges, with pus spots below; petiole length 0.7 to 2 cm. The inflorescences are apical, in an intermittent, general arrangement, with 6 or more flowers per round; the flower shafts are long and densely hairy; the bracts are ovate and small, with hairy edges; the calyx is tubular, with 5 fissures at the apex, the upper 1 is extra-large and nearly round, the remaining 4 are smaller and sharply triangular; the corolla is 2 lip-shaped, white or reddish, about 9 mm long, and the 4 lobes of the upper lip are almost equal, the lobes are nearly round, and the edges are shallowly eroded. The lower lip is 1 oval, full margin; the stamens are 4, 2 strong, all protruding from the corolla, the anthers are 2 chambers, close together; the ovary is 4 lobes, the peduncle is completely born at the bottom of the ovary, and the stigma is 2 lobes. 4 small nuts, ovate to rectangular, about 2 mm long, dark brown. ”
dizzy! After reading this introduction, I can't understand what this nine-story tower is! One thing is certain, though, that there is a difference between the Nine-Story Tower and Mint. As for what the "mint" in Kunming belongs to, only in the future can we come to a conclusion by having the opportunity to put the physical objects of these things together.