Salted duck eggs are not only the food of the Dragon Boat Festival, but also the food that I was hungry in my childhood, and it is also the best partner for eating porridge and drinking porridge in the morning. The white porridge with salted duck eggs is simple but delicious, and even after many years, I still can't forget the taste.
When I was a child, I was short of supplies and had very few delicacies to eat, and salted duck eggs were very popular with everyone. At that time, the family income was meager, and my parents bought a few small ducks to feed in order to let us eat salted duck eggs. I was looking forward to the ducks growing up quickly, and every day after school I had to go to the duck nest to see and rush to feed them. Sometimes I still fish some snails on the side of the ditch, smash them with a hammer and feed them, so that they can open the meat as well. When the duckling grows up and starts laying eggs, I feed more diligently, hoping that it will continue to lay eggs.
After saving a certain number of duck eggs, my father began to pickle salted duck eggs. On a sunny day, my father asked me to put the duck eggs in a large basin, use a small brush to brush the dirt on the surface of the duck eggs, and then rinse them twice with water, and then put them outside to dry. He found a small black porcelain jar from his home, brushed it inside and out, and put it in the sun to dry. Then he began to make salt brine, pouring the right amount of salt into the pot, adding water, and then boiling it on a boil. At the same time, the incense leaves, cumin, star anise, cinnamon, etc. are rinsed clean, put into the pot, stirred continuously, the water is boiled, the salt is almost dissolved, smoulder for ten minutes, and the aroma of various condiments is fully released before the ceasefire. The father stacked all the duck eggs in the porcelain jar one by one, poured the cool brine into the porcelain jar, pressed it with washed rice straw to ensure that the brine soaked the duck eggs, and finally sealed the jar tightly.
About a month later, the duck eggs came out of the oil, and the delicious five-spiced salted duck eggs were successfully pickled. Take it out and wash it and put it in the pot to cook, remove the shell, and a salted duck egg like white jade is in front of you, and it is opened with chopsticks, the best of which is the kind of flowing oil. Freshly baked salted duck eggs are infused with star anise, cinnamon and other aromas, which are particularly pleasant to eat, and my father often uses salted duck eggs to serve wine. Usually when we eat salted duck eggs, we usually knock out a head, and the gourmet Wang Zengqi vividly describes the method of eating salted duck eggs: "Generally it is to break the 'empty head' and dig it with chopsticks to eat, and as soon as the chopstick head is pierced, the red oil will come out." The "short head" is the hollow part of the inner top side of the duck egg. When I went to school, I got up in the morning, drank a bowl of white porridge, and paired with a salted duck egg, and the dull white porridge became a heart-warming and happy breakfast. When relatives come to visit, the adults cut the salted duck eggs in half, the green eggshell is wrapped in white and tender egg white, and the innermost is the pickled egg yolk that is just right to flow out of the oil, placed in a clean plate, making people want to eat it.
I read some books and found that the history of salted duck eggs is relatively long, and there are relatively complete written records of pickled duck eggs as early as the Southern and Northern Dynasties. The Qi Min Zhi Shu (Qi Min Zhi Shu) says: "Soak the duck for food in January, cook it and eat it, use both wine and food, and salty eggs float." "This means that salted duck eggs can be served with wine and eaten. The "Compendium of Materia Medica" records: "It is said that children have diarrhea, stinky salty duck eggs, and there are also healers. Cover duck meat can cure diarrhea, and fried salt can also cure blood diarrhea. "It shows that stinky duck eggs can occasionally cure dysentery in children." Because salted duck eggs are cheap and easy to obtain, they "fly into the homes of ordinary people" and have become a common delicacy.
Literati of all generations also had a fondness for salted duck eggs, and su Dongpo, a great scholar, once gave salted duck eggs to Qin Shaoyou, and attached a poem: The blade is tired of He Zudao, and the embellishment plate meal is also desired. There is also an allusion to Su Dongpo that is also related to salted duck eggs: when Su Xiaomei ate salted duck eggs, she suddenly had a clever move and wrote the following verse, the salted eggs cut open the two leaves of the boat, containing gold and white jade. She asked Su Dongpo to join the lower link, and Su Dongpo was momentarily embarrassed. One day, while he was eating pomegranates, Mao Sai suddenly opened and came out of the lower link: the pomegranate broke the altar one, and the agate pearl was hidden. The lower joint is neat and well-conceived, which is a must.
The Qing Dynasty gourmand Yuan Ming tasted Gaoyou salted duck eggs, and had a very good impression, leaving a record in his "Suiyuan Menu · Small Menu" "Pickled Eggs" article: "Pickled eggs are better in Gaoyou, the color is fine and oily, and Gao Wenduangong likes to eat it the most." During the meal, first clip to honor the guests, put on the plate. It is always advisable to cut open the shell, and use both yellow and white; do not save yellow to white, so that the taste is incomplete and the oil is scattered. The famous contemporary writer Wang Zengqi is even more admiring of the salted duck eggs in his hometown of Gaoyou, and specially wrote "Duck Eggs of the Dragon Boat Festival". He wrote: "Once the sea was shipwrecked as water, and the salty duck eggs in his hometown, I really can't look at it." "Gaoyou's salted duck eggs are indeed good, I have walked a lot of places, and I have eaten many duck eggs, but they are completely incomparable with those in my hometown!" "Gaoyou salted eggs are characterized by their fine quality and oily quality. The protein is soft and tender, not like the hair shafts and powders elsewhere, and the entrance is like chewing lime. The amount of oil is especially unattractive. ”
I have not eaten Gaoyou salted duck eggs, and I can only understand the description of Wang Zengqi, an old foodie in the literary world, but I have no personal experience. But after reading his article, the happy picture of eating salted duck eggs in childhood jumped out again, and I felt that the taste of the salted duck eggs carefully made at home at that time was the best in the world, because in addition to the natural fragrance of sunshine, green water and earth, it was also full of parental love.
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Author: Xu Xin, a native of Haimen, Jiangsu Province, deputy director of the Civilization Office of Haimen City, began working in the Nantong Aid to Xinjiang Working Group in December 2013, serving as deputy director of the Propaganda Department of the Yining County PARTY Committee and deputy director of the Foreign Propaganda Office. A member of the Jiangsu Provincial Writers Association, he likes to read books and write small articles when he has free time, and more than 200 works have been scattered in newspapers and periodicals such as People's Daily (Overseas Edition), China Discipline Inspection and Supervision Daily, China Audit News, Xinmin Evening News, and Man and Nature.
Review: Zhu Zhenxin
Posted by: Yizhe Zhang