In the emerald bay of Fenghua Lake in Ningbo, the sun in May of the lunar calendar is not yet hot, and the brackish sea breeze blows a fertile beach. Mud snails, a delicacy unique to the coastal areas of this area, are the best time to hunt.
This little black bean-like elf is humble, softly wrapping itself in mud, and is at ease with the fate of the imminent capture, neither fleeing nor hiding. Therefore, it is not so much "catching mud snails", but rather picking, three fingers picked up, the middle finger quickly a clamp, the mud snail obediently into the basket, if lucky, a small half a day can pick more than a dozen pounds.
Ningbo people especially like "drunk" food, fish, shrimp and crabs, etc., can be used to "drunk" out of the rice wine, mud snail is no exception.
Wash the mud snail with water, marinate with salt and let it sit for 12 hours, the average person is in a large bucket and put it in the refrigerator for refrigeration, take some when you want to eat, wash off the salt with warm boiling water, and then use white wine, aged vinegar, salt, sugar, monosodium glutamate can be eaten directly, Ningbo people call it "drunken mud snail". The umami taste of the mud snail and the strong aroma of wine are mixed together and fill the whole mouth, giving it a unique flavor.
【Ingredients】
Snail, white wine, rice wine, white vinegar, sugar, monosodium glutamate, salt.
【Directions】
1, pick up the mud snail at the beach, pick out the fresh, clean the surface sediment with clean water, dehydrate and reserve.
It is better to select mud snails with large shells, thick gastropods, no sand in the body, full of meat, and no broken shells.
The mud snail moves slowly on the mudflat, but is a pretender who is good at self-protection.
They use their head plates to dig up sediment, mixing the sediment with the mucus secreted by the body, resembling raised sediment, which is very inconspicuous. Only when the mud snail is washed can the "real body" be revealed, giving people a feeling of warmth and jade. The shell, as thin as a cicada's wing, is transparent throughout, like a grain of small amber, embedded in a thin shell in the shape of a snail, which is particularly delicate.
However, mud snails generally only appear on sunny days, and on rainy days, they will hide in thick mud and sand, which is difficult to find. Therefore, during the rainy season in Jiangnan, there are not many days left for fishermen to catch. The intelligent Ningbo people thought of pouring wine on the mud snail, sprinkling salt, and quietly waiting for it to become a "drunken mud snail" for the next meal, which not only retained the freshness of the mud snail, but also added a mellow taste.
2, sprinkle salt to remove the soil, put the selected mud snail into the bucket, add a certain proportion of salt according to the number of mud snails, quickly stir evenly, and then let stand for 48 hours.
The ratio of mud snail to salt is generally 2:1, and when the salt is placed on one side, it is stirred in one direction at the same time until the mud snail's tongue is spat out and the surface no longer produces foam. The snails must be marinated for 48 hours to taste.
3. Scoop up the salted mud snails, spread them on the sieve, pour warm water to rinse off the excess salt and sediment repeatedly, and dry them slightly.
4. Start marinating. The texture of the mud snails is a crucial step.
Ningbo's earlier more traditional method of drunken mud snail was to marinate the marinade of the pickled snow, rinse it and then add rice wine and other spices to soak and seal it in a jar. Now people want to save trouble, and they directly save this step.
Pickled mud snails, white wine, rice wine, white vinegar, salt, sugar, monosodium glutamate these six seasonings are essential.
First come two spoons of white wine to the bottom, rice wine to be the protagonist, you have to take 4 spoons of portions, then add two spoons of white vinegar and salt, 3 spoons of white sugar, 1 spoon of MONOS, stir well with chopsticks, simple choking can be bottled, immediately eaten. However, the best flavor to eat is after two weeks of refrigeration, and the mud snail is completely flavored.
When the pickled mud snail is put into the bottle, remember to reserve a part of the space for adding rice wine, seal the can, and leave the rest to time. Unconsciously, microorganisms in a narrow environment, constantly decomposing proteins to obtain small molecules of polypeptides and amino ends, thus emitting a unique bad fragrance.
The marinated mud snail paste overflows the shell, crystalline, moist and soft, crisp and plump, gently sucking a bite, full of juice, the umami taste is sealed by the taste of wine and saltiness, to be chewed carefully, in order to flow from between the teeth the original mellow taste. This practice may stem from an inadvertent attempt by the ancestors, but they accidentally found such a flavor.
Eating drunken mud snails also has a trick. On the mud snail clip, first use the front teeth to bite the meat outside the snail shell, and then extend the upper teeth into the meat to remove the sand sac, and then use the chopsticks to clamp the snail shell, the lips push outward with the chopsticks, what remains in the mouth is the snail meat and butter, the chopsticks are the snail shell, black inner body and sand sac, which is the correct way to eat the mud snail.
Ningbo people call the next meal a pressed rice hammer, and the lowest rice in the small seafood is the first to push the drunken mud snail. They use drunken mud snails to make rice, purring can eat a large bowl, as a wine dish is also good, quite a "old wine Mimi, seafood hissing" comfort.
The unbearable fishy smell and unpleasant salty rot of foreigners are an unfathomable temptation for ningbo people born and raised by the sea, a kind of vitality that hits the nasal cavity and the root of the tongue. Mud snails, I am afraid that more than any kind of food can cause the nostalgia of Ningbo people.