Spring is coming, everything grows, and the most eye-catching thing is the tender green, which makes people intoxicated and obsessed. At this time of year, there is always a lingering taste in the hearts of children who grow up in the countryside, which is the fragrance of pure wormwood!
Wormwood
During the Qingming Dynasty, it is the peak period of wormwood growth, and many people like to pick wormwood to make a green delicacy - mugwort, which is bright green in color, fragrant in flavor, fragrant in the mouth, and full of appetite. The mugwort began to drift incense, put an entrance, full of mugwort, the most nostalgic taste of the Qingming Festival!
Ai Tuan is a traditional Qingming Festival snack, which is generally eaten around the Qingming Festival. In the spring, the small wormwood is relatively tender, and the green leaves are coiled upwards. People will pick the tender small mugwort leaves, dry them in the sun and fry them dry like fried tea leaves on a hot pot, then crush them, mix them with glutinous rice and form a dough, wrap some peanut sesame seeds or their favorite filling in the middle, knead them into a small green dough and put them into the pot to steam, which becomes the traditional food on the Qingming Festival table - ai tuan.
Ai Tuan
I still remember when I was a child, I would follow my family to the vegetable field in the suburbs to pick wormwood and take young wormwood, and my mother said that the wormwood ball that came out of this way would be fragrant, and when I picked it at the end, my hands were dyed blue-green. When I was a kid, I loved picking wormwood the most! I like the comfort of walking in a field full of spring weather. Going to the field to pick wormwood, I think it is a very close opportunity to get close to nature, and to suck the aura and vitality of spring into my body! Therefore, I think that every year for wormwood, not only is the addiction of food, but also a love cup that loves life and loves nature, and every year I have to find an opportunity to go to the countryside to personally pick two handfuls of wormwood, and the green juice of the wormwood leaves is deeply stained on my hands.
Because there is wormwood in the wormwood group, it has certain medicinal health care functions. It has the effects of digesting and strengthening the stomach, dispersing cold and dehumidification, reducing swelling and loosening knots, relieving asthma, suppressing cough, expectorant, protecting liver and choleretic. When eating ai tuan, accompanied by a bowl of white porridge, it feels really wonderful. Let's take a look at ai tuan's approach!
1, picking wormwood, cleaning wormwood leaves: wormwood should be fresh, freshly picked is the best, the field is everywhere can be picked at hand. The freshly picked wormwood is selected and sorted once, leaving the young leaves and young stems, and washed with water a few times before being put into the pot and boiled. If you are afraid of suffering, you can cook it several times.
Mugwort leaves are cleaned
2, boiled mugwort: mugwort leaves can be cleaned and put into the pot to cook. Cook until the mugwort is rotten enough, you can pick it up, rinse the cooked mugwort leaf with cold water, remove the bitter taste, mash and set aside.
Boil the mugwort leaves
3, make dough: after the boiled mugwort leaves are mashed, slowly add to the prepared glutinous rice flour and sticky rice flour (add sticky rice flour is to reduce the stickiness, so that the mugwort is not too soft, sticky rice flour can also be replaced by flour, the ratio of glutinous rice to sticky rice is about 7:3), while adding while stirring can be more fully kneaded and kneaded through. Knead until the two are fully fused and turn into a green dough.
Make the dough
4, prepare the filling: the filling is generally divided into salty and sweet two kinds. For sweets, crushed and sautéed peanut rice, sesame seeds and powdered sugar (brown sugar and white sugar are available) are used to make a sweet filling.
Prepare the filling
5. Do Ai Tuan. Wrap some peanuts or sesame seeds in the middle and form small green balls.
Do Ai Tuan
6. Bao Ai Tuan. The green mugwort leaves encountered by the white glutinous rice flour are dyed turquoise and tender. Three times and two times wrapped in the filling and kneaded the round, and then pressed slightly flat, a round and full of wormwood balls wrapped up.
Bao Ai Tuan
7. Steamed moxa balls. The moxa can be steamed in a steamer basket and steamed by steaming, usually steaming for 15 to 20 minutes (less time, glutinous rice will stick to the teeth, and it is not good for the stomach; if the time is too long, the surface of the moxa ball will be like bubbling bubbles, and it is important to master the heat).
Steamed mugwort balls
8, about fifteen minutes later, The Ai Tuan can be out of the cage, one by one dark green as jade, exquisite and clear, very tempting. Can't help but take a bite while it's hot, only to feel that it is soft and smooth, first slightly bitter, then there is a kind of fragrance, and then eat into the filling, it is a very refreshing sweetness, after eating the teeth and cheeks remain fragrant, as if bitter and sweet, it is really a deep rhyme. A room full of aisyllum wafting incense, a bite of mugwort, a mouth full of mugwort, to satisfy the deep nostalgia in the heart!
Take a bite of the mugwort, mouth full of mugwort
Wormwood itself is an herbal medicine, has the effect of aromatizing wet, in the Qingming before and after this wet season, eating wormwood can play a role in preventing colds and other infectious diseases, especially female friends, eating wormwood can play a role in regulating menstruation and stopping bleeding, but wormwood is glutinous rice products, gastrointestinal diseases and diabetic patients should eat less. The fragrance of the mugwort also tells us that it is another year of Qingming Day, and when it is clear, take advantage of the green to pick a handful of wormwood, go back to make the mugwort for your family to taste! This year's Qingming Festival, let's do Ai Tuan with your family! Not for anything else, just to find the feeling of childhood, to feel the strong family affection!