Lao Tzu once said, "The good is like water", which means that to be a human being is like water, to help all things, silently.
Chinese love water is an inheritance in the bones. In Chinese culture, water is soft and rigid water, strong but also soft. Therefore Chinese seeing a shallow pond in the city and the inland water alleys, there will be a heartfelt yearning from the bottom of the heart.
The most well-known water town is nothing more than Jiangnan - Zhouzhuang, Wuzhen, Xitang. Everyone has their own good, my favorite is still Xitang. Xitang has a long history, is one of the birthplaces of ancient Wuyue culture, one of the six ancient towns in Jiangnan, and is a thousand-year-old water town ancient town of Wu local culture. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, it was the border between Wu and Yue, known as "Wu Gen Yue Jiao" and "Yue Jiao Ren Ren Jia".
Xitang Ancient Town
The bridge of Xitang is varied, you look at the scenery on the bridge, the bridge and you have become the scenery in the eyes of others; the water lane is dense, the shore eaves corridor is like a song, in fact, other water towns are more or less the same, but in the end it feels that Xitang is a different style.
Xitang has a few small dishes that are unique to themselves, although they are not as famous as Zhou Zhuang Wansan's hooves. However, there is a kind of dim sum that I can't get tired of. They are sold in many places in Xitang, but my friend Lingling told me that a shop called "Sanfang" is the best. Lingling in Xitang is selling souvenirs, I traveled to see her, each of them feel the vicissitudes of the sea, the sophistication of human feelings are a little distant, obviously the friends I met when I went to school, but the friendship is not seen for ten years and still see the same feeling. Ling Ling was a person who loved to hang around when she was in school, and she also ate a lot of strange food, she said that where the food is delicious, I believe it. Sometimes, food is in your state of mind, and experience is precisely the evaluation element that is difficult to learn.
The dim sum mentioned above is the mustard cake. As the name suggests, the cake is made of mustard as a raw material. It's a very strange thing, in fact, I don't think it has any special aroma, but it loves to eat. Later, I think about it, maybe it is a "clear atmosphere" that is difficult to describe. Jiangnan people have been moist since ancient times, and they called the "Eight Immortals of Water (Water Eight Immortals)" by combining the mustard (chicken head rice), the white russet, the lotus root, the cress, the water chestnut (horseshoe), the lettuce, the diamond horn, and the ciss (ci mushroom).
At the beginning of the Shen Dynasty in the Qing Dynasty, he sang Nandang Chicken Head Rice's "Memories of Jiangnan": "Suzhou is good, and fengshui breeds chicken heads." Yingrun every doubt bead ten Hu, soft fragrance prefers milk Yingou, fine peeling small court you. "It will become an old historical song for people to remember "Eight Immortals of Water".
The Eight Immortals of Water eat and eat, and it is always a ball of pure qi, which turns into an infinitely wonderful and wordless deliciousness. Jiangnan people eat fresh seasonal vegetables from a mouthful of water, which are always needed in all seasons. It is eaten directly in Jiangnan, and when it reaches the north, because it is too long away from the water, it can only be ground and dried into powder. In fact, northerners are also familiar with it, we do cooking love "hook", hook is the mustard powder!
Today's mustard cake is made of coriander powder and glutinous rice puffing powder, which can be torn off piece by piece without dropping the slag, but it is also never soft and sticky without wind bone, and it is delicate with chewiness. Xitang "Sanfang" also sells eight treasure cakes, it is said that xitang is the most traditional pastry, with a history of 150 years, the cake is also evolved from the eight treasure cakes, eight treasure cakes are made of eight kinds of Chinese medicinal materials, yam, mustard, lotus seeds, sand kernels, poria, lentils, rice kernels, sugar as powder, wet paste rectangular cake, and then vertically cut rectangular thin slices. The color is dark gray and the powder is delicate, but unlike the taste of the cake, the cake is soft, and the eight treasure cakes are crunchy and have a Chinese herbal flavor, so I always feel that there is no cake delicious.
Since you can't go to Xitang, how can you taste the delicious "Mustard Cake", today I will share its method with you, like friends don't miss it!
Ingredients: 50 grams of mustard powder, 100 grams of sticky rice flour (rice flour), 40 grams of glutinous rice flour, 30 grams of cotton sugar
Accessories: date paste 100 g, red bean paste 50 g, water 100 g, cooking oil 10 g
——Specific approach——
Step 1 deals with the solid
(1) I prepared 200 grams of mustard, washed it with cold water, soaked it overnight, soaked it until there was a clear crack on the surface, and crushed it with a twist of hand.
Soaked mustard
(2) Steam the soaked mustard in cold water for 20 minutes, the surface is all fried, as shown in the following figure, and then placed in a sunny place to dry until it is dried.
Steamed mustard
Let the mustard dry
(3) Place the dried mustard in a blender, beat into a powder, and sift through a bowl.
Tips: Mustard is a very good food, since ancient times many people are eating mustard health. So is it all good or half good? In fact, whether it is broken or whole, as long as the quality is not a problem, it will not affect the edible effect. Broken or whole pieces, but the physical state is different, may be broken is easier to taste, but the whole grain is not difficult to taste Oh!
So how to choose Qi Shi:
(1) Look at the color, the color of the solid is white and bright, and the color is yellow, it may be old;
(2) Depending on the shape, the grains are generally rounded and uniform in size.
(3) Bite the mustard with the mouth, the must be dried, otherwise it is easy to mildew, and whether it is dry can be determined with the mouth bite, the tooth bite is brittle and fragile dry, and the slightly tough explanation tide.
The mustard is beaten into a powder
Screening
step 2 Make date paste
(4) I didn't buy ready-made date paste, so I made it myself. Place 150 grams of dates in water, add a little flour to it, soak for 3 minutes, then grab and wash the dates.
Tips: Flour has good adsorption, so that the dirt stuck to the jujube peel can be easily cleaned down. Or you can also put a little salt, table salt has a bactericidal and disinfectant effect.
Wash the dates
(5) Pour an appropriate amount of water into the pot, put the dates into the water and cook together, cook for another 10-20 minutes until the jujube becomes larger and the skin becomes soft. Then remove the jujube kernel, as for the jujube kernel, you can also choose to remove the jujube kernel and cook it, or you can use the pot to steam without boiling, depending on the situation.
Dates are pitted
(6) The dates are all processed, put into the blender, add 50 grams of water, beat into a puree, and then pour into a non-stick pan, boil over low heat, be sure to stir non-stop, so as not to stir the paste, or there is a situation of random splashing, this process may be somewhat long, must be boiled until there is no water.
The dates are beaten into puree
(7) Wait until the date paste becomes thick and dark brown, then add 10 grams of cooking oil twice, stirring each time until the cooking oil and the date paste are completely fused before pouring a second time. Wait until the date paste has become a solid form and let it cool in a bowl.
Tips: The dates I use are sweeter, so there is no sugar, remember to keep stirring during the boiling process, the less the water content of the date paste, the better, so when you use a wall breaker or blender to beat, add less water.
Add cooking oil
Boil to a solid and let cool
step3 Mixed ingredients
(8) Mix the mustard powder, sticky rice flour, glutinous rice flour and cotton sugar in a larger bowl, and then add 100 grams of water in parts, stir into a semi-humid state, use your hands to knead it into a ball, and then manually rub the powder until fluffy, and our cake powder is finished.
(9) We must go through the sieve of the cake powder, so that the finished product has a more delicate taste when eating.
(10) Take out 20% of the cake powder and put it in a bowl for later. The remaining cake flour is filled with date paste and red bean paste, and kneaded thoroughly so that the ingredients can be mixed well.
step 4 Plasticity and finished products
(11) Prepare a square mold, lay a layer of white cake powder on the bottom, and press flat with a spoon.
(12) Then lay a layer of mixed cake powder, this layer of cake powder is more, because this is the essence of the part, the same press flat. The top is covered with a layer of white cake flour, which is still pressed tightly and flat.
(13) Put cold water on the pot, turn the heat on high heat until the pot is opened, turn to medium heat and steam for 40 minutes, cut the molded cake into pieces or slices, sprinkle a layer of dried osmanthus flowers on it, and the mustard cake can be eaten as a snack, or as breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper.
In addition to quenching hunger, it can better absorb the nutrients of the cake and better play the role and efficacy of the cake. It is rich in starch, so it can provide heat to our body after eating. In addition, it also contains a variety of vitamins and carbon substances, which is also very good for our body operation.
The prepared mustard cake should not be stored in the refrigerator and is easy to dry.
This article is edited/original by John Rice, welcome to follow and take you along with long knowledge! If you don't understand something, we look forward to asking you in the message area below. If you also like my article, remember "Like" + "Follow" + "Retweet".