"Cat ears" Shanxi people call it "圪圪兒" and "圪搓面面". According to the "Imperial Diet grand view of Chinese Dynasties", the noodles were originally made for the sacrifice of geese, but the Yuan Dynasty horseback archers worshiped it as the auspicious food for hunting, called "horse beggars", and entered the imperial banquet. Taiyuan, Shanxi, also refers to the noodles as "hemp food", which is the reason why the harmonic sound of "ma begging" has been passed down from generation to generation. It can be seen that cat ears began to develop in the Yuan Dynasty. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was widely eaten in Shanxi folk and spread to Luyu in Shaanxi and Hebei and even to Jiangnan. According to legend, qianlong once praised it when he went down to Jiangnan, because it resembled a cat's ear, and was called "cat's ear" ("Famous Food Palm").
There are dozens of ways to make cat ear noodles in Shanxi folk, with different names. For example, the Jinzhong method is to knead the soba noodles into finger-thick strips, pinch them into bean-sized pieces, and twist them on the left palm into small flower knots, called "knots", also known as "knots", and some hold them in both hands and twist them on the panel to form. People in the northern Jin Dynasty directly sandwich noodles between the ring finger and middle finger of their left hand, and use their right hand to pinch it into a small piece of dough and twist it on the left palm to form it, called "soba noodle dumplings". In Lanxian County, Shanxi, the white noodles are rolled into pieces and diced, and the small nest is twisted out with chopsticks, which is called "pearl lump nest". In Jixian and other areas of southwest Jin, people pluck out a piece of soba dough with their right thumb and index finger from the reconciled soba dough, and use their thumbs to knead them on a grate made of slender sorghum stalks, like iron gourds on spinning wheels, also known as "buckwheat iron gourds", and eat them with lamb stir-fried sauerkraut. The most delicate production is Jinnan's rubbing peas, with the head of wheat flour and into dough, roll out the slices into square pieces, first knead a pair of corners, and then from the opposite place to pinch horizontally, in the shape of a hollow yuanbao, such as two peas connected together, so also known as "rubbing peas".
The production of cat ears can be made of soba noodles, wheat noodles, beans noodles, noodles, sorghum noodles and other raw materials, with a variety of different meat toppings, vegetable codes and small ingredients, loved by the people, not only as a daily pattern of noodles, but also used for hospitality and wedding banquets. Jin Zhongxiu pays attention to the son-in-law's going to his father-in-law's house to eat cat ears, taking the intention of eating good obedience. Before the marriage of the man and the woman in Jinnan, the owner distributed the flour to the neighbors, and the eldest daughter-in-law and the younger daughter-in-law of the whole village were all kneaded, inheriting the custom of helping everyone in the family. In June 2008, Shanxi cat ear making craft was awarded the national intangible cultural heritage by the State Council, which has become the common wealth of Sanjin culture and a pearl of Chinese food culture.
【Process of making soba dough】:
1. Prepare 3 scoops of flour (I used a spoon for hot pot).
2. 2 spoons of buckwheat flour bought from the supermarket.
3. Place the flour and buckwheat flour in the washbasin and stir well with chopsticks.
4. Add an appropriate amount of cold water to the flour in parts.
5. Use chopsticks to stir the flour and cold water evenly to form a snowflake-like dough.
6. Knead all the dough together by hand, knead it repeatedly to make the surface of the dough smooth, cover the basin with a damp cloth or plastic wrap, and set aside for 20 minutes.
1. Place the dough on the board and knead it several times with your hands.
2. Make the surface of the dough smoother and even.
3. Press the kneaded dough by hand into a round cake shape and roll out with a rolling pin.
4. Roll out the round cake-like dough into large thin round or rectangular pieces with a thickness of about 6 mm.
5. Grab a small amount of dry flour by hand and sprinkle it on the board as a dough puff.
6. Roll out the round or rectangular dough on the dough and cut it along the edge with a knife.
7. Cut a strip of the same thickness i.e. 6 mm thick.
8. Roll out the long noodles with your left hand, that is, pull in the opposite direction of the large noodles.
9. Make the noodle surface evenly roll a thin layer of noodle puff to prevent adhesion between the noodles.
10. Use the same method to cut the dough into long noodles with a thickness of 6 mm and a uniform width.
11. Use a knife to cut the noodles into equally sized cubes along the edges of the noodles.
12. Cut the size of the diced dough according to personal preference, like to eat the big cut a little bigger, like to eat small cut a little smaller.
Dough cut well can make cat ears, production can be on the board, can also be in the palm of the hand, the tool used is extremely simple, extend your thumb on the dough quickly rub, so that the dough curled to form a "cat's ear" shape.
1. Take a sliced dough cube and place it in the center of the board.
2. Press the thumb of your right hand against the diagonal position of the dough.
3. Press the thumb of your right hand down firmly and quickly rub the dough forward to let the dough curl.
4. The shape of the kneaded pasta is like a cat's ears, as the name suggests, "cat ears".
5. Repeat the above method and rub all the dough into rolled cat ears.
1. Take one or more sliced dough cubes and place them in the palm of your left hand.
2. Press the thumb of your right hand on the diagonal position of one of the doughnuts.
【Make cat ears with a spoon handle in the palm of your left hand】:
2. Press with the spoon handle on the diagonal position of one of the doughs.
3. Press the spoon handle down firmly and quickly rub the dough forward to let the dough roll.
1. Bring a generous amount of cold water to a boil in a pot.
2. Rub the cat ears into a pot of boiling water.
3. Reach for the bottom of the pan and gently push it a few times to prevent the cat ears from sticking to the bottom of the pan after entering the pan.
4. Remove the spoon and cook over high heat until the cat ears are floating on the surface.
5. Continue to cook for about 2 minutes until the cat's ears are cooked, and use a colander to control the water and fish out.
Cooked cat ears can be served with a variety of sauces to make soup or stir-fried.