According to legend, when Zhang Zhongjing was the magistrate of Changsha, he often treated the people. One year, when the local plague was prevalent, he made a cauldron at the entrance of Yamen, giving up medicine to save people, which was deeply loved by Changsha people. After Zhang Zhongjing retired from Changsha, he just caught up with the winter solstice and walked to the shore of the Baihe River in his hometown. He saw that many poor people were hungry and cold, and their ears were frozen.

It turned out that typhoid fever was prevalent at that time and many people died. He was very upset and determined to treat them. When Zhang Zhongjing came home, many people sought medical treatment. He is as busy as a bee, but he always remembers those poor people with frozen ears. He followed Changsha's example and told his disciples to build a medical shed and cauldron in an open space in Dongguan, Nanyang, and open it on the day of winter solstice to send medicine to the poor to treat their injuries.

Zhang Zhongjing's Quhan Joule Decoction is a summary of more than 300 years of clinical practice in Han Dynasty. Its practice is to put mutton and some cold-dispelling medicinal materials into a pot and cook them, then take them out and chop them up, make them into ear-shaped Joules with flour bags, put them into a pot and cook them and distribute them to patients seeking medical treatment. Everyone has two charming ears and a bowl of soup.

After eating Quhan decoction, people feel feverish all over, their qi and blood are smooth, and their ears are warm. People eat from the solstice of winter to New Year's Eve, fighting typhoid fever and curing frozen ears.

Zhang Zhongjing didn't give up taking medicine until New Year's Eve. On the first day of New Year's Day, people celebrate the New Year and the recovery of rotten ears. They cook food for the New Year like burnt ears and eat it on the first morning. People call this kind of food "jiaozi", "jiaozi" or "flat food" and eat it on the solstice of winter and the first day of New Year to commemorate the day when Zhang Zhongjing opened the shed to deliver medicine and treat patients.

Zhang Zhongjing's history is nearly 1800 years ago, but his story of "Quhan Joule Decoction" has been widely circulated among the people. On the solstice of winter and the first day of New Year's Day, people eat jiaozi, and they still remember Zhang Zhongjing's kindness in their hearts. Today, we don't need charming ears to treat frozen ears, but jiaozi has become the most common and favorite food for people.

symbolic meaning

Jiaozi is not only a delicacy in China, but also contains China culture. It is a delicious snack for every household at ordinary times, and it is also a necessary food for New Year's Eve, which expresses people's yearning and appeal for a better life.

Jiaozi is an important food for Lunar New Year, winter solstice and other festivals, and it is also one of the main foods in northern provinces of China all year round. Jiaozi usually consists of minced meat and vegetable stuffing wrapped into a thin dough, then wrapped and sealed. The wrapped jiaozi can be made into steamed dumplings, fried dumplings or glutinous rice balls.

Extended data:

prepare

1, dough mixing

Wheat flour is the most common, and buckwheat flour is used in some places. Use cold water. The ratio of surface to water is 1.7 to 1. After kneading the flour in the basin, let it stand for 30 minutes to let the water fully penetrate into the flour. The shorter the kneading time, the longer the kneading time, and vice versa. After that, it can be rolled up or kneaded into dumpling wrappers.

Step 2 "roll"

Knead the dough into a cylindrical strip with a diameter of 2-3 cm. Draw or cut the column into small dough about 1.5 cm. Crush the dough by hand. Then roll it with a rolling pin into a dumpling wrapper with a diameter of about 4-7 cm, a thickness of about 0.5- 1 mm and a slightly thicker central part. When rolling skin, sprinkle some dry flour (floating surface) on the chopping board to prevent sticking to the board.

3. Stuffing

Meat, eggs, fish, shrimp and all kinds of vegetables can be used as stuffing. Take pork and cabbage stuffing as an example: pork belly, chopped into minced meat. Chop some Chinese cabbages, squeeze out water, mix with minced meat, add ginger, soy sauce, salt and cooking oil, and stir together.

4. Packaging

Put a proper amount of stuffing in the middle of the dumpling skin, then fold the dumpling skin in half and knead the edges, and you can wrap a raw jiaozi (there is a special kind of jiaozi that is naturally cooked without kneading the edges, except this case). In some places in North China and Northeast China, you should press the edge of jiaozi tightly with your thumb and forefinger after kneading. The extruded jiaozi is not easy to boil and elegant, which is the most representative shape of jiaozi.

The wrapped jiaozi is usually placed on a hard grate made of sorghum stalks, and there will be obvious horizontal stripes at the bottom after cooking. Generally speaking, jiaozi pays attention to thin skin and big stuffing, which is delicious but not easy to wrap.

References:

Baidu Encyclopedia-jiaozi