Snacks, also known as snacks, are an indispensable part of food culture in various regions, showing strong local characteristics. Beijing, as an ancient capital, is also a place where thousands of subjects, big and small, have been recuperating for hundreds of years. The "snack culture" here is naturally very profound. Although with the impact of modernization, McDonald's, Pizza Hut and other "foreign snacks" can be seen everywhere, making some authentic Beijing snacks gradually fade out of people's sight, there are still some snacks with a long history that still maintain their unique characteristics and broad appeal, attracting people's taste buds.
Today, we recommend several Beijing snacks, including snowballing usury, Aiwowo, sugar ear, inby, bean juice, etc. Although most of these snacks are pasta, their tastes are quite different, which can meet the needs of different food lovers.
1, snowballing usury
snowballing usury is one of the ancient snacks in Beijing, and it is still well known by people. Its raw material is steamed in yellow wheat with water, and the dough is softened with a little more water. In addition, the soybeans are fried and rolled into flour. When making, the steamed yellow rice flour is coated with soybean flour and rolled into pieces, then coated with red bean paste (or brown sugar), rolled up, cut into small pieces of about 111 grams and sprinkled with white sugar. Because the snowballing usury is rolled in yellow bean after it is made, it is like a real snowballing usury in the countryside, hence the name. In fact, this is just its common name, its proper name is bean flour cake, but few people know it, but the common name of "snowballing usury" is almost universally known.
You can buy a donkey roll at any time when you go to a snack bar in Beijing. Although people have replaced yellow wheat with Jiangmi noodles when making snowballing, the appearance is still yellow because of the practice of rolling soybean flour outside, and it still retains its original fragrant, sweet and sticky characteristics, as well as the rich flavor of soybean flour, so it has undoubtedly become a famous snack in old Beijing and won the favor of people in Beijing and all over the world.
2. Aiwowo
Aiwowo is a traditional flavor snack in Beijing. Its preparation method is to wash and soak glutinous rice, then steam it in a steamer, cool it, knead it evenly, crush it into small doses, and press it into a round skin. At the same time, it is mixed with peach kernels, sesame seeds, melon seeds, green plums, golden cakes, sugar and other materials to make stuffing, and finally the stuffing is wrapped in glutinous rice skin. It is worth mentioning that the stuffing of Aiwowo should be fried in advance, and the glutinous rice used for the outer skin has been steamed, so it can be eaten after it is cooked.
It is understood that Aiwowo is a snack with a long history, which originated in the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty. This was confirmed in the book "Deliberating on the Annals" written by Liu Ruoyu, an internal supervisor during the Wanli period, which recorded that "glutinous rice with sesame seeds is a cold cake, and pills are stuffed as a nest, that is, the ancient" not falling into the folder "is also true." It can be seen that this snack was called "Wowo" in the Ming Dynasty, and later it was renamed "Aiwowo". It is said that an emperor loved this kind of nest, and when he wanted to eat it or wanted to eat it, he ordered: "Imperial Aiwowo." Later, when this kind of food was introduced to the people, ordinary people could not and dared not say the word "imperial", so they omitted the word "imperial" and called it "Aiwowo". It is understood that the original Aiwowo was only listed around the Lunar New Year every year, and it was sold in late summer and early autumn. It is a spring and autumn variety, but now it is available all year round, and people can taste the unique flavor of Aiwowo at any time.
3. Pea yellow
Pea yellow is a seasonal delicacy in Beijing in spring and summer, which can be divided into "rough pea yellow" and "fine pea yellow". The reason for this difference is that pea yellow was originally a folk snack, and then it was introduced to the court. It was only after the improvement of the imperial dining room of the Qing Dynasty that the difference between "rough" and "fine" was made. The "rough pea yellow" is made by peeling white peas, stewing the beans with twice as much water as peas, then frying them with sugar, adding gypsum water and cooked dates, stirring them evenly, putting them in a big casserole, cooling them into lumps, deducting them, cutting them into diamond-shaped pieces like cutting cakes, and putting small pieces of golden cakes as decorations. It is common in spring temple fairs and is a typical spring food. The method of making "fine pea yellow" is more elaborate, that is, the first-class white peas are boiled and sieved into paste, and white sugar and sweet-scented osmanthus are added. After solidification, they are cut into small squares two inches square and less than half an inch thick, and a few pieces of honey cakes are put on them. They are delicious in color and taste, delicate and pure in texture, and melt in the mouth. They have been deeply favored by Empress Dowager Cixi, and therefore have become well-known court snacks.
4. Sugar Ears
Sugar Ears, also known as honey twist, are snacks and desserts shaped like human ears, hence the name. The making method of sugar ear is relatively complicated. First, it is necessary to make a blank, that is, use a good fermentation surface to add alkali, and another surface to add brown sugar. When making it, divide the fermentation surface into two pieces, roll out one piece, then spread the same rolled brown sugar surface on it, and then roll out the other piece of fermentation surface and spread it on the brown sugar surface to make two layers of fermentation surface and one layer of sugar surface. Cut a strip about 5 cm with a knife, press one side of the strip into a slope shape, combine the thin edge and the thick edge together, and then cut it into small pieces weighing about 41 grams; Open a knife edge in the middle of the small block, then open it, turn the thin side inside, and fold the thick side to become an ear-shaped blank; After making the blank, pour peanut oil into the pot, heat it to 51%, fry the blank in oil in batches, take it out when it is golden yellow, drain off the oil, and soak it in warm maltose for one minute while it is hot, which is commonly known as honey; After the sugar ear is soaked, fish it in a plate and let it cool.
The key to making sugar ear is to fry it thoroughly, eat honey evenly, and put an appropriate amount of alkali, so as to make a honey twist with bright brown butter, soft, sweet and delicious taste and no sour taste. It is understood that in Beijing, honey twist in Nanlaishun Restaurant, which is located in the south of the city, is the best in quality. It was once rated as "a famous snack in Beijing" and "a famous snack in China". People who like sugar ears may wish to have a try.
5. inby
Like other Beijing snacks, inby is also an ancient food, which is deep yellow in color, bracelet-shaped, crispy in coke and unique in flavor, and has been deeply loved by people for thousands of years. As early as the Song Dynasty, Su Dongpo wrote a poem about inby, that is, "Hands are rubbed into jade, jade is fried into yellow and deep, and sleeping in the spring at night is insignificant, which is regarded as the first product advertisement poem in China." In the Ming Dynasty, Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica Valley also recorded: "People are short of salt, and the rope is twisted into the shape of a ring, and it is fried and eaten."
If you want to make inby, you need to melt salt, alkali and a little alum with warm water, add water and mix flour to make dough, then knead the dough repeatedly by hand, knead it evenly and put it on a chopping board for 3 hours, then flatten the dough, cut it into strips with a knife, take a strip of dough and put it on the chopping board, hold one end with one hand and the other end with the other hand, and smooth it into flat pieces with a thick thickness. Every two agents are stacked together, cut a knife in the middle with a small frying knife, and the two sides can't be cut through. When the oil is heated to 51%, hold one end of the raw inby blank by hand and put it in the oil pan, then spread it from the middle with chopsticks to make it bracelet-shaped, turn it over after setting, and fry it until it is purplish red, and then control the oil. The inby made from this is fragrant, crisp and crisp, and even if it is stored for ten and a half months, it can guarantee the same quality, crisp as ever, crisp and fragrant, so it has always been popular. People eat baked wheat cakes, often like to sandwich inby, and they must eat inby when drinking bean juice. It is one of the few Beijing snacks for men, women and children in Xian Yi.
6. Bean Juice
After talking about inby, we have to mention its old partner, Bean Juice, which is also one of Beijing's prestigious traditional snacks. Bean juice is actually the leftover of making mung bean starch or vermicelli. It is soaked in mung beans until they can be twisted and peeled, then taken out, ground into fine pulp with water, and poured into a vat for fermentation. What sinks into the bottom of the vat is starch, and what floats on the top is bean juice. Fermented bean juice must be boiled with water in a big casserole, then boiled with fermented bean juice, then kept warm with low fire, and served with it. Similar to inby, soybean juice has a long history, and it is said that it was a popular folk food as early as Liao and Song Dynasties. Later, it was said that in the 18th year of Qianlong (1753), someone recommended bean juice to Emperor Qianlong, and wrote in the script: "Recently, a new bean juice has been sent to Ilib to check whether it is clean and drinkable. If there is nothing clean, I will collect two or three bean juice makers and send them to the imperial kitchen." As a result, bean juice from the people soon became the royal meal of the court.
bean juice is generally sour, slightly bitter and slightly sour, just like swill. Therefore, most people who drink bean juice for the first time will find it difficult to swallow, but after holding their noses twice, they will change their initial views on bean juice, not only will they no longer reject its taste, but they may also be addicted, and they will miss it very much if they don't drink it for a few days, which is one of the reasons why the ugly bean juice will become a famous snack in old Beijing. In addition, according to nutritionists' analysis, the nutritional value of soybean juice should not be underestimated. It is extremely rich in protein, vitamin C, crude fiber and sugar, and has the effects of dispelling summer heat, clearing away heat, warming yang, invigorating spleen, stimulating appetite, removing toxin and removing dryness. In this way, it is not surprising that many people would rather queue up every day than drink soybean juice.
in addition to the above-mentioned foods, famous snacks in old Beijing include candied fruits, burnt sugar, noodles tea, fried dough twists, fried cakes with cream, toads spitting honey, and pork chops with ginger juice. They carry the long river of history and have been passed down to this day. They are an excellent choice for people to taste Beijing cuisine and appreciate the long-standing food culture in the capital.