Although Ningbo cuisine is not a group of cuisines, it is different from others. People in Ningbo like to use this pickle as a side dish for fish and meat. The famous ones are "salty soup of yellow croaker" and "salty rice cake soup". If you come to Ningbo, you must try it. Now many restaurants have cooked a "salty fried rice", which is better than delicious.
People in Ningbo make salted soup yellow croaker, which is very different between the east and the west. To cook this dish, Xixiang people need to put yellow croaker in oil first. Fry, fry until both sides are golden, and drain? Add a small amount of pickles to the oil, add water to make soup, and sometimes add a little shredded winter bamboo shoots. Winter bamboo shoots are made of local yellow clay arch bamboo shoots, and the boiled soup tastes fresh and strong. Because Dongxiang people are close to the sea and the fish are fresh, they generally don't need oil, and the cooking method is relatively simple. Instead, they just put water, stewed fish and pickles in the pot until the soup turns thick white.
? Pickled vegetables can be fried in addition to soup, and salted fried mullet is one of the delicacies. But I like pickles without ingredients and stir-fry the main ingredients with black fungus. Especially during the Spring Festival, lunch and dinner are too greasy. Come to a bowl of hot rice porridge early in the morning with this pickled fungus. It's delicious.
? The book of Ningbo salted turtle is called Xuecai. Every household in rural areas of Ningbo will pickle pickles every year, and the pickling method is simple and easy. The general process is as follows. In the early autumn of each year, a vegetable called potherb is planted in rural areas, which can be harvested after autumn, but it is not directly eaten. Fresh snow vegetables just harvested should be spread on the ground to dry. Generally, the weather is better in early winter, and it is enough to bask in the sun for one day, so the food is a little "sunburned". Don't throw away all the yellow leaves when pickling cabbage. Pickles with yellow leaves are fresher. Loose vegetable leaves are usually tied up with straw. The second step is to cut off the rotten leaves and roots, wash them and then marinate them, so that you only need to wash them briefly when you eat them, and keep the umami flavor of Chinese cabbage to the greatest extent.
? Step three, prepare the big pot. Water tanks are generally used in rural areas, and brown ceramic tanks are widely seen in rural areas. Before curing, put a layer of salt in each empty jar, then put the cabbage in the jar and sprinkle a layer of salt on the cabbage. At this time, someone will stand in the jar and step on it until it steps out of the water. The purpose is to rub salt into Chinese cabbage. There is a saying in the countryside that pickles must be stepped on by men, and pickles stepped on by women are easy to stink in early spring. Although there are some feudal superstitions in the middle, in fact, in the final analysis, men have great strength, which can make Chinese cabbage fully contact with salt and is conducive to fermentation. So when I was a child, the task of stepping on snow vegetables basically fell on me. Wash your feet and step on the cabbage, step on it hard, step on a batch and continue to sprinkle salt on the second batch of vegetables. Stepping down in a jar is exhausting. The most comfortable thing is to wash your feet after stepping on cabbage. Washed feet are particularly slippery. Of course, this is another story.
? The fourth step is to press smooth stones on the vegetables after they are full. These stones must be washed, dried and treated. Generally, they are old stone mills, which are extremely powerful. Pickled wild vegetables can be eaten after 1 month. Generally speaking, the pickled potherb will come out as soon as it is pickled, and the freshly pickled potherb stone is still on the cylinder surface. After two or three days, the stone has been soaked in wild vegetable water.
? There are also great differences between the east and the west of Ningbo sauerkraut, which should be caused by soil differences. The potherb mustard planted in the field of Fritillaria changshuiensis is called Fritillaria in Ningbo. The sauerkraut made from that dish is the best, but only I like the sauerkraut made by Xianxiangren. No matter how you cook it, it won't rot. It tastes delicious. Of course, Ningbo has a pickle besides mustard tuber. The method is the same, but the material is changed to Chinese cabbage, which is also delicious, but the time is very short.
? Now there are factory-produced salted limes in Ningbo, enterprises in Zhangshui, Qiuai and Xianxiang, vacuum-packed and sold in supermarkets, and Qiuai is the most famous. There are ready-made pickles in Ningbo's vegetable market, but they have been processed in the later stage and lost their original flavor, so Ningbo people out and out still like to pickle themselves.
? There are many ways to eat pickles in Ningbo, but most of them are cooked with seafood. At least I haven't seen them cooked with river fish so far, haha. I don't know how the ancestors of Ningbo people invented this way of eating, but it is a perfect match. When marine fish meet pickles, it will emit a special fragrance and inhibit the fishy smell of the fish. The soup is light and delicious, and the fish is tender, which is delicious on earth.
? In addition to self-use, the juice squeezed out during pickling is also very useful. Smart Ningbo people have also brought this kind of chinese cabbage juice to the extreme. Steamed egg soup in chinese cabbage juice and steamed fish in chinese cabbage juice are delicious. These seemingly ordinary ingredients have long been entangled in the memory of Ningbo people's growth and have been interpreted as the culture of Ningbo.