The raw material of winter tip is loquat leaf vegetables (also called winter vegetables, big vegetables), which is the most common vegetable in our winter. It looks a bit like lettuce. Its trunk is their edible part, but it is much stronger. The trunk of Chinese cabbage is very popular in winter. After a winter, it grows underground. At this time, it is the time when the water is sufficient, the head is strong, and the meat is thick, crisp and sweet. The skin is hard and thick, and it needs skill and strength when peeling. Only by following the texture of the skin and balancing the force can the skin bone be shaved off, leaving only the glittering and translucent flesh. After washing, cut into pieces, strips or iron frames, mix with homemade sweet potato vermicelli, garlic sprouts just picked from the garden and red pepper, and cook in a large pot. It's really spicy, hemp and fragrant. Winter is also a beautiful thing.
Loquat leaf vegetables, as the name implies, are shaped like loquat leaves, showing a fan-shaped oval shape, and numerous branchlets are separated from a main stem, but the stem is thicker than lettuce leaves and the leaves are much thicker. After breaking, it has a persistent and stuffy smell of green vegetables, which makes people dizzy for a long time, so it is not suitable for choking and cooking, and can only be discarded or used as feed for chickens, ducks, pigs and rabbits most of the time. It was probably after countless explorations that the ancestors discovered the best way to eat its leaves-to make them into winter tips.
There is also a beautiful story about the appearance of the winter tip in my hometown. On the outskirts of Tuojiang River, there lived a couple of farmers. There is a vegetable field in front of the house, surrounded by a dozen loquat trees. During the slack season, my husband came back with a big load of herbs from Baiyun Mountain. When he was not far from home, he looked up and all the golden loquats were gone. Why is this? I was surprised that the herbs on my shoulders suddenly slipped into the river and were washed away by the water. When I went home, it turned out that the loquat trees were blown to the ground by the strong wind and rotted. The wife comforted her frustrated husband and said that although loquat fell down, its sweet juice penetrated the soil of the vegetable garden. Since then, the couple have grown green vegetables in the garden. Strange, the leaves of green vegetables look like loquat leaves. When loquat leaves are ripe, they taste sweet and fragrant. When the couple can't finish eating, they add salt to make pickles and put them in the jar and bury them underground in the vegetable garden. Then the husband went into the mountains to collect herbs. Spring went to winter, and another year passed in a blink of an eye. When the husband came home with a full load and the wife killed the chicken and cooked the wine, she remembered the vegetable altar buried in the ground. Digging the ground to open the altar, suddenly the fragrance is rich and lingering.
The process of making the winter tip is very simple, but to make the authentic and delicious winter tip, you need the right time and place-you need to choose a sunny day at the end of winter, pick the big mature vegetables back, cut off the trunk and leave only the leaves, wash them, cut them into three or four equal parts, and hang them in rows. It is best to have direct sunlight, gradually fade the vegetables, and then bring them back one by one in three or five days and wash them again. During the whole drying period, winter wind, winter frost and winter sun alternate, and it is not allowed to get wet, otherwise the taste of the winter tip will be greatly reduced and the color will be ugly and unpalatable. When the number is dry, take it back one by one and put it in a sealed pottery jar for fermentation, and wait for a few months.
Just like the principle of cellar wine, the longer the winter tip is sealed and cellar-stored, the more mellow and delicious it will taste. Therefore, the fresh winter tips made in my hometown are not the best, but the ones with beautiful colors are the best after a long time. My mother once told me that the winter tip stored for more than ten years can be eaten directly, saying that it was "fermented". There used to be an altar in my home that had been stored for ten years. Every time I open a can to get food, the whole room smells of winter tips and lobster sauce. When I was a child, I secretly ate raw winter tips between mom's opening cans. It's really delicious, but it's too salty to eat more.
The fragrant beauty of the winter tip has long been recorded in history. In the 27th year of Guangxu, (190 1), after Luo (the last top scholar in Sichuan in Qing Dynasty) won the first prize, the trustee brought two winter shoots to Beijing in his hometown and gave them to his colleagues. College student Sun Jiading was full of praise after eating it. His poem praises: "loquat and green vegetables are picked from their tips, and there are secrets in making exquisite pickles skillfully." Seasoned with a crown kitchen meal, Zizhou's winter tip is deserved. " So his reputation rose even more, and even Li came to ask for it and said, "Lafayette smells the fragrance."
In my hometown, almost every family must have an altar of winter tips. In winter, the weather is cold and there are few vegetables, so most farmers can't afford expensive greenhouse vegetables. When there is no food, they will take out the winter tips prepared the previous winter, cut them into fine powder, and fry a plate of fried minced meat with the winter tips. The minced meat absorbs the fragrance of the winter tip, and the winter tip absorbs the delicious meat. The whole dish is fragrant but not greasy and can be eaten for a long time. When I was in high school, I left home to live in the county. This is what my roommate likes to bring from home. When we go home during the moon holiday, our family are afraid that we will starve at school. I fried a pot of minced meat with a lot of meat, fried it into dry stuffing and put it in a glass jar. After returning to school, everyone packed the meals in the canteen and took them back to the dormitory at noon. You tasted ours and I tasted yours, but the taste was different. Mixed with minced meat and different flavors of food, everyone gossips about hip-hop and talks about everything. Three years have passed quickly. A can of minced meat with winter tips can be eaten for many days, and the taste of home can be accompanied for a long time. After eating a big can, it will be next month's holiday.
As early as the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty, the winter tip of my hometown was famous all over the country, and now it is exported at home and abroad. There are also a variety of ways to eat, you can do steamed meat, salted boiled white dishes; Soup; Chop up stir-fry, wrap jiaozi, wrap jiaozi ... I have eaten many times since I left my hometown, but I am always dissatisfied. Once the sea was difficult for water, I really looked down on the winter tips in other places. College students always like to eat "bean sprouts" buns. I always like to say to them, "What sprouts are there? The leaves are thin and ugly. It's not authentic until it's dried in the first year. What's delicious in our house? "