In the morning, it can be a low-key supporting role, with various side dishes of rice porridge, and in the evening, it can also be the protagonist of propaganda, absorbing casserole porridge with fresh and sweet ingredients.
It should be light in the morning, and "miscellaneous salty" rice porridge is the standard breakfast in most areas of Chaoshan.
"Miscellaneous salty" refers to all the side dishes in Chaoshan area, with a wide variety, from fruits and vegetables, beans to fresh seafood, no less than 100 kinds.
The production process of "miscellaneous salty" embodies the dietary wisdom and the virtue of thrift of Chaoshan ancestors. Over time, Chaoshan's unique dietary customs have been formed, which is also the homesickness of every wandering hipster.
▼ All kinds of "miscellaneous salty"
There are many kinds of "miscellaneous salty", which are mainly divided into three categories according to the raw materials: (There are many kinds of side dishes, some of which cannot be translated into Mandarin, so they are named after the homonym of Chaozhou dialect)
A fruit and vegetable, with vegetables and fruits as main raw materials, is mainly pickled with vinegar and salt, and has a long shelf life. Pickled fruits and vegetables are crisp and refreshing, which are very appetizing, including pickled vegetables, pickles, tribute vegetables, olives, crispy melons, black olives, olives, pickles, candied melons, pickled melons and so on.
The raw material of preserved vegetables is actually crispy white radish rich in water, which is dried with salt to make preserved vegetables. I didn't have time to prepare breakfast in the morning, so I tore a few petals with rice porridge to help digestion and nourish my stomach. Of course, the most common collocation is diced scrambled eggs, and the smooth egg liquid is wrapped in crispy diced preserved vegetables, forming a unique fragrance, which is suitable for all ages in Xian Yi.
▼ Scrambled eggs with mustard tuber
Rice porridge dishes are the most nutritious for the stomach. When I was sick and lost my appetite, I used to cook a bowl of rice porridge with one or two olives or yellow skins pickled by myself (I have to say, many families in Chaoshan like their own pickled ingredients, and the pickled sour plums at home are as old as me), which is said to help digestion and reduce fire, and the salty taste is a bit sweet and appetizing.
▼ Olive Bowl
The second is seafood, which takes fish and shells as raw materials. Most of the fish are only cooked with salt water, which keeps the original flavor of the ingredients. It is difficult for people who eat it for the first time to accept the fishy smell, including all kinds of fish rice, money snail salmon, pickled shrimp, salt crab, thin-shell rice and so on.
Thin-shell rice is a kind of cheap shellfish seafood with extremely thin shell and delicious taste, which is abundant in summer. The classic practice of Chaoshan is to fry thin shells without changing gold. Originally known as basil, it tastes spicy. This unique herb perfectly removes the fishy smell of thin shells. After the fire was quickly fried, the fragrance was overflowing and the meat was fresh and tender.
▼ Gold does not change its thin shell.
Fish rice is generally made of local Balang fish, which is dense in meat. After being soaked in salt water, it is neatly placed in a bamboo sieve, sprinkled with Shanghai salt layer by layer, then flattened with a heavy object to avoid deformation, cooked in high-concentration salt water (the salt water is preserved by fishermen day after day and is extremely salty), and finally ventilated to dry and drained. Pickled vegetable juice mixed with soy sauce is a perfect match for eating fish, which is sweet and moist.
▼ Fish rice
Three kinds of soybean milk are made from soybean, black bean, peanut and milk, including fermented bean curd, black bean, peanut, sweet bean and burdock.
Fermented bean curd, dried with fresh dried bean curd, dried with salt until dense, reduced to half of its original volume, pickled with bean paste, dried with Jiang Mo, and finally sealed in a jar. Sandwiched together, but the size of sugar cubes, a handful, salty, sweet and spicy are all in it.
▼ Sufu
Cowbell, add milk to the pot, add vinegar to accelerate coagulation, scoop it up with a spoon after half cooling, and put it in salt water. Put three or two pieces in warm rice porridge, let it melt in the porridge, and the faint milk fragrance will be distributed in the rice porridge.
As night falls, the food stalls with red tents on the roadside are also lively, and the dazzling midnight snack is eye-catching, but in any case, a pot of casserole porridge is essential. Drinking porridge in the middle of the night not only satisfies the appetite, but also warms the stomach.
Compared with the low-key rice porridge, the casserole porridge at night is much more exquisite. Different from Guangzhou boat porridge, which pursues sticky and erosive taste, Chaoshan casserole porridge requires clear particles, not too thin or too dry, and accurate temperature and moisture requirements.
Rice porridge is light and mild, casserole porridge is salty and fragrant, and Chaoshan is also called "fragrant minced meat". Common fragrant minced meat includes ribs, squid porridge, seafood porridge, chicken porridge, eel porridge and so on.
There is no doubt that seafood porridge is one of the representative players. Chaoshan relies on the sea to eat the sea, and seafood is always indispensable for three meals a day. Porridge water and rice grains absorb the delicious taste of shrimp and crab, and each bite is conquering your taste buds.
▼ Seafood casserole porridge
Fresh shrimps and crabs as ingredients. Before cooking porridge, stir-fry the removed shrimp heads, extract some shrimp oil, and stir well with the soaked rice, so that the seafood porridge will be thicker and brighter. Then pour the water into the casserole, cook the rice grains with high fire, and stir the rice grains in the same direction with a spoon to avoid spilling over the pot. Finally, slowly add the seafood and shrimp oil, and finally inject the soul and join.
This is the love of Chaoshan people for life. They can make all kinds of side dishes and a pot of seafood porridge in various ways, from the complicated "salty" breakfast to the hot air in the casserole porridge in the food stall at night and a bowl of plain rice porridge, and they can try their best to cook them. These fireworks nourish our growth and are finally engraved in the stomach and heart of every wanderer.
I began to feel homesick when I left home. How can we make sweet and fat taste better than lingering home-cooked taste? Happiness is actually the simplicity of "watching a sunset with you when you are free, and smiling in front of the stove can warm the porridge".
References:
Chaoshan flavor origin