Ai Ai's fragrant lyric prose
In the third month of the lunar calendar, Shilong people like to cook moxa sticks. When they are free, housewives go up and down. On weekends, children are at home after school, and parents will also solve them. Eating wormwood is an indispensable custom in the traditional festival of Zhuang nationality on March 3. Early in the morning, every village is fragrant.
The anemone is dark green, crystal clear, sweet and soft, but there are a series of complicated processes to make the anemone, which is time-consuming and laborious, but the Shilong people enjoy it.
Go outside and pick out the strong and tender wormwood, wash it, cook it thoroughly, pick it up and soak it in clear water for many times until it doesn't feel bitter when chewing. Pick out the leaves, mix them in the soaked glutinous rice, grind them into Amy pulp with a stone mill, put them in a cloth bag, tie them tightly, drain them for a few hours, and then press them with a stone mill head for a while to make dough.
The next step is to knead the dough. Kneading dough is very hard work, which can't be done by hand muscle strength alone. You can rely on the gravity of your body. The kneaded dough will stick together and will not crack.
When the dumplings are kneaded into a tough paste, the memo is filled. Take a small dough, put it in the palm of your hand, knead it with both hands, press a hole with your thumb, roll it thin along the hole wall, add sesame and peanut stuffing or sugar stuffing, knead it and knead it again. After more than an hour, put the bright pink moxa and wait for it to come out of the pot.
Pour oil into a red-hot iron pot, and put the kneaded moxa sticks into the pot in batches, and the moxa sticks creak. Smooth with a spatula and fry alternately on both sides. The fragrance emanated from the pot and filled the whole room. It is tolerable, but "familiarity" is intolerable. Before they cooled down, I took a deep bite and felt that my mouth was full of fragrance. 、
In March, the weather is changeable, cold and hot, and the humidity is high, so people are prone to catch a cold. However, wormwood has the effects of restoring yang, regulating qi and blood, eliminating dampness and dispelling cold, stopping bleeding and preventing miscarriage. No wonder Shilong people like to cook moxa sticks during this time.
People have been collecting wormwood for at least 2500 years. Because there is a passage in the Book of Songs Feng Wang Picking Songs: "He loves Ai Xi, and if he doesn't see me for a day, he will be as old as three." The Book of Songs was written in the 5th century BC. However, it is impossible to verify whether this woman uses moxa sticks to ward off evil spirits and repel mosquitoes, or whether she is a medicine or a moxa stick.
Extended data:
Artemisia argyi is a traditional snack of Han nationality, which is usually eaten in Tomb-Sweeping Day. Wormwood can be regarded as a common ingredient on the table of Hakka people. Every spring, clumps of wormwood grow by the water in the field, and the green leaves spiral up, which is as lovely as a pagoda. At this time, the Hakka mother will take the children to pick them, go home and steam glutinous rice, then mix them with mugwort leaves and mash them into rice paste, wrap some peanuts or sesame seeds in the middle and steam them in a pot, which becomes a very famous mugwort in Hakka cuisine. Folium Artemisiae Argyi is often used as breakfast, and street stalls often sell it together with Folium Artemisiae Argyi. The method is to simmer the steamed cold mugwort leaves with some oil.
brief introduction
Mourning is a traditional snack of Han nationality, which is usually eaten in Tomb-Sweeping Day. Wormwood can be regarded as a common ingredient on Hakka table.
Production method
(1) picking mugwort leaves
On the eve of Qingming Festival, wild mugwort leaves will grow in the fields in the suburbs, in front of and behind the house, with fragrant smell and pleasant color. The more tender the leaves are, the more fragrant they will be.
In South Vietnam, wormwood is very common except in winter. In addition, there is another plant that looks like wormwood in size and appearance. Some people call it "fake wormwood". The two kinds of grass are often together, and the easiest thing to distinguish when picking is whether there is a smell of wormwood. "False wormwood" cannot be used to make moxa sticks. )
② Picking and cleaning grapefruit leaves/banana leaves.
Picking in the farm orchard, picking grapefruit leaves into small pieces, cutting banana leaves into palm-sized pieces and washing them (it is better to put some oil in hot water when cooking) for later use;
③ Folium Artemisiae Argyi
Wash tender mugwort leaves with lime and water for two or three days to remove dirt, then wash and pick them up and chop them up as much as possible; A quick way is to arrange the freshly picked leaves of Artemisia argyi once, leaving tender leaves and stems, and then wash them with clear water several times before they can be put into the pot for cooking (generally three times is enough, so be careful not to twist the juice of Artemisia argyi too hard when washing, otherwise the leaves will taste bad).
④ Dough stirring
Crushing brown sugar and boiled Folium Artemisiae Argyi into paste, adding into glutinous rice flour, adding boiled Folium Artemisiae Argyi hot water, and wrapping with Folium Artemisiae Argyi.
⑤ wormwood stuffing
It is suggested that the fried peanuts be chopped and mixed with brown sugar and fried white sesame seeds (sweet but not greasy, fragrant); Another kind of stuffing is to scrape sucrose slices with a knife to get sugar powder, and add chopped fried peanuts to make the taste softer;
⑥ Pack moxa sticks.
Wrap the stuffing in the paste of mugwort leaves, just like wrapping jiaozi, but finally flatten it. Stick a small piece of grapefruit/banana leaves on each mugwort leaf and put it in a steamer according to a circular pattern;
Ai Ai's coat is extremely difficult to wrap. A packing method is different from the above statement. First, slice a small piece of dough about 25g. Clean hands should be pressed in the middle of the dough with their thumbs at the same time, and four fingers should be turned outwards at the same time, and the stuffing inside should be squeezed out. Finally, a semi-circular coat should be squeezed out, filled carefully, and finally an uncapped' little tail' should be added to it. Be extremely skilled and press the skin.
In addition, some mugwort is wrapped in strips, like jiaozi, and different regions need to do it differently.
⑦ Steamed wormwood.
Put the steamer into the pot and steam for 15 ~ 20 minutes (if the steaming time is too long, the surface of the moxa stick will look like bubbles);
8. Boil wormwood.
Another method is to boil water, directly put it into boiling water, and cook it with chopsticks until it is neither hard nor soft, but this simple method has no steaming aroma and non-sticky appearance;
Hakka wenqing
With its unique fragrance, wormwood is deeply loved by local people, especially children and the elderly. When making and sharing Ai Rong, it can often reflect the harmony and care of Hakka families.
Because of the low cost and time-consuming, family members often decide which relatives and friends to send before making the moxa stick, so as soon as it is made, it will be sent to at least one or two families, and some will be made into several cauldrons. People who get wormwood are often very happy and keep it for themselves. Well-made moxa is particularly popular.
However, after the moxa stick is cold, it is easy to harden your heart. It is best to eat cold moxa sticks after heart heating, which tastes cold and sweet.
In addition, mugwort leaves are often used as breakfast, and they are often sold together with mugwort leaves in street stalls. The method is to simmer the steamed cold mugwort leaves with some oil. Some morning tea stalls in Guangdong restaurants also have this snack, and most of them are fried, with sesame seeds and peanuts in their bags.
The more fragrant the wormwood, the better it tastes.