Pickled vegetables in the lotus pond are big, with narrow and long leaves and little fiber. After pickled, they are golden yellow, crisp, tender, sweet, salty and sweet, and have a fresh and unique taste, which is a good accompaniment. Fresh fish made with pickles is especially sweet. Add a little pickled leaves when making mandarin fish and winter melon soup, and the soup will be very sweet and rich. Steamed shrimp with pickled vegetable leaves is more popular with people.
Now, the pickling technology of kohlrabi in the lotus pond is constantly innovating, and all kinds of pickled vegetables have their own characteristics, which have become favorite foods for overseas Chinese and gifts for relatives and friends.
Xinhui Lotus Pond has a famous specialty-kohlrabi, which some people call Datou Cai Chong. This is a plant with a stem as big as a pineapple. It eats the part of the stem. The villagers dug it out of the ground, and if they wanted to sell it immediately, they wiped it with salt and dried it for a day. These salt-free kohlrabi are cut into blue and white meat, which is slightly spicy and can be eaten raw. People usually cut it into little finger-sized pieces, add some oil and steam it on rice noodles to eat. It tastes pure. But steaming for a long time will be soft but not brittle. If you want to keep it for a long time, cut it into large pieces, put it in a big wooden barrel, add salt, pepper and star anise, cover it with straw mats and press it on the stone. The finished product is very salty, so it should be soaked in water before eating, and then shredded, steamed meat or steamed fish.
This kind of pickle has always been sold in the market, because its material is not necessarily the kind of kohlrabi produced in the lotus pond, so it is no longer hung with the lotus pond.
However, there is a kind of packaged kohlrabi that will definitely be labeled as "Lotus Pond Sauerkraut".
As early as the 1970s, the lotus pond had a special vegetable processing plant for export. At that time, Guangzhou had not been sold yet, and my family went out to visit relatives. The most popular gift is this packaged lotus pond dish. Moderately salty, you can eat it when you open it, which is more delicious than the traditional farmhouse pickling. When we go back to our hometown, we will buy a box and distribute it to our relatives and friends, which will definitely be well received. In the late 1980s, a group of colleagues and I passed Xinhui on a business trip, and had a steamed sparerib for lunch, which was so delicious that a group of chopsticks flew around. They don't know the source of delicious food after eating. The host family smiled and said, "This is steamed pork ribs with vegetables."
Pickles are steamed with meat, which is very delicious. There are salty, fresh and sweet. By cooking and mixing with meat flavor essence, the meat flavor is thicker and more delicious. The washed dishes absorb the meat flavor and are sweeter. If it is used to steam ribs or sliced meat, fish the meat first and then put the pickles. Because kimchi itself is salty, if it is mixed with meat, it will absorb the salty taste of other seasonings, which is too salty. You should also put less salt and soy sauce in the meat fish.