Both mother and father have restless personalities. They have tried many pastimes since retirement, including badminton, shuttlecock, Tai Chi, Tai Chi sword, chorus... However, what they are most passionate about is "pulling wild vegetables". Once, after meeting up with my old colleagues to climb a mountain, I walked into my house with a big bag of Artemisia annua. My face was full of pride, and I asked him where the bag was. Digging it out, that handful was cut out somewhere. Pour it out from the cloth bag, and there is a bulging plastic bag mixed in the green space on the ground. When you open it, it is a bunch of brown-gray ground vegetables. Haha, my lovely father and mother! Fathers and mothers with feet of clay and hands of clay!
Our place is not like Jiangnan, where many kinds of wild vegetables are not available. A few days ago, I searched online for "Wild Vegetables" by Wang Pan, a famous Sanqu from the Ming Dynasty. Wang Pan, No. 1, Xilou, has extraordinary painting skills. The fifty-two kinds of wild vegetables included in "Wild Vegetables Book" are all shown in the pictures above and below. I can find out by looking at the pictures. I don't know most of the fifty-two kinds. I only recognize a few of them. Seeds include Dandelion, Artemisia annua, Lycium barbarum, Shepherd's purse, Purslane, Gray stripe, Forget-me-not, broom seedlings.
?Since we are talking about food, it must be related to food. Next, let me focus on how my family eats wild vegetables.
Steamed with garlic:
Many wild vegetables can be cooked in this way, mixed with a bowl of rotten garlic juice, and eaten as a dip for a unique flavor. Artemisia annua and broom seedlings are the first choices for steaming and eating at my door. If there is no season when artemisia or broom seedlings can be found and the gluttons in the stomach are not available, my mother will steam them with celery leaves or peeled potatoes cut into strips. The taste is also good, and it is better than nothing!
?Pick the collected white wormwood or broom seedlings, wash them, and dry them until they are semi-dry. Take flour and sprinkle it while mixing. During this period, you can mix it with some salt for seasoning. According to my mother's method, I need to sprinkle some mixed noodles. My mother said that this way it can "disperse" in the mouth, which is far better than just the "sticky" white flour. Because there is a little water, the flour will be like armor on the outside of the white mugwort or broom seedlings. Put it in the steamer for 20 minutes and it's ready. Mixing rotten garlic juice is my father's specialty. It is true that apart from vinegar and ordinary seasonings, sesame oil is the magic power of rotten garlic juice. Don't use too much, just the right amount is the best. How much exactly? I guess no one knows; haha, as long as I have a bowl of delicious rotten garlic juice, this bowl of rotten garlic juice is a perfect accompaniment to steamed vegetables.
If an unfinished steamed dish is steamed again, the outer layer of dough will be more likely to be "smoked" by the water vapor and become sticky, so this gave birth to the second interpretation of this steamed dish in my family, stir-fry! The same garlic is used, but the difference is that this time it is granulated garlic, and dry pepper segments need to be added to extract its spiciness. Cut the meat into cubes, the fatter ones are best, add it to the pot and stir-fry at the same time. The heat should not be too strong. Use time to "force" out the oil from the diced fatty meat. This is also a recipe for using meat oil for stir-frying vegetarian dishes. Then pour the remaining steamed vegetables into the pot and stir-fry up and down with the spatula until the garlic becomes fragrant. After a while, the wrapped dough absorbs the fat, and becomes crispy under the heat of frying. It is like a greedy person. Just relying on this imagination can make your mouth full!
"You're here, please come inside, it's spacious inside..."
"What are you going to eat?..."
"Look, this is the wild vegetables steamed in a cage and dipped in garlic at my house."