Life needs a sense of ceremony. What you want is not the original flavor, but someone holds it hard. When my grandparents were still around, everything I ate during the New Year was exquisite. After they left, it seems that something is slowly becoming stale.
Perhaps it is because of growing up that I like to recall the past more and more. I began to cook the dishes that my grandmother used to cook, trying to remember her from cooking and find the warmth she gave me in the taste.
The most important dish in our family during the Spring Festival is Babao rice.
Grandma cooks more than a dozen bowls of eight-treasure rice every year, leaving a few bowls at home for her aunt to take away in a few years, and sharing the rest with her neighbors. In those years when I was still studying, I always helped her to do it and shared it with my neighbors.
Cooking eight-treasure rice is actually very simple. There's only one secret. The key is to work hard and make it naturally delicious.
One of the keys of eight-treasure rice: the glutinous rice chosen is round glutinous rice.
Glutinous rice is divided into long glutinous rice and round glutinous rice. Long glutinous rice is indica rice with slender grains, white and opaque color and strong viscosity. Round glutinous rice belongs to japonica glutinous rice, which is round and short in shape, white and opaque, sweet and greasy in taste, and slightly lower in viscosity than long glutinous rice. In contrast, long glutinous rice is more suitable for making zongzi, fermented rice, glutinous rice, rice and so on. In some places, round glutinous rice and long glutinous rice are half and half, so it tastes better when cooked.
The second key of eight-treasure rice: lard.
Pig suet is boiled slowly by boiling water, and the oil will naturally come out after the water is boiled dry. When cooking, put a few white radishes and shallots, and lard will be more fragrant and clear. Lard is mainly used to stir the glutinous rice that has just come out of the pot, and then coat a layer on the bowl where the mold is made to prevent the glutinous rice from sticking to the bowl.
The third key of eight-treasure rice: bean paste.
The red beans cooked with bean paste must be the thin-shell beans of that year. After washing, put it in a pressure cooker, then grind it into bean paste, filter it, and then fry it in an iron pan. Our family calls this process boiling.
Because it takes too much effort. You can't stop stirring when you are cooking. Once it stops, it will immediately stick to the pot and the pot will be completely wasted.
You must add some lard to the bean paste, and you must cook it yourself, so that the fried bean paste will be fragrant. The sugar in the bean paste must be white sugar, not soft sugar. Lard and sugar should be put into bean paste and cooked slowly. Only stir-fried bean paste is good, only stir-fried bean paste is good, eight-treasure rice will be delicious.
Choose white sugar as the soft candy mixed with glutinous rice.
The candied fruits of Babao include red dates, peanuts, longan, lotus seeds, melon seeds, candied dates, honeydew melons, raisins and red and green shredded plums.
The so-called eight treasures have their own meanings. Red dates and peanuts symbolize early birth; Longan symbolizes reunion; Lotus seeds symbolize the harmony of marriage; Melon seeds symbolize the law of life, safe and disaster-free; Jujube and honey wax gourd symbolize sweetness; Raisins symbolize many children and happiness, and love is happy; Hongmei silk is the same color as Longmen, which means encouraging enterprising and wishing success; Green plum silk represents pine trees and symbolizes longevity.
Eight kinds of fillings are placed at the bottom of the bowl according to your preference. Glutinous rice is mixed with lard and soft sugar, and then gently attached to the bottom of the bowl to shape. Then fill it with bean paste and press it together. When eating, steam it on the fire and leave the sesame oil. It is most suitable for the whole family to enjoy, symbolizing round and round, so it has the most flavor of the year.
I also made salty eight-treasure rice this year, and I want to try the salty eight-treasure rice cooked by my grandmother. Grandma has been suffering from diabetes for many years. We will have two bowls of eight-treasure rice on New Year's Eve. One bowl is sweet and the other is salty for ourselves. But I always like to steal her salty eight-treasure rice, so grandma always cooks salty eight-treasure rice abundantly. I remember grandma's salty eight-treasure rice was full of salty bean paste, and my aunt said it was not delicious. She suggested that I change the salted bean paste into salted egg paste.
So I tried it before the New Year's Eve. This bowl of salty eight-treasure rice is made of round glutinous rice, lard, salt, braised pork tongue, sauce meat, mushrooms, scallops, salted protein, salted egg yolk, winter bamboo shoots, peanuts and red and green silk. I didn't expect it to be so delicious after cooking. I can't wait to eat it all.