[Material preparation]

20 kg of soybean, 40-60 kg of watermelon, 5 kg of ginger and 5 kg of salt.

[Step]

In the middle and late July of each year (when a large number of watermelons are on the market), clean the soybeans, put them in a large pot and cook them until they are 80% mature, spread them evenly with bamboo curtains or summer sleeping mats, and cover them with gauze (naturally ferment in warm and weak light, or inoculate soy sauce koji, and after about 7- 10 days, white hyphae with a length of 1-2 cm will densely grow on each soybean). Peel and shred watermelon, slice ginger, boil salt water, add soybean and ginger to boil again, and then add watermelon (watermelon juice: remove seeds and peel mature watermelon, put it in a jar, soak beans or bean powder, add the amount of watermelon juice, depending on the submerged beans, it is best not to add water) to the jar for fermentation, and you can eat it for two months (stir it every day like Northeast stinky sauce in the middle to ensure uniform fermentation).

This method of making sauce has several advantages: short cycle; Omitting the processes of making sauce blocks and grinding sauce; Preserves the fragrance of soy sauce and is more suitable for the habitual tastes of many foreigners; Ginger juice has the functions of sterilization and health care. If you add fried sesame seeds, cooked peanuts or diced meat (all added after cooling), so much the better, especially peanuts.

[Remarks]

Soybean for watermelon sauce must be a small variety growing in Huaibei Plain, commonly known as "Lai Babai". Its body is black and white, full and round, only the size of mung beans. The selected beans should be exposed to the sun, the skin of the beans should be ground off, and they will rot when cooked at the entrance. The texture without beans is better. Air-dry the cooked beans until they are semi-dry, and wrap them with wheat straw until the moldy pieces are foggy and connected.

Fresh watermelons are needed to make watermelon sauce. Because the new beans in those days were used to make watermelon sauce, they could not be made until after autumn (when watermelons had gone on strike). Six ripe watermelons in Gua Tian were put into deep pits in summer, stored in wet sand, and taken out in autumn, with fresh pulp and rich juice.

When making watermelon sauce, first put the moldy bean paste in the jar for two or three days, then open the watermelon, remove the seeds and leave the pulp, knead the sweet juice in the basin, and pour it into the jar to soak the bean paste. Watermelon juice should overflow the beans about half a foot, and add pepper powder, shredded ginger and star anise petals. Salt should be put in batches, and some should be put every cloudy day. After three times, the altar can be sealed. After soaking in autumn and winter, open the jar in the next spring and stir it in the sun with a spoon to prevent the watermelon sauce from turning sour. The stirred watermelon sauce is sealed and soaked in autumn, even if it is ready.

The watermelon sauce made in this way is ruddy and muddy but not turbid. Eat a petal, the spicy taste is strong, the more you chew, the more fragrant it is, and there is a faint sweetness of watermelon behind it. The red pepper powder is not spicy, and the shredded ginger is soaked with the fragrance of beans, which is more chewy. At the dinner table in the morning and evening, I hold a thin and crisp fried dumpling cake and a dish of delicious watermelon sauce until I can't carry chopsticks. Miso soup is even better. Take a spoonful of noodles and mix them up and down. Aroma, spicy taste and sweet taste are all there, and the refreshing taste of watermelon is integrated into it.