With the arrival of the dog days, many farmers in our area are used to making a jar of watermelon bean paste. The aroma of the sauce is so rich and tangy that it will make your mouth water just once you smell it. The aroma is really mellow, thick but not gaudy, so tempting!

Preparation method:

1. Preparation:

1. Ingredients: watermelon, soybeans, wheat noodles, salt, pepper, aniseed, fennel, ginger .

2. Utensils: small vat, white cloth, sauce stirring board, rubber band.

2. Production:

1. Ingredients: ?, watermelon, which should be fully mature, and sweet, thin-skinned watermelon is the best. ?, Soybeans are required to be full, with moldy, spoiled particles and debris removed.

2. Cooking the beans: Cook the soybeans until they are completely in their granular state. It is better to use a slightly higher heat.

3. Mix the noodles: After the soybeans are cooked and removed from the fire, take them out and stir the noodles while controlling the water. After the water is controlled, put them into a dustpan and sprinkle with white flour. Shake them up and down to make each bean evenly distributed. Roll in white flour.

4. Cover the beans: First prepare a place to cover the beans, which must be warm and insulated but not ventilated. Spread a layer of glossy paper or calendar paper, with the calligraphy and painting facing down and the white side facing up. Spread the rolled beans evenly on the paper, with a thickness of about 6-10 cm. Spread a layer of glossy paper or calendar paper on top, with the calendar calligraphy and painting facing up and the white side down. Cover the paper with a quilt and start covering it. bean. It is not allowed to open the quilt for observation while covering the beans to prevent the temperature from dissipating. At this time, high temperature is needed to cover the beans.

5. Drying the beans: After three days, if you smell a strong musty smell (called si qi smell in Luancheng), it means that the beans have been covered well. Open the paper and quilt. At this time, there will be a thick layer of mold on the surface of the beans. A thick layer of yellowish-brown hair (mold) sticks to the beans. Take out the beans and spread them in the sunniest place to start drying the beans.

6. Rub the beans: After the beans are dried, gently rub the fuzz off the bean noodles and use a dustpan to remove impurities.

7. Lower the vat: It is best to be indoors. Put the beaten beans into the vat, peel and mash the watermelon and put it into the vat together with salt, and stir evenly. The ratio is: 1 catty of beans, 4 catties of melons, 4 taels of salt, 1:4:0.4.

8. Drying the sauce: After placing the vat, cover it with a white cloth and tie the mouth with a rubber band, and place it in a sunny place to start drying the sauce. Sun-dried sauce is actually also called fermentation. On the second day after the sauce is placed in the vat, add water boiled with peppercorns, fennel and aniseed depending on the thickness of the sauce. On the third day after being placed in the vat, the sauce surface swelled upwards and became an obvious fermentation state. Then the flavor of the sauce began to become richer and the color of the sauce began to deepen into yellowish brown. Depending on the end of fermentation, add shredded ginger or sliced ??ginger, and some also add cooked peanuts.

9. Stir the sauce: Stir the sauce once every morning or evening. It is best to stir the sauce up and down. It will be ready for consumption in about a month.

3. Precautions

The actual making of watermelon bean paste is very simple, as long as you master the key two steps. The first step is to cover the beans, also called fermenting the beans. Covering the beans requires a very high temperature, so the place where the beans are covered must be insulated and airtight. Roll the dough quickly and cover the beans with a quilt while they are hot. The thickness of the fermented beans should not be too thin. If it is too thin, the temperature will not rise and the flavor of the sauce will be weak. The beans should turn into yellowish brown when dried and have a light soy sauce aroma. The second step is to put it into the vat. The most important thing is to use salt. If there is too much salt, it will be difficult to ferment, and the sauce will have a poor flavor. If there is less salt, it will become sour and the sauce will not taste good.

When drying the sauce for fermentation, stir the sauce once a day. The fermentation at this time is also called aerobic fermentation, which means that a lot of oxygen is needed during fermentation. Stirring the sauce is to increase the oxygen content and facilitate fermentation. It is best not to use a glass lid to seal the jar mouth or seal it with plastic cloth during fermentation. This method is not good for fermentation and affects the flavor and color of the sauce. When stirring the sauce, it is best to stir the sauce when the flies have very little activity to prevent flies from falling on the tank and producing maggots. Cover the mouth of the tank with a basin at night to prevent rainwater from entering.

If the sauce is too thick, do not add raw water to dilute it. Use boiled pepper water or noodle soup to dilute it.

As long as it is: yellow-brown in sauce color and rich in sauce aroma. Just for success.

Material preparation

20 kilograms of soybeans, 40-60 kilograms of watermelon, 5 kilograms of ginger, 5 kilograms of salt

Steps

Seven kilograms per year In the middle and late months of the month (when watermelons are on the market in large quantities), select and clean the soybeans, cook them in a large pot until they are medium cooked, spread them out evenly with a bamboo curtain or mat, and cover them with gauze (natural fermentation in warm, low light). Or inoculate the soybeans. After about 7-10 days, 1-2cm long white mycelium will grow densely on the beans, so that each soybean will grow a layer of khaki-yellow fermentation, and rub off the exterior fermentation. First, peel and grate the watermelon, slice/shred the ginger, boil salt water, add soybeans and ginger and boil again. After cooling, add watermelon (watermelon juice: remove the seeds and skin of mature watermelon and add it to the vat, brew the beans or Bean flour, add the amount of watermelon juice to submerge the beans (it is best not to add additional water) into the tank for fermentation. In urban areas, you can also use wide-mouth glass bottles to make a small amount of sauce (the basin used for fermentation must not be stained with oil or raw water to avoid fermentation. Failure or white film, also called long flowers, cover the glass bottle buckle with clean gauze to facilitate ventilation - never seal it with plastic wrap, stir it up and down with a bamboo or wooden spatula once every morning and evening to fully ferment), half After one month, when the sauce no longer produces foam, you can add shredded ginger. After one month, the sauce will be rich in flavor and can be eaten. If you find that the sauce is thicker at this time, you can use 50g of star anise and cinnamon to boil water (the amount of water depends on the thickness, add it after it cools down, do not add raw water.

There are several ways to make this sauce. Advantages: the cycle is short; the process of making and grinding the sauce is omitted; the aroma of the soybean paste is retained, which is more suitable for the taste of many outsiders; the ginger paste has the effect of sterilization and health care. If added with fried sesame seeds, it will Cooked peanuts or diced pork (both must be cooled before adding) are more delicious, especially peanuts.

Notes

The soybeans used to make watermelon sauce must be from Huaibei. The small-grained variety grown on the plains is commonly known as "Laibabai". It has a white body and a black mouth, and is plump and round. The selected beans should be exposed to the sun, rubbed off, and boiled until they are ready for eating. Rotten, no bean texture is better. Dry the cooked beans until they are half dry, and wrap them in wheat straw until the mold becomes foggy and the threads are connected.

Must be used to make watermelon sauce. Three-white watermelon, the so-called three-white watermelon, means white skin, white seeds, and white flesh. This kind of watermelon is mostly grown in northern my country, and is called native watermelon or dumb watermelon by local farmers because of its thick skin and large size. There is a lot of water, and this kind of watermelon has a rich fragrance. The watermelon sauce made with this kind of watermelon will have a particularly strong fragrance, and the color of the watermelon sauce made with three-white watermelon will be better than that made with red flesh watermelon. Watermelon jam is better! Since the new beans of the year are needed to make watermelon jam, it must be made after autumn (watermelons are already out of the market by then). Put the six-ripened watermelons in the summer melon field with the stems and seedlings in the deep cellar. Store it in wet sand and take it out in the autumn. The pulp will still be fresh and the juice will still be abundant.

When making watermelon sauce, first keep the moldy soybeans in the jar for two or three days before opening the watermelon. , remove the seeds and leave the pulp, knead the sweet juice in a basin, and pour it into a jar to soak the beans. The watermelon juice should cover the beans by about half a foot, and add minced pepper, shredded ginger, and star anise. It should be put in batches, and some should be put in every cloudy day. After letting it go for three times, it can be sealed. After soaking in autumn and winter, the mouth of the jar should be opened in the second spring and exposed to the sun with a spoon. Stir a few times to prevent the watermelon sauce from becoming sour. Seal the stirred watermelon sauce and let it sit until autumn.

The watermelon sauce made in this way will be red and not turbid. One piece has a strong spicy flavor, and the more you chew it, the more fragrant it becomes. The light sweetness of watermelon is diffused in the back. The minced red pepper is not spicy at all, and the shredded ginger is soaked in the aroma of beans, making it even more chewy. A piece of thin, crispy and fragrant pot stickers, and a dish of watermelon sauce with a delicious color and fragrance. You can't help but eat it with chopsticks. The sauce soup is even more delicious. Take a small spoonful of the noodles and stir it up and down evenly. The fragrance will be there. , the spiciness is present, the sweetness is present, and the refreshing taste of watermelon is integrated into it

"Fried Watermelon Sauce"

Ingredients: raw watermelon sauce; green onions, Cut the garlic and cooked meat into cubes. Stir-fry the garlic, green onions, and diced meat in the oil pan. Pour in the raw sauce in order. Add a little boiling water. Stir and stir-fry for 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from the pan and serve.

Traditional watermelon sauce:

Main ingredients: 10 jins of soybeans, 1 jin of flour, 2 jins of salt, 15 jins of watermelon pulp (with seeds)

1. Wash the soybeans, soak them in water for four hours, cook them in a pot, and twist them into cakes with your hands.

2. Take out the cooked soybeans and let them cool, mix them evenly with flour, place them on a wooden board (about one inch to one and a half inches thick), cover them with a clean cloth, and place them in a place that is not well ventilated. After fermentation, about 5 to 7 days, a layer of gray and white hair will grow.

3. Dry the fermented soybeans in the sun.

4. Put the dried soybeans and watermelon juice (ripe watermelon with seeds, watermelon seeds have a five-spice smell) into the tank at the same time, add salt, stir evenly, cover the tank lid, and set aside. It can be eaten after one month in the sun.

Watermelon sauce is a kind of fruit juice bean paste with a unique flavor. It is rich in nutrients, tastes salty and sweet, and has the fragrance of watermelon. After it is fried, the fragrance becomes more intense. It is perfect for making fried noodles and noodles. Excellent product.

How to make miso soup:

Doenjang soup is not only nutritious, but also delicious. When making it, boil the water first and add your favorite ingredients. In addition to adding seasonal vegetables, Japanese people also like to add tofu, mushrooms, algae and scallops. Next is the key step to make the soup taste delicious: scoop a large spoonful of soup, stir the bean paste into the spoon to dissolve it, and pour it into the pot. Be sure not to let the soup with bean paste boil again.

Isovaleraldehyde contained in soybeans, the raw material of doenjang, is a natural plant hormone. In addition to preventing breast cancer, it can also reduce the incidence of hormone-related tumors. There is a Japanese proverb, "A bowl of miso soup every day does not require a prescription." Doenjang also contains a variety of microorganisms that are beneficial to protein digestion, such as lactic acid bacteria and yeast. According to research, drinking a bowl of doenjang soup every day will reduce the incidence of gastric ulcers because the yeast in doenjang is easy for digestion.

Japanese nutrition experts also recommend that school-going children drink a bowl of miso soup for breakfast, because miso soup can be quickly absorbed by the gastrointestinal tract, and the lecithin and vitamins contained in miso soup can make brain cells more active. .