The intuitive impression is that lotus cabbage is smaller and cabbage is bigger. Lotus vegetables are more tightly wrapped, and cabbage is relatively fluffy; Lotus leaves are thinner and have less water, while cabbage leaves are slightly thicker and have more water. I insist that these two ingredients are different.
Probably, it is called cabbage in the south and lotus or cabbage in the north. Perhaps, they are just the difference between the north and the south? I am neither a gourmet nor a cook. But the sense of taste tells me that I can't fry the taste of hand-torn cabbage in my childhood memory with lotus dishes.
It's the twelfth month of winter, and the geographical cabbage is growing just right. In my childhood memory, I was about to kill the "Chinese New Year pig". When the butcher arrived home and began to lay out the yard, my mother told me to pick vegetables in the field and then wash them by the river.
On the day when pigs are slaughtered, it is a local custom for neighbors to invite them home for dinner. As usual, it is to make a big table dish. My favorite thing is to tear cabbage by hand, especially for cooking.
I remember seeing my mother cook this dish many times, and I know it by heart. Practice, but also simple. Fresh and steaming pork, fat and thin, sliced into thin slices, stir-fried with plain oil, and then put the prepared hand-torn cabbage in and stir-fried until cooked. When it comes to spices, it is probably dried red pepper, ginger, and fresh garlic seedlings that have just been picked in the field. It must be cooked thoroughly, but there is no need to add water in the process of frying, and the water oozing from the cabbage is enough to stew the vegetables.
tearing cabbage by hand, as the name implies, means tearing cabbage by hand, not cutting it with a knife. However, when my mother cooked this dish, she didn't tear the cabbage for later use. She waited until the meat was almost stir-fried in the pot, and then quickly cut the cabbage directly into the pot with a kitchen knife. Of course, the taste is still very good.
when I was a child, I asked her why she didn't cut it or tear it for later use. She said, "It's different to tear it open or cut it first. Just clean the outside of the cabbage, and there is nothing in it except its own moisture. We just want to eat the freshness it picked from the ground and cut it directly into the pot to preserve its flavor ..." I think what my mother said is quite reasonable, which is also her secret book.
the signature feature of hand-torn cabbage is "hand-torn", which has nothing to do with delicacy, and it can be said that it is still very rustic. It can't go to the high-end restaurant in the hotel, and it doesn't intend to compete with France and delicacies. Its ingredients are cheap, the practice is simple, and it is passed down from mouth to mouth on the table of ordinary people, but the treatment is not thin.
The taste of hand-torn cabbage is a natural taste, which is not deliberately pursuing a bright and exquisite appearance. I'm not used to big meals, even fear big meals, and I don't have enough to eat every time. If I have to drink and socialize, I'll have a headache. Every time you have to meditate in your heart, it is not as good as a hand-torn cabbage and a bowl of rice.
from the avenue to the simplicity, there is no need to be complicated about the great taste. For me, it is also the taste of the land, the taste of nature; It is still the taste of childhood, the taste of mother; It is the smell of fireworks, the smell of ordinary life. Now, it adds the flavor of memories and hometown.