Making method and custom story of Heilongjiang northeast miso

On April 28th, the last day of the temple fair, almost all housewives in the towns and villages in northeast China were busy making a homemade miso called "Xiajiang". Choose this day, not only with the help of the homophonic "hair" of the word "eight", but not with its tacky and copper-smelling "hair", so that the sauce pieces that have been put aside at that time can be "fermented" smoothly, and more importantly, it is due to the solar terms-around the Dragon Boat Festival, before the rainy season, the best season in Northeast China comes, and the steady and rising temperature can ensure the normal and rapid fermentation of Mucor in the big sauce.

According to legend, the tradition of making sauce originated from Manchu people. Just like the way of eating hot pot, it has been handed down for a long time. Up to now, Manchu people still cook authentic "dish sauce", that is, fry soybeans before cooking soy sauce, and the rest of the practices are not much different from ordinary soy sauce. Because the temperature in Northeast China is low all the year round, which is not conducive to bacterial reproduction, people have the habit of eating vegetables raw, so it is not surprising to dip eggplant, celery or kelp in sauce. There is a big plate of seasonal "sauce dish" on the dining table of each family. Those green vegetables are fresh and attractive, and the greenery is about to drip. Dip them in the golden sauce in the blue and white platter, which is appetizing and delicious. If you can eat a bowl of rice, you have to have at least another bowl.

Northeasters love sauces. In the past, the standard of living was not high, and green vegetables and shallots were used as the main course. Nowadays, even if there are seven dishes and eight bowls for three meals a day, there are few frying and cooking, and even there are few big stews in the northeast, but there is a dish of salty and delicious sauce.

My parents are both from Shandong, and they have already done as the Romans do, except for the sauce. There are many skills and secrets in the seemingly simple process of adding sauce. There are factors handed down from generation to generation, and there are also factors of self-understanding and proper play. They are also fried beans, boiled beans, twisted beans, making sauce pieces and sealing sauce pieces until the official sauce is served on April 28. In this series of specific operations, the mastery of temperature, humidity and strength, the selection of well water and tap water, the difference between iodized salt and non-iodized salt, the ratio of salt and water, etc., must be properly grasped. When the above-mentioned series of tasks are completed one by one, in the first month or two, a patient person will be needed to sit by the sauce jar at least once a day to "crawl" and "skim". This task is equally arduous and cannot be ignored. As for covering the sauce jar in rainy days and removing the cover in sunny days, it is not a difficult technical work.

In the north, there are saucers of different sizes all year round at the entrance of the vegetable garden, the Chaoyang area in the south of the courtyard and the balcony of the building. You don't have to move for three days, and the sauce jar will certainly not freeze. The important criterion to measure whether this housewife is qualified or not is to taste the big sauce, pickled pickles and bean curd made by her "hands-on". Especially the smell of raw sauce that her family has thoroughly smelled. There is a folk saying: the sauce of a big family must be delicious. More accurately, it is the housewife who has a large population and a relatively timid environment, and the sauce under her is more fragrant. It sounds counterintuitive, but many things are so wonderful at first, and then they become natural. Although we don't have sauce at home, we can't break the big sauce for seasoning. Neighbors always invite us to knife (serve) sauce when their own soy sauce is just made, and boast about how delicious their own soy sauce is. The tone and expression are no less than praising their children. My brother and I often discuss which one to go to before we go out with empty bowls, because begging for sauce is also learned: we must visit every family that invites us to go to the knife sauce, and we must take turns several times regularly, no matter how the sauce tastes in that family, eating more and eating less comes second. In this way, every family will think that their own soy sauce is good. Look, it takes a lot of brains to harvest crops that you didn't grow yourself, although you saved your strength in advance.

Everyone knows that Shandong people are proud of "Pancake Roll with Green Onion Sauce" (which is definitely different from Northeast Sauce). In the northeast, it is easy because of the land, and it is replaced by "big hawthorn" and the green onions are dipped in soy sauce. Compared with corn flour, corn hawthorn can better reflect the thick lines of the northeast people and show its rough personality. A large pot of hawthorn with the aroma of cloud beans, with salted duck eggs floating like fish bubbles, is accompanied by a lot of fresh green vegetables on the dining table, and the most indispensable thing is the freshly-scooped and fragrant egg sauce. Are you stuck in such a scene? Of course, the hospitable host will warmly invite you to sit down. You don't need any delicacies or even stir-fry, but you think this way of eating is very novel and right, which is very compatible with the environment and humanities in Northeast China. There are some ways to eat pig-killing dishes like Mr. A Cheng said-the kind that is very open-mouthed and bandit.

I remember when I was in primary school, one rainy evening, my teacher sent me to the twin sisters' home in my class to inform me of an important matter. I had a hard time finding their home. Just in time for them to have dinner-big hawthorn mixed with big sauce, not even a green vegetable. However, they actually ate so hard, bowl after bowl. Originally, I couldn't tell who was who, which made me even more blinded. I actually forgot to have dinner at home, and unconsciously became hungry with the increasingly empty sauce plate in front of them. I'll tell my parents immediately after I get home, and I'll go to my neighbor's house to beg for a bowl of big sauce and try it. I'll see if I can eat several bowls of big hawthorn just like they did. Mother laughed at me for eating too much cooking and getting tired of it, just like when I was a few years old, it was as ridiculous to exchange cakes with other children for big cakes. My father vividly learned the authentic cooking procedure of the northeast people: first go to the vegetable garden to pick vegetables, wash them, then put a small plate of big sauce on the knife, and shout for dinner without moving a big spoon at all. I certainly didn't listen to much of what they said, otherwise, I still recall that evening scene as deeply as it was printed in my mind.

Although there is no shortage of sauce in my house, I really like to eat big sauce, especially the cooked sauce fried with lean meat and red pepper. When I go to school outside, every time I leave home, I have to take a big jar full, so I can't get a holiday. Because eating in the canteen, the students "help" each other with a spoonful, and the progress is amazing. When I go to Beijing to study in my thirties, I have to bring a bottle of homemade hot sauce. When it comes to dinner, you must put it on the table and eat with the dishes that are not very delicious in the canteen. Some boys ate too much, so they were a little embarrassed. They asked the name of this sauce and planned to buy it according to it. When they learned that I made it myself, they thought I was lying to them! I also made many literary friends for this. What impressed me the most was the Wuhan senior who generously ate my hot sauce when we first met. That dinner, we both went late and happened to sit at the same table. After eating three spoonfuls of praise, she gave a very pertinent evaluation: this kind of sauce tastes too fragrant and is easily addictive. It is this pot of extremely ordinary hot sauce that has laid the foundation for my growing friendship with her.

Northeast miso is quite a seasoning. It can be used to make eggplant with sauce, beans with sauce, stir-fry and even dip in jiaozi. Therefore, people who have moved from the northeast to the south to work and live like to eat the big sauce that their family just scooped out of the sauce jar when they return to their hometown-the long-lost and original sauce flavor dwarfs all kinds of Laoganma and Axiangpo in the supermarket. Of course, there is a lot of sauce in what the wanderers take away. What's more, I'm not afraid of being overweight when I fly, so I'll fill it with a portable plastic bucket of ten catties and twenty golds and soar in the blue sky. This shows their special liking for soy sauce.

During meals, I walk through the ordinary streets and lanes in the northeast at will, and the smell of fried sauce wafts from time to time. In today's increasingly advocating returning to the basics, sauce dish has won more and more people's favor. I would like to quote a sentence from my classmate's brother who hasn't returned to China for several years as a conclusion: the changes in my hometown are really great, and so are the people. What hasn't changed is just my mother's sauce.

Second, soy sauce, though still loved by northerners, is gradually falling out of favor with the promotion of a less salt diet. Cooking your own soy sauce at home is almost extinct. If there are people who make their own sauce, it is because there are old people at home, and they may still miss the past more than they prefer this kind of food.

the method of making soy sauce at home is almost lost. When I was young, every time I served sauce, I would follow my mother around. In recent years, because I have eaten less and less sauce, I almost don't cook at home. If I want to eat, I will buy some. I made some myself on a whim last year. And recorded the process. Guarantee is absolutely authentic. However, according to the old man's saying in the past, it is true that a person cooks the same flavor. In the same way, my mother and I do not cook the same flavor.

this is the process of making soy sauce last year. I recorded it and I won't make it this year. Most of what I cooked last year was given away, and I ate very little myself.

To make soy sauce is soybean, salt and water. The ratio is: 11 kg of beans, 2-2.3 kg of salt. I haven't measured the water, which is about 1 times that of fermented beans. Making soy sauce often depends on experience.

First, choose the beans, pick out the bad or moldy beans, and then measure the weight of the beans to be planted. I planted 5 Jin of beans.

soak the selected beans for 24 hours, and then call the beans in a large pot. I called five kilos of beans in two pots. Put the soaked beans in the pot, add water until the water is 2-3CM below the beans, bring to a boil with high fire, skim off the floating foam, and then use the minimum fire to breathe slowly until the beans are soft and rotten, the color is deepened, and the water is gone. Turn off the fire and stew for several hours.

this process must be patient, and you can't leave people alone, otherwise it will be easy to burn the pot.

find a clean and breathable bag, pack it, compact it as much as possible, hang it under the air, and ferment it at more than 21 degrees.

In the past, beans were soaked in the first day of February, beans were called on the second day of the lunar calendar, and soy sauce was served on the eighth, eighteenth and twenty-eighth days of April. I think it took a little long, and beans were fermented too much. Maybe the temperature in the house was lower than it is now. I think one month is enough now.

I cooked the soy sauce on April 18th, and the outdoor temperature in the north is still a little low on the eighth day of April. Before the fermented soy beans are put into the jar, they should be exposed to the sun for a day, and the fermented moldy beans should be brushed with water. After draining water and salt, they should be placed in a place with high temperature as much as possible, and the sun should be exposed as much as possible to make them ferment again. During this period, rake with a sauce rake every morning and evening to skim off the floating foam. Until you can't foam. You can eat it in a month. However, at first, the sauce will be thin. After a summer exposure, the sauce will be very dry in winter, and it will be diluted or fried before eating.

third, it's time to make sauce blanks again. Every year, the twelfth lunar month and February of the lunar calendar are the time to make the northeast soy sauce blank. If you like the strong fermented flavor, do it in the twelfth lunar month, and if you like the light fermented flavor, do it in February. After the sauce is fermented, choose one day to make sauce on the eighth, eighteenth and twenty-eighth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar. Choosing to do it during the lunar calendar is a habit left by the people.

The miso without any additives tastes delicious, and the miso made by everyone is different due to different techniques. Everyone around me likes to eat the big sauce I made. You need a lot of one can of it.

soy sauce fermentation originated in China and has a history of thousands of years. The research shows that soy sauce not only has the first nutritional function of rich protein, fat and carbohydrate, but also has the third physiological function of human body: it has good physiological functions such as antithrombotic, antioxidant, anti-fatigue and anti-cancer.

There are two ways to make northeast miso, one of which is what I did today, and the other is "dish miso".

materials

2511 g of soybeans

11 kg of water

a ceramic pot (volume 31 kg)

751 g of washing salt

a sauce pestle

Step 1

Wash the soybeans with water, then soak them for more than 1.2 hours, and the soybeans will expand in volume and pinch by hand. I washed it four times. Use mountain spring water for soaking soybeans. The amount of water is not included in the formula.

Step 2

After the beans are soaked, add water, boil over high fire, and then simmer. It takes about 1-2 hours to cook the beans until they are soft and rotten (you can control the time according to the amount you make). The amount of water is the same as that of beans. It is a pity to give up too much water when making sauce blanks, and it is a pity to throw away the juice with soybeans in it. Add mountain spring water, and the amount of water is also not in the formula

Step 3

Crush the cooked beans in your own way. I like to bring some watercress, so I didn't grind it into mud. Don't have too much water, and the sauce blank won't be formed if there is too much water

Step 4

Pile the crushed beans into a blank of about 25x15x8. Each blank should be thrown for a while to be firm and easy to ferment. If the blank is too big, it is easy to burn, and if it is too small, it is easy to lose water and make it opaque. If it is opaque, there will be no oil, and the sauce will not be fragrant. Put the blank in a cool and ventilated place for 3-5 days

Step 5

If the blank can't be made due to lack of experience, put it in a fresh-keeping box first, then pour it out and reshape it

Put the sauce blank made in Step 6

on a baking net for ventilation, turn it over frequently

Step 7

for about 3-5 days, and dry it all around

. Paper seams don't need to be too strict, so they can breathe naturally. Food wrapping paper is available online. Don't use baking paper. I used baking paper last year. It's airtight. It's always troublesome to open a small crack. The previous generation used newspapers to wrap the sauce blanks. Now it's really unscientific to think about it.

Step 11

No matter whether you cooked the sauce blanks in the twelfth lunar month or February, this will happen after fermentation. Yellow-green koji is a koji made by Aspergillus oryzae (the scientific name in the industry is soy sauce koji essence) specially for sauce and soy sauce. Aspergillus oryzae is a magician who makes soy sauce ferment in the later stage, and it mainly produces protease, glucoamylase, etc. In the process of soy sauce fermentation, protein and starch in soybean can be decomposed by using various enzyme systems and converted into small molecular substances (amino acids, glucose, etc.) that we can absorb. Aspergillus oryzae, that is, the yellow-green mycelium on the surface is relatively strong, and it will ferment only when it is put in the sauce jar. With this guy, it will be 111% successful to make big sauce

Step 11

I used a filter, and it looks pretty good. When you look at it alone, many people don't know

Step 12

In April of the lunar calendar, choose one of the eighth, eighteenth or twenty-eighth days to make sauce. Remove the package, rinse the sauce blank under running water, brush off the Mao Mao on the surface, cut into small pieces and dry in the sun

Step 13

Prepare a sauce pestle

Step 14

Wash the ceramic jar and dry it in the sun, so as not to generate water, so as to prevent miscellaneous bacteria. Put the dried minced sauce blank into a jar, boil 751g of washed salt with water to melt, remove the washed dirty DOG, pour it into the jar, and continue to add water to 11kg, which is the amount of water in the formula

Step 15

Use white cotton cloth for tofu, cover it and bind it. I also tied a red rope (folk tradition) according to the old tradition. Now everyone lives in a building without worrying about being caught in the rain, so there is no need to thicken the lid on the balcony. However, it must be placed in a place where it can be exposed to the sun, so as to ferment

Step 16

Use a sauce pestle to draw a round paste from bottom to top and from outside to inside, with no less than 211 strokes twice a day, skimming off the floating foam and not bringing in raw water in the process. This is the state of three or four days, and bubbling fermentation has begun.

Step 17

The sauce base is smashed more and more, and it can be eaten after one month of fermentation. ambient temperature