But what is yellow rice? What steamed bread is this yellow rice steamed bread?
At this time, we must first know what yellow rice is. Yellow rice is also called millet, millet, yellow rice, summer millet and yellow millet, which can be divided into waxy and non-waxy. Most waxy millet is made of alcohol and non-waxy millet, which is called glutinous rice and is mainly edible. Originated in northern China, it is one of the important food crops in ancient Yellow River valley. According to the dictionary, it is shelled millet fruit, slightly larger than millet, yellowish in color and sticky after cooking. Yellow rice can be used to cook porridge, make cakes, cook rice and make wine. Both yellow rice and millet come from the north, but in the eyes of northerners, yellow rice is more advanced than millet. People use it to deliver meals, and some places also use it to make cakes to entertain guests. It is difficult for ordinary people to distinguish between yellow rice and millet. Simply put, yellow rice is sticky after cooking, and millet is not sticky.
China on the Tip of the Tongue made Suide yellow rice steamed buns popular all over the country. Yellow rice bun is an essential item in Yulin people's annual tea and rice. On the 26th of the twelfth lunar month, every household in Yulin began to steam yellow rice buns. People eat from the twelfth lunar month to February. If it is hidden in the shade of a cave, it can be stored until the end of March and the beginning of April of the lunar calendar, and it will be more moist and sweet to eat.
Yellow steamed bun is a steamed bun made of millet flour. Millet is sweet, mild, slightly cold and non-toxic, which not only has high nutritional value, but also has certain medicinal value. The raw material of the yellow steamed bun is made by fermenting millet flour, wrapping cooked red dates and squeezing beans, which is soft and sweet, nutritious and easy to digest. Because of its yellow color, it is named "yellow rice bun". More than 8,000 years ago, millet was planted in the Yellow River valley, and the fried millet noodles will exude fragrance, sincerity and hunger, which shows the simple character of people in northern Shaanxi.
The production of yellow buns is very particular. First, you need to shell the millet, soak it in cold water until it can be easily crushed with your fingers, then take it out to remove water, and then grind it into flour with a roller. Then mix the noodles and put them on a hot kang for fermentation. It is best to wrap them in a quilt to ensure good fermentation the next day. The stuffing of the yellow steamed bun is cowpea and red dates. The ratio of agent to filler is 3∶2. When steaming, it takes 10 minutes for big fire, 5 minutes for medium fire and 5 minutes for small fire. I still can't forget the picture when I was out of the pot. One by one, Huang Cancan's yellow steamed buns exude sweet fragrance, in the lingering steam.
Steamed yellow rice is really a very stressful and hard thing.
There are two kinds of yellow rice steamed bread. One does not contain "stuffing" and the other contains "stuffing".
Yellow rice buns have a special kind of dough. The basic raw materials containing seeds are cowpea and red dates. Boiled cowpea and jujube are squeezed together and stirred into a kind of bean jujube paste, which is the son of yellow rice bun. More dates will be sweeter, and less dates will be lighter.
Yellow rice steamed bread without seeds is best steamed. Grab a piece of yellow rice dough, roll it in your hand, then put it in a steaming cauldron, and it will be steamed in ten minutes. Steaming yellow rice steamed bread with seeds is more complicated. You should make a rice ball first, then wrap it in a small ball of jujube paste and steam it in a pot. It can be eaten after steaming.
In fact, the difficulty and tension of steaming yellow rice steamed bread is not whether steamed bread contains it or not. The main reason is that it takes one or two barrels of yellow wheat to steam once, and it takes a whole day to steam once from morning till night-it's hard for you to steam steamed bread with yellow rice!
However, this steamed yellow rice steamed bun is very hard and worth it. On this day, steamed yellow rice buns can sometimes be eaten all through the first month, until February, and then the days will naturally be relaxed. Therefore, on the day of steaming yellow rice buns, the whole family was in high spirits. If there are five or six people in a family, men always squat down in underground pipes to make a fire, and aunts all sit on the kang and knead buns. As for children, they often eat steamed bread in their mouths and hold firewood in the yard-it takes a whole day to steam steamed bread, and naturally a lot of firewood will be burned. Children are very satisfied with firewood. They will recite an old ballad in their mouths:
Pigs embrace firewood,
The dog makes a fire,
The cat is sitting on the kang kneading dough!
After reading this ballad, under normal circumstances, the atmosphere of steamed yellow rice buns will become more enthusiastic. "Pigs hold firewood, dogs burn fire, and cats sit on the kang and knead buns." Comparing people to pigs or dogs has become a dirty word in Qingjianhe dialect, but comparing people to cats is very popular. People around Qingjian River think that "it takes three generations to become a cat", so everyone would rather be a cat than a pig or a dog. And when cats are all women kneading buns, both women and men are happy because they are praised, and they don't seem to feel tired. Then, the family steamed happily for a day, and dozens of yellow rice buns were all steamed.
However, even after steaming yellow rice buns, I dare not forget to leave an "old leaven head". Because yellow rice steamed bun is an annual tea rice, it should be steamed every New Year, and flour should be made with leaven. Once this "yeast" is gone, the rice flour will not ferment well, and the yellow rice steamed bread will be steamed into a "stone" that is not brittle or soft. If you don't eat well, it's a pity that you don't eat, which makes people in a dilemma. How terrible! But it would be nice to have "leaven". If the remaining starter is sent out one day in advance in the first year, the steamed yellow rice buns will be crisp, sweet and elegant, and it will be a great honor to entertain guests and give them away. Do you think this starter is important?
So, what is this starter? The starter is actually a small bowl-sized fermented yellow wheat. Keep a small piece of yellow wheat when steaming yellow rice buns from the first year until the second year. This is the so-called starter.
Don't underestimate this starter. This starter has been handed down from generation to generation. "Yellow rice steamed bread is the old leaven". This extremely profound experience has also been summed up by the older generation. "If you don't listen to the old man, you will suffer." Yeast is actually the soul of yellow rice buns, and yellow rice buns without souls can't "live" naturally. Naturally, it will become a kind of sour and hard "stone". This kind of yellow rice steamed stuffed bun is naturally not delicious, and it is naturally not delicious during the New Year. Yellow rice buns are from Qingjian valley. People focus on Chinese New Year's tea and rice, and a tea and rice that focuses on Chinese New Year is not delicious, so what will it taste like?