When I was a child, I grew up in a rural area in southwestern Shandong. At that time, every winter, almost every family had a plate of pickles - soybean pickles - on the table.

When eating, scoop out a spoonful from the pickle jar, put it on a plate, and mix it with sesame oil. The whole family sits around the table, drinking mud, eating corn flour pot cakes or sweet potato noodle nests. This is how a meal is completed.

This dish is also served when entertaining guests and relatives during the Spring Festival.

Sauce bean pickles are generally composed of spicy radish strips, soy beans, cabbage sticks, and celery stalks, but the proportions vary.

The general process is: prepare the beans before the peak season of spicy radish.

First, select better soybeans, wash them, put them in a pot and cook them thoroughly. Cook them over low heat for half a day until the beans turn brown. Drain the cooked soybeans and put them into a basin. Cover them tightly with a piece of cloth and hide them.

Cover it in a pile of wheat straw, or use a torn cotton quilt to cover it, and let it reach a certain temperature for fermentation. After covering it for more than ten days, the beans will be covered with white fermentation. Use chopsticks to pick them up and you can pull out the silk.

.

This is how to make soy beans.

Depending on the situation at home, choose small spicy radish, which has thick skin and less water.

First wash the radish, dry it, trim the head and tail, cut the middle of the radish and cut it into strips.

Cabbage sticks and celery stalks are also cut into strips or slices to control moisture.

The important thing is to add more ginger to the pickled beans and pickles. Take a few large pieces of ginger, wash it, and cut it into thick shreds.

Finally, add an appropriate amount of salt, five-spice noodles, and soy beans and stir well. Wait until the radish is salty and you can eat it.

Although the pickles with soy sauce make the beans smell a bit smelly, they taste really delicious.

A more luxurious way to eat it is to dry the soy beans and pickles in the sun, heat a pan with oil, add chili peppers and saute until fragrant, stir-fry the soy beans and pickles, add the beaten egg liquid, turn it over after setting, stir well and start eating

.

Counting on my fingers, I haven't had such delicious food in 30 years. I am eager to find it as soon as possible and try the soy beans and pickles with cornmeal pot cakes to enjoy the taste of my hometown.