We pay attention to the correct way to open Hunan peppers. The homesickness of Hunan people is essentially their attachment to peppers.

Chili peppers are available everywhere. With a Hunan cuisine cookbook, you may be able to purchase all the required ingredients in an ordinary supermarket.

But sometimes we have to admit in our hearts that even if all the ingredients are available, only the hands of Hunanese can cook relatively authentic Hunan cuisine.

The core of it all lies in chili... The thing that lays the foundation for the spiciness of Hunan cuisine is chili sauce.

However, Hunan people actually reject the vague sauce in their hearts.

What we call "chili sauce" is, strictly speaking, "chili oil".

Buy ready-made chili powder that has been ground from the vegetable market, add a spoonful of salt, wait until the oil is hot, pour it on, and listen to the stinging sound, it is already very satisfying.

This is the most basic way to make oil chili. Some people also add minced garlic, minced beef and other ingredients according to their taste.

Almost every household in Hunan has its own small jar of oil chili, and the cooking methods are also different.

Because there is no moisture, salted oil peppers are easy to store all year round. There is no need to worry about mold and odor, and they can be cooked at any time.

With such a bowl of spicy oily chili, half of the success of a delicious bowl of noodles or rice noodles is already achieved.

Outside of Hunan, the signs of Changde rice noodle shops are very common. To judge whether a Changde rice noodle shop is authentic, you only need to walk into the store and glance at whether there are oily chili peppers on the table.

Of course, how can our kitchen treasure chili oil be used only for noodles?

Boiled fish, boiled meat slices, boiled beef, boiled everything, flavored shrimps... The last step before a big dish comes out of the pot is to spread a spoonful of chili powder on the surface of the dish, and then pour a spoonful of hot oil over it.

Amidst the pungent aroma of chili peppers, the murderous dishes are served, and the quality is guaranteed.

After talking about the oil chili pepper, it’s the turn of the chopped chili pepper.

Chopped pepper is considered a hero in the cultural export of Hunan cuisine in recent years. You can tell by looking at how popular fish head with chopped pepper, fish head with double pepper, and pickled fish are in various restaurants.

Chopped peppers, which are sour, spicy and refreshing, with no fishy or odor, are also a common basic ingredient in the kitchens of every household in Hunan.

It is not difficult to make your own. After searching on the Internet, it is surprisingly easy to make it.

But in my mind, the real chopped pepper must be the jar dish soaked in pickled cabbage water, not the simple version circulated on the Internet.

At least twenty years ago, in my impression, if you wanted to eat stir-fried chicken with chopped chili peppers, your mother had to fish out some pickled radish and sour chili peppers from a thick brown crock pot.

The whole process of making chopped peppers is full of irreversible rituals, and even the direction in which to twist the lid of the earthen jar has certain rules - mainly to avoid water leaking into the jar and spoiling the acidic water.

At that time, chopped chili peppers were also called sour chili peppers, which mainly relied on sour water.

Boil the dried water, fill the dry earthen jar, add salt to the water, then cover it and let it ferment naturally in a cool place.

After a while, when the sour water is successfully prepared, put the whole white radish, whole red pepper, large pieces of fresh ginger, weeds, beans and other vegetables you want to eat into the jar.

Cover and ferment again.

After ten days and a half, you can take it out and enjoy it at any time.

With the improvement of kitchen cooking tools and methods, many people now give up bulky earthen jars and use transparent and lightweight glass jars, which are mainly easy to clean and convenient to make.

In addition, acid production has certain requirements on weather, humidity and water quality, so it is difficult to successfully produce acid water in provinces other than southwest China.

This may be why the simplified version of chopped pepper is becoming more and more popular.

Chop the red pepper and ginger and garlic together, add salt and oil, seal it for a few days, and then you can use it to cook fish.

Everyone is happy!

The dishes you can cook with chopped pepper also depend on your mood and imagination.

Squid, pork belly, chicken offal, fish head, river fresh food, spicy-loving villagers even use chopped pepper to stir-fry Chinese cabbage and cucumber when they have no vegetables, which is quite delicious!

If there are no vegetables, do we have to eat peppers directly?

Yes!

Chili is the source of fighting power of Hunan people: if there is no food, just eat chili.

Eating raw fresh chili peppers is not exclusive to us. People all over the country are now popular to eat Korean barbecue. It is not a big deal to dip pork belly in spicy sauce and wrap it with a fresh green chili and stuff it into your mouth.

But Leibo pepper, also called Leibo pepper, is our Hunan specialty.

It’s simple to make and extremely spicy.

As the name suggests, this dish has to be made with a beating bowl.

A leibo is a heavy stone tool commonly used in the kitchen to pound garlic, pepper and other finely chopped ingredients.

Leibo chili is not directly crushed chili.

The trick is to first pick the hottest slender green chili peppers, then put them dryly on the fire and roll them back and forth to grill. They should not be burned, just slightly black and with the skin peeled off; then put them in the bowl together with the garlic.

Pound it vigorously into a paste, add some salt, and serve.

The step of roasting the peppers is mainly to remove the raw smell of the fresh green peppers, peel off the outermost tough skin, and allow the fiber of the green peppers to be directly mixed with the garlic and salt. In fact, it is equivalent to frying it once.