Yanggao Great Wall Mutton is a national product protected by geographical indications of agricultural products. It is often said that it is a great pity not to eat mutton in Changcheng Township, Yanggao County. Indeed, the mutton in Great Wall Township is fresh and delicious, the shredded tripe mixed with white jade is delicious and refreshing, and the mutton offal made by different methods is fresh but not fresh, which is impressive.
Datong Yanggao Great Wall Mutton is very famous in northern Shaanxi, and it is produced in Cailiangshan, Changcheng Township, Yanggao County. The Great Wall Township of Yanggao County is located in the northeast of Shanxi Province, at the junction of Mongolia and Shanxi, with 40 degrees north latitude, belonging to a cold temperate zone, and is recognized as a high-quality meat production belt in the world. The area is mostly hilly and hillside, and hundreds of wild medicinal materials such as Astragalus membranaceus, Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi, Anemarrhena asphodeloides, Lycium barbarum, Zanthoxylum bungeanum, Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch and Lonicera japonica Thunb are growing in the south. I eat grass on grazing slopes, drink cold mountain springs and breathe oxygen-enriched air. There are grazing slopes in spring, summer and autumn, and crop straw fields are grazing in winter. There is no long ice and snow cover here, and high-quality mutton is produced in all seasons. High-quality pastures and mountain springs nourish the "Yanggao Great Wall Mutton" with unique nutrition and delicious and nourishing taste.
The most representative ones are Yanggao Great Wall Mutton, Yanggao Great Wall Mutton Soup, Yanggao Great Wall Braised Mutton, Yanggao Great Wall Stewed Mutton and Yanggao Great Wall Mutton jiaozi.
Yanggao Jingxing
Apricot trees have a long history of cultivation in Yanggao, especially in Tun, Wang Guan, for more than 300 years. At present, the county has cultivated more than 0 apricot varieties 10. There are two main varieties of fresh apricot, among which "Big Sister Apricot" is the most popular apricot fruit and "Fake Beijing Apricot" is the first-class raw material for making preserved apricots.
According to legend, more than 300 years ago, there was a poor and studious Wang Xing scholar in Tun Village, Wang Guan, Yanggao County. Because of his hard work, he touched the poor. With everyone's support, he finally got into the scholar's exam, won the prize and became an official in Beijing. After returning to his hometown for many years, Wang found that his hometown was still very poor, with yellow sand and loess everywhere. Farmers rely solely on farming for a living, and are seriously threatened by water shortage, drought, sandstorm and frost, and live a life of hunger and cold. So, in order to repay the kindness of the villagers in helping students, he conducted an investigation and study in Cailiangshan under the guidance of what he had learned, and created "The Song of Persuading to Plant Apricot Trees": "Listen to me, villagers, how to peel the poor skin in my hometown?" Take Liangshan as an example, water is like gold, and a barrel of seeds receives eight liters; Mining Liangshan, cold climate, hard work and first frost; Mining Liangshan, the land is thin, the slope is hard to eat, and the ditch is hard to drink. Sow sweat and collect tears and plant more cash cows. Don't you see, who has apricot trees and doesn't worry about being hungry? Who has many apricot trees and lives well! "In addition to publicity, Wang Guan people are still setting up porridge sheds in villages along the mountain. After a hearty meal, the poor were not paid anything, but were asked to bury some apricot stones on the designated hillside. After Wang Guanren retired to his hometown, he went to Cailiangshan to play. There were already apricot trees at that time, and the poor benefited from them. In memory of him, people renamed Wang's hometown Rentun, Wang Guan. It is said that people in other places are called doctors "Xinglin" because Dong Feng, a famous doctor in the Three Kingdoms period, didn't charge for medicine after seeing a doctor, but only planted a few apricot trees. However, people in Wang Guan People's Village have always called officials "Xinglin". Until now, they still call the national cadres who go to the countryside in the village "Xinglin".
High-yield apricot has four characteristics: large and uniform fruit, thick and sweet meat, small and sweet kernel and yellow and red color. Good color, smell and shape.
Yanggao mutton offal soup
Yanggao people have a long history of eating mutton offal soup, which can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. At that time, Yanggao area was occupied by Hu Lin, Loufan and other ethnic minorities, who lived by grazing and hunting. In the 3rd century BC, King Wuling of Zhao used force to expand his territory and established Yunzhong, Yanmen and Dai Jun. At that time, the agricultural production in the Central Plains had not yet expanded here. However, in actual farming, King Wuling of Zhao found that Yanggao had a dry, cold and windy climate and barren land. Many crops are not suitable for planting, but grass is very strong, so he advocates the development of animal husbandry. Sheep are the main livestock raised by people, so mutton has become the main food on people's table.
At that time, Yanggao was an area where Han and ethnic minorities lived together, and their habits of eating mutton were different. Ethnic minorities only eat mutton and throw all the sheep into the water. However, the Han people live a simple life and think it is a pity to throw sheep into the water. Therefore, after eating mutton, they should also wash sheep's head, sheep's hoof, sheep's heart, sheep's liver, sheep's lungs, sheep's intestines and sheep's blood, cook them and chop them up, and cook them with seasonings such as onion, garlic, ginger, pepper and salt to make soup. Because there are all kinds of things in it, it is called mutton offal. Later generations became more and more exquisite, and the local specialty yam fans were added to the mutton offal soup. The vermicelli tastes hard and shaky, and the mutton offal tastes spicy and fragrant. Together, they are like icing on the cake, so they are called mutton offal noodle soup.
Mutton noodle soup is good in meat, oily but not greasy, mellow and delicious, steaming when it is out of the pot, and delicious when it is eaten in the stomach. It has obvious effects of dispelling cold, warming stomach and relaxing body, and it is a good health food, just like Xi's "soup mutton" and Taiyuan's "Qinghe Garden Brain".
Levin Kucai
Yang Zui's favorite wild vegetables are bitter vegetables. Every spring, men, women and children walk around with shovels and baskets, looking for them in droves from east to west.
Bitter vegetables, also called chicory and patrinia, are one of the five flavors. Although they taste bitter, they have a unique taste. It is said that chicory is still a Chinese herbal medicine, which is also introduced in Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica. It is not only rich in trace elements such as protein, vitamin C, vitexin, fat, sugar, inorganic salts, phosphorus, calcium, iron, etc., but also has high nutritional value, and has many functions such as diminishing inflammation, removing blood stasis, lowering blood pressure, improving eyesight, caring skin, promoting diuresis and swelling, stimulating appetite, etc., and often suffers hardships.
There are many ways to eat bitter vegetables, and the most common way is to eat cold and fresh bitter vegetables. When cooking, first pick out the sundries in bitter vegetables, wash them with cold water and cook them with boiling water. Cooking bitter vegetables is also a science, and the heat is the most difficult to master. After a while, bitter vegetables are still raw; After a long time, bitter vegetables turn yellow and soft, with no taste and no food. The most suitable time is to put the bitter vegetable in boiling water, turn it over and take it out immediately. The bitter vegetables made in this way are tender and chewy. Green leaves are white, white is that white, and green is that green, which greatly increases people's appetite. Of course, this is about cooking, and the knowledge of mixing bitter vegetables is even greater. I am poor and a widow in Caicai, but I am not crazy. There is a restaurant that cooks fresh bitter vegetables in cold salad. First, it chopped bitter vegetables, then added fresh garlic, chopped green onion, sesame oil, salt and monosodium glutamate and gently stirred. That dish is not only bitter, but also fragrant, which reminds people of fluid production under the tongue, and the faint fragrance and beauty overflow in their hearts.
Yanggao fried cake
Yanggao fried cake steamed and fried with yellow wheat is a kind of food similar to southern rice cake, named after its golden color.
Yanggao fried cake is small and thin. Cake fillings are all made according to personal taste, including bean paste, jujube paste, pith oil, sauerkraut and minced meat. There are many shapes of oil cakes, some are round like chess pieces, some are crescent-shaped, some are pinched into triangles, some are pressed by one hand to become "xianggong" hats, and some are simply wrapped into jiaozi, and so on. Put the cake in the oil pan and fry it slowly with slow fire. The oil cake after taking out is crispy outside and fragrant inside, soft and delicious, and the more you eat, the more fragrant it is.
Fried cake is a high-grade food. Because of the homonym of "cake" and "cake", eating oil cake has become an essential staple food for Yang Guo's New Year, wedding, birthday, moving to a new house, welcoming guests and other festivals, commonly known as "hi cake". In Yanggao, wedding cakes are good gifts for relatives and friends. When you get married, you should "send oil cakes three times in the morning" and all your neighbors should send them. There is also a folk allegorical saying, "Send cakes next door, one for another", and sending cakes here has become a etiquette of mutual communication.
Yanggaoxing
Preserved apricots are a specialty of Yanggao County, which is refined from local apricots. The pulp is orange yellow, thick and loose, the juice is sweet and sour, fragrant and of high quality. It contains 1.22% monosaccharide, 5.84% disaccharide, 7.06% total sugar and 2.84% acid, and the ratio of sugar to acid is 2.5: 1. According to the analysis of China Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Jingxing contains many mineral elements, including 0.03% phosphorus and 1598PPM calcium.
Preserved apricot slices are neat and full, with delicate and soft meat, uniform size, no trauma, no sugar crystals, no sticky hands, orange color and consistent color. It tastes delicious, sweet and sour, and has the sweet and sour flavor of preserved apricots. Appraised by the provincial import and export commodity inspection bureau, all of them meet the export standards. Yanggao preserved apricots are well received by foreign businessmen. The preserved apricots processed every year are all sold to Japan, Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, enjoying a high reputation in the international market. In Japan, they are called "China's precious snacks".
Glass jiaozi
Glass jiaozi is a unique folk food in Yanggao. It originated from the people, who entered the tables of hotels and restaurants. Because its skin is transparent or translucent like glass, people can see the stuffing inside, so people call it glass jiaozi.
Yanggao is a cold area with a short frost-free period. Oat flour and yam are the main crops planted by local farmers. The raw materials for making glass jiaozi are oat flour and yam. Of course, this is jiaozi's skin. The weight ratio of oat flour to yam flour is 37%. When cooking, mix oat flour and yam flour evenly, then mix them with warm water, knead them constantly, and finally roll them into thin dumpling skins. Secondly, yam and yam powder are used as raw materials. When cooking, firstly, some big yams are selected and stewed in a pot, then the stewed yams are peeled, and the yam powder is added while it is hot and kneaded evenly. Under normal circumstances, a catty of cooked yam is added with half a catty of yam powder, which should be kneaded and mixed, and then made into dumpling skins.
The glass jiaozi is best filled with mutton. Because mutton stuffing is a complete product, not only beautiful, but also delicious. The stuffing should be mixed with appropriate amount of shredded white radish, and then seasoned with pepper, monosodium glutamate, green onions and sesame oil. After being kneaded by jiaozi, it can be eaten by steaming in a cage.
Cabbage in Levin
Datong's specialties are "three yellows and two whites", namely: Huangqi from Hunyuan, Huanghua from Datong, Yam eggs from Tianzhen, white hemp from Guangling and cabbage from Yanggao.
Cabbage with Yanggaotan soap grows on the saline-alkali beach in this area. The water and soil quality here makes Chinese cabbage unique and well-known at home and abroad. It is characterized by tight package, heavy weight, less gluten, white quality, less water content, compression resistance, rot resistance, no rust after long-term storage after cutting, still sweet and delicious, and no spicy taste. These characteristics of Tam Soap Cabbage, despite long-distance transportation and hot weather, the quality remains unchanged, and it can always maintain its delicious color. In recent years, the country has established an export base here, and more than 1000 tons of Chinese cabbage are exported to all parts of Southeast Asia every year.