Although Ningbo cuisine is not a group of cuisines, it is different from others. People in Ningbo like to cook this pickle as a side dish with fish and meat. The famous ones are "Salty soup with yellow croaker" and "Salty rice cake soup". If you come to Ningbo, you must try it. Now many restaurants have made a "salty fried rice", which is better than delicious.
People in Ningbo cook salted soup and yellow croaker, and there are great differences between the east and the west. When Xixiang people cook this dish, they need to put the yellow croaker in the oil first. Deep-fried, deep-fried until golden on both sides, drained? In the oil, add a small amount of pickles, add water to make soup, and sometimes add a little shredded winter bamboo shoots. The winter bamboo shoots are made of local unique Huangni arch bamboo shoots, so that the cooked soup tastes fresh and thick. Because Dongxiang people are close to the sea and the fish is fresh, they generally don't need oil, and the cooking method is simpler. Instead, they just put water in the pot and stew the fish and pickles until the soup is thick white.
? In addition to soup, pickles can also be fried and eaten, and salted fried mullet is one of the delicacies. But I like pickles without ingredients, and stir-fry the main ingredients with black fungus. Especially during the Spring Festival, lunch and dinner are too greasy. It's delicious to have a bowl of hot rice congee early in the morning with this pickled fungus.
? The book name of Ningbo Salted Turtle is Xuecai. Every household in rural areas of Ningbo will pickle pickles every year, and the method of pickling is simple and simple. The general process is like this. Every year in the early autumn, a vegetable called potherb mustard is planted in rural fields, which can be harvested after autumn, but it is not directly eaten. Fresh snow vegetables just harvested should be spread out on the ground and basked in the sun. Generally, the weather is better in early winter, and it is enough to bask in one day, and the food is a little "sunburned". Don't throw away all the yellow leaves when pickling cabbage. Pickled vegetables with yellow leaves are fresher. Loose vegetable leaves usually tie him up with straw. The second step is to cut off the rotten leaves and roots, wash them and then marinate them, so that you only need to wash them simply when you eat them, and keep the umami flavor of the cabbage to the greatest extent.
? The third step is to prepare a large tank. In rural areas, water tanks are generally used, and brown ceramic tanks are widely seen in rural areas. Before pickling, put a layer of salt in each empty vat, then put the cabbage into the vat, and sprinkle a layer of salt on the cabbage. At this time, someone will stand in the jar and step on it until it is crushed out of the water. The purpose is to rub the salt into the cabbage. In rural areas, there is a saying that pickles must be stepped on by men, and pickles stepped on by women tend to stink in early spring. Although there are some feudal superstitions in the middle, in fact, in the final analysis, men have great strength, which can make the cabbage and salt fully contact with each other and is conducive to fermentation. So when I was a child, the task of stepping on snow vegetables basically fell on me. Wash your feet and step on the cabbage, step down hard, step on a batch and continue to sprinkle salt on the second batch of vegetables. It's exhausting to step down in one jar. The most comfortable thing is to wash your feet after stepping on the cabbage. The washed feet are particularly slippery. Of course, this is another story.
? The fourth step is to press smooth stones on the vegetables after they are full. These stones must be washed and dried and prepared. Generally, they are the old stone millstones, which are extremely powerful. The pickled cabbage can be eaten after 0/month. Generally speaking, the pickled cabbage will come out just after curing, and the freshly pickled cabbage stone is still on the surface of the tank. After two or three days, the stone has been soaked by the cabbage water.
? There are also great differences between the east and the west of pickled cabbage in Ningbo, which should be caused by soil differences. The potherb mustard planted in the field of Zhangshui Fritillaria is called Fritillaria by Ningbo people. The pickled vegetables made from that kind of vegetables are the best, but only I like the pickled cabbage made by Xianxiangren. No matter how you cook it, it won't rot, and it tastes delicious. Of course, there is another kind of salted cabbage in Ningbo besides pickled mustard tuber. The method is the same, but the material is changed into Chinese cabbage, which is also very delicious, but the time is very short.
? Now there are factory-produced salted limes in Ningbo, and there are enterprises in Zhangshui, Qiuai and Xianxiang, which are vacuum packed and sold in supermarkets, and Qiuai is the most famous one. There are ready-made pickles in the vegetable market in Ningbo, but they have been processed in the later period and lost their original flavor, so the out-and-out Ningbo people still like to pickle themselves.
? There are many ways to eat pickles in Ningbo, but most of them are cooked with seafood. At least I have never seen them cooked with river fish so far, haha. I don't know how the ancestors of Ningbo people invented this way of eating, but it is a perfect match. When the sea fish meet pickles, it will give off a special flavor, and at the same time, it will suppress the fishy smell of the fish. The soup is light and delicious, and the fish is delicate and tender, making it a delicious food on earth.
? Besides its own use, the juice squeezed out in the pickling process is also very useful. Smart Ningbo people have also brought this cabbage juice to the extreme. Steamed egg soup with cabbage juice and steamed fish with cabbage juice are fragrant and delicious. These seemingly ordinary ingredients have long been entangled in the growing memory of Ningbo people and have been interpreted as the culture of Ningbo.