Time flies, only the taste of food will remain in the depths of memory.
As a foodie+wanderer, I have been wandering in a foreign land for more than ten years. After dinner, I often think of some special foods in my hometown and recall my taste buds.
In my memory, what impressed me the most was fried pepper, a native dish.
"Stir-fried Chili", just look at the name of this dish, many people suddenly think that the spicy food comes from the tip of the tongue, and certainly dare not eat it!
In fact, "fried Chili" is a home-cooked dish in Hubei Province, which is made from corn or rice and Chili after fermentation. The entrance is slightly sour, and the acid is spicy, and the spicy is sour, which is not as violent as expected.
In the vast Hubei province, this dish has different names. In the area of Baokang and Jingzhou in Jingshan District, Hubei Province, it is called fried pepper. In Enshi, Hubei Province, it is called "Fried Wide Pepper". It is also the most famous in Baokang and Enshi.
In fact, there is no "pepper" in "fried pepper", only bright red pepper. It's just that some dialects in China call this exotic pepper pepper, which has been passed down to this day.
"Hu" was once a general term for ethnic minorities in the west and north of the Central Plains and their foreign nationalities. Later, people in the Central Plains added the word "Hu" to all items imported from these areas and even other foreign countries, such as (erhu), Hu Chuang (Mazha), walnuts (walnuts) and carrots.
Pepper originated in South America and was introduced to China in the Ming Dynasty. Originally used as ornamental flowers, they were eaten in China in the Qing Dynasty. In some places in China, peppers are called "Zanthoxylum bungeanum" and "Wide Pepper", which have been passed down to this day.
The scientific name of "fried pepper" is "pepper". Because "Fu" means "Chopped vegetables mixed with rice flour, flour and other seasonings can be stored. Also refers to pickled food. 』
Moreover, "Fu" and "Fried" are homophonic, so this dish with Chili as one of the ingredients is also called "Fried Chili" by the villagers.
Stir-fried peppers have simple raw materials and are not complicated to make. Every household in the countryside can do it and make it. The taste in memory is always the best that mom cooks.
In Baokang County, Hubei Province, Jingzhou and Enshi, stir-fried peppers are made from corn and pepper. In other parts of Hubei, rice is also used to make it.
As far as I can remember, the end of summer is not only the slack season, but also the harvest season of red pepper. Some of my mother-in-law aunts in my hometown are also busy making fried peppers.
First, pick out the full and shiny corn kernels, carefully screen them, wash them, dry them in the sun, and grind them into corn grits (corn residue) by machine.
Next, chop the peppers, wash the red peppers picked from the ground and dry the water on the surface. After removing the pedicle, put it in a huge wooden basin and put some garlic. Prepare a big chopping block, two kitchen knives, put on rubber gloves, and chop peppers is about to begin.
Cutting peppers is hard work. Red peppers are like autumn tigers. The strong spicy taste went straight to the nostrils, making my eyes hard to open.
Pepper juice occasionally touches your hands, which is even more irritable. If you touch your eyes, it will hurt more.
I played with my mother when I was a child. I accidentally spilled pepper water into my eyes, so I jumped up and down with pain covering my eyes.
Once beaten, twice shy. In the future, people will stand far away when they see others cutting peppers. From then on, I gradually understood the hardships of life and my mother.
Skilled rural women squinted and waved two kitchen knives up and down. Bright red peppers with seeds suddenly turned into piles of bright red pepper powder.
Chopped peppers, drain the excess water, then stir them evenly with corn grits and salt, and put them in a jar for pickling.
The fried Chili jar in my hometown is the kind of crock with a big belly and a small mouth. The lid of the tank is sealed to prevent air from entering. The fried peppers treated in this way will not go bad after two or three years of storage.
This is an indigenous food storage and preservation method, which was created and applied by intelligent working people without refrigerators.
As long as there are fresh red peppers, you can cook them. Some families use several jars to make them, and adopt "eating the old and pressing the new" to maintain continuity.
Method of frying pepper (pepper):
(1) First, grind the washed and dried corn into corn grits (if rice is used as fried pepper, it must be washed and dried first and ground into broken rice grains);
(2) washing and draining red pepper, removing pepper stalks and peeling garlic;
(3) Wear rubber gloves on your hands, chop the drained red pepper and garlic cloves with a knife, and sprinkle salt for four times to pickle the chopped pepper and garlic cloves;
(4) After about 15 minutes, drain the broken peppers, add the corn grits (or broken rice grains), stir and mix, wait for another five minutes, and put them into the jar or jar;
⑤ When the stir-fried pepper is put into the jar, it must be compacted, and then the lid is covered to isolate the air.
After half a month's natural fermentation, the lid was opened, and the pungent smell of fried peppers was faint. The bright red peppers were soaked in golden corncob. At this time, the fried pepper is reddish in yellow, dotted with a few bright red broken peppers.
You can't release water when the fried peppers are fermented, but the fried peppers are crystal clear and moist. The reason is that the moisture carried by the pepper itself is soaked in the corn cob during the fermentation process, so the fried pepper has a sour and spicy taste.
Stir-fried peppers can be eaten flexibly, such as vegetarian dishes, steamed, fried and boiled.
Meat can be paired with pork belly, bacon, small fish and fat sausage. Vegetables can be served with potatoes, carrots and lotus roots.
Stir-fried peppers can be paired with various vegetarian dishes, and steamed peppers can be made into steamed meat and vegetables.
Jianli area in Hubei Province is the hardest place. Perhaps because the local area is rich in fish, there is a soup made of fried peppers and fish. One of the soups is called "Fried Boiled Fish with Chili Pepper". The fish stewed with fried Chili peppers is particularly tasty, and the spicy soup is thick and delicious, and it is also specially served.
In the vast Hubei province, the dishes derived from fried peppers are very rich: fried potato chips, fried potato chips, fried lotus roots, fried fat sausages and fried bacon. ......
Even if it is fried separately, it is also a good dish.
Moreover, there are not so many complicated procedures and not so many seasonings in fried peppers, because fried peppers have their own magical taste.
In Baokang, Hubei Province, stir-fried Chili and pork belly are the most common.
The method of "stir-frying pork belly with Chili":
① Wash and slice pork belly, cut garlic into garlic rice, cut garlic leaves into small pieces, and prepare a proper amount of fried peppers;
2 put a little oil in the pot, add pork belly and saute in oil, add garlic and saute until fragrant;
(3) Add the fried peppers and stir them evenly. Add garlic leaves and a little salt when you are ready to eat.
Pepper and corn, both foods from South America, met wonderfully in a "fried pepper" when they were introduced to China in the Ming Dynasty.
Pick up a chopstick and stir-fry pepper, put it in your mouth and chew it carefully. It is slightly sour and spicy with the original flavor of corn and the fresh fragrance of pork belly. You have me and I have you.
The pork belly fried in this way, fried with pepper, is oily but not greasy, spicy but not dry, and has a faint sour taste between the lips and teeth.