Everyone has a hot pot must-order menu, some people covet the tenderness of beef and lamb, some love the freshness of seasonal vegetables, while I am addicted to tribute dishes I can’t help myself with the “crunchy” taste. So the question is, what is the tribute dish?
01
Gommage / not only in hot pot /
Japanese izakaya often provide a small drink – wasabi spicy octopus, its main ingredient in addition to octopus, there is also a kind of eating crunchy, non-vegetable things. If you ask what it is, the boss will tell you it’s called “Yamakuraゲ The main ingredient is not only octopus but also a kind of food that looks like a vegetable. The “mountain jellyfish “What exactly is it? It is actually a dried vegetable that came to Japan from mainland China and is very common in hot pot restaurants and grilled fish stores, except that in we call it gonzu.
Gonzai is not the name of this plant, which is more familiar to us before it is dried, is lettuce – the stem variety of lettuce Lactuca sativa. Since the lettuce was domesticated by the ancient Egyptians more than 6,000 years ago, many varieties have appeared as human civilization spread around the world. Most lettuce varieties from other parts of the world, such as lettuce and oleander, eat leaves, except for the lettuce selected by farmers in China’s Tang Dynasty, whose main edible part is the fleshy, fatty stem.
The process of transforming lettuce into tribute is not complicated: the harvested stems are peeled and cut into one-centimeter-thick strips, which are then dried in the sun and air.
The commercially available vacuum-packed ones are dried and then brined. This process of dehydration and water absorption brings a crunchy texture to the lettuce, which is indeed similar to jellyfish.
02
The 72 variations of high vegetables vs sprouts/ mustard
The two years Chongqing small noodles fire throughout the country, in fact, Sichuan and Chongqing noodles I prefer Yibin burning noodles, whether it is small noodles or burning noodles, which are not without sprouts. The raw material for sprouts is mustard, locally known as bok choy in Yibin, which has thick green leaves. The production season for sprouts is winter, and the new mustard is cut into thin strips and dehydrated to semi-dry, and the dehydrated strips can be put into a vat with salt to pickle, relying on lactic acid bacteria for the whole fermentation process.
The water content of this freshly made sprouts is not high, so it does not taste like soup and water like kimchi, but some like the dried plum vegetables in Jiangnan. After the farmers make the sprouts, they will sell them to the processing plant, which will then clean, season, sterilize and chop them into the vacuum-packed rice sprouts available in the market, which are quite delicious, but still not the same as the ones you can eat locally in Yibin. The sprouts can be used as a seasoning or as a dish, and Yibin noodles are mainly used to bring out the fresh flavor, and fried with minced meat is especially delicious, and made into sprouts buckle meat is even more hungry.
Another type of vegetable that looks similar to sprouts is pickled cabbage. Like potherb mustard, kohlrabi is a variety of mustard with thick, fat leaves that look like cabbage at first glance, and when broken open, you can smell the pungent smell of the cruciferous plant.
Pickled cabbage is made in a similar way to Brussels sprouts by removing the water before fermenting. In the food industry, these pickles are collectively called semi-dry fermented pickles, and they were a common way for the ancients to preserve vegetables for winter consumption. In this kind of pickle, sugar and protein in plant cells are used by microorganisms such as lactic acid bacteria as a ration for sustaining life, releasing a variety of flavor-presenting substances such as lactic acid and amino acids after decomposition.
03
Tsu dongcai/also dried and then fermented/
It is said to have been created by the Yifeng Garden in Cangzhou, Hebei Province, and developed in Jinghai, Tianjin. Local green cabbage is used, cut into small pieces and put on a mat to dry for a few days, then mixed with salt and put into a jar, after which a step in the process makes the cabbage happy for some people and sad for others. This kind of winter vegetables with garlic is called non-vegetarian winter vegetables, but there are also spices such as star anise and fennel without garlic, which are called vegetarian winter vegetables. The salt content of the finished winter vegetables is very high, generally used as a seasoning, wrapped dumplings wrapped in a little especially delicious, fried vegetables, soup can also be used to enhance the flavor, but do not put too much, or will be too salty to swallow.
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