Prose about pots and pans in the kitchen

I fried some shredded cabbage this morning. When I tasted it, it tasted sour and sweet. How could it taste like this? Returning to the kitchen, I saw a bottle of Shanxi old vinegar standing quietly on the countertop. The order of the jars and jars on the stepped spice rack had been changed. No wonder I mistakenly used old vinegar as soy sauce. Forget it, it’s not too unpalatable, so I finished breakfast alone. On the way to work, I told this incident as a joke to my colleagues, and they all said in unison: "Vinegar cabbage!"

As for cabbage, its versatile style can definitely be said to be unique in the Northeast winter. It's the master's dish, not to mention the pure green and pollution-free one in the second sister's garden. A head of cabbage takes about three times to finish in our house. The usual method is to shred the outer layers of cabbage leaves and stew them with pork belly and hand-dried tofu for the first time. If you happen to have a good broth, stewing is the best. The second time is to cut the first half of the cabbage horizontally into shreds, and only add onions, ginger, sugar, and vinegar. It is similar to the half-Buddha style of vinegar sauce, which is more in line with my wife's taste. For the third time, cut the second half of the cabbage into shreds, add some shredded pork, and use seafood soy sauce to make it salty and ready to eat. Of course, cabbage is the most food that can be combined into many ways of eating. Canned cabbage, black and white cabbage, etc. are the most basic. But I have only now figured out why the cabbage vermicelli soup made by my mother was so delicious. It turns out that she It is fried shredded cabbage and then simmered in soup, plus plump pork belly. It is simply the best food for teenagers. This is what my eldest brother always said. He always wants to find the taste of his mother in the pots and pans in the kitchen. The experience he summarized is that his mother makes leek and eggs: first lay the eggs, and when they seem to be congealed, add the leeks to the pot and stir-fry twice. Then take it out of the pot. Of course, it is best to use leeks first and eggs in spring to bring out the unique spicy smell.

I have been working in the kitchen for almost 30 years. I first learned to cook using the kerosene stove in the dormitory while my elder brother was studying for a PhD in Beilin in Donglin. Every evening, the corridors of the dormitory would be filled with the choking smell of oil smoke. At that time, what my eldest brother often cooked was sauced pork, which was similar to braised pork, but the ingredients were much simpler. The seasonings at that time were not as rich as they are now, and they were carefully classified, just green onions, ginger, and soy sauce. If I didn’t have enough time, I would make dragon noodles with soup and poached eggs. Sometimes I would eat them for several days in a row, which made me feel intimidated when I saw dragon noodles in the days after graduation. During that year, it was the meals cooked by my eldest brother on the kerosene stove that helped me get through the miserable years of studying away from home for the first time.

In the next year, the eldest brother was assigned to an independent dormitory. It was said to be independent, but in fact it was one dormitory divided into two, which was provided for faculty and staff to use. Cooking had to be done in the dormitory* In the ** kitchen, at that time, the kerosene stove was retired and replaced with a gas stove. The very cramped space was filled with kitchen supplies from seven or eight families, and the pots, pans, and gas stoves from each family were locked in their own cabinets. The eldest brother became more and more busy and began to try cooking. The first time he made sauced pork, he burned his right wrist due to the splash of hot oil. The scar still remains. The dish was abandoned halfway, and he couldn't eat it that evening. After dinner, I rushed outside the school to attend a computer training class. My eldest brother came home earlier than me and was very worried about the mess he saw. The two years of schooling with my eldest brother are so precious when I think back now. It is the kitchen foundation laid during those two years that will allow me to be comfortable in the kitchen after marriage.

Most of the reasons why men go to the kitchen are because their wife’s cooking skills are not up to the taste they want. You know, among the six senses, the memory of taste buds is the most profound, which is why people miss it so much. The origin of “Mom’s food”.

The same ingredients and the same seasonings will have different flavors in the hands of different people. As the saying goes, "There are a thousand Hamlets for a thousand readers." Among my daughter’s recipes, her favorites are spicy shredded pork, fish-flavored shredded pork, sweet and sour pork ribs, and braised pork ribs. Sauced eggplant and egg pancakes are the best side dishes. Due to my daughter’s unique taste requirements, my egg pancakes are the most plain, with only one seasoning added: salt.

In a family, the kitchen is probably the most important place. It maintains the marriage in the fireworks and the blood in the fireworks. These three warm meals a day use the kitchen as a medium to moisturize everyone. The personal heart can appreciate the real life and experience the beauty of real life, which will make the wanderer feel worried in his heart no matter how far he travels.

When the pyrotechnic gas reaches its extreme, it is what people often call "wok gas". My understanding of this term is that when hot oil is heated in a pan, the oil vapor splashed out when the pan explodes suddenly ignites in the dishes when it encounters an open flame. The fire above is a method of stir-frying. The most touching thing is when the second sister stir-fries cabbage, Xiao Ben grinds out the oil, and the garlic grown in his own garden bursts into the pot. The sudden fragrance of garlic is still the smell of childhood, which shows the taste of a family's kitchen. The inheritance of altars and jars.

In my memory, I feel that my mother didn’t have any special dishes, because every dish she cooked was her specialty. The ones that I remember most about the jars and jars in my mother’s kitchen are undoubtedly the two big jars, one of which was so full that it was so fragrant. The meat oil is a slightly yellow and translucent solid oil that solidifies into white at low room temperature in winter. It is the main ingredient of winter stews and adds a fragrant flavor to the kitchen in times of material poverty. Another jar filled with peanuts and mustard shreds is a craft made by my grandma from her hometown in Shandong. The executor is my mother. The stuffed peanuts have a strong mustard smell and are a good ingredient for treating colds. Another dish left behind by grandma is rice sausage. Different from Korean rice sausage, glutinous rice is put into the pig's large or small intestine, rolled into circles and then cooked. It is a family favorite for New Year's Eve dinner every year. It's a pity that I don't know what materials need to be added inside, and grandma's skill has been lost.

My mother and grandmother passed away in the same year. From then on, a family lost its fireworks. Slowly, the old house that lost its fireworks also slowly declined. Their departure became a distant image in the night sky. The stars only emit warm light in a thin space, watching each other, making me feel that the warmth coming from the pots and jars in the kitchen has never left. At this time, the advertising lights on the building next door outside the kitchen were flickering on and off, penetrating the window and beating, like a dream that they didn't want to wake up from.

January 10, 2018