Northeasters love soy sauce, so how is soy sauce made in Northeast China?

Making method and custom story of northeast soybean paste in Heilongjiang Province

On April 28th, the last day of the temple fair, housewives of every household in the northeast villages and towns were almost busy making a homemade big sauce and ordering it. Choose this day, not only with the help of the homophonic "hair" of the word "eight", but also with the help of its "hair" with sticky copper, so that the sauce pieces that had been put aside at that time can be smoothly "fermented". More importantly, due to the solar terms-around the Dragon Boat Festival and before the rainy season, the best season in Northeast China comes, and the stable and rising temperature can ensure the normal and rapid fermentation of Mucor in soy sauce.

According to legend, the tradition of cooking sauce originated from Manchu people. Just like eating hot pot, it has been circulating for a long time. Manchu people still cook authentic "vegetable sauce", that is, fry soybeans first and then cook soy sauce, and the rest of the practices are not much different from ordinary soy sauce. Because the temperature in northeast China is low all the year round, which is not conducive to bacterial reproduction, people have the habit of eating vegetables raw, so it is not surprising that eggplant, celery or kelp are dipped in sauce. There is a big plate of seasonal pickles on the dining table of each family. Those vegetables are fresh and attractive, and the green leaves are about to drip. Dip them in the golden sauce in the blue and white platter, which is appetizing and delicious. If you can eat a bowl of rice, you must at least have another bowl.

Northeasters like sauces. In the past, the living standard was not high, and vegetables and shallots were the main dishes. Now, even if there are seven dishes and eight bowls for three meals a day, there are very few stir-fry dishes, even the big stew in the northeast, but there is a dish of salty and delicious sauce.

My parents are both from Shandong, and they have long since done as the Romans do, except for the sauce. The seemingly simple process of adding sauce actually has many skills and secrets. There are factors passed down from generation to generation, as well as factors of self-understanding and proper play. Stir-fried beans, boiled beans, twisted beans, made sauce blocks and sealed sauce blocks until April 28 th. In this series of specific operations, the mastery of temperature, humidity and intensity, the choice of well water and tap water, the difference between iodized salt and non-iodized salt, the ratio of salt to water and so on. Be sure to grasp it. When the above-mentioned tasks are completed one by one, in the first month or two, at least one patient person needs to sit next to the sauce jar every day to "climb" and "skim". This task is equally arduous and cannot be ignored. As for covering the sauce jar in rainy days, it is not a difficult technical job to uncover the lid in sunny days.

In the north, at the entrance of the vegetable garden, Chaoyang District on the south side of the yard, and on the balcony of the building, sauce jars of different sizes are placed all the year round. If you don't move for three days, the sauce jar will certainly not freeze. An important criterion to measure whether this housewife is qualified is to taste the sauce, pickles and bean curd made by her "hands-on". Especially the smell of raw sauce that her family has thoroughly smelled. There is a folk saying: the sauce of a big family must be delicious. More precisely, the housewife has a large population and a relatively timid environment, and the sauce below her is more fragrant. It sounds counterintuitive, but many things are so wonderful at first, and then they become natural. Although we don't have sauce at home, we can't break the sauce for seasoning. Neighbors always invite us to the knife (end) sauce when their own soy sauce is just ready, boasting about how delicious their own soy sauce is. The tone and expression are no less than praising one's children. My brother and I often discuss which one to go to before going out with an empty bowl, because begging for sauce is also learned: everyone who invites us to go to the knife sauce must visit, and we must take turns to go several times at regular intervals. No matter how the sauce tastes, eating more and eating less is the second. In this way, everyone will feel that their soy sauce is good. Look, it takes a lot of brains to harvest crops that you didn't grow yourself, although you saved your strength in advance.

Everyone knows the "onion cake roll" that Shandong people are proud of (this sauce is definitely different from the northeast sauce). In the northeast, it is easy to change to "big hawthorn" because of the place, and the green onions are dipped in sauce oil. Compared with corn flour, corn hawthorn can better reflect the thick lines of the northeast people and show their rough personality. A large pot of hawthorn with the fragrance of cloud beans, salted duck eggs floating like fish bubbles, and a lot of fresh vegetables on the table, the most indispensable thing is the delicious egg sauce just scooped out. Are you trapped in such a scene? Of course, the hospitable host will warmly invite you to sit down. You don't need any delicacies, or even stir-fry, but you think this way of eating is very novel and right, which is in line with the environment and humanities in Northeast China. There are some ways to eat pig-killing dishes, as Mr. Acheng said-the kind that is very open-mouthed and bandit.

I remember when I was in primary school, on a rainy evening, my teacher sent me to the twin sisters' home in my class and informed me of an important thing. It is difficult for me to find their home. Just in time for them to eat-big hawthorn mixed with big sauce, not even a green vegetable. However, they actually eat so hard, bowl after bowl. I can't tell who is who, which makes me even more deceived. I forgot to have dinner at home, and I got hungry unconsciously with the increasingly empty saucers in front of them. I will tell my parents immediately after I get home, and I will go to my neighbor's house to ask for a bowl of big sauce to taste. I'll see if I can eat a few bowls of big hawthorn like them. Mom laughed at me for eating too much and getting tired of it, just like when I was a few years old, it was as ridiculous to exchange cakes for big cakes with other children. My father vividly learned the authentic cooking procedure of the northeast people: first go to the vegetable garden to pick vegetables and wash them, then put a small plate of big sauce on the knife and shout for dinner without moving the big spoon at all. Of course, I didn't listen much to what they said. Otherwise, I still remember the scene that night as deeply as it was printed in my mind.

Although there is no sauce at home, I really like to eat big sauce, especially the cooked sauce fried with lean meat and red pepper. When I go to school outside, I have to bring a big jar with me every time I leave home, so I can't have a holiday. Because of eating in the canteen, the students "helped" each other, and the progress was amazing. When you go to Beijing to study in your thirties, you have to bring a bottle of homemade hot sauce. When it's time to eat, be sure to serve it and eat it with the dishes that are not very delicious in the canteen. Some boys eat too much, so they are a little embarrassed. They asked the name of this sauce and planned to buy it. When they learned that I did it myself, they thought I was lying to them! I also made many friends in the literary and art circles for this. What impressed me the most was that Wuhan senior, who generously ate my hot sauce the first time we met. We were both late for the dinner party and happened to be sitting at the same table. After eating three spoonfuls of praise, she gave a very pertinent evaluation: this sauce is too fragrant and addictive. It is this pot of extremely ordinary hot sauce that has laid the foundation for my growing friendship with her.

Northeast miso is quite seasoning. Can be used to make eggplant sauce, beans sauce, stir-fry, and even dip in jiaozi. Therefore, people who move from the northeast to the south to work and live like to eat the big sauce that has just been scooped out of the sauce jar at home-the long-lost original sauce flavor, which dwarfs all kinds of Laoganma and Axiangpo in the supermarket. Of course, there is a lot of sauce in the things that the wanderer takes away. What's more, I'm not afraid of being overweight by plane, so I put a portable plastic bucket of 10 Jin and 20 Jin and fly in the blue sky. This shows that they have a soft spot for soy sauce.

Whenever I finish eating, I walk through the ordinary streets and lanes in Northeast China at will, and the smell of fried sauce wafts from time to time. Today, more and more people advocate returning to nature, pickles have won the favor of more and more people. I'd like to conclude by quoting a sentence from my classmate brother who hasn't returned to China for several years: the changes in my hometown are really great, and so are people. What hasn't changed is just my mother's sauce.

Second, although soy sauce is still the favorite of northerners, it is gradually falling out of favor with the promotion of low-salt diet. Cooking soy sauce at home is almost extinct. If people still make their own sauce, it's because there are old people at home, and they may still miss the past more than they like this kind of food better.

The method of making soy sauce at home is almost lost. When I was a child, every time I served sauce, I would follow my mother everywhere. In recent years, I hardly cook at home because I eat less and less sauce. If I want to eat, I will buy some. I made some myself on a whim last year. And recorded the process. Guaranteed absolute authenticity. However, according to the old man's old saying, the taste cooked by a person is as true as before. Similarly, the dishes cooked by my mother and I taste different.

This is the process of making soy sauce last year. I recorded it. I won't shoot it this year. Most of the dishes I cooked last year were given away, and I ate very little myself.

Soy sauce is made of soybeans, salt and water, and the ratio is: 10 kg of beans and 2-2.3 kg of salt. I haven't measured the water, which is about 1 times that of lobster sauce. Cooking soy sauce often depends on experience.

The first thing is to choose beans, pick out bad or moldy beans, and then measure the weight of the beans to be planted. I planted 5 pounds of beans.

Soak the selected beans for 24 hours, and then weigh the beans into a large pot. I filled five kilograms of beans in two jars. Put the soaked beans into the pot, add water until the water is 2-3CM below the beans, boil over high fire, skim off the floating foam, and breathe slowly with the minimum fire until the beans are soft and rotten, the color deepens and the water is gone. Turn off the fire and stew for a few hours.

This process must be patient and can't be separated from people, otherwise it will be easy to paste the pot.

Applaud beans, find a clean and breathable bag, compact it as much as possible, hollow it out at the bottom and ferment it for more than 20 degrees.

Past experience is that beans are soaked on the first day of February, called beans on the second day of the second lunar month, and served with sauce on the eighth, eighteenth and 28th of April. I think it's been a long time, and the beans are fermented too much. Maybe the temperature in the house is lower than it is now. I think one month is enough now.

For the sauce made on April 18, the outdoor temperature in the north is still a little low on the eighth day of April. Fermented soybeans should be exposed to the sun for a day before they are put into the jar, and fermented moldy beans should be brushed with clear water. After the water and salt are drained, try to put them in a high temperature place and get as much sun as possible to let them ferment again. In the meantime, rake with sauce every morning and evening to skim off the floating foam. Until you can't bubble. You can eat it in a month. However, at first, the sauce will be thinner. After a summer exposure, the sauce will be very dry in winter, and it will be diluted or fried before eating.

Third, it is necessary to make sauce blanks again. Every year in the twelfth lunar month and February in the lunar calendar, the soy sauce in Northeast China is blank. I like the strong fermented food, cooked in the twelfth month, and the weak fermented food, cooked in February. After the sauce is fermented, choose one day to make the sauce on the eighth, eighteenth and twenty-eighth day of the fourth lunar month. Choosing to do it during the lunar calendar is a habit left by the people.

The sauce without any additives tastes delicious, and everyone's sauce tastes different because of different processes. Everyone around me likes to eat my big sauce. You need a lot of cans.

Soy sauce fermentation originated in China and has a history of thousands of years. The research shows that soy sauce not only has the first nutritional function rich in protein, fat and carbohydrate, but also has the third physiological function of human body: it has good physiological functions such as antithrombotic, antioxidant, anti-fatigue and anti-cancer.

There are two ways to make northeast soy sauce, one is what I made today, and the other is "vegetable sauce".

material

2500 grams of soybeans

Water 10 kg

A ceramic pot (volume 30 kg)

Wash 750 grams of salt.

A sauce pestle

Step 1

Rinse the soybeans with water, then soak them in water for more than 12 hours until the soybeans expand in volume, and break them by hand. I washed it four times. The water for soaking soybeans is mountain spring water, and the amount of water is not in the formula.

Second step

After the beans are soaked, add water to boil and simmer. It takes about 1-2 hours to cook the beans until they are soft and rotten (according to the amount you cook). The amount of water is the same as that of beans. It's a pity to give up too much water when making sauce blanks, and it's also a pity to throw away the juice with soybeans in it. The water to be added should be mountain spring water, and the amount of water is not in the formula.

Third step

Crush cooked beans in your own way. I like to bring some watercress, so I didn't grind it into mud. Not too much water, too much sauce won't form.

Fourth step

Pile the broken beans into a blank of about 25x 15x8. Every blank must be thrown for a period of time to be firm and easy to ferment. If the blank is too big, it is easy to paste; if it is too small, it is easy to lose water and become opaque. If it is opaque, there is no oil, and the sauce is not fragrant. Put the blank in a cool and ventilated place for 3-5 days.

Step five

If you don't have enough experience in making blanks, put them in a fresh-keeping box first, and then pour them out before setting.

Step 6

Put the prepared sauce blank on the baking net for ventilation and turn it over frequently.

Step 7

It takes about 3-5 days, all around.

Step 8

It looks very comfortable

Step 9

When Qian Zhou is finished, wrap it in food wrapping paper and put it in a cool and ventilated place. The paper seams need not be too strict, just breathe naturally. There is food wrapping paper on the internet. Do not use baking paper. I used baking paper last year. Impeccable It's always troublesome to open a small crack. A generation ago, people wrapped sauce blanks in newspapers. It's really unscientific to think about it now.

Step 10

No matter whether you make the sauce blank in the twelfth lunar month or February, it will be like this after fermentation. Yellow-green koji is a special koji for soy sauce and soy sauce made by Aspergillus oryzae (known as soy sauce koji essence in the industry). Aspergillus oryzae is a magician who ferments soy sauce in the later stage. It mainly produces protease, glucoamylase and so on. In the process of soy sauce fermentation, protein and starch in soybean can be decomposed by various enzyme systems and converted into small molecular substances (amino acids, glucose, etc. ) is something we can absorb. Aspergillus oryzae, that is, the mycelium with yellow-green surface is relatively strong, and it will only ferment if it is put in a sauce jar. With this guy, making 100% soy sauce is successful.

Step 1 1

I used a filter and it looked pretty good. Looking at it alone, many people don't know it.

Step 12

In April of the lunar calendar, choose one of the eighth, eighteenth and twenty-eighth days to make sauce. Remove the package, rinse the sauce blank under running water, brush off the Mao Mao on the surface, cut into small pieces and dry in the sun.

Step 13

Prepare a sauce pestle

Step 14

Wash the ceramic jar and dry it. Don't run water to prevent mixed bacteria. Put the air-dried sauce powder blank into a jar, add 750g of washed salt to boil and melt, take out the washed dirty dog, pour it into the jar, and continue to add water to 10kg, which is the amount of water in the formula.

Step 15

White cotton cloth for tofu, covered and tied. I also tied a red rope according to the old tradition (folk tradition). Now everyone lives in the same building, so there is no need to worry about being caught in the rain, and there is no need to thicken the cover on the balcony. But it must be placed in a place where the sun can shine, so that it can ferment.

Step 16

Use a sauce pestle to make a round paste from bottom to top, from outside to inside, twice a day, not less than 200 times, skim off the floating foam, and do not bring raw water in the process. This is a state of three or four days, and it has already started bubbling fermentation.

Step 17

The more you pound the sauce, the more it breaks. After one month, it can be eaten after fermentation. The ambient temperature cannot be low. If it is low, it just doesn't like fermentation. You don't have to pound it every day after fermentation.

Step 18

With the decrease of the amount, I transferred all the soy sauce to a small container, being careful not to bring raw water, raw water and raw water. . . . .

Step 19

This is an early miso. As time goes on, miso will become more and more sticky, as shown in the above picture.

skill

1, whether the food tastes authentic and delicious, water is very important, so I use tap water to wash beans, and the subsequent water is natural water from Nongfu Spring, because it comes from Changbai Mountain;

2. Don't bring clean water from the beginning of washing the sauce blank to every time the sauce is served, otherwise it will cause insects;

3, the sauce must be fermented before eating;

4. Don't use detergent to clean ceramic containers.