Noodles —— Nostalgia on the tip of Chongqing people's tongue

In Chongqing, not every community has a hot pot restaurant downstairs, but there must be a noodle restaurant.

The last meal before going to school in other places must be noodles, and the first meal after coming back from school holidays in other places must be noodles.

Eating small noodles has become a ceremony for my friends who have studied abroad like me to leave and return.

It can be breakfast. After eating it, I will run to high-speed railway station contentedly. It can also be a dinner or a midnight snack. I arrive at my hometown by low-cost airline in the middle of the night, dragging my tired body to find a noodle restaurant that is still open sporadically downstairs in a dimly lit community, and saying, "Boss, let's eat some noodles."

In Chongqing, a city where rice is the staple food, many people start their day with pasta.

This habit continues to this day, so that I still remember the shock on my face when my college classmates first saw me eating noodles in the morning. Perhaps shocked that I am from the south, perhaps shocked that I have such a heavy smell in the morning.

"Yellow", "Green", "Come to the bowl to dry up", "Less sea pepper" and "More spicy" ... these argot-like demands with local accents always haunt the small noodle restaurant in Chongqing that morning.

The so-called "yellowing" means that the taste of noodles is harder. The so-called "green" means adding more vegetables. As for "dry and slippery", it is to scoop less noodles, and let the rich seasonings be mixed in the noodles alone, so that the noodles are thick and dry.

Compared with Zhajiang Noodles in Beijing, Regan Noodles in Wuhan, Lamian Noodles in Lanzhou, Chongqing noodles look nothing special. But it doesn't work better than any of the above bowls of noodles.

0 1

Noodle making

Chongqing noodles are not ordinary Regan Noodles, but water surface, which is called "water leaf surface" by local people.

In fact, it is fresh noodles that have not been dried. Add water and alkali to the first-class flour, stir, grasp the dryness and humidity by hand, and cut noodles with different widths, widths and thicknesses as needed. Shopkeepers of small noodles often make their own noodles or go to a trusted noodle factory to customize them to ensure the taste of noodles. By adjusting the alkali content in noodles, you can cut out noodles of your own size, so that noodles can be more closely combined with seasonings.

02

condiment

Chongqing Xiao noodles eat spices.

There is no secret weapon in the seasoning of small noodles. Onion, ginger, garlic, pepper, Chinese prickly ash, pickled mustard tuber and chopped peanuts are all common condiments in the market, and every household is used to it.

Pickled mustard tuber generally chooses the best Fuling mustard tuber, and ginger should be peeled and then cut into granules.

Garlic can't be mashed directly with garlic paste. Garlic should be chopped and mashed, and then poured into boiling broth to make garlic water, which can prevent the smell of garlic from overwhelming the smell of face.

03

Chili oil

Oil pepper, or Chili oil, is the soul of seasoning.

Chongqing noodles pay attention to spicy, hemp depends on pepper powder, and Sichuan Dahongpao is generally used. Spicy depends entirely on oil, pepper.

First, remove the pedicle of each dried pepper, cut it into small pieces, then pour it into an iron pot and stir-fry it with low heat. When the pepper tends to be red and bright, and the spicy taste overflows, turn off the fire and heat it with the residual temperature of the iron pot.

Then, the fried dried peppers are pounded into Chili noodles in an iron mortar.

Finally, pour the boiled hot oil at about 80℃ into the mashed Chili noodles. With the light sound of "e-e-e" and the accompanying fragrance, Chili oil is ready.

At least a dozen or more spices were put into the bowl together, and the bowl was flooded by nearly one third.

It is these common condiments that are brought out by everyone who cooks.

This is also the reason why people in Chongqing are in a good mood.

04

Meat or vegetables poured on rice or noodles.

It was not until I went to college in other places that I realized that "small noodles" is a term that only exists in Chongqing, and it is a general term for local noodles with various tastes.

The most authentic Chongqing noodles are called plain noodles by Chongqing people, and also Chongqing noodles in a narrow sense.

There are only a dozen common condiments, such as oil and salt sauce vinegar, onion, ginger and garlic, Chili oil, shredded sprouts and peanuts. Broadly speaking, small noodles have various toppings.

Beef, fat sausage, tendon, miscellaneous sauce, etc. It can be said that as long as you want toppings.

Among them, peas and miscellaneous sauce are the most popular toppings in Chongqing, and their combination has made Chongqing's unique peerless delicacy-pea miscellaneous.

Miscellaneous sauce is also ashamed of meat. Chop pork belly into minced meat, stir-fry it in the oil pan first, and then sprinkle with various seasonings to stir-fry and color it. When the fragrance is overflowing, you can cook miscellaneous sauce.

Soak the dried peas in cold water one day in advance, and simmer with bone soup on low fire the next day until the peas are soft and sticky, then stir-fry miscellaneous sauce and pour it on the noodles.

05

Hui mian; stewed noodles; braised noodles

A small pottery bowl or an inconspicuous enamel jar, noodles that can be caught with one hand.

After the water is boiled, put a few stems of green vegetables, and change to slow fire after boiling. They will be cooked in two or three minutes, and then a scoop of water will be poured in, which is called "broken white". After that, you can scoop up the noodles and put them in the bowl.

I like to catch the hard fish first, and I like to catch the soft fish later. Such noodles are integrated with seasonings. Chopsticks fly around, full of color.

At the beginning of the year, I chatted with a cousin who worked in Shanghai. She said that when she used to work in Chongqing, she often ate small noodles, and her colleagues always laughed at her for being stingy and not paying attention to nutrition, but she told me that she really just liked small noodles.

Now that she has left Chongqing, what she misses most is still the bowl of noodles.

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