The Taste of the World: jiaozi, the Master of Youxi Cuisine

After several issues of the series "Taste of People" were released, a friend asked, "So many delicious foods, aren't you fat?" It can be said that Youxi people cook and eat better, and all the ingredients have been given full play. Food is not only on the dining table of every household, in restaurants facing the street, in stalls in streets and lanes, but also in the cries of vendors. It is too difficult to resist the temptation of delicious food, and it is impossible to lose weight.

Youxi people also get over it. Since resistance is futile, surrender. Be a captive of food and make him fat. Don't you see, Youxi people stand in a row, and who can compete is whose belly is more round and bulging.

When I think about eating, I can't help but think of the "master" of Youxi cuisine, that is, jiaozi, which everyone loves. As the name implies, jiaozi is a delicious food in the shape of jiaozi with white Guo as the skin.

"Hey hey!" This is a familiar cry of Youxi people. Youxi called jiaozi "clam". Stopped a vendor carrying a bucket, lifted the lid of the bucket, and a chubby, chubby, oily half-moon sauce-colored jiaozi was neatly stacked along the bucket. Stuffing, onion and sauce are all fragrant, mixed with barrels, accompanied by hot air. It must be like eating food at this time. Who would consider being fat?

Jiaozi is very common in the south, and the main difference lies in the stuffing. For example, Fujian coastal areas are rich in seafood, most of which are filled with seafood; Youxi Mountain is rich in fresh dried bamboo shoots.

Yuan Mei said in the Garden Food List: "The ingredients of a chef are like women's clothes and jewelry." Another difference of Youxi national cellar is that it is coated with a layer of seasoning, just like putting a shiny dress on the national cellar. Seasonings are mainly soy sauce, old wine and scallion oil. Leather white glutinous rice is tasteless. After the sauce is soaked, the salty taste is palatable, and then it is combined with the stuffing, so people should be careful in every bite, lest the delicious stuffing juice flow out of their mouths. What a pity.

The taste of national pits mainly comes from stuffing, but the taste mainly depends on the skin, that is, white national pits. To make glutinous rice balls, choose the best stalks, and make them into white glutinous rice balls after soaking, boiling, steaming and beating. Then, take a small part from jiaozi and knead it into a disc like dumpling skin, with a thickness of about four or five millimeters. When I was a child, I always wrapped my skin with sugar. Comparatively speaking, candy is more attractive to children.

The stuffing used in jiaozi should be prepared in advance for use. Because dried bamboo shoots should be soaked for more than two days, they will be soft and edible after absorbing enough water. Youxi is the hometown of bamboo in China. There are many kinds of bamboo, and so are many bamboo shoots. Bamboo shoots are excellent natural fresh-keeping materials, and dried bamboo shoots are also called "vegetarian ham". Soak the dried bamboo shoots and cut them into filaments, then cut the lean meat into particles. Heat an oil pan, add lean meat, chopped green onion and Jiang Mo until fragrant, add chopped dried bamboo shoots, stir-fry until dry, add appropriate amount of salt, wine and soy sauce to taste, and stir well for later use.

Finally, the prepared stuffing is wrapped in a white leather bag, pinched and sealed, put on a plate, and poured with the adjusted sauce, and the "home-cooked" jiaozi is ready.

Making white glaze with stone mortar is a manual work, which needs the help of a neighbor. After jiaozi finished, a group of people got together and always tried first, laughing and laughing. This is a rare scene of labor happiness in rural areas, which will never be forgotten.

There are fewer and fewer vendors selling jiaozi with wooden barrels, and now there are more vendors selling them along the street. The dumpling skin on the stall is not limited to white jiaozi, but also mugwort. There are various fillings, such as minced meat, shredded taro, dried radish, vermicelli, etc ... You can choose freely. This can best arouse the appetite of the students, who are already very hungry after school, and just buy some to fill their stomachs.

However, I still like jiaozi, who is holding a vendor, watching fat and round jiaozi stick his head out of the bucket, waiting for the vendor to tidy up with his hands covered with transparent plastic bags, thinking about crispy and delicious shredded bamboo shoots, fat and thin diced meat and chopped green onion. That's the happiest thing in the world.