Every year in March and April, the soft and fragrant spring flowers and leaves have become a must-have dish for entertaining relatives and friends at the dinner table of Chengdu Qingbaijiang people, and the big guys like to personally participate in the process of picking and making leaves and make good wishes for the year between the lips and teeth.
Just after the spring equinox, there was a spring rain sprinkled in the night. As soon as dawn comes, the sun shines early, which is another good day. Early in the morning, Aunt Xia, a resident of Dawan Street in Qingbaijiang, came to the field with her granddaughter to pick spring flowers, and she planned to use a traditional meal of spring flowers and leaves to relieve her granddaughter's hunger.
Spring flower, is a kind of herb that is not picky about the place of growth, this grass has a layer of white hair, which feels smooth, Baidu Encyclopedia calls it "Qingming Grass", but in Chengdu Qingbaijiang, people are more accustomed to calling it "Cotton Grass".
Every year after the spring, it may appear in the fields, even where there is soil. When it first sprouts and does not bloom, it is the most tender, and experienced locals will specially pick it as a raw material for leafy rice.
"Cotton grass" grows in the wild, mixed with sediment, and Aunt Xia spends more than ten minutes cleaning until no impurities can be washed. While cleaning the "cotton grass", Aunt Xia laughed and said that in fact, she was also making Ye Erzhu for the first time, and she saw that many neighbors were doing it during this time, and she also wanted to try it.
Aunt Xia chopped the washed "cotton grass", poured it into a pot and steamed it, drained it and mixed it with flour, kneading it repeatedly until the dough was formed. The soft light powder balls are kneaded in the hands, and there is a faint fragrance of the smell, which is the sweet smell of spring. She then divides the dough into small doughs the size of pigeon eggs, spreads them into dough cakes, wraps them in a pre-fried salt and vegetable stuffing, and finally wraps a corn leaf to prevent the dumplings from sticking to each other.
Full of meat fillings, and occasionally spilling oil from the mouth of the dumplings, the whole process retains the most original taste of the "cotton grass" leaves. The boiler is boiled, the wrapped leaves are steamed in the pot for about 40 minutes, and after the lid is removed, the heat is steaming, and a burst of aroma comes to the nose. Peeling off a layer of corn leaves, the pale green leaves are mouth-watering.
Aunt Xia peeled off a leaf, put it in a bowl, carefully blew it cold, and then brought it to her little granddaughter. Children are most interested in eating food, and they can't care about the heat, so they use chopsticks to pick it up and send it to their mouths. Aunt Xia watched her little granddaughter eat so happily, and while smiling softly, she shouted "Eat slowly, eat slowly, don't burn"...
Pick up a piece of soft sticky leaf rice into the mouth, the fragrance of fresh "cotton grass" plus the salty aroma of meat filling, the combination of the taste, repeatedly colliding in the mouth, endless aftertaste, the scene of eating leaf rice with the family as a child seems to reappear in front of the eyes...
Author:Cheng Xia
Author Affilications:Chengdu Qingbaijiangrong Media Center