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Extreme Things:
Shallots, many people's dietary blind spots, but also hide an umami highland.
309 years ago, there was a "state banquet".
In order to celebrate the emperor's 60th birthday, the prince of Mongolia and his Fujin were specially invited to the table to enjoy delicious food.
Among them, there is a "sesame oil sand onion chicken", which is golden and green, and it is very good-looking.
Picture: Pure Eggs ©
Although there are only a few surviving strokes in the Qing Shilu, we have no way of knowing more details about this feast.
But it can be guessed that the dishes that can make Kangxi En enter the table must not be simple.
Now when it comes to shallots, some people are greedy, and some people are at a loss.
It is said that the heart that is difficult to guess is "like rain, fog and wind", so what kind of untold story is hidden in this tender green wild vegetable that is "like a green onion, like a leek and like grass"?
*This article is not wide, feel free to read it (picture|Did you © eat small fries today)
Nowadays, the shallot that confuses the southerners of the "green vegetable classification expert" is actually a plant of the genus Allium in the lily family, and the scientific name is Mongolia leek.
As early as the Ming Dynasty, Li Shizhen got a glimpse of its "homology of medicine and food" and wrote it into the "Compendium of Materia Medica" and called it "Ming Onion".
Figure 1: "Dunhuang, a Banquet That Lasts for a Thousand Years". ©
It grows in arid areas such as the Gobi Desert and sandy land at an altitude of 800-2800 meters.
In late spring and early summer, in Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Ningxia and other places, the sand onions that emerge after the rain have become a scene of sandy land, and they are also fresh on the tip of the tongue.
Photo: Cultural Tourism Alxa ©
It is not as flat as leeks, and compared to the hollow of shallots, it is more tender and tender.
The wild varieties have a slightly choking spicy taste and a sweet finish; After domestication, the taste of artificial cultivation should be softer, and the spicy disappear after blanching, leaving only a light fragrance, crisp and fresh taste, and the texture is smooth like rice noodles, which is quite exciting.
Picture: Eat © well
Although born in the barren, Shallot has a unique feature, that is, during the heating process, there is no significant loss of water.
Whether it is directly boiled, stir-fried, cold dressed, or cut into small pieces and wrapped in dumplings and siu mai, it will maintain a smooth appearance and crispy texture.
So much so that even the southerners who have "3,000 beauties of vegetables" are coveted by it and lamented its diverse taste.
Screenshot | ©
When I looked through the comment section of an article, I found that it actually had a lot of "fans" from other places.
When someone travels to the Northwest, they hit it off with its flavor.
People who love leeks and green onions like its smoothness; People who are not used to eating leeks and green onions fall in love with its fragrance.
Picture 2: Love braised pork ©
I even found a lot of traces of Lao Guang in the comment area.
It turns out that even the most picky Cantonese people who are picky about the umami and taste of the food have to fall into the taste of shallots.
▲Highlighted friendly reminder: It is not recommended to buy too much at a time like the last Lao Guang, one is not good to save, the price is higher to buy in other places, and the other is that eating too much shallots may also get hot (picture | WeChat screenshot ©)
So, what kind of flavor is shallot?
I thought I might be able to find a delicious answer from the locals who were able to eat the "first bite".
Picture: Tangyuan mother ©
Jin Yong once wrote such an ending at the end of "White Horse Whistling West Wind"-
"The white horse is old, and he can only walk slowly, but he can finally return to the Central Plains.
There are willows, peach blossoms, swallows, and goldfish in the south of the Yangtze River...... Among the Han people are handsome and brave young men, dignified and dashing young men...... But this beautiful girl is as stubborn as the ancient Gaochang people:
"That's all good, good, but I don't like it."
Although it is about love, it has formed a distant resonance with nostalgia.
Picture 1: "Dunhuang, a thousand-year-old feast". ©
A person will only have a homeland when he leaves his homeland.
For the people of the Northwest who are accustomed to seeing the wonders of the world and seeing the misty water and prosperity of the south of the Yangtze River, no matter how good the outside is, they still miss the terroir and food of their hometown.
So born in the barren, but with its own fragrant, smooth and crisp shallots, it has become the flavor of the Northwest people "relying on the sand to eat the sand". It will turn into a delicate wisp of nostalgia, which will entangle the taste of the wanderers, and finally generate a taste that only exists in the hometown in memory.
图片2｜卡德BrianIsHere ©
Inner Mongolia dumplings, a little wheat and a dipping sauce
The world-famous explorer Sven · Hedin once praised in "Through the Heart of Asia" -
"Mutton shallot dumplings should be the most delicious dumplings in the world. Pickled shallot pickles, served with mutton soup noodles, are also a perfect match. ”
Picture | ©
In Inner Mongolia, mutton dumplings are a delicious medal.
The taste of mutton gives the shallot a little more plump oil aroma; And the crispness of the shallots makes the dumplings a little less greasy with meat. Even after eating several, I felt very refreshing.
Picture 2: "Dunhuang, a thousand-year-old feast". ©
Then, Hohhot took a little wheat and came.
On the breakfast table in Qingcheng, there is never glutinous rice, only fresh sheep and a little wheat filled with green onion and ginger. When the skin, which is as thin as a cicada's wings, "blooms" at the top, it is attractive and lovely.
Another belonging of shallots is steamed buns and fried buns. In the porcelain and smooth taste, the warm fresh juice flows.
Pictures 2\3|Xinhua News Agency ©; Picture 3: Tamao Gourmet Notes ©
As a nomadic people, the Alxa people like to fry dried meat with shallots.
When the tenacious jerky is slightly softened in the heat, with a mouthful of authentic salted milk tea, it is difficult to change the life of the gods.
Photo: HyggeMia ©
Inner Mongolia is located in the north with four distinct seasons, and there is no sand onion in autumn and winter, but the flavor is cleverly left behind-
Skillful Inner Mongolians will pickle shallots and make them into refreshing pickles, which are served with staple food or lamb noodle soup, which is full of flavor.
Some are made into a dipping sauce with leeks, and when the white smoke of shabu mutton rises, that bite of mutton can take you back to the hometown of the grassland.
Picture: "Boiling Hot Pot". ©
Shanxi acid is the soul
Ah Cheng shared an experience from his time in Italy:
One day, he was walking with a friend who had lived in the local area for a long time, and it was very quiet, but his friend suddenly sighed, "I haven't been jealous for a long time."
I immediately went to the shop and bought a bottle of vinegar, and sat on the side of the street, drinking it like a gamble, and drinking it until tears flowed out.
Picture: Ah Hua come and drink coffee ©
Those who have not left their hometowns will probably only be shocked when they hear this.
But Shanxi people who have been away from their hometown for many years must understand the years and ups and downs implied in this.
Sometimes, people just crave that bite. For Shanxi people, that taste is sour.
As a province adjacent to Inner Mongolia, the shallot continues the fragrance of noodles here, and also uses the terroir to transform its own delicious legend.
You can find the grace of shallots and vinegar in a cage of wheat; You can also feel the weight of the soil in the shredded potatoes and mashed potatoes with refreshing and sour taste.
Picture 1: "Breakfast China"; © Picture 3: Eat beans and grow meat! ©
Shanxi people regard potatoes and wheat as friendly and delicious.
Not only are there "yam eggs" (potatoes), but some people even combine shallots and noodles to create a "combination of carbon and vegetables".
The flavor rendered with chili pepper and vinegar carries the memory of home. For Shanxi people, sour, as early as when they left home, became an invisible luggage.
If there is no substance, it will hide in the body. As long as I miss my hometown, the tip of my tongue and heart will be overflowing.
Picture 1: Dunhuang, a thousand-year-old feast; © Picture 2: Bamboo shoots ©
Gansu Baked cakes, scrambled eggs and syrup
Cake is the most recorded food in Dunhuang literature.
Jia Siqian of the Northern Wei Dynasty recorded in "Qi Min's Technique" that "one bucket of noodles, two catties of mutton, one green onion and one white, soy sauce and salt are boiled to make them cooked, and they are burned, and the noodles should be ordered."
"Dunhuang, a thousand-year-old feast". ©
In the prosperous Tang Dynasty on the Silk Road, when Bai Juyi took off the green shirt of Sima in Jiangzhou and was demoted to Zhongzhou (now Zhongxian County, Chongqing), he did not forget to share the flavor of a piece of flax cake with his friend Yang Wanli-
"Sesame cake sample Kyoto (here refers to Chang'an), the noodles are crispy and fragrant and freshly baked"
The crispy cake sprinkled with sesame seeds is very similar to Chang'an in the distance, and for the poet who has been degraded, this familiar flavor of Hu cake is the Chang'an flavor that I think about day and night.
▲Figure 1: Cave 159 of Mogao Grottoes· Middle Tang Dynasty; Figure 2: Cave 236 of Mogao Grottoes · early Tang Dynasty (Photo: Department of Cultural Promotion of © Dunhuang Academy)
In today's Dunhuang, you can taste the fresh aroma of a shallot beef patty in the night market.
Image 1: Karenchow©; Picture 2: Dunhuang, a thousand-year-old feast ©
Or try Wuwei Minqin's shallot scrambled eggs, the fragrant and tender taste must be beyond your imagination.
Picture: The kimchi © of the big head
You can also follow the local customs and try to find a bowl of slurry water choked with shallot choking in Tianshui.
When the lilac stamens turn into refreshing acid, a chopstick on the surface of Gansu's slurry water will make you feel a different flavor in summer.
Picture 1|"Flavor Origin · Gansu"; © Image 2: Montier ©
Ningxia cold salad, the best with hand grasp and noodles
Ningxia's Tan Sheep is a sensible "lamb skewer" and "hand-grasped reserve".
The shallot has opened a "high-grade small stove" for the baa, and the "mercy under the mouth" of human beings has allowed some of the delicious food to enter the belly of the sheep. As a result, the polysaccharides and proteins in the shallots naturally "pickle" the mutton into the flavor, reduce the branched-chain fatty acids, and become less flavorful and more delicious.
Picture 1: Grass © ; Image 2: Grass ©
Yinchuan people and Wuzhong people like to eat hand-grasped with a faint milky fragrance, with cold salad shallots, cold salad bitter and bitter vegetables.
When the tender and fresh lamb and the refreshing and delicious shallots are delicious on the tip of the tongue, the taste of happiness reverberates in the mouth.
Picture: Lao Liu ©
Cold shallot is the wild king of shallots.
In addition to the finger fingers, the grilled lamb skewers sprinkled with chili peppers and the freshly fried golden butter aroma are very suitable. In some banquets in Shizuishan and Guyuan, there will also be a place for the refreshing sand onion in the eight cold dishes, which shows the love for it.
Photo: ft1umk.ee ©
When it comes to Zhongwei, there are not only wolfberries here, but also artemisia noodles that have been passed down for more than 400 years.
As early as the Song Dynasty, Zeng Gong recorded in the "Longping Collection· Western Xia Biography" that the locals used artemisia seeds and shallots——
"Its people eat drums and vines in spring, and Suaeda canopy...... In winter, sand onions and wild leeks are stored...... Artemisia annua and alkali pine nuts are counted as years".
Picture: "Breakfast China". ©
In the Ming Dynasty, when Zhu Yuanzhang's sixteenth son was an official in Ningxia, he asked the imperial chef to pass on the technology of artemisia noodles in the court to the people.
Because the noodles are rolled out very thinly, about 1 meter large, and slender after shredding, people call it "long noodles" vividly, and it is indispensable to celebrate birthdays. Poured on the stilt, the fragrance is so fragrant that people are amazed by its wonderfulness.
Picture: "Breakfast China". ©
Some people will mix a plate of shallots when they eat artemisia noodles. Spicy and minced garlic will give the food an alluring brilliance, and the similarly slender body will also enhance the blessing.
Pictures 1 & 3: Breakfast in China ©; Picture 2: We're eating and drinking © alone
Some people say -
"Taste is a very peculiar feeling, sometimes not in the dish itself, but in the season, the person and the emotion."
Yes and no.
Shallots, just like the northwest of Zamengmenghua, Ma Lielie, sand dates, elm money, acacia flowers, northeast bracken, thorn sprouts, Henan nepeta, Sichuan children's cabbage, Jiangnan Ulva cabbage, Guangdong sand ginger......
On the one hand, the most ordinary and not known "limited flavor" is used to connect the taste and hometown.
Picture: Fine and small white ©
On the other hand, it also has an indelible brilliance in itself.
It is an indispensable presence in the local climate.
Picture: Cultural Tourism Alxa ©
As a wild vegetable, shallots are perhaps far underestimated.
It is not only the bearing of the tip of the tongue, but also the philosophy of life and the witness of the years of hard work.
Faced with the endless wasteland, it never gives up, but chooses to wait.
Once the rain arrives, the rhizomes will sink into the sand and bloom gracefully against a bleak background.
Picture: Dongsheng release ©
In the face of poverty in the early years, it was again satiety food.
As long as the young leaves are gently pinched off during harvesting without damaging the rhizomes, life can bloom year after year on the sand. Accompany the locals through famine and wind and rain.
Photo: Cultural Tourism Altay ©
In the face of wind and sand, it is a windproof and sand-resistant plant together with the Saxon tree and the sand date tree, caring for the land.
It was written into the poem "The sand wind and sand rain are the same as the crow, and the sand dates and sand onions are sighing together".
Picture: Beacon © Tower
And in the new era, it is a friend of the locals.
It can be used as pasture grass or as a delicacy on the human table. Because all beings are equal, it teaches people to be humble.
In order not to over-collect, the locals domesticated it artificially, giving it new life in the greenhouse, and also finding a new way for the local people to get rich......
Photo: Gansu Farmers Daily ©
As a bosom friend who has been in the Northwest said-
Sand onion seems ordinary, but it best represents the vitality of the people in the northwest.
Therefore, the taste of shallots also hides the taste of the northwest.
Picture: Dotted ink ©