We are paying attention to it.
The homesickness of Hunan people is essentially an attachment to peppers.
Peppers are everywhere. With a Hunan cuisine cookbook, you may be able to buy all the necessary ingredients in an ordinary supermarket.
But sometimes we have to admit in our hearts that even if the ingredients are complete, only the hands of Hunan people can fry relatively authentic Hunan cuisine. The core of this is pepper. ...
It is Chili sauce that lays the foundation for the spicy taste of Hunan cuisine. However, the muddled sauce is actually rejected by Hunan people. The "Chili sauce" we are talking about is "oil pepper" in the strict sense.
Buy back the polished ready-made Chili powder from the vegetable market, add a spoonful of salt, and wait until the oil is hot, listening to the stinging sound, which is already very satisfying.
This is the most basic practice of oil pepper, and some people will add minced garlic, minced beef and other materials to taste.
Almost every household in Hunan has its own small pot of oil pepper, and the practice is not the same.
Because there is no water, salted pepper can be well preserved all year round and can be cooked at any time, so there is no need to worry about mildew and stale.
With such a bowl of spicy oil pepper, a bowl of delicious noodles or rice noodles has been more than half successful. Outside Hunan, the signboard of Changde rice noodle shop is very common. To judge whether a Changde rice noodle shop is authentic, just walk into the shop and glance at whether there are oil peppers on the table.
Of course, how can our oil pepper, the treasure of the town kitchen, be used only for making noodles? Boiled fish, boiled meat slices, boiled beef, everything, delicious shrimp ... The only way to cook a big dish is to sprinkle a spoonful of Chili powder on the surface of the dish and then pour a spoonful of hot oil. In the spicy pepper aroma, the killer dishes are served, and the appearance is guaranteed.
After that, it's time to chop the pepper. Chopped pepper is regarded as the hero in the export of Hunan cuisine culture in recent years. Look at the popularity of chopped pepper fish head, double pepper fish head and pickled fish in various restaurants.
Hot and sour pickled peppers are also the basic materials in the kitchens of every household in Hunan. The difficulty of self-control is not high, and the simplicity of online search is simply unexpected.
But in my mind, the real chopped pepper must be a jar dish soaked in sauerkraut, not a simple version circulated on the Internet.
At least 20 years ago, in my impression, in order to eat fried chicken offal with chopped peppers, my mother had to fish out some sour radishes and hot peppers from a small thick brown crock.
The whole process of making chopped pepper is full of irreversible ritual, and even the direction of screwing the lid of the crock has certain rules-mainly for fear that water will leak into the jar and spoil the sour water.
At that time, chopped pepper was also called sour pepper, mainly relying on sour water. Boil dry water, fill the dry crock with salt, then cover it and put it in a cool place for natural fermentation.
After a while, the sour water is made successfully, and then all the vegetables you want to eat, such as whole radish, whole red pepper, large pieces of fresh ginger, onion, beans and so on, are put into the jar. Cover and ferment. After ten days and a half, you can take it out and enjoy it at any time.
With the improvement of kitchen cooking tools and methods, many people give up heavy crocks and replace them with transparent and lightweight glass jars, which are mainly easy to clean and make.
In addition, acid production has certain requirements for weather, humidity and water quality, and it is difficult for provinces outside the southwest to successfully produce acid.
This may be why the simplified version of chopped pepper is becoming more and more popular. Chop red pepper and ginger and garlic, add salt, put oil in it and seal it for a few days, and then it can be used as fish. Everybody is happy!
The dishes that chopped pepper can make are also related to mood and brain.
Squid, pork belly, chicken offal, fish head, seafood, spicy villagers even stir-fry Chinese cabbage and cucumber with chopped pepper when there is no food, which is quite a meal!
If you don't even have vegetables, do you have to eat Chili directly? Yes! Pepper is the source of fighting power in Hunan people's character: without food, eat pepper directly.
Eating fresh peppers raw is not our patent. Korean barbecue is popular all over the country now. Dipping pork belly in hot sauce and then wrapping a fresh green pepper in your mouth is nothing at all.
But the rolling pin, also called the rolling pin, is a special dish in Hunan. The method is simple and spicy.
As the name implies, this dish should be cooked in a mortar. Bowl is a heavy stone tool, which is usually used to mash garlic, pepper and other fine ingredients in the kitchen.
Pouring pepper is not directly pounding pepper.
The trick is to pick the spiciest slender green pepper first, and then put it on the fire and roll it back and forth in a dry way. You can't burn it, as long as it's a little dark and peeling. Then put it in a bowl and pound it with garlic, pound it into a paste, and add some salt to eat.
The main step of burning pepper is to remove the raw flavor of fresh green pepper, peel off the tough outer skin, and let the fiber of green pepper directly mix with garlic and salt, which is actually equivalent to frying again.
Because garlic is raw and green pepper is half-cooked, it is very spicy and of course a great meal. The most suitable posture for eating Chili is squatting, and after eating it, I feel like I am in a jigsaw puzzle.
These kinds of peppers all represent Hunan people's demand for peppers and their understanding of cooking.
Finally, I must sincerely say that salty and spicy are inseparable. Only salty but not spicy (often) or only spicy and not salty (rarely) is a deep misunderstanding of Hunan cuisine!