Chapter 41 Digging winter bamboo shoots
Under the persimmon tree, Li Xiang is pickling salted duck eggs with his grandma.
He knew how to make pickled duck eggs, but he had only seen it when he was a child, and it was his first time to actually make it, so he needed his grandma to give some guidance on the details.
This is also a process to enhance emotional communication with grandma. Family happiness is nothing more than this.
No, grandma was smiling happily, and she was much more energetic than she usually pickled duck eggs by herself.
"This yellow mud is still a bit thick. Grind it a little more finely and then sift it through a sieve." Grandma said after checking the raw materials.
The recipe of his pickled duck eggs is passed down from Lijia Village ancestors. The main ingredient is naturally green-skinned duck eggs, while the auxiliary ingredients are yellow mud, plant ash, salt, and water.
The yellow mud was dug on a sunny hillside about three miles away from his home. The hillside was all yellow mud. Li Xiang dug about twenty kilograms of mud, put it back in the sun to dry, pounded it, and then used a sieve to remove some impurities.
The plant ashes are the new straw this year, as well as some wood cut back from the mountains, and the remaining ashes burned in the stove when cooking. Plant ash is also a good thing. Not only is it a very good fertilizer, it can also be used medicinally to dispel cold, reduce swelling, and relieve diseases and break up accumulation.
"Ben Jing" records that it tastes pungent and slightly warm, and enters the liver and kidney meridians. Its other names are: winter ash, quinoa ash ("Ben Jing"), and firewood ash ("Gangmu").
In addition, it is also a disinfectant raw material widely used in rural areas. It has a strong effect on killing pathogenic bacteria and viruses. Its effect is similar to that of the commonly used powerful disinfectant caustic soda.
Adding plant ash to pickled duck eggs is mainly for sterilization and disinfection, preventing bacterial contamination and making the duck eggs less likely to deteriorate.
It is worth mentioning that the salted duck eggs pickled with plant ash are particularly delicious. The yolk is red and oily, and not too salty.
It is said that during the reign of Emperor Kangxi, a 17-year-old woman surnamed Chen was drafted into the palace. Although she was from a humble background, she was deeply loved by Emperor Kangxi because of her hobby of making various specialties from her hometown. Especially her pickled local duck eggs, which are delicious and moderately salty, are completely different from the salted eggs she usually eats in the palace. One of her secrets is the addition of plant ash and more than ten kinds of precious Chinese herbal medicines.
Li Xiang's family comes from a poor family, so the formula passed down cannot contain precious Chinese herbal medicines. But even with ordinary plant ash and yellow mud, the pickled duck eggs are quite delicious.
The quality of their native duck eggs is very good, they are big, plump and have green shells. This kind of duck egg is also called "green fruit".
The cyan color of the eggshell may be related to the breed of duck. According to some research institutions, the cyan color of green-shell duck eggs is mainly caused by the synergy of two single-base mutations upstream of the duck's ABCG2 gene.
These mutations prevent upstream methylation signals from being transmitted downstream by binding to the transcription factor CTCF, thereby upregulating the expression of the ABCG2 gene, transporting biliverdin into the uterine tissue, and coloring the eggshell cyan.
There are also studies showing that it may be related to the duck's feeding diet.
Li Xiang's family has accumulated a lot of green-skinned duck eggs, about a hundred of them, packed in two baskets, no specific number.
Following his grandma's instructions, he sifted out about 5 kilograms of yellow and fine soil. Naturally, he did not want some fine sand, stone fragments, grass roots, etc., nor did he want large, hard clods of soil. Set aside.
First put one kilogram and two ounces of salt into the bucket, then add two tablespoons of mountain spring water, about two kilograms, stir to fully dissolve the salt and distribute it evenly, then pour the five kilograms of fine yellow mud soil prepared previously into the bucket. Add about a pound of plant ash and stir until it becomes a uniform paste.
The preparation of this mud is very important. It should not be too thin or too thick. If it's too thin, it won't stick; if it's too thick, the paint will be uneven.
The loess vegetation mortar prepared by Li Xiang has a moderate consistency, just right, and does not require secondary rework.
There is also a little trick on how to judge, which is to take a duck egg and throw it into the mud. If half of the egg sinks into the mud and the other half is exposed on the surface of the mud, it means the preparation is ready.
Li Xiang prepared a vat and began to pickle salted duck eggs. He dipped fresh duck eggs in mud, took them out, rolled them in dry plant ash, and covered them with a thin layer of plant ash to prevent the eggs from sticking together. At the same time, the mud should be slightly fixed, otherwise the mud will flow downward due to gravity, which will cause the surface to be uneven and affect the pickling effect and taste.
Carefully arrange the salted duck eggs, more than a hundred of them, just enough to fill a jar. There is still a little mud left, and he pours it on the egg surface, then seals it, and Li Xiang moves it to a cool, dry and ventilated room at the back for storage, which lasts about three days. It can be eaten after forty days.
If it is pickled in summer, the pickling time will be slightly shorter, about twenty days. If it is winter, it may take fifty or sixty days to pickle.
Then, Li Xiang told his grandma, picked up a hoe and carried a bamboo basket, and went to dig winter bamboo shoots in the back mountain.
His family has several patches of moso bamboo on the hillside, and there are still quite a lot of winter bamboo shoots every year. But in the past, my grandma was alone at home and didn't dig much, so she only made some for herself. Even if they were dug up, there would be no place to sell them.
Giant pandas have been found in their area. Who has a few acres of bamboo forest, winter bamboo shoots, and spring bamboo shoots? If you can't eat them all yourself, who will sell them to you?
Go to the county town to set up a stall and sell to city people?
Firstly, there are too many local winter bamboo shoots and cannot be sold at a high price. Secondly, it is inconvenient for rural people to go to the city and they are easily evicted.
Now that Li Xiang has come back to farm, he naturally wants to harvest this delicacy and sell it. He now has more than 100,000 fans, most of whom are active fans from all over the country. There should still be a market.
Digging winter bamboo shoots is a technical job, just like digging black truffles, you need to look for them. Because it is not visible at all. If you see the bamboo shoots have dug out of the soil, they are old and not delicious. Such bamboo shoots are not needed.
Li Xiang wanted to ensure the quality of the winter bamboo shoots he sold, so he naturally chose the tenderest ones buried underground.
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The bamboo leaves were green, rustling in the autumn wind, and Li Xiang walked among the bamboos, searching carefully.
He has lived in the mountains since he was a child, and naturally he has mastered the knack of digging winter bamboo shoots.
Many people may think that the older the bamboo, the more likely it is that there will be winter bamboo shoots underneath it, but this is not the case.
Rather, "prime" bamboos that have grown for two or three years are most likely to have winter bamboo shoots underneath.
The color of this kind of bamboo is relatively dark, and its leaves are not bright green, but dark cyan, and some may be yellowish.
Then you can also observe the root nodes of the bamboo. If the bamboo has some relatively large bamboo shoots and is darker in color, then there are probably many winter bamboo shoots underneath.
This is called "looking at bamboos and looking for bamboo shoots".
In addition, you can also observe the terrain.
Plants need sufficient sunlight to grow. Although winter bamboo shoots have not yet "broken the ground", bamboo is very "smart". It will let its offspring emerge from a place facing the sun, so it can be facing the sun and get more sunlight. Look for winter bamboo shoots wherever the light shines.
For example, the northern slopes or the darker and humid corners in the south will not be considered. Bamboo is not that stupid. Even if there is, the quantity is relatively small and not cost-effective.
Li Xiang harvested a lot in a short time. While he was working on the mountain, several elderly people from the village came to his home.
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