The weather in Guangzhou suddenly dropped a few degrees yesterday. The cold air was mixed with the biting cold wind, which really made people shiver. This weather came at the right time. It was Laba Seventh and Laba Festival, and my jaw dropped because today is the Laba Festival.
Early in the morning, Laba Festival blessings were sent out in the company group, but only colleagues in Guangzhou did not respond, because traditional Guangfu people in Tianfu do not have the concept of Laba Festival on this day.
1. If you have eaten Laba porridge, you may not have heard that there is fruit lion in Laba porridge
I know about the Laba Festival, and I only learned about this festival when I was studying "A Dream of Red Mansions ". In the nineteenth chapter, I wrote Baoyu to Daiyu about the story of the mice in Linzidong making Laba porridge.
The mice met on the seventh day of the Laba to discuss that everyone in the world was making Laba porridge on the Laba Festival, and there was no material in the cave, so they sent an order to ask the little mice to go down the mountain and steal some to cook the Laba porridge.
The materials listed in the book include five kinds of fruits: red dates, chestnuts, peanuts, water chestnuts , and fragrant jade. This is probably a simple version of five-flavor porridge, which is similar to the situation of Laba porridge introduced in " Tokyo Menghualu ". Every family cooks porridge with mixed fruits and eats it.
I have never eaten authentic Laba porridge, and maybe there is no authentic one, because Laba porridge has its own version in various places. It may be a bit exaggerated to say that the style of Laba porridge is different in ten miles, and the customs in five miles are different. I understand that it should be a bowl of eight-treasure porridge, sweet. But I heard that there is a spicy version in Sichuan, called Zazaba Laba Porridge, which is true.
Laba porridge is also known as five-flavor porridge and seven-treasure porridge. There are only five and seven kinds of ingredients. These are considered low-end versions. When I wrote about the ingredients of Laba porridge in " Yanjing Years of Ages", it feels like it is the best version of the luxury version.
meter needs to be yellow rice, white rice, glutinous rice, millet, water chestnut . In addition, add chestnuts, red dates, peach kernels, almonds, melon seeds, peanuts, hazelnuts, pine nuts, and add white sugar and brown sugar for seasoning. If you count, this is not a simple version of Five Flavors and Seven Treasures. After counting, there are sixteen kinds of ingredients for this bowl of porridge. Is this porridge or fruit? Maybe the more you add, the more hope you have.
People who are more particular will carve fruits and vegetables into human shapes and cook animals in the pot when making Laba porridge. The most distinctive one is to put "fruit lion" in Laba porridge.
Fruit lion is a lion made by sticking several kinds of fruits together with sugar. For example, the lion's body is made of date stones, the lion's head is made of walnut kernels, the lion's feet are made of peach kernels, and the lion's tail is made of almonds. They are cooked together in porridge.
This is also recorded in the "Yanjing Chronicles", but I don't seem to see this mention now. Making fruit lions is probably like putting a coin in a dumpling to get a good fortune. Maybe this method requires a bit of skill, but cooking porridge is relatively simple and homely. I hope it can be passed down.
2. You have eaten glutinous rice, but you may not have eaten raw fried glutinous rice
Northern people think that when Laba Festival arrives, the flavor of the New Year will arrive, and Laba Festival is the prelude to the New Year. But in Guangzhou, as soon as the winter solstice arrives, the New Year arrives. There is even a saying that the winter solstice comes and celebrates the New Year.
Guangzhou people pay more attention to winter. On this day, traditional Cantonese people will make fried glutinous rice to celebrate the festival, because glutinous rice is warm in nature and can dispel cold. In the cold and humid winter, it is most difficult to survive without a bowl of fried glutinous rice.
Raw fried glutinous rice, as the name suggests, is fried and mature raw glutinous rice. Of course, there is more than just glutinous rice. The ingredients are usually home-made sausages, bacon mushrooms sea rice, and some will add squid, peas, shredded eggs.
This stir-fried glutinous rice requires a lot of effort and is really time-consuming and labor-intensive.
The whole process is time-consuming and may take five or six hours. Glutinous rice is naturally sticky and has a smooth texture, so it needs to be soaked for three to four hours to allow the rice to absorb water and wash away the stickiness, just like soaking potato shreds in water to remove starch.This kind of glutinous rice should be long-length glutinous rice. The texture and shape of the fried glutinous rice will be better. The soaked glutinous rice must be completely drained before being used.
Another time-consuming process is to fry the raw glutinous rice until it is ripe. First stir-fry the ingredients, then add the glutinous rice. Turn to medium heat and turn to low heat. Fry the glutinous rice slowly. The glutinous rice will absorb the oil of the sausage and bacon and slowly become transparent. During this process, the rice grains will be fragrant, glutinous, elastic, golden in color, and shiny and attractive. The process of frying rice takes four to fifty minutes, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive.
It is so time-consuming and laborious, no wonder that this kind of authentic fireworks is difficult to find outside. I once watched a local food program, and a Cantonese star chef introduced raw fried glutinous rice and said that now we have to keep pace with the times. Not many customers are willing to wait for dozens of minutes. Even if there are, the time cost is not cost-effective.
It turns out that most of the time, glutinous rice is steamed and then immediately frozen for frying. This saves time and solves the problem of sticky rice and loss of taste after cooking. Some people stir-fry and simmer at the same time when frying. These two methods are indeed more clever, but the name is also called raw fried glutinous rice. Isn’t it a bit untrue? The inheritance of tradition is not only a technical issue, but also an attitude issue.
I often hear that there is a kind of dish called Kung Fu cuisine. It takes a lot of effort and time from the chef to cook it. I think that although raw and fried glutinous rice is a common dish, it can be regarded as a kind of dish.
Thinking about it this way, only people who care about you will spend time and effort cooking a dish for you. If you have such people by your side in life, you must cherish them. In the cold winter, eating a steaming bowl of fried glutinous rice will make you feel upright despite the cold winter.
Although Laba is a day that has different customs in the north and the south, the festival is the brightest light in ordinary days. Paying tribute to the festival with traditional food is also a way for ordinary people to keep their love and hope.
