Text | Lujiaoshanren
Once I went to Chongqing on a business trip and stayed in a small hotel. I didn’t want to go out for lunch at noon, so I asked the hotel to fry two plates of Chinese rice. My colleagues thought the small peppers in them were too spicy and refused to eat them. I gasped. Both sets of Hu Chi were made. My colleagues saw that I was not as reserved as before and were confused. I said, I'm not just responding to the call for CDs, I can't help it, just this.
Flower rice was called oil and salt rice in my rural hometown when I was a child, because its backbone is oil, salt and rice. It would be even better if it is served with some chopped pickled cabbage and chopped green onion. If there is an egg involved, it will be even more luxurious. However, in that era of scarce supplies, it was not easy to gather the three backbones.
Let’s talk about oil first. At that time, we mainly ate rapeseed oil and peanut oil. The production team planted and squeezed the oil themselves. The output was not high. Each household could not get much, but they had to prepare it for a year. They were distributed according to work, like in my family. In this way, families with many people and few laborers are even more stretched. If a family kills the New Year pig and can keep some lard or even oil residue to subsidize it, people will envy them: they are so rich that their lard is worth it.
I remember there was a joke at that time. It was said that a child did not wash his hands in the water tank at home after eating fried dough sticks and was severely beaten by his parents. The child cried out his grievances to the people in the bay, but received no sympathy: he deserved it! Why don't you wash your hands in the well in the bay and let the whole bay get some oil star? Although it was a joke, there were tears in the laughter, which shows how sweet and precious the oil was at that time.
Secondly, salt is an authentic daily commodity. It cannot be produced and sold by oneself. It costs silver and can only be bought in a market town far away from Wanzi. It often happens that the dishes are about to be finished but the salt is gone. At this time, we children are busy transporting salt - borrowing and returning salt one by one: a small porcelain wine cup, traveling here and there. Remember when and from whom you borrowed salt and how much it was, and return it promptly and in sufficient quantity after you buy it back.
Let’s talk about rice. It is definitely not the newly cooked hot rice, but the fresh rice (dialect: leftover rice). Note that it is not that you can’t finish the leftovers, but you deliberately keep some. Specially used for frying rice with oil and salt, it is a breakfast for adults who go to the mountains to chop firewood or for students who go to school. It is a special treat that is rarely enjoyed often.
In my memory, my mother-in-law (in dialect, grandmother)’s special dish is the most delicious.
Her husband started a fire, heated the pot, then dipped the tip of an oil brush made of loofah flesh into the oil and wiped the bottom of the pot. We are also very particular about wiping the oil. Since the pots on earthen stoves are very large, we are reluctant to wipe them all over. We only wipe a small circle around the bottom of the pot that is needed for fried rice.
Oil smoke soon began to rise. She immediately poured the cold rice into it, and as the heat began to rise, she used the back of a spatula to spread the rice. She stir-fried repeatedly to allow all the oil to spread evenly onto the rice grains, and the grains did not stick to each other. , and then serve the rice.
Rub oil on the bottom of the pot again and do the same as last time. Then pour the chopped sauerkraut into the pot and stir-fry gently until the aroma comes out, then add it to the rice that was served earlier.
Rub oil on the bottom of the pot for the third time and return the food to the pot. This time, I added salt according to the condition of the sour raisins. It was not salty but bland. This round of stir-frying took the longest, and my mother-in-law worked more seriously, completely ignoring our impatient mood.
The rice grains began to crackle in the pot, and some splashed on the stove. My mother-in-law piously scooped them into the pot one by one. Add a little water and fry until dry. Add a little more water and fry until dry. Sizzling, snapping, the rice grains sang and danced between the pot and the shovel, repeated several times. When the rice grains are slightly browned, sprinkle some chopped green onion and scoop it up. A bowl of oil and salt rice that is crispy on the outside, tender on the outside and tender on the inside is complete.
Nowadays, the ingredients and condiments for fried rice are extremely rich and varied. Although I still love that bite, I always find it difficult to match the taste of my mother-in-law's fried rice with oil and salt. Hardware is indeed important, but a skillful woman cannot make a meal without rice, and software is even more indispensable. How can we give the soul of cooking? It's a story, it's a memory.
remembers the three uses of oil and salt, but there was so much care and love that I remember and enjoy them to this day.
The author of this article, Lujiaoshanren, authorized Impression Huangpi to publish
About the author Lujiaoshanren, a surname from Huangpi. Somewhat vulgar, he is a commoner; not a philistine, he is half a scholar.
