Lentils come in white and purple colors. White lentils, commonly known as lentils, are broad and fat, with white skin and white flesh, full beans, rich and elegant. Their clusters of white flowers held high on the top of the fence are like butterflies that flutter their wings, and these white butterflies gather wherever the vines climb. The purple lentils are slender and plump, and when the purple butterfly-shaped flowers bloom, they put their heads against their shoulders, shouting and making noise that no one will let anyone, and the front bears pods, and the back continues to bloom, until it blooms into late autumn. Purple lentils are old, the beans are black and bright and attractive, and there are white marks like magpie feathers, so purple lentils are also called magpie beans. Whether you are a white lentil or a purple lentil, after picking it from the fence wall, when you clean it up in the stove, you have to pinch and pull, tear off the two strands of tendons on the bowstring and the back of the bow, break it into several pieces, fish it in the water a little, and wait for it to be cooked.

One of the most common dishes for lentils is dry stir-frying. Put oil in the pot, fry the fragrance with large ingredients, put in the meat slices and stir-fry the raw meat, add ginger, garlic, soy sauce, refined salt, depending on the color of the meat, put in the lentils scalded with boiling water and stir-fry a few times, add a little water, simmer for a while, the meat slices are fresh and fragrant, the lentils are soft and tough, and can keep the color green. When such a dish is served, almost all the chopsticks are copied to lentils, and in the end, only slices of meat are left in the bowl.

The same is true for fried lentils with ham, but with a more flavorful twist. Cooking beans, whether it is cowpeas, eyebrow peas or green beans, one of the most basic rules is that garlic should not be used to enhance freshness, except for adding chopped garlic cloves halfway through the stew, it is best to put minced garlic and stir-fry slightly before cooking. The lentils are slipped into shreds, fried in a hot oil pan, accompanied by shredded green and red peppers and a certain amount of minced garlic, and a little sesame paste, the green and astringent taste of the lentils on the fingertips is fragrant and delicious in an instant. Lentil roasted pork belly is more convenient, first add dark soy sauce, sugar, salt to color, burn out the oil, and then put in the lentils and garlic cloves that have been blanched in boiling water, cover the pot and simmer until the end of the juice.

The lentils stewed in this way are bright and full of oily aroma, soaked soft and delicious, especially those plump beans that have bloomed off the pods, and use chopsticks to pick them into your mouth one by one, which can make you smack out the sweet glutinous and soft that has been precipitated over the years.

The lentils are boiled in boiling water, dried in the sun, and put away with all your heart, so that you can take them out and enjoy them at any time later. Two years ago, when I went to a conference in western Anhui, I was sightseeing on a small island full of lentil flowers in the Huating Lake Reservoir, and there was a large pot of dried lentils and roast pork on the lunch table. The black, curly dried lentils are accompanied by bright red pepper flakes, which looks like a farmhouse with a sense of tranquility and simplicity...... I, on the other hand, prefer the sunny taste of dried lentils.

The most common is steamed eggplant. The dark purple tender eggplant that is youthful and shiny and can't be put down, washed and cut into slices, put on the rice pot and steam directly. When the rice is cooked, so is the eggplant. Poke with chopsticks, and they are all soft and rotten. Carefully carry them to a slightly larger dish, mix in salt, garlic, vinegar, soy sauce, monosodium glutamate, drizzle with small sesame oil, and sip in your mouth. The amaranth is steamed in a pot and mixed with seasonings, which is also very considerate and flavorful, but it leaves a pot of rice dyed deep red and rouge, which you can't bear to start.

The green edamame rice, first put it in the pot and blanch it, mix in salt, garlic paste, monosodium glutamate, spread a layer of cherry-like minced meat balls on the top, put some lard, and steam it out on the rice pot. If the green bean rice is covered with red and thin ham slices, or cured duck legs, after steaming, just looking at the appearance, there is a meaningful atmosphere of seeing the world.

Those old lentils and cowpeas who missed the season and collapsed their bloated waists like outdated stars can also be steamed, and only by steaming and mixing in good ingredients can these half-aged become delicious again.

In fact, not only fresh vegetables can be steamed, but pickles can also be steamed. Plum cabbage button meat, snow cabbage roasted large intestine or roasted pork belly, after the second meal, continuously put on the rice pot to steam, the more steamed, the more flavorful, the more steamed the taste is more happy and eternal. At the farmhouse, steamed soy sauce beans are both a specialty and a summer staple. Soy sauce beans are also known as moldy beans, commonly known as "tempeh", on the stove of the farmer's house, they are often steamed together with green or red chili flakes, the taste is very fresh, scoop a spoonful or two of soup water on the rice, it will take a big bowl of rice off the stomach like a whirlwind.

There is also a common steamed vegetable in the countryside, which is to take the chicken head from the pond and soak the stalks, put it in the jar for a few days, and then put the chili flakes on the shelf and steam it until it is soft, and eat porridge while sucking, which is extremely refreshing and neat. The small salted fish is steamed, and the stinky vegetable tofu is also steamed, and between the steaming heat, it is the same rural feeling. If you put a spoonful or two of stinky tofu ** in the steamed eggs, and the rice pot is full of steam, the eggs are steamed, and you can use chopsticks to pick them directly into the bowl, now recalling, it seems that it was the richest taste in the past years. One side of the water and soil to raise one side of the people, the farmer's firewood and grass stove pot, originally large, because of the many steamed vegetables, generally equipped with a wooden lattice steaming rack, can steam several bowls of vegetables at the same time. The bowl of steamed vegetables is usually the kind of light brown pottery bowl with the most folk color, which is well ventilated, and is also called a kiln pot.

If the word "Qing" is added in front of "steaming", the nature changes, just like a person entering the city from the countryside, and the behavior and behavior are all upgraded, and it is completely different from the past.

For example, steamed sea bass, steamed cocked mouth, steamed mushroom chicken, because in addition to ginger, scallion vinegar and sesame paste, it is indispensable to put enough rice wine and blending oil, but also add broth, and it is steamed in a cage, and cover a fresh vegetable leaf on top of the steaming bowl, and then remove the cabbage leaf after the steamed vegetable is cooked...... It's like living in a well-furnished house alone, a far cry from the mud houses of the old days of living in the countryside.

In the complicated cooking skills of Chinese people, steaming seems to be the role of Tsing Yi. Nowadays, in order to attract diners, the water sleeves of this Tsing Yi have brought out many flower heads. For example, flour steaming, that is, after the raw materials are well adjusted, mixed with rice flour and steamed; buckle steaming, the raw materials are put together into various patterns and placed in special utensils to steam; steamed in a package, wrapped in vegetable leaves, lotus leaves or cellophane wrapped in raw materials to steam; modeling steaming, the raw materials are processed into puree, mixed with seasonings and egg whites, starch or agar, etc., and steamed out various shapes and shapes...... There are also slippery steaming, paste steaming, fried steaming, and so on.

The steamed dishes in the restaurants in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the most traditional is "steamed three fresh", but there are more than three kinds of tricks inside, I have eaten once, I remember that there seem to be pork tail bones, meat skin, egg dumplings, salted chicken, meatballs, fish balls and so on.

That year, when the autumn wind and crabs were fat, a friend in Shanghai led me to taste Shanghai-style bamboo basket steamed vegetables at a sky garden restaurant upstairs in the Daguang Cinema. It is said that the steamed vegetables here can lock the pure flavor and nutrition of the raw materials in a fragrant bamboo cage without leaking, and the taste is extremely elegant. What's more worth mentioning is that the bamboo steamer is made of fresh bamboo strips, and once the bamboo fragrance is lost, the new bamboo cage will be replaced to ensure the fragrance of the bamboo and the strong fragrance of the vegetables.

The steamed mushroom chicken nuggets and syrup field chicken ordered by friends feel that the natural color and fragrance of the raw materials are maximized, and the steamed small yellow croaker is also quite fresh, that is, it is steamed out of the ordinary bowl in a bamboo cage, but the amount is very real. There is also a dish of steamed mackerel, which should be a perfect combination of home-style and Yaxing, which can be called a must in Shanghai. Anyone with a little cooking knowledge knows that steaming is difficult to play with, and the raw materials must be fresh, just like Shanghainese people say, it is not easy to pound paste.

I was a little surprised when a fan-shaped dish of steamed fresh shark fin was served, it was too expensive. My friend smiled and said, "It's cheap, it's so cheap that you don't believe it!" So he handed me the menu, and it was only 98 yuan! I tasted it, and this 98 yuan shark fin is an authentic shark fin, because it is particularly tender and has distinct flesh and bones, it can be judged that it is not a dry product, but fresh, with soft wing bones, which can be chewed and swallowed.