"Cold food youth group shop, low willow branches in spring. The fragrance of wine stays in the guests, and the warbler language and human poetry. This is more than 1,000 years ago, the great poet Bai Juyi of the Tang Dynasty passed by the Qingtuan store, leaving a popular poem, depicting a night of spring breeze blowing, the field of Ai Qing flooded with the freshest and most tender green scene.

The so-called Qingtuan is a special snack of the Han nationality in the south of the Yangtze River, which originally originated in Taicang, Suzhou. As its name suggests, Qingtuan is a green green dumpling, mixed into the glutinous rice flour with the juice of the wheat grass, and then wrapped in the bean paste filling, not sweet or greasy, with a light but long grass aroma, this kind of grass juice kneaded into the glutinous rice flour, as long as you take a bite, the soft and glutinous, a little tendony and with the sweet smell of the filling, will be in the heart and spleen in an instant.

When it comes to wormwood, it is mostly reminiscent of the zongzi during the Dragon Boat Festival, but under the continuous rainy season, wormwood grows the most luxuriant in the Qingming period, and there is a section accompanied by the Qingming Festival in ancient times, called the "Cold Food Festival".

On this occasion, families do not light a fire to cook, but only eat cold food, which refers to food that is prepared at home in advance and does not need to be reheated. For example, people in the north like to eat jujube cakes and rice cakes, while in the south, they mostly eat Qingtuan and glutinous rice and sugar lotus.

Qingtuan, a flavor snack in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, is the green dumpling, which seems to be the taste of spring. In the south of the Yangtze River in March, on the riverbank, ditch, and ridge, there is a kind of wild grass, which has a strong grass fragrance and strong coloring ability, which is picked by people and used for the production of the Youth League. The scientific name of this herb is wormwood, and it is commonly known as "mugwort", and it is made of a special fragrance of Qingtuan. The dumplings also look green and flawless, and the aftertaste is fragrant and sweet. Therefore, people are accustomed to adding two more words in front of the Youth League, calling it "Wormwood Youth League".

The charm of the Qingtuan, the small Qingtuan, exuding the fragrance of fragrant grass, through the memories of childhood, contains the taste of home, and overlaps the deliciousness of various nostalgic emotions.

The origin of the Youth League began around the Tang Dynasty. It has a history of more than 1,000 years. Every Qingming Festival, almost every household in the south of the Yangtze River steamed the Qingtuan, in ancient times, people did the Qingtuan mainly used as a sacrifice, although the Qingtuan has been passed down for thousands of years. But now people are more in season. The function of the Youth League as a sacrificial offering has been increasingly diluted.

Legend has it that there was a Qingming Festival one year. Li Xiucheng, a general of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, was hunted down by Qing soldiers, and a nearby farmer who was cultivating the fields stepped forward to help and disguised Li Xiucheng as a peasant. Cultivate the land with yourself. Li Xiucheng was not caught, and the Qing soldiers did not give up, so they added troops and set up posts in the village, and everyone who left the village had to be inspected to prevent them from bringing food to Li Xiucheng.

After returning home, when the farmer was thinking about what to bring for Li Xiucheng to eat, he accidentally stepped on a clump of wormwood, slipped and fell, and when he got up, he saw that his hands and knees were dyed with green and shining colors. He immediately took it to heart, and hurriedly picked some wormwood and went home to wash it, boil it, squeeze the juice, knead it into glutinous rice flour, and make it into rice balls. He put the green dumplings in the grass and mixed with the sentinels at the entrance of the village. Li Xiucheng ate Qingtuan and felt that it was fragrant, glutinous and not sticky to his teeth. After dark, he bypassed the Qing guard post and returned safely to the base camp. Later, Li Xiucheng ordered the Taiping army to learn to be a youth league to protect themselves from the enemy.

In today's Ningbo, the Youth League is still one of the most popular dim sum before and after the Qingming Festival, but the time period for tasting is getting longer and longer, not just limited to the Qingming Festival, the century-old brand "Zhao Dayou" begins to prepare for the Youth League as soon as the Spring Festival is over every year.

Hard-working people will dig in the field, dig up fresh mugwort one by one, pick off the yellow leaves, wash them, and then blanch them in boiling water, taking care not to make the leaves yellow, and then dry them, grind them into powder, and then you can make Qingtuan.

The folk youth group is to mash the mugwort with a pestle, but this may crush unevenly, and the mugwort will taste grainy.

The authentic wormwood Qingtuan is made of the current year's raw wormwood, hand-extracted juice, the wormwood juice and glutinous rice flour are combined together, so that the glutinous rice flour is soaked in grass juice and turned into a green dough, and then wrapped in bean paste filling, kneaded into a ball, steamed in the basket, and the key to making Qingtuan is to obtain wormwood juice.

Because in the traditional process of making wormwood juice, there is a "slurry" process, which is to skillfully use "lime" in the juice extraction process, which can remove the bitter taste of wormwood, so that the steamed green balls retain the green color of the grass and restore the attractive color.

But nowadays, there are fewer and fewer masters who can master this skill, so the youth groups made on the market are generally not green enough shade. However, the wormwood used by Sikong Yao is not a fresh and tender wormwood that has just been picked, but has been stored for a certain time, so the color will not be as beautiful as green, and even after steaming, it may be slightly yellow, but the light and long grass aroma has not decreased, and the taste is still beautiful, so the craftsmanship of ordering sauce is dispensable.

Although the Qingtuan is a little sticky, but not sticky to the teeth, the sweet bean paste, sweet but not greasy, melts in the mouth, it simply makes people can't stop eating, and the filling of the Qingtuan can also vary from person to person, it can be bean paste, it can also be wrapped in sesame filling, soybean filling, the same aromatic and delicious, and some places use fresh meat to make the filling, and the salty Qingtuan also has a different taste. After wrapping the green balls, they are steamed on the fire, and when they are out of the basket, the cooked vegetable oil or sesame oil is evenly brushed on the surface of the dumplings with a brush, and then let them cool before eating. If you like it, you will stick a layer of rice grains on the surface of the raw green group, and after steaming, the white and fluffy rice grains on the surface are faintly green, which looks very special and tastes very interesting.

Sikong Yao first cleaned the wormwood, boiled it in hot water, filtered the green juice, and filled it with the powder that continued to be ground by Vanilan to add flavor, and then poured the green juice into the glutinous rice flour to make a dough, the pale green dough was like an unbaked matcha cookie, with a slight moisture, but it was already mouthwatering.

The key to the Qingtuan is to be sure to use boiling water to mix rice noodles, which is also a recipe for pasta, and the Qingtuan made with boiling water will have a soft and delicate taste that does not stick to the teeth.

In another similar dessert, warm water is used to prevent the glutinous rice flour from drying out and sticking to the hands.

Seeing that the green flour dough is kneaded into the size of 25 grams, slightly larger than a coin, just like a cookie in general, the production of the green group has two methods from the process, one is the "raw bag" method, that is, the raw powder is kneaded and then steamed after the filling, and the other is the "cooked bag" method, that is, the cooked powder is stuffed and then steamed.

Ordinary people's homemade Qingtuan, more take the "raw bag" method, simply wash the wormwood and blanch it with water, so as to remove the bitter taste, then add some water, use a household mixer to break it to get wormwood juice, mix the glutinous rice flour, add wormwood juice and form a dough, and put bean paste filling into the bread, but it takes a long time, so it is only suitable for idle lunch is to rely on Yaxing to drum it.

If you are in the store, you can only use the "cooked bag" method, glutinous rice flour and green wormwood powder, mix well with a little boiling water, steam it in the pot, and then knead it repeatedly, knead it into long strips, pick it into dough, press it flat one by one, smear it with a little sesame oil, wrap it in bean paste filling, pinch it and close it, knead it into a round ball, and a green and delicious green ball is ready, although the speed is fast, the taste is not discounted.

The filling of Qingtuan varies from person to person, it can be bean paste, or it can be wrapped in sesame filling, soybean filling, which is also fragrant and delicious, and some places use fresh meat to make the filling, and the salty Qingtuan also has a different taste. After wrapping the green balls, they are steamed on the fire, and when they are out of the basket, the cooked vegetable oil or sesame oil is evenly brushed on the surface of the dumplings with a brush, and then let them cool before eating.

Sikong Yao has ingenuity, but he uses strawberry jelly to make the filling, and selects a small whole strawberry to be submerged in the Qingtuan, and the strawberry has been processed in advance.

Sikong Yao applied what he saw and learned in Japan to the Youth League, blending and colliding the cultures of different cuisines to make interesting snacks with a unique flavor.

In addition to the filling is the key point, there are also people who like to stick a layer of rice grains on the surface of the raw green ball, after steaming, the surface of the white and fluffy rice grains is faintly green, which looks very special, and the taste is also good.

Sikong Yao suddenly reached out and took some chopped dried fruits and wanted to sprinkle them on the surface of the Qingtuan, but suddenly he had an idea, and asked Batisian: "Sister Batisian, do you have any rice here?" ”

Batisian shrugged and said, "We don't like rice here, but we have some millet rice, is that okay?" ”

Sikong Yao was overjoyed, and hurriedly smiled: "Of course, it couldn't be better!" ”

Sikong Yao originally wanted to add the rice to the Qingtuan after stir-frying, and the roasted rice has the aroma of rice fields and a fascinating taste, which will definitely add a lot of color to the Qingtuan.

Fried rice is the staple food of the Mongolians, which is the rice grains obtained by grinding off the shell after the millet rice is fried, and the pure mochi is soaked in water, steamed in the pot, and then fried on the wok, cooled, and the shell is removed. The processed fried rice is yellow but not burnt, the rice is hard but not hard, crystal bright, and the color and taste are fragrant and delicious in milk tea, crispy and delicious. Due to the water immersion, the water-soluble vitamins in the surface layer of the millet skin penetrate into the rice grains, increasing the content of vitamins in the fried rice. And because it is quickly cooled and dried after steaming and frying, the gelatinized starch is fixed in its original state, and it only needs to be soaked in tea when eating. Fried rice has low water consumption and is resistant to storage. It is easy to carry, not easy to mildew and deteriorate, and adapts to the needs of pastoral life. (To be continued......)