Mixed soup is probably the easiest and easiest meal I know to make in Xinjiang. Since I was a child, I have watched my grandmother make mixed soup, clay stove firewood, a large iron pot, a small half pot of flour, half a pot of water, and add water when there are many people. She adds cold water to a small pot of flour to make flour soup (below), sometimes it is paste, and some extravagantly it is flocculent, pour it into the pot, wait for the water in the pot to boil, use an iron spoon or chopsticks to stir constantly, to prevent clumps, and wait for small bubbles to emerge on the surface of the water. Sometimes she is afraid of forgetting, and she will sprinkle salt in advance. This pot of mixed soup is the rice of the whole family.
She will beat two eggs, very scattered, it seems that there are many eggs, there are not a few chickens at home, there are indeed very few eggs, add a spoonful of carbureted oil mixed with sheep's tail and sheep's belly and sheep's intestine oil, and then pour in boiling water, sprinkle white sugar. In this way, there are two kinds of rice on the table at my house. My grandfather knew, and my parents knew, that I couldn't smell the smell of mutton fat since I was a child.
Grandma cooks at home all the time. Every time we go home, the food is always hot and the smell is strong.
Dusk night, twilight is heavy, grandpa and parents finish work, I also herd sheep home, as soon as I enter the courtyard door, smell the fragrance, rice soup or mixed soup, air-dried steamed buns, grandma cut half of the spring radishes, radish tassels are reluctant to throw, add salt and knead, coriander cut into sections, pour vinegar, the meal has a fragrance, can spread the taste to most of the lane.
One morning when my grandmother was on the field, she only went to the field to pick vegetables, and she would return after a while, and I was the only one left in the house, the yard was quiet, only the wind blew the trees, and the whole village could not hear the roosters and dogs barking. I suddenly decided to make a pot of mixed soup to surprise my grandmother when she came home, and I wanted her to pass the word on to the rest of the family, I learned to cook at such a young age, and I can already help adults. My grandmother sometimes forgot to put salt in the soup, but she never forgot to bury the fire seeds in the ashes, so as to avoid the trouble of making a fire every time, saving one match after another, and the big iron pot was always on the stove. I add water to the pot, beat the flour and water into a batter, pour it into the pot slowly and evenly, the back of the spoon is up, probe the bottom of the pot, push and pull back and forth repeatedly. In the gap before the water boiled, I hurriedly ran out of the courtyard door to see if my grandmother was walking on the way home, and hurriedly returned to the stove to see if the water in the pot was boiling, whether the soup in the pot was boiling, back and forth several times, the pot was always so calm, and when I turned back to the stove from the courtyard gate again, the soup had been tumbling and bulging, overflowing and flowing, covering most of the stove.
Artichoke soup (pictured above) is second only to soup in terms of simplicity. Artichoke is peeled and cut into pieces, the size is arbitrary, the amount is determined by the person, and the annual harvest in the field is determined. Artichoke pot under cold water, or boiling pot under water, can eventually rot, but cold water pot can save firewood.
The artichoke has not yet been boiled until it is soft and rotten, and the impatient person directly uses the back of the spoon to press and grind, beat the flour into a paste with cold water, or stir it into a flocculent shape, slowly and evenly sprinkle it into the pot, and use chopsticks to scratch it around, add salt, it is such a bowl of pure vegetarian rice, which can still fill all corners and crevices of the stomach.
I lived in Changji for about 15 days, and I ate out every day, and there were many kinds of flavorful snacks and special delicacies, which later became a kind of taste, namely monosodium glutamate and salt.
At that time, I especially wanted to drink a bowl of artichoke soup, and I had to drink it. I was looking for it all over the streets of Changji City, just to eat a bowl of potato soup. The restaurant dislikes eating a bowl of artichoke soup, and does not order any other meals, does not make money, and no one is willing to take the job.
My younger brother is at the most beautiful youth, and there are two or three or even three or four female college classmates who are still vying to call me big brother affectionately. Our family, for generations, has always fantasized and hoped that one day, we can change our family, gourds into melons, grapes on the rack, but no matter what kind of generation is cool, it can't compare to the grace of heaven and earth.
My younger brother said that the parents of a female college classmate of his opened a small restaurant, and he often went to eat, as if he had made artichoke soup, looking at the expression on his face, the tone of his voice, and some details and details that ordinary people are not easy to capture and detect, I feel that he has a relationship with her beyond ordinary people, not ordinary classmates. The village elders must tell their children two things before they leave for school. The first is to study hard Xi, return home as soon as possible, build your hometown, and serve the country;The second is not to live up to and waste the best years, and when you graduate, you must bring back a lifelong lover.
The small restaurant is really very small, four or five tables are placed neatly and straightly, through the glass you can see the bright kitchen in the back hall, the old floor tiles are rubbed with white light, I deliberately avoided the rush of eating when I entered, there are few guests in the restaurant, the little girl's parents are actually fellow villagers, the enthusiasm is abnormal, two people cook at the same time, not much effort, a large soup pot of artichoke soup is served on the table, and the two of them are sitting around me to watch me eat this soup. Consciously or unconsciously, they asked about my parents, age, health, what they mainly do, family status, how many children I have, and whether I have a building. I answered truthfully. I am an extremely sensitive and vicious person, and I can certainly feel their complacency and disappointment. A bowl of mixed soup, after eating, is simply bland and tasteless. I suspect that they used to farm the same land, and then they went to the city and opened a restaurant, thinking that they were real city people. After living in the building for a few years, I began to dislike the remote rustic atmosphere of my hometown and the dust of the old land. They seem to have thought of the long way forward in advance for their daughter's innocent feelings, not like-minded, but to be the right person. My daughter is always busy and doesn't say a word.
This bowl of mixed soup is really a battle of wits and courage, and I only stick to one point and tell the truth, because I have never lied since I was a child. My grandfather, who could only write his own name, and my father, who barely finished the fourth grade, often told us to settle down, tell the truth, and do honest things, and we always remember them. Walking out of the narrow door of the restaurant, I told my brother that I didn't have to deal with this little girl in the future, and that I had done a great thing for my parents at such a young age.
My father-in-law likes to sit with my father in front of the fire and sit on the south wall, smoking Mohe cigarettes together, one tearing cigarette paper, the other pinch tobacco, coughing at the same time or before and after, spitting smoke and phlegm on the ground, my mother-in-law can't read a few words more than my mother, she speaks straightforwardly, she is the most honest, and she is also easy to hurt. The younger brother had a happy marriage and a happy family, and gave birth to two lovely sons. Later, I heard that the girl who mixed the soup had a bumpy road before. Occasionally passing by that small restaurant in the middle of nowhere, I never stop or stop.
Qitai County, Xinjiang, has a famous snack called meat soup (pictured above), which is simple and delicious. The main materials are all available, and the accessories are essential for home. The method is extremely simple: mutton, artichoke, carrot diced, clear oil into the pot six or seven into the hot time to add mutton diced stir-fry, Xinjiang people stir-fry called "burned", mutton diced to the broken to add artichoke and carrot diced, continue to burn, then put in the broth, flour mixed with a little water to knead into a flocculent, sprinkled into the pot, sprinkled while stirring, the soup to the end is not thick or thin, add salt, green onion, pepper, pepper powder, monosodium glutamate, coriander, diced pepper. A bowl of meat soup is extremely simple, so that the heart and eyes feel extremely beautiful, the eyes are smooth, the heart is soft, and the body is warm up and down.
Qitai meat soup is spicy and delicious, sweating and refreshing, especially after drinking, drinking a bowl of fragrant meat soup, immediately feel hot and warm stomach, full of Tai, most of the wine sobers.
I ate two bowls of potato soup in the morning, my mother put a warm egg in my pocket, and I made a tragic journey to 600 meters and never returned, which was my first time away from home alone, and the earliest school in my life. I was short and thin, and I used to just lie on the windowsill and watch my peers sit in the classroom, envious. Today, I finally sat in the class as well, the only difference was that everyone else was a year younger than me. When I received the textbook, I was already hungry, and I was not hungry with potato soup. When I get home, I still have artichoke soup in a bowl. I took the bowl and prepared to take a closer look at my new book. I walked into the hall next door with a bowl from the kitchen. As soon as I entered the door, I saw my grandfather's textbook that was stroking **, and I seemed to remember that my grandfather once said that when he was a child, he could only stand at the door of the private school in his hometown, but he couldn't get in. I was angry that he messed up my new book. I lunged forward, grabbed his arm and tore him, and hit him in the stomach with my head again and again, and my parents couldn't stop me. Grandpa sat on the edge of the kang, and there was nowhere to dodge or dodge, but fortunately, there was always the edge of the kang and the support of the earthen kang, and he couldn't be pushed upside down. Pity the bowl of potato soup and spill it all over the ground.
I scolded my grandfather "Brother Tang" one after another, at that time people younger than him in the village called him like this, the children in the village fought to have a prelude to prepare and brew, always shouting each other's parents' names loudly, screaming, spitting on the ground, I kept shouting "Brother Tang", forgetting to spit and foaming, I always felt that it was not enough to be vicious.
The people in the village called his grandfather by his first name, and then as he grew older, he became Brother Tang, Uncle Tang, and Master Tang. A few years ago, I was always called Xiao Tang by others, and now at my age, when others began to call me Brother Tang, the day I was called Uncle Tang by others, I was shocked by this title, how did I become an uncle so quickly, it means that I have reached middle age, at least year by year, approaching middle age.
We, just like that, are careless, and we are old!
Author: Tang Xinyun.
Text: Tang Xinyun Picture: Tang Xinyun Editor: Qian Yutong Responsible Editor: Shu Ming.
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