Dragon Boat Festival on the tip of the tongue = childhood memories, nostalgic version of salted duck eggs

Overview

The annual Dragon Boat Festival is coming soon. Zongzi are everywhere in the streets and alleys; what I feel is a strong commercial atmosphere; not a festive atmosphere. Today's Dragon Boat Festival is not just a holiday for us, but the family gathers together to have a reunion dinner and taste various delicious rice dumplings and salted duck eggs. It is difficult to appreciate the rich meaning of this traditional festival, to taste the unique flavor of the Dragon Boat Festival and the passionate memories of the Dragon Boat Festival in childhood. In my childhood memory, apart from the Spring Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival is the most lively. As soon as the Dragon Boat Festival comes, every household puts mugwort in front of the door, and children often pray to ward off evil spirits and bad luck. But when can I eat fragrant rice dumplings and salted duck eggs? Although the rice dumplings during the Dragon Boat Festival are delicious, my favorite is the salted duck egg. I am also most concerned about when my mother pickles salted duck eggs every year. When I was a child, I picked duck eggs - packed duck eggs - hung duck eggs during the Dragon Boat Festival; what a happy and joyful day. Traditional customs are memories that every peer who has experienced them will never forget. I still remember eating salted duck eggs when I was a child. At that time, salted duck eggs were both for eating and playing with. When my mother was busy, I followed her like a little follower. Waiting for my mother to use the remaining threads from knitting sweaters to weave a small mesh bag. There is a salted duck egg hanging on the chest. The salted duck egg is placed in a beautiful little mesh bag, which is very conspicuous. This custom of hanging eggs continues from the beginning of summer to the Mid-Autumn Festival. I took the mesh bag prepared by my mother and went to school to compete with my classmates to see whose salted duck eggs were the hardest. Every time a person won, they would be extremely happy and show off their ability to make salted duck eggs everywhere. Usually the hardest salted duck eggs would be reluctant to eat. What a childlike and fun way to play, the duck egg has played its best role in my hands!

Tags

• snacks
• home cooking
• old man
• dragon boat festival
• spring recipes
• liquor
• yellow mud
• black tea
• duck eggs
• salt

Ingredients

Steps

1. 1 My mother will carefully select fresh duck eggs before pickling them; good quality duck eggs have smooth shells with no cracks and are slightly green in color. Wash and dry the jars before use.

   

2. 2 Pickling salted duck eggs during the Dragon Boat Festival, it’s already the beginning of summer, and mosquito activity is rampant. Housewives do a good job of protecting the "safety" of duck eggs. Duck eggs, like soft-shell turtles, are most afraid of mosquito bites. Once bitten by mosquitoes, the eggs will deteriorate and become smelly. Fresh duck eggs will have feces on them. Rinse the duck eggs with running water. Do not soak them in water. After washing, take them out to dry, then wipe them with a clean rag and set aside.

   

3. 3 As the old saying goes: a duck egg costs two cents of salt. Yellow mud pickled eggs usually require one pound of salt for one pound of eggs, and one pound of salt for 10 pounds of eggs.

   

4. 4 Add water to the black tea and boil it over high heat to produce a strong tea juice. [This is my mother’s recipe. The pickled salted duck eggs have a fresh tea aroma. 】

   

5. 5 Boil a kettle of water; pour into a bowl and stir in the salt until dissolved.

   

6. 6 The current yellow mud is difficult to get rid of. This kind of hard work can only be done by labor bosses. I brought back a lot of it~ My mother dried the yellow mud and soaked it in water to settle, and then removed the coarse sand and impurities mixed in the mud. Prepare more yellow mud, but not much will be left after removing the coarse sand and impurities.

   

7. 7 Pound the dried yellow mud pieces into yellow mud, pour the dissolved salt water into the yellow mud, and stir it into loess mud. The amount of salt must be controlled carefully, otherwise the duck eggs will either be too salty, too bland or even spoiled. The ratio of yellow mud and table salt was figured out by my mother after years of practice.

   

8. 8 Be sure to add a high degree of white wine, my mother put Erguotou, because white wine can accelerate the coagulation of the protein in the egg and squeeze out the oil in the egg yolk. Moreover, adding white wine during the pickling process is the key to making the salted duck eggs produce oil; it can also add flavor to the salted duck eggs.

   

9. 9 Remove the tea leaves from the boiled black tea water, cool it and put it into the yellow mud.

   

10. 10 After pouring high-strength white wine, boiled black tea and soaked salt water into the yellow mud, start stirring and make sure the mud has a moderate consistency. If the yellow mud is too hard, soak it first and then stir it into a paste easily.

    

11. 11 After the mud is mixed, check the thickness of the mud; if the mud is too thick, it will be unevenly applied to the duck egg shell; if it is too thin, it will not stick to the egg shell. First put the fresh duck eggs into the mud. The state in the picture is that half of the eggs sink into the mud and the other half is exposed on the mud surface, indicating that the prepared mud has a suitable consistency. It may seem too thick, but in fact it is just right to stir the mud that settles below evenly.

    

12. 12 Roll the dried duck eggs in yellow mud; evenly dip and coat them with a layer of yellow mud; wrap each fresh duck egg tightly to make it airtight. Carefully put it into the jar, stacking layers to avoid breaking the duck eggs. Put all the duck eggs into the jar, pour the remaining yellow mud into the jar to cover the duck eggs, and gently smooth them with your hands to isolate the duck eggs from the air.

    

13. 13 After the duck eggs are sealed with yellow mud, a layer of bag is placed on top to seal them more tightly. Cover with a wooden lid and store in a cool place.

    

14. 14 After closing the lid, write the date of pickling the salted duck eggs to prevent forgetting the time.

    

15. 15 After a month; the salt seeps in and the water seeps out, and the inherent salt taste and flavor of the duck eggs change. The charm of salted duck eggs comes from the yolk, the fat separated by salting, which gathers to form a fragrant egg butter. Salted egg yolk has a unique texture that is both dense, sandy, and soft, and has a special magical flavor that cannot be replicated from my mother's taste.