Wen/Wang Lu (Chinese registered dietitian)
A wormwood is a perennial herb of the genus Asteraceae. Distributed in Asia and Europe. Wormwood is a kind of inconspicuous wild vegetation, like commoner in the countryside. Although this little green grass does not have the enchanting shape and bright colors, it exudes a leisurely and fresh breath. Perhaps it is its faint, quiet and slightly bitter smell, which is suitable for people to tell that little complicated mood.
Qingming food with mugwort, the youth group is attractive
Before and after the Qingming Festival is the time to eat “Ai”, the leaves of this season are fresh and tender Juicy, many places still retain the custom of making mugwort glutinous rice cake, mugwort ravioli, mugwort porridge, mugwort egg cake and other food customs.
If there is any food that can represent spring, it must be the Youth League. Qingtuan is a traditional snack in the south of the Yangtze River. In early spring, the street food stalls are lined with green and round Qingtuan. Before getting close, it seems to smell the slightly bitter smell of the fragrance of wormwood. A bite of this green dumpling is the taste of spring.
Qingtuan is a kind of glutinous rice snack that can be eaten cold. It is still soft and sweet after cooling down. Therefore, the ancients often used it as a staple food to satisfy their hunger during the Cold Food Festival when they could not cook rice on fire. One or two days after the Cold Food Festival is Qingming Festival. It is naturally convenient for people to worship ancestors, visit tombs, go out on green outings, and bring green groups to eat when they go out. Today, there is still a saying in our country that “Eat Ai during the Qingming Festival, there will be no disasters and no disasters”.
How to make green juice with mugwort leaves
The practice of Qingtuan seems to be simple. For example, Yuan Mei, a gourmet, introduced Qingtuan in the “Suiyuan Food List” with only a few words: “Pound the grass to make juice, and mix it with flour. When you make a dough ball, the color is like jasper.” In fact, it is not so easy to make a green, soft, glutinous, round, and delicious green ball. First of all, we must choose the freshest mugwort leaves before and after Qingming, so as to make a green juice with excellent green flavor; secondly, we must choose the glutinous rice that was freshly produced in that year, in order to grind the sweet glutinous rice flour and knead the softest skin; Make the filling according to personal taste. Traditional sweet fillings such as red bean paste and black sesame seeds; modern ones can be “inclusive of all rivers”, and both meat and vegetables can be used. Some people use ham, egg yolk, dried bamboo shoots, dried fragrant, shepherd’s purse, and malantou in the stuffing, and some people use lean pork with plum vegetables, bacon with mushrooms, and abalone and sea cucumber. In short, the savory Qingtuan stuffing is more diverse than the sweet stuffing, and the abundance and frugality vary from person to person.
The most difficult thing to make a youth group is to use argyi leaves Make green juice. The traditional production method requires multiple steps such as washing, blanching, draining, and adding lime water to soy, boiling, rinsing, and extracting juice. It is necessary to ensure that the astringency of mugwort leaves is removed and its natural fragrance is retained. Focus on proficiency in the craft. Once the temperature is not well controlled, or the time of making soy in lime water is wrong, the chlorophyll in the leaves will be decomposed and destroyed, the resulting green juice will not be so green, and the steamed green balls will naturally turn a little yellow and dark.
Nowadays, in industrial production, wheatgrass is often used instead of mugwort green juice to make green balls. On the one hand, it is because the wheatgrass is more convenient for mass production.more consumer friendly. Moreover, the production process is relatively simple, and there is no need to worry about high temperature destroying chlorophyll, which can ensure that the green balls are green in color and attractive in appearance. In addition to wheat grass, pre-processed mugwort powder or matcha powder are also commonly used options. The main purpose is also to reduce costs, obtain better color and taste, and make the finished product more popular with consumers.
However, both online and in-store sales of youth leagues , often use “Ai Ye original Juice Youth League” as a signboard for attracting customers, which shows that most people still think that the Youth League made from Ai Ye juice is the orthodox. Perhaps other “substitutes” that can provide green juice, such as wheatgrass, cannot restore the bitterness we expect from Qingtuan, nor can they provide the same health care effects of wormwood. Even the “Compendium of Materia Medica” has a sentence that encourages us to eat mugwort leaves in spring: “In the spring month, pick tender mugwort for vegetable food, or mix noodles and make wontons like marbles, swallow three or five pieces, and press them with rice to cure all ghosts and evil spirits. Take long clothes to stop cold dysentery.”
Pay attention to controlling the amount when eating Qingtuan< /span>
It should be noted that, regardless of the youth league How the filling varies, but the outer skin is always made of sticky rice. Due to the high content of amylopectin in glutinous rice, it is easily digested and absorbed by the human body, especially when eaten hot. For people with high blood sugar, you must pay attention to controlling the amount of green dumplings. It is appropriate to take 1 to 2 at a time. Eating too much is likely to cause blood sugar to spike. And it is recommended to eat it as a staple food, rather than using green balls as a snack after eating rice noodles and other staple foods. In addition, people who are worried about blood sugar problems can also choose Qingtuan with salty and fragrant stuffing.
In addition to mixing with glutinous rice to make green balls, mugwort leaves also have Many other ways to eat. For example, mugwort leaf juice and noodles are used to make mugwort mantou, and red beans are rolled to make mugwort red bean rolls. It can also be used to make jelly with mugwort juice, which is a good product to relieve the heat in summer.
Boiled eggs with mugwort leaves are best for women< /p>
Artemisia argyi is edible and can be used externally. The clinical application of argyi argyi is the best one that has been used for a long time. There is still a folk proverb that “there are three years of Ai in the family, and the husband does not use it”. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that mugwort has the functions of clearing away heat and detoxifying, regulating qi and blood, eliminating cold and dampness, warming the meridians, soothing the miscarriage, stopping bleeding, and relieving itching. The famous traditional Chinese medicine prescription Jiao Ai Siwu Decoction is composed of mugwort leaves, donkey-hide gelatin, angelica, and rehmannia glutinosa, which can treat women with menorrhagia and fetal bleeding. Aifu Nuangong Pills is a pill made of argyi leaves fried with charcoal, plus Cymbidium fragrans, Tuctus, Evodia, Astragalus, etc. It can treat women with irregular menstrual blood, dysmenorrhea, backache, and infertility due to cold in the uterus.
Ai ginger egg: 10 grams of mugwort leaves, 15 to 30 grams of ginger, 2 eggs. Put the mugwort leaves, ginger and shell eggs into an appropriate amount of water and cook them, remove the shells and take the eggs, put them back into the pot and cook for a while, remove the drug residues, season with salty or sweet, and drink the juice to eat the eggs. Women suffering from menstrual disorders and vaginal discharge can try it.
Amygdala hen soup:15 grams of fresh mugwort leaves, one old hen. Wash the old hen and cut it into pieces, put it in a casserole, add shredded ginger, boil it, and then add the mugwort leaves. You can see that the mugwort leaves are cooked. Cooking chicken with fresh mugwort leaves is not as bitter as the old mugwort, and it has a strong fragrance when eaten. This soup can be eaten in two or three times, suitable for women during menstruation. It is used for women who are incapable of taking blood and cause menorrhagia, palpitations, insomnia and dreaminess, and cold pain in the lower abdomen.
Ai Ye tofu dumplings:300 grams of mugwort leaves, appropriate amount of green onion, bean sprouts, tofu, and white noodles. Chop mugwort leaves, green onions, bean sprouts, and tofu, mix well, season with salt and monosodium glutamate to form stuffing; then wrap stuffing with dough into dumpling shape, steam or boil in pot. It can strengthen the spleen and appetizers and increase appetite.