Taiping Yugou is located in Xi’an, belonging to the national forest park. The air environment here is very beautiful, and the nature protection is also very close, allowing you to maintain a good mood on vacation. Below is a travel guide for Taiping Yugou.
During the “March 3rd” ancient festival in Taiping Yugou, it was crowded with people. At noon, people were hungry and thirsty, which was really uncomfortable. So a friend of mine took me to the home of his acquaintance, a friend surnamed Dang in Yugou, to eat “jiang shui jiao tuan” (a kind of porridge made with corn flour). It quenched our thirst and satisfied our cravings!
Jiao tuan is one of the main foods of farmers in the Guanzhong region. It is also called “hong shang po,” which implies that it is not filling. There are many ways to eat jiao tuan, and the way you eat it is very important. People who don’t know how to eat it often make mistakes.
The traditional way to make jiao tuan is to use corn flour as the main ingredient, mix it with alkali water into a paste, pour it into a pot of boiling water, and let it boil. After boiling, open the pot, hold a wooden spoon with one hand and keep stirring in one direction, while using the other hand to grab a handful of corn flour and sprinkle it evenly into the pot. Stir while sprinkling corn flour until the mixture is evenly thick. Use a spoon to scoop up a spoonful, lift it up, and pour it back into the pot to see if it is transparent in a gel-like form. If it is transparent, use a bowl to scoop some cold water and swirl it around the inside of the pot. Cover the pot, simmer over low heat, and simmer for a while before serving.
Making jiao tuan is easier said than done. The difficulty lies in: firstly, the stirring. As the saying goes, “To make good jiao tuan, you need to stir 360 times.” This shows that the stirring method is very important and requires skill. Also, always stir in one direction. This way, the cooked jiao tuan (colloid) will be chewy and sticky, making it refreshing and smooth to eat. Secondly, the difficulty lies in controlling the thickness. People who have eaten jiao tuan basically know the joke “A clueless girl making jiao tuan.” This refers to the fact that a clueless girl can’t control the thickness. If it’s too thin, she’ll sprinkle flour, and if it’s too thick, she’ll add water. As a result, the pot overflows, and the clueless girl is scared and shouts for her mother. Her mother is angry and says, “If I hadn’t been sewing a quilt and trapped myself inside, you would have been beaten today.” This is actually a process of accumulating experience. Thirdly, the difficulty lies in controlling the heat. Boil over high heat, stir over high heat, and then simmer over low heat. Avoid high heat to prevent scorching.
There are many ways to eat jiao tuan, but the common point is that you don’t need to chew it. There are two types of jiao tuan soup: with soup and without soup. The soup with flavor is divided into two categories: “jiang shui” (alkali water) soup and vinegar soup. The soup without flavor is generally mixed with vegetables and eaten.
The way you eat jiao tuan soup is very important. Authentic jiao tuan soup has a strong flavor that doesn’t easily fade. A skilled eater can still have clear soup after eating three or four bowls of jiao tuan, only the flavor of the soup is slightly lighter. An unskilled eater will end up with a mixed soup after eating one bowl.
If you want to eat “liang yu” (cold fish) in hot weather, you can show off the chewiness of jiao tuan. The longer the “liang yu” is, the better the jiao tuan is!
To get back to the point, the jiao tuan made by the Dang family is a masterpiece! I’m almost 50, and I consider myself an “expert in eating jiao tuan.” After three bowls, I sighed, “Delicious, delicious, so delicious!” I looked at my friend and smiled knowingly, “Take a breath, let’s keep eating.” A bowl of bright red soup, with half-inch long pieces of fragrant chives, large pieces of oil-fried chili peppers, and golden chili seeds floating in the bowl. The jiao tuan lying in the center of the bowl looked like a white rabbit, so cute and tempting!
The key to the special flavor of the Dang family jiao tuan is that it gets chewier and smoother the more you eat it. It’s just the right texture, unlike jiao tuan from other places, which becomes hard and grainy by the end, making it difficult to swallow.
Leaving the Dang family’s courtyard, I was once again surrounded by people. My stomach was full, and I walked with difficulty. My mouth savored the flavor of the chili oil, my stomach churned, and a wave of jiao tuan fragrance came up. I savored it slowly.
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