Wang Zengqi: Yellow Beans
People used to eat soybean leaves in ancient times, and the cooking method was to make a porridge. Later, no one ate them, and there was no record of anyone eating chilled soybean leaves, stir-fried soybean leaves, or soybean soup.
In our area, in summer, every family would eat fried mung beans several times, with chili peppers. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, mung beans were boiled to offer to the moon, with the pods. My father would make a special mung bean dish: the mung beans were peeled and cooked with small green peppers (not cut), with soy sauce and sugar, and the broth was collected after the beans were cooked. The mixture was spread on a sieve to dry until half-dry, then put into a small jar. It was very good with wine, and could be eaten for several days.
In Beijing's small taverns, salt water boiled mung beans. Some taverns boiled the whole pods, and the guests would pick them out to eat by hand, which was said to be more fragrant than putting them in a dish.
Soybean leaves are very good. Young soybean heads are slightly scalded in hot water, and then drained. They are chopped finely and mixed with salt; mung beans cooked with salt and mixed with fragrant soybean leaves, and left to cool. They are stored in a glass bottle and eaten the next day.
Beijingers enjoy stir-fried tofu with a dozen different condiments, such as sliced cucumbers, radishes, green onions… and a small amount of mung beans or green beans. Meat minced meat (not bought from a side stall) is stir-fried with mung beans, which goes well together.
Beijingers stir-fry fluffy tofu and put several young soybean leaves in it, which sprout a little.
Thirty years ago, the Dongxiang Village in Beijing sold dried soybean leaves to accompany tea. This bean may not be dried, but with fennel, cooked with light salt and left to dry, the skin is slightly wrinkled, not soft nor hard, with a bite. Now it's gone, probably because it's difficult to make a profit.
Jiangyin produces 'powdered salt bean.' I don't know how to make the mung beans so big, up to half an inch long, and cooked with salt. The beans don't shrink, and the skin turns white and crumbly. It can be chewed into fine powder, hence the name 'powdered salt bean.' The taste is very delicious, far surpassing peanuts. Eating powdered salt beans and drinking baijiu (white wine) go very well together. I didn't drink alcohol when I was young, just drinking boiled water. On Sunday, I sat in the self-study room, drinking water, eating beans, and reading the lyrics of Li Qing Zhao and Jin Yi Fei.
I studied at Jiangyin Nancheng Middle School for two years. On Sundays, I mostly spent it in this way. The previous year I went to Jiangyin to find my dream, and asked my classmates about powdered salt beans. Now they are gone.
In the past, Dongxiang Village and Gui Xiang Village sold bamboo shoots to accompany tea. Yellow mung beans and chopped bamboo shoots were cooked with soy sauce and sugar. Now it's not often seen.
During three years of natural disasters, there was a little consideration for level 16 cadres, and a few kilograms of mung beans and a kilogram of sugar were distributed each month, called 'sugar bean cadres.' I used the method of cooking with bamboo shoots to cook it, without bamboo shoots, I added a little enoki mushrooms. Enoki mushrooms I picked in Zhangjiakou's grasslands and dried. I made enoki mushroom soup and gave it to Huang Yong Yu. Yong Yu's son, Black Man, wrote in his diary: 'Mung beans are not good things, but Mr. Wang can make them delicious. Mr. Wang is great!'
Stir-fried soybean seedlings should be cooked with sweet and sour sauce.
Yellow bean sprouts are very flavorful when made into broth. In the southern vegetarian restaurants and temples selling vegetarian food, yellow bean sprout soup is used to extract flavor. A veteran store manager in a temple suspected that the soup contained shrimp packets and went to the kitchen to check. There was a large pot of yellow bean sprouts and the aroma of shiitake mushroom broth. Yellow bean sprouts added to rice are delicious. This flavor is not understood by northerners.
