This wild vegetable grows in February, is more fragrant than aloe leaves, and is a delicious treat in rural areas. Have you ever eaten it?
February is the season when many wild vegetables sprout, especially in the relatively warm southern regions, most wild vegetables have quietly emerged, attracting people to harvest. Among the spring wild vegetables, many can be eaten, but only a few are fondly remembered year after year.
Qingming Cakes are one of them. Whenever the Qingming Festival arrives, residents in the Yangtze River middle and lower reaches begin to look for this wild vegetable in the fields to make Qingming Festival must-eat Qingming Cakes, some places also call it green cake. It is a food made of glutinous rice flour and Qingming vegetables, not only delicious but also with ancient wisdom that responds to the weather. Eating Qingming Cakes is also a custom passed down from generation to generation.
Although it's still far from Qingming Festival, Qingming vegetables have already emerged at this time, at this time the Qingming vegetables are the most tender, some flower buds have not yet grown out, the stems and leaves are relatively tender, the Qingming cakes made are very delicious. It is best to go out in the morning to harvest, just pinch off the most tender tips, don't worry about wasting, because Qingming vegetables are really everywhere in the wild, in fields, on ridges, at the foot of the mountains, behind houses.
After bringing back the Qingming vegetables, wash them clean, cook them in a pot to soften, then chop them up and mix them with glutinous rice flour. Roll them into small pouches, inside you can put sugar, fried sesame seeds, this is a sweet filling, and the salty filling is the practice in the Jiangxi and Zhejiang areas, the filling is mainly with pork belly and preserved plums, which is very fragrant. Now eating Qingming Cakes is not for other reasons, just to satisfy your cravings. If you have the conditions, you can try to make it yourself.

Qingming vegetables have a long growth period, until the real Qingming Festival comes, most of the Qingming vegetables have bloomed flowers, at this time the Qingming vegetables are very old, but they can still make Qingming cakes, using its juice. The flowers and leaves are put into the pot to boil open, cutting it into fine pieces is the best, then use a gauze to filter the juice, after cooling it is used as water to make dough.
This method is mainly to use the juice for dyeing, since the flowers of Qingming vegetables are yellow, it will also make the glutinous rice flour have a yellow-green color, but the texture is heavier than that of Qingming vegetables in February, mainly because at this time the Qingming vegetables are not tender and not so sweet, but there is a slight bitterness. However, for the elderly, they prefer Qingming cakes with a slight bitterness because they have a cooling effect.

Eryang (Eryang is a type of herb) can also make Qingming Cakes, northerners like to use Eryang, relatively speaking, the taste of Eryang is bitter and astringent, and the grassy aroma is strong, many people don't like the taste of Eryang. And for first-time Qingming cake makers, it's difficult to grasp how much Eryang to use, if you use too much, you can't eat it.
Qingming Cakes made with Qingming vegetables usually don't have this worry, it's just a difference in the aroma, whether it's more or less is not a big impact on the taste, it's easy for beginners to learn. In the Jiangxi and Zhejiang areas, Jiangxi, Fujian, Guangdong, people prefer to use Qingming vegetables to make Qingming cakes. In fact, Qingming cakes can also be made with other green leafy vegetables, such as using spinach juice to dye, which is very convenient. If you can't find Qingming vegetables or don't want to go out, you can consider using vegetable juice to make it, and eat something new.

