Old Beijing Soy Sauce Pickled Vegetable Strips

Prepare the ingredients. For ‘gedatou’ pickles, you need to buy this type of watery ‘gedatou’. This type of watery ‘gedatou’ pickles is generally used for stir-frying, like stir-frying with shredded meat, or for the kind of braised pickles we are making today; there is another type that is drier, coated with coarse salt, which is generally used for shredding and mixing with sesame oil to eat. Don’t buy the wrong one.

Rinse the water gourd, first cut it into thin slices, then cut it into fine shreds.

Put the chopped salted vegetable strips into clean water and rinse several times, trying to wash away the saltiness and fermented taste of the vegetable strips. After cutting the knobby roots into strips and rinsing them twice, soak them in cold water overnight to effectively remove the saltiness and off-flavors from the salted vegetable strips.

Soak the shredded salted vegetables until they release their saltiness, then place them on a clean cloth, roll them up from one end, and then squeeze out the water forcefully. This method of spreading, rolling, and squeezing out the water is very effortless, much easier than squeezing by hand as usual. Friends can give it a try!

Place the drained salted vegetable shreds into a large bowl for later use. Looking at a small bowl of salted vegetable shreds, there isn't much left after squeezing out the water.

Prepare the auxiliary ingredients: cut the green onions into sections, rinse a handful of dried chili peppers slightly, slice the ginger into large pieces, smash the garlic, 3 star anise, 2 pieces of cinnamon, 80 grams of light soy sauce, 40 grams of rock sugar dark soy sauce, 20 grams of yellow wine, 40 grams of white sugar.

Heat oil in a pan. Pickled vegetables like oil, so put more cooking oil in the pan, then add scallions, ginger, garlic, cinnamon, star anise, and dried chili peppers to start stir-frying the spices. Fry until the scallion sections are slightly charred and the dry ingredients release their fragrance.

Add the well-drained salted vegetable shreds and stir-fry over low heat, trying to stir-fry until every shred is coated with oil.

After stir-frying evenly, drizzle in dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, and yellow wine, and stir-fry evenly.

After stir-frying evenly, add the white sugar and stir-fry over low heat again. Don't rush; slowly fry over low heat until the shredded pickles become glossy with oil. Using chopsticks to stir back and forth is more convenient than using a spatula.

The stir-fried shredded pickles are this bright red and oily; at this point, you can turn off the heat and serve them.

The stir-fried shredded pickles are placed in a bowl.

Put the stir-fried shredded pickles into a steamer, cover with a large plate to prevent water vapor from dripping onto the shredded pickles, and steam for 30 minutes after the steam comes. (You can also cover it tightly with plastic wrap)

Take out the steamed shredded pickles, and the aroma is really tantalizing! Sprinkle an appropriate amount of roasted sesame seeds to enhance the fragrance. After cooling, you can put them in the refrigerator for storage; keeping them for ten days to half a month is no problem.

Take out a little when eating, cut a few sprigs of cilantro and mix it slightly, it really whets the appetite and goes well with rice.

For this little pickled vegetable, Zerei's mom specially made a few small hollow baked buns.

In the morning, have a bowl of porridge, paired with a plate of richly flavored soy sauce pickled vegetable shreds – absolutely perfect~~~