Shaanxi Homemade Cuisine ~ Braised Ma Shi

There are no strict requirements for the ingredients of mashi; the more vegetables, the tastier. The types of vegetables are not fixed—use whatever you have at home, use whatever you like. You need to pay attention to controlling the amount of each vegetable; it should not be too much. But! Tomatoes are a must. Cut the tomatoes into pieces. Soybeans should be soaked in advance and cooked; if it's too troublesome, you can leave them out.

Cut the meat into cubes, any kind of meat will do, and chop the scallions, ginger, garlic, garlic shoots, and cilantro.

Cut the shiitake mushrooms, garlic shoots, green beans, and radishes into diced pieces.

Soak wood ear mushrooms, daylilies, and kelp in warm water until rehydrated, clean and cut into cubes. Thaw frozen tofu and cut into cubes. You can also use fresh tofu and dried tofu.

Wash the spinach and drain the water, then chop it.

Being lazy, I bought machine-made mashi (sesame rice cakes). Making it yourself is more reassuring. Here, most households usually have a special board for making mashi, or the brim of a straw hat, a rice serving spoon with grains, or you can also just use the cutting board directly. Smooth-surfaced mashi takes more time to cook. After the dough is kneaded, roll it into sheets about the thickness of a coin, cut them into small squares the size of a fingernail, then sprinkle a little dry flour on the object used for shaping the mashi. Fix it in place with one hand, and use your thumb with the other hand to slide down from top to bottom. In this way, a small and cute mashi comes out. It really wears out your thumbs; when I was little, I pressed too hard and ended up with a shiny big blister on my thumb, which made my parents very worried.

Heat a cold pan with oil, when the oil is half hot, add the diced meat. Do not stir immediately after adding it; wait for a minute or two before stirring with a spatula to prevent sticking.

Add a spoonful of cooking wine and a spoonful of dark soy sauce to remove the fishy smell and add color.

After stir-frying until fragrant, add the green onions, ginger, garlic, half of the garlic shoots, and cilantro, and stir-fry until aromatic.

Add the garlic shoots and diced shiitake mushrooms.

Add the green beans and diced radish, and stir-fry for two to three minutes.

Add the tomatoes.

Add oyster sauce and soy sauce.

Add the wood ear mushrooms, daylily, kelp, and frozen tofu, then add two spoonfuls of salt and one spoonful of chicken bouillon, and stir-fry for two to three minutes. If it's troublesome, you can put all the diced ingredients in at once.

Pour in water until it covers the ingredients, bring to a boil over high heat, then simmer over low heat until the vegetables are cooked.

Take another pot, add water, and when the water boils, add the maize flour dumplings, shaking them apart, otherwise they will stick together. Cook the dumplings until done, adding water twice in the process.

A steaming and bustling production scene.

Scoop the cooked ma shi into the vegetable pot. To let the ma shi absorb the flavor, stir well and cook for 5 minutes.

Add the spinach and blanch it until cooked.

After two minutes, the spinach is cooked. Add the remaining cilantro and garlic shoots, stir well, taste it, and add salt if the flavor is bland.

The main and auxiliary ingredients blend together, with a chewy yet smooth texture, including both noodles and vegetables, both dry and soupy, with color and flavor; when eaten, it feels lively in the mouth.

Pour some chili oil and farmhouse vinegar on it, and enjoy a big bowl deliciously, just chatting along.

You must make extra of this meal and reheat it for the second meal. As the saying goes: reheating ma-shi (a kind of dough food) three times is so good that you wouldn't trade it for meat.