Take a bite of a spring delicacy - "Qingtuan"

There are thousands of delicacies in the world, but there is such a delicacy that will make you so addicted, I believe that only after you take a bite will you know the truth.

After a while, it will be the annual Qingming Festival in China.  "Qingming" is both a natural solar term and a traditional festival. On this day, people usually go to visit tombs to worship their ancestors or go out on a green outing. Whether it is a sacrifice or a green outing, the most essential snack is the Qingtuan.

Qingtuan is a traditional snack eaten on Qingming Festival. It is sweet but not greasy, fragrant and delicious.  Its raw material "wormwood" has the functions of dehumidification and expelling cold, so it is good for our body to eat some green balls properly on Qingming Festival.

[Ingredient preparation] 

Spinach, 

salt, flour, 

sugar, lard, 

wheat starch, 

food oil

1. Wash the spinach

The best raw material for making Qingtuan is wormwood, but we don't have wormwood here, so we use spinach instead.  Spinach is a green vegetable with very high nutritional value, so it is no problem to replace wormwood with spinach, and the preparation method is similar.  

First, we wash the spinach, put it into a large basin, add an appropriate amount of water, then add a spoonful of sterilized edible salt to the water, and then soak it for about 1 minute to soak out the dust and impurities in the spinach.  .  After soaking for 1 minute, gently rub and wash with your hands, and then use water twice again.

2. Boiled spinach

Then we put the cleaned spinach on the chopping board, use a knife to remove the roots of the spinach, and then cut the remaining part into long sections.  

The root of spinach is a relatively sweet part. Usually, the root can be reserved when eating directly as a vegetable, but now in order to make the color and taste of the green ball more pure, we better cut it off.  After the spinach is cut into long pieces, put it into boiling water, and let's blanch it.  

Because spinach contains a substance called "oxalic acid", which is harmful to our body's absorption, so spinach must be blanched before cooking.  Blanch the spinach in boiling water for one to two minutes, and then we can remove the spinach.

3. Squeeze Spinach Juice

After the spinach is taken out, we put it directly into the blender. If there is a wall breaker or a juicer at home, it will be better, and the spinach juice will be more delicate.  When juicing, we can add a little water, which will allow us to squeeze more spinach juice.  

If you have a friend who uses a blender like me, you should pay special attention to it, and stop it every 10 seconds or so, otherwise the motor will overheat and the blender will stop working.  After juicing, we strain the spinach juice into a bowl and set aside.

4. Knead the Dough

Next, we will prepare a large bowl, pour 500 grams of flour, and then add an appropriate amount of sugar (subject to personal taste), then stir them evenly with chopsticks, slowly pour in the spinach juice while stirring, and keep stirring  until the flour becomes batter.  

Then add about 50 grams of lard, and then we can start kneading the dough, keep kneading the dough into a smooth and non-sticky dough, forming a three-light state of face light, pot light, and hand light, and then put it aside for standby  .

Then we added 100 grams of wheat starch to another bowl, then poured a small amount of hot water (about 100°C), slowly poured the water while stirring with chopsticks, and kept stirring it until it became doughy, and then we started  Knead it into a dough and knead the dough until smooth.  

Then knead it together with the spinach dough just now, so that they are evenly mixed together, add the starch dough, and the resulting green dough will be more elastic, soft, glutinous and non-sticky.

5. knead the green ball

After the starch dough and spinach dough are kneaded, we take out a small piece of dough, the size is determined by the size of the green dough you want, round it like a glutinous rice ball, then put it in the palm of your hand and press it firmly.  

Then pinch it into the shape of a small bowl, don't pinch it too thin, just a little thickness.  Then we put the filling in, this time I prepared sesame and peanut filling, you can also prepare your own filling, like bean paste filling is a good choice.  

After putting the filling, use the tiger's mouth position on our hand to round it up, wrap the filling completely, and then seal it tightly, so as not to let the filling leak out, finally squeeze it, press it, and then  Give it a rub, and our green balls are ready.

6. Steamed Youth League

After the water in the steamer is boiled, put all the green dumplings just made on the steamer, place them evenly at intervals, then cover the lid and steam for about 8 minutes on high heat.  

When the time is up, we open the lid, the green balls are already steamed, and the fragrance wafts from the pot, which is healing and attractive.  Finally, we brush a layer of food oil on each dumpling, and the steaming green dumplings are ready to serve.  

Qingtuan Bombs, soft and glutinous, I couldn't help but take a big bite. I took a bite and it was full of fillings. The taste was sweet and not sticky to my teeth. It was really delicious!  If we can't eat it all at once, we can wrap the green balls in plastic wrap so that we can eat them for a few more days.

Oh, I'm so hungry now, I just want to eat the fragrant and delicious "Qingtuan" as soon as possible.