How is Baoqing shredded ginger chili sauce made? Detailed technical tutorial

Baoqing is present-day Shaoyang, Hunan. People from Shaoyang love spicy food, so a famous dish from Shaoyang - Baoqing shredded ginger chili sauce - is both pungent and spicy, with an aroma rushing toward the face and refreshing the heart. Baoqing shredded ginger chili sauce has now spread across the country and is quite popular. Its production technique is introduced as follows:

1. Raw material preparation: 100 kg shredded ginger, 100 kg fresh red chili peppers, 34-36 kg salt, @#@245@#@36 kg, 12 kg soybeans, 12 kg glutinous rice. Before production, first cut the washed ginger blocks into shredded ginger and put them in the sun to dry for 1-3 days, evaporating 30% of the water.

2. Salt water preparation: first put 34-36 kg salt into a jar, then add 45-60 kg clean cold boiled water, so that it fully dissolves and clarifies. After filtering out the sediment, put it in the sun to dry for 6-7 days, so that most of the water evaporates, in order to increase the salt concentration.

3. Auxiliary material fermentation: remove impurities from the wheat and soybeans separately, wash them clean, soak the wheat for 12-14 hours, and soak the soybeans for 4-5 hours. After draining the water, steam them separately over high heat until cooked, spread them out to cool, then separately put them into a mold room and spread them 3 cm thick, allowing them to ferment naturally. The temperature should preferably be 28-32°C. After 2-3 days, when mycelium appears, open the windows briefly for ventilation and appropriately lower the room temperature. Generally at 25-26°C, after 6-7 days, the wheat and soybeans can fully ferment (as long as the mold is evenly distributed). The mold color is best when yellow or light yellow; white mold or yellow mold is relatively poor. At this point, put it outdoors to dry thoroughly, crush it, and use a winnowing machine to blow away mold ash and other debris, then mix the materials.

4. Mixing the sauce with shredded ginger: first pour the wheat into a basin, mix with salt water, then mix in the soybean powder evenly, and put it in the sun to expose for 3-5 days. Then wash the glutinous rice, steam it until cooked, and mix it into the wheat and soybean sauce according to the amount, continuing to expose it to the sun until the sauce is dark brown. It is best to sun-dry the sauce on sunny days in July-August; otherwise, many rainy days will affect the quality. After the initial sauce is sun-dried, take 100 kg of fully mature, all-red chili peppers, cut off the fruit stalks, wash and drain them, chop them, grind them into a paste, then mix them into the initial sauce together with the shredded ginger, and continue sun-drying the sauce.

5. Sauce sun exposure: after the mixed materials are added, continue exposing it to the sun. It must be sun-dried thoroughly and ripened, and stirred twice a day to prevent the color from turning black and reducing the flavor. At this time, if it rains, cover it tightly in time to prevent deterioration after soaking.

6. Standards for good sauce: dark red, glossy, with dark red oily juice appearing, fragrant and delicious odor, pungent and mildly spicy, with the minced ginger slightly salty and carrying sweetness.