slack farmer in the wasteland

Chapter 348 New Year's Eve Dinner

The New Year's Eve dinner is really very important to the Chinese people. It can be said that it is almost a custom in the blood of the Chinese people to gather around the table for a reunion dinner on New Year's Eve.

Regardless of the distance between the north and the south, the family will always reunite and sit together as much as possible on this day. While tasting delicious food, they can not only reward the hard work of the past year, but also share the blood relationship.This is not just a custom but the core of Chinese culture.

Cang Hai's family's New Year's Eve dinner is naturally extremely rich, with everything from chicken, duck to fish, vegetables and fruits.

Of course, there are three outsiders in the family, so Fang Wu came after Qi Yue, which is understandable.

But the two old men, Qu Guowei and Xu Sheng, did not go back to their home for the New Year, which made the people in the village a little confused, but no one would ask that.

As for Cang Hai, he doesn't even know how to ask, that's his family's business, and Cang Hai has no interest in inquiring, anyway, Cang Hai is busy.

"What should we do with these things?" Qi Yue now has a look of excitement on her face. In the past, their house was not so lively during the Chinese New Year. The New Year's Eve dinner was the usual ones, but it was more grand than usual. It's not like Canghai here. Here and there, the whole village is barking like dogs, and it seems that there is a breath of New Year in the air.

Cang Hai turned his head and took a look, just about to open his mouth to ask Ping An to do it, when the words came to his mouth, he remembered that today is New Year's Eve, no matter how good Ping An is at his home, this kid has to go back to his home to work on the New Year's Eve dinner.

"Nobody kills chickens?" Cang Hai asked.

Qi Yue looked around and said, "I don't know how to do it anyway!"

"I didn't count on you either!" After speaking, Cang Hai turned his gaze to Fang Wu.

When Fang Wu heard this, he waved his hands quickly: "I can't do this job, but I'm happy to do the job of pulling hair after killing it."

Hearing what Fang Wu said, Cang Hai flicked the water from his hand twice, wiped it on the apron in front of him, picked up a kitchen knife, and walked towards the kitchen door where the chickens, ducks and geese were tied up. past.

"Bring me three empty bowls!"

Cang Hai brought out the chicken first, the big rooster in its early [-] jins is the time to taste good, this year it will present a plate of braised chicken on the New Year's Eve dinner table.

Qi Yue heard Cang Hai's words and immediately followed Cang Hai with a small bowl.

When Qi Yue got outside, Cang Hai had already grabbed the wings of the chicken with one hand while holding the neck of the chicken upside down in his hand, and began to pluck the feathers on the neck of the chicken with the other hand.

Waiting for a gap where the skin could be seen to come out of the chicken's neck, Cang Hai grabbed the knife placed at his feet, and wiped it directly on the chicken's neck, and immediately heard the chicken struggling violently.

Cang Hai threw away the knife in his hand, and controlled the chicken with both hands: "Where's the bowl!"

After waiting for a second before the bowl arrived, she turned her head and saw Qi Yue standing behind her with her teeth bared in a daze, then Cang Hai said, "What are you doing in a daze, I'm not wiping your neck, hurry up and give me the bowl bring here!"

"Oh!"

Qi Yue came back to his senses and quickly passed the bowl in his hand to Cang Hai. Cang Hai instantly aimed the bleeding hole in the chicken's neck at the bowl, and soon half of the bowl was full of chicken blood.

Seeing that there was no more blood coming out of the chicken's neck, Cang Hai shook the chicken twice, and then threw the chicken out of his hands. The blood-drained chicken flopped a few times on the bloody ground and remained motionless.

The chicken stopped moving, Cang Hai turned his head and picked up the duck again. In this way, the duck was also slaughtered, and then the big geese. It took less than 10 minutes to slaughter the three.

"If you were put into ancient times, you could be an executioner." Qi Yue watched Cang Hai kill three birds in a row, and subconsciously touched his neck. When he saw the knife rubbing the chicken's neck, Qi Yue felt a hair on his back.

"Killing a chicken and duck will make you an executioner? Hurry up and don't dawdle, help me pick up the chicken and duck, and you and Fang Wu will pluck the hair," Cang Hai said.

Qi Yue held the duck in one hand and the chicken in the other: "Then what are you doing?"

"Is there anything else I can do?" Cang Hai rolled his eyes and bent down, picked up the goose's neck and walked into the kitchen.

When they arrived at the kitchen, the hot water in the cauldron had already boiled, Cang Hai threw the goose into the wooden basin, and then scooped up a ladle of water and poured it on the goose in the basin.

"Quickly dial, dial it cleanly, everyone will eat by themselves at night." Cang Hai dropped a sentence, and stood back on the pot.

In addition to the pot for boiling water, the pot on the stove is now steaming the standard chicken. Although this thing is called standard chicken, it has nothing to do with chicken. The main ingredients are meat and yam. Spread the battered meat on the venetian leaves, and spread the yam paste on top, and steam it in a pan, which is called standard chicken. This is a delicacy of the Jiangbei generation. Usually this thing is troublesome to make. Cang Hai doesn't really want to do it, but today is the New Year's Eve. If you don't show your skills now, when will you show it?

In addition to the steamed standard chicken, Cang Hai's specialty dish: Boiled Chicken is also cooked in the small pot.

Seeing that the water in the pot was already boiling, Cang Hai lifted the lid of the pot and took the chopsticks and gently inserted it into the chicken. Seeing that the chopsticks sank into the chicken easily, he knew that the chicken was cooked, so he stretched out his hand to remove the chicken. The chicken is taken out of the pot, and the fish taken out is directly immersed in ice water, so that the chicken will be more delicious and firm.

Take out the chicken, and the steamed standard chicken on the pot is ready, Cang Hai is busy putting the steamer aside again, put it on the table, uncover the steamer to let the steamed standard chicken in the cage cool down, only to wait The standard chicken can be sliced ​​and cooked when it has cooled down.

After finishing all the work, Cang Hai took a look and asked, "Is there anything I can do?"

"Don't rush to fry the dishes, it's only past four o'clock." Xu Xiaomin looked up at Cang Hai and said.

Cang Hai looked at the clock hanging on the wall, and found that it was only 04:30, it was a bit too early for cooking, and when he wanted to cook, he found that Fang Wu Qiyue hadn't turned the hair off yet.

After thinking for a while, Cang Hai took out the boiled beef jerky, preserved eggs, salted duck eggs, etc., and began to prepare cold dishes for the evening.

Qi Yue saw it and immediately stood up: "I'll do it!"

"Pluck your hair honestly, do you want to do this?" Cang Hai said to Qi Yue.

Qi Yue said: "I don't do this, it smells too much."

Qi Yue doesn't like to pluck the feathers, because when the dry water is scalded on the chickens and ducks, it will give off a disgusting smell, and she almost vomited at Qi Yue. Now that she sees an easier job, she naturally wants to change it. type of work.

Seeing Qi Yue's appearance, Cang Hai could only nod his head: "Go and wash your hands well!"

Shi Wei saw that Qi Yue didn't want to do the work of plucking hair, so she shook the sharpened edamame in front of her and found that it was almost on a plate, so she said to Cang Hai: "Cook the edamame first, I'll do the plucking."

Seeing this, Cang Hai had to take out the hand that was about to reach into the basin, took the edamame and began to wash the edamame. After the edamame was washed, he added salt, star anise and Chinese pepper to cook the edamame in salt water. An excellent accompaniment to wine.

Waiting for the edamame to be put into the pot, Cang Hai knelt down again to help Fang Wu and Shi Wei pluck the feathers together. The three of them quickly took care of the chickens and geese.

Cang Hai picked up the duck and went to the faucet to carefully wash the duck, and took out the excess fluff on the duck with a clip.

"Yo, it's so lively."

At this time, Zhang Jiusheng pushed open the door curtain and walked in, seeing five or six people squatting in the kitchen of Cang Hai's house, he immediately said with a smile.

Cang Hai turned his head and saw that Zhang Jiusheng was carrying a huge basket on his back. The basket was covered with cloth, so he couldn't see what was half-filled inside.

"This is for you, they are all semi-finished products," Zhang Jiusheng said.

"I have everything at home, what are you doing with the gift, keep it for yourself?" Shi Wei stood up, shook her hand and said politely.

Zhang Jiusheng said with a smile: "You don't have this at home. They are all seafood. I will let the kitchen handle what I can handle. If you can't handle it, you can find a way to get it yourself."

Shi Wei took the basket, opened it, and found that there were two big guys on the top, one was a big crab like a small pot lid, and there were countless thorns growing on the crab shell, the crab was still alive, and was vomiting. with small bubbles.There is also a big lobster with a green shell, which weighs about four or five catties.As for what was placed below, Shi Wei didn't notice at all.

"None of us can do this!" Shi Wei scratched her head when she saw the big lobster and king crab.

"This is simple, I'll send you the method of how to do it on your phone later! The remaining yellow croakers and everything are all burnt, you just need to add some dishes and cook them until they are cooked, and they will be cooked when the vegetables are cooked. Alright, I won't tell you any more, I have to see you off!" Zhang Jiusheng said.

After hearing this, Cang Hai asked, "How much did you buy?"

"Not many, one Australian dragon and one king crab in each family, let's enjoy the Chinese New Year and have a taste of seafood." Zhang Jiusheng opened the curtain and walked out.

"Hey! Shi Wei, I think we should also call the family of three uncles and three aunts over, so many things are really..." Cang Hai didn't know what to say.

Lobsters and king crabs must be eaten. If they are left overnight, they will die.

The whole family can't eat the dishes prepared now, and now there are two more hard dishes, so there will be more leftovers.

"Then call it yourself!" Shi Wei said.

After hearing this, Cang Hai went out, turned to the door of the third uncle's kiln, stretched his head to look inside and found no one in the kiln, went to the kitchen and saw that there was no fire in the house, and immediately understood that the third uncle's family must be a fire tonight. Having a New Year's Eve dinner with someone else's family, you don't even need to ask Cang Hai to know that it was with Wei Wenkui's family.

I ran to Uncle Wei's house at the foot of the slope and saw that not only the third uncle's family, but also the uncle's family of five were also at Wei Wenkui's house. The three families got together and just sat a big round table.

It's not easy for Cang Hai to be called the third uncle's family now, and besides, the dishes there are also full of bowls and bowls, so he had to chat for a few words before turning back home.

"what's wrong?"

Cang Hai replied: "They are all at Uncle Wei's house, they happen to be at the same table, let's deal with it ourselves."

After speaking, he saw Mr. Xu Sheng playing with lobsters, so he asked, "You know how to do this?"

Xu Sheng laughed and said, "It turns out that there are things you don't know how to do!"

"I've stayed in a small restaurant before. Such a noble thing can only eat the money of a month's part-time job. How can I make such a thing?" Cang Hai laughed.

Xu Sheng said: "Then stand aside, kid, and I'll show you a hand!"

After finishing speaking, Mr. Xu picked up two pieces of cloth and put one on the head of the shrimp and the other on the tail of the shrimp. Together with Mr. Qu Guowei, he straightened the shrimp hard.

"This kind of shrimp must be urinated before cooking. If you don't urinate, the shrimp will smell like urine when it is cooked..." Mr. Xu Sheng said while pulling.

After a while, Cang Hai saw a puff of water coming out from under the shrimp's belly.

"I'll go, I really don't know," Cang Hai said.

Taking advantage of Mr. Xu Sheng's skill in rectifying, Cang Hai secretly learned from the sidelines. Not to mention, Mr. Xu really has a good way of rectifying lobsters. His movements are like flowing water. To have such skills.

"You always seem to be really rich, do you want to eat this stuff often?" Cang Hai joked.

"You kid can't afford it?" Xu Sheng said to Cang Hai.

"Hey!" Cang Hai smiled.

Xu Sheng finished processing the lobsters and steamed them in Canghai's wok, and then processed the king crabs. Waiting for Zhang Jiusheng's recipe for treating shrimps and whole crabs to come, Canghai's two dishes were put in the steamer in the morning.

After the shrimps were put into the pot, Cang Hai set up the pot to cook big dishes, such as old duck bamboo shoots, braised goose, and so on.

After the big dishes are finished, there are a few small stir-fries. When the soup in the pot is cooked, everyone starts to set the table to eat.

This meal could not be eaten in the kitchen. The big round table was placed in the center of the living room. The room was as warm as spring. There was a whole table full of dishes on the big round table.

As soon as he sat down, there was a burst of firecrackers outside, Cang Hai slapped his legs: "I almost forgot about this, set off firecrackers!"

I haven't celebrated the New Year in the countryside for more than ten years, and cannons cannot be set off during the New Year in the city. If I didn't hear other people's homes set off cannons, Cang Hai would have forgotten this custom.

Hastily took a bunch of firecrackers lit and threw them outside, a thousand red firecrackers exploded in front of Canghai's kiln with flames.

Accompanied by the sound of crackling firecrackers, Cang Hai raised his cup of wine and said to everyone on the table: "Everyone raise your glasses! Let's celebrate New Year's Eve together!"

"Happy New Year's Eve!"

Everyone raised their cups one after another.

There is no requirement for drinking at the reunion dinner. If you want to eat white, you can drink white. If you want to drink red, you can drink red. Like Mengmeng, she is naturally holding a bottle of orange juice to drink. Normally, Shi Wei does not let her drink these unhealthy things Beverages, except today, so Mengmeng was very happy drinking a glass of orange juice alone.

As for the food, it is more casual. Everyone can eat whatever they want. There are more than a dozen dishes on a large table, and there are always favorites in large pots and small plates.

(End of this chapter)