My village can't be like this

Chapter 317 Braised Beef

Zhang An put a piece of beef about ten kilograms aside and said to Wang Fang.

"Mom, this piece will be braised later. Let's eat braised beef tonight."

When I used to watch TV, I always heard about those heroes who acted like waiters and cut two kilograms of braised beef.

Although it is nonsense, in ancient times, cows were more valuable than people, and killing cows was illegal. Where did you get so much beef?

But this does not affect Zhang An's desire for him, and he will let his family cook him today.

When the marinade is ready, slice it into slices and dip it in the chili pepper water, and experience the feeling of eating meat in a big bite.

There are still about thirty or forty kilograms left, so let’s put it in the freezer first.

In fact, this kind of fresh beef that is still beating can be used to make beef balls, but Zhang An is not used to eating that stuff.

Stir-fried yellow beef or stewed beef brisket is delicious, or cut into skewers of beef and grill it.

After spending more than two hours, Zhang Ansu finally finished the trap door.

Although it looks like a big board, it is very strong at first glance.

Circle doors are different from the doors used in rooms inside the home. They don’t have to be fine in workmanship, as long as they are strong.

Replacing a door is not difficult. No hinges or nails are needed. As long as the door is well made, one person can do it.

Anyone who has lived in an old house knows that there used to be cylindrical door heads protruding up and down on the door shaft against the wall.

At that time, the old houses basically did not use hinges, but relied on door pillows.

Door pillows are usually made of stone, or they may be made of wood, and are fixed on the threshold and at the corner of the wall.

Generally, after finding a good location, the upper and lower door pillows are directly built into the wall to play a fixed role.

There will be two circular stone holes cut out on the door pillow stone, which are used to support the door leaf and place the door shaft.

The tile-roofed houses of Zhang An's family are not too young, so they all adopt this structure.

When he arrived at the door of the circle, Zhang An took a chisel and dug out the broken old door shaft inside the door opening.

Replacing the door is very simple. Remove the stone stopper of the upper door pillow, then lift the circle door and first put the door shaft of the upper door into the stone hole above.

Then embed the lower door shaft into the lower door pillow, and finally put the top stone plug in.

As long as you ensure that it cannot come loose up or down, the door is considered installed.

Zhang An did not change the door lock because the original old door lock was very safe.

Otherwise, those guys like Li Laifu wouldn't have smashed the gate into pieces.

After installing the trap door, Zhang Ancai walked to the wall next to him and checked the beehive to see what was going on with these hardworking little bees.

Every year when winter comes, Zhang An takes some measures to protect his beehives from the cold.

Therefore, the bumble bees at home will have nothing to do over the winter. At most, they will freeze to death and fly out even in heavy snow.

It is precisely because of this that Zhang An habitually ignores them.

But this year is different. The snow this time is heavier than before, and it lasts for a long time.

Zhang Jianguo remembered the boxes in the backyard and put them in the utility room, so there was no loss.

But the two remaining boxes in the old yard were forgotten by everyone.

Zhang An only remembered it when he came to install the door today.

When you open the beehive cover, you will see that the wasps inside are so densely packed together that they are almost squished into a ball.

It seems that they also know the importance of hugging together for warmth.

But the appearance of the bottom of the beehive told Zhang An that they had not had an easy time during the snowy days.

Because there were many dead wasps lying at the bottom of the hive, one-fifth of the number, the losses were really heavy.

However, judging from their appearance, most of the ones that were frozen to death were older worker bees with larger bodies and dark colors.

Most of the bee balls still tightly packed together are golden young bees.

It seems that in their swarm, they also know how to preserve fresh troops and surround the young lads inside.

And those old worker bees who have little time left make their final contribution to the entire bee colony.

Thinking about the past, they worked hard and collected honey everywhere, just to provide such high-quality honey for the family.

So Zhang An dug a hole in the ground and made arrangements for these hardworking and selfless little guys.

Thinking that there was still a month before the flowers bloomed, Zhang An put the beehive into the space first.

This small group of them has had enough hard times, and it's time for them to go and enjoy some space.

In the space, the blood rice planted by Zhang An had matured.

After spending some time harvesting, Zhang An selected blood rice suitable for making seeds and planted it again.

Last time, because there was not enough rice, we only planted half an acre.

But this time there was no such problem. Zhang An picked out two full pockets, which were all suitable for use as seeds.

When the rice seeds are planted, soaked in the spring water, the grains of millet begin to sprout and gradually grow.

When they finally grew to over a foot tall, Zhang An also transplanted them.

In fact, there is no need to transplant them in the space, but Zhang An is used to it and spent time to transplant them all.

It only takes a few days for this batch of rice to mature again.

Zhang An was not busy making wine, because according to the proportion mentioned by Mr. Huang last time, this amount of millet would not produce much wine.

I have to plant two more crops, and then I can save more and brew them all at once.

Next to the paddy fields, the corn and sorghum are also mature.

The big corn cobs and the sorghum ears that have been bent from the sorghum pole are really pleasing to look at.

After all the harvest was completed, Zhang An planted corn and sorghum again.

It's just that compared to blood rice, Zhang An doesn't pay as much attention to them.

In the lake in space, Zhang An discovered that some sea fish had begun to lay eggs, and some had already hatched into small fry.

It's just that Zhang An is not very clear whether they are sea bass fry or Eastern star grouper fry.

Because they are too small, Zhang An can't see them, but it doesn't matter. When they grow up for a while, they will be able to distinguish them.

When Zhang An returned home, Wang Fang had already cooked the beef. More than ten kilograms of beef was cooked in a large pot.

"Mom, how long do you have to cook this beef before you can eat it?"

Just smelling the brine, Zhang An already felt that his saliva was about to flow out.

"It's still early. It's only been cooking for half an hour. It will take another hour to finish."

When it comes to beef, we pay attention to stewing it for three minutes and soaking it for another seven minutes. It takes an hour and a half to cook it, and it has to be soaked for half a day later.

Zhang An's idea of ​​​​appeasing his greed was in vain, and he could only wait until the evening.

Speaking of the phone, Zhang An called Chen Ze and Ding Yi.

Mainly I wanted to ask when these two people would come over. It was impossible for the two deer to wait until New Year's Eve before taking action.

As a result, we called and they all agreed that there were still three days before the Chinese New Year, so they would not come over until the day after tomorrow.

After confirming the time, Zhang An planned to go to the city tomorrow and find a place that specializes in selling wine jars to buy some jars.Otherwise, the matter would be delayed again and again, and he would not be able to remember it after a while.

After I buy the jar, I can brew some fruit wine in the space in the next two days.

In this way, you can take it out and try it during the Chinese New Year. After all, after drinking grain wine for so many years, you can change the taste occasionally.

"Hey, how did our young mistress get started with needlework?"

After Zhang An finished the phone call, when he returned to the stove, he saw Su Ying learning needlework with her old mother.

"I don't know how to do this, so I want to learn from my mother."

"Why learn this? Now you don't have to make your own clothes and shoes."

Su Ying had never touched needlework before, and she would definitely get pricked if she tried to learn.

"Everyone else in the village can do it, but I can't. People will laugh at it then."

In rural areas, needlework is an essential skill for older girls and younger wives.

They are all from rural areas. When the girls were young, their mothers began to teach them how to do needlework.

This way, when I go to my husband's house in the future, I won't be looked down upon, and when I become the head of the family, I can do a lot of sewing and mending that requires needlework.

After all, in the countryside now, every family has several brothers.

After you get married, you will basically separate the family within a year or two and live your own life alone.

But not everyone is like Zhang An's family, which only has one son, and the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is very good, so the family still lives together.

Although some families only have one son, after they get married, they still live separately.

Therefore, you still need to master many daily skills by yourself, otherwise you will have to ask your mother-in-law or other sisters-in-law for help after the family is separated.

It would be fine if those mother-in-laws and sisters-in-law were nicer, but now there is really nothing I can do if I encounter someone who is harsher.

Especially in this era, the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is particularly bad.

For a small part, the main reason is the incompetence of the person involved.

It may be that the mother-in-law is more evil and harsh, or it may be the daughter-in-law's personality or other reasons.

Anyway, it is often seen that mother-in-law and daughter-in-law are quarreling, and it is difficult for the man in the family to be a good man standing in the middle.

Another part of the reason is that many people who became mothers-in-law were treated harshly by their own mothers-in-law after entering the family.

So after I got a daughter-in-law, I also wanted to establish rules.

Because of this, many families have to teach their daughters before they get married.

After all, if you can do something by yourself, you don't have to ask others for it, and your life will be much quieter in this way.

It has been several months since Su Ying came here, and she has become familiar with the women in the village.

But many times, she couldn't talk to the women in the village and couldn't integrate in.

Because when other people get together, the topics of conversation are trivial matters in life, money, rice, oil and salt.

Not to mention anything else, when we were killing pigs a few days ago, many women gathered around to do things.

They all talk about knitting sweaters and making cloth shoes for the children at home.

Su Ying knew nothing about these, so she couldn't speak.

But Chen Wenwen, who had recently married into the village, was getting involved with the aunts.

Moreover, when educating girls at home, many people say that if you don’t learn this and don’t know that, you will be laughed at by others when you get married.

No one would hide this kind of thing behind anyone's back, so Su Ying naturally heard some of it.

So Su Ying felt that as a daughter-in-law, others would know it, but she couldn't. Someone would definitely laugh at her.

So when I saw Wang Fang doing some work, I followed him to learn.

"What's the joke? Why do you care about the gossip? If you have the time, you might as well prepare two more classes and correct two more homeworks."

Zhang An knows very well what kind of society will be in the future. These things will not be important at all in the future.

In fact, most people in the village would not laugh at her at all, because she is a college-graduated teacher and an out-and-out city dweller.

Teachers are already very popular in rural areas, let alone teachers like Su Ying.

It's too late to be envious of others, so how can you gossip.

There are many old ladies in the village, if only they had such a good-looking daughter-in-law who graduated from university in the city.

She will definitely be worshiped as a Bodhisattva and show off to her old friends every day. How can she be willing to let her do the work?

Of course, there are more people in rural areas, so there must be a small group of people who look down on the good things of others.

I don’t have it at home, so I can only use other people’s weaknesses to attack others.

However, such a person would definitely not dare to speak in front of his face, and could only gossip behind his back.

This kind of thing is normal, just ignore it.

"It's okay. I am idle now. I just think of it as messing around and learning as I go."

"Okay, just don't take it as your main job anyway. Pay attention to your hands, don't prick yourself, it will hurt your fingers."

As a result, as soon as Zhang An finished speaking, the man gave himself a shot.

It hurt so much that little pearls appeared in his eyes, and he thought Zhang An had a crow's mouth.

But after blowing off, she started to do something again. She is really a strong woman in her life.

"Xiao An, why don't you go to town tomorrow and buy a big jar? We made too much sweet wine this year and the previous jar couldn't hold it."

Zhang An hadn't decided yet on which day he would go to the ceramics factory to buy a wine vat. Now his old mother said that she must go tomorrow.

"Hmm, I'll go there tomorrow to find out how big I want to buy."

"Our family used to use a [-]-pound one, so let's buy a thirty-fifty-pound one."

"That's it. I'll buy a few more tomorrow. It will be convenient to put them at home and use them later."

Wang Fang wanted to say not to waste money, but then she thought about it. It was convenient to have such things when needed.

When we ate in the evening, the beef braised in the afternoon was finally soaked.

Zhang An didn't even hold back, he just fished out a piece and sliced ​​it himself.

"Tian Bodhisattva, if you cut it into a thick piece, it's not like you're selling it. You can cut it and show it to people."

When Zhang An worked hard at practicing knife skills, he worked too hard. As a result, he now subconsciously cuts everything very thin.

The same goes for today's braised beef. When Wang Fang saw that it was transparent in the light, he immediately snatched the knife away.

"Forget it, let me cut it. You can't do this until you lose your breath."

Zhang An picked it up and looked at it himself. It was indeed a bit too thin, and it was not enough to fit between his teeth.

"Oh, my name is Dengying Beef. If it's not thin, you can see it."

Zhang An scratched his head and made an excuse for himself. It was also a mistake to be too good at cutting.

In the past, he often criticized someone else's beef ramen because the beef was cut as thin as paper and a piece of beef lasted half a year.

Unexpectedly, he would end up living the life he hated most.

(End of this chapter)