My village can't be like this

Chapter 659: Leisurely Afternoon Time

At Lin Youde's house, Zhang An borrowed a large basin and carried the tender white lamb and two pieces of freshly bought pork back home.

As soon as he reached the door, he was stopped by several old ladies from the Dongli yard.

"Zhang An, your family has slaughtered a sheep, so I have to take a piece."

"Yes, yes, yes. I haven't eaten mutton for a long time. It's a good opportunity to buy a piece and cook it for the old man to go with his wine."

"Then I want to buy a piece too. If you hadn't told me, I would have forgotten that the last time I bought mutton was when Zhang An's family slaughtered a sheep last year."

Seeing the sheep still in the big basin, anyone could tell that it had just been slaughtered, and several old ladies immediately wanted to buy a piece.

Several old ladies kept staring at Zhang An, as if they were worried that he would not sell it to them.

"Okay, okay, don't worry, old ladies. You all have them. But this sheep is not big, so I won't be able to sell you many. And don't tell anyone else when you go back, or I'll have nothing left."

Zhang An saw that there were not many of them, only three or four, so he agreed on the spot.

"Hey, little Zhang An, it's a rare opportunity for us to buy, so why don't you sell us more? Besides, you have so many sheep, so at most you can just slaughter one more."

Afraid of buying too little, several old ladies talked to each other.

As for telling other people, they wouldn't do that even without Zhang An saying it. They would rather buy them all themselves than tell others and come to compete with them.

Because Zhang An's sheep would be fed with some grass cut from the space and spring water from the space from time to time, their mutton was definitely a rare commodity and much more delicious than ordinary mutton.

"I won't slaughter them for now, but don't worry, I will slaughter a couple of them from time to time and sell them in the village. Then you will be able to buy them regularly."

Zhang An had planned it out beforehand. Since his family couldn't finish all the mutton, he would kill two sheep every once in a while and sell the meat in the village.

"That's great. When you slaughter the sheep, you must tell us first."

When they heard that Zhang An was going to slaughter a sheep and sell the meat, the old ladies stopped pestering him and followed Zhang An into the yard to buy mutton.

Nowadays, with Lin Youde in Changqing Village, fresh pork can be bought every day.

Purchasing chickens, ducks and geese is not a problem. Basically all the villagers raise them at home, and even some of the tenants of Dongli Yard raise them.

As for beef, although there is no beef for sale in the village, there is Zheng the butcher in the town. As long as you have money, you can buy as much as you want.

The only thing is that mutton is not so easy to buy.

Because there was no one who specialized in selling mutton in the entire town, mutton could only be bought on the street occasionally. However, when Zheng the butcher failed to buy cattle, he would buy one or two sheep as a substitute, but this situation did not happen often.

If you really want to buy it, you have to go to the city.

In fact, the fundamental reason is that there are too few people raising sheep in Hongyan Town.

Because sheep are not like cows and horses that can be used to plow the fields, pull carts, and carry goods.

Moreover, it takes too long for pigs to grow in captivity, but people don’t have much time to let them out in the mountains every day, so over time, as the payback period becomes too long, no one is willing to raise them.

In the entire Hongyan Town, there are only two families who actually raise sheep, Zhang An and the Wang Mingqian family next door.

However, the sheep raised by Wang Mingqian were only a few big and small cats, and the number could not be expanded at all.

Because of their family's financial situation, they could not afford to raise many sheep. Every time the lambs grew up, he had to sell some so that he could maintain the normal operation of the family.

In fact, it was for this reason that Zhang An bought so many black goats from him.

Until now, the number of sheep they raise is not large, basically only about ten big and small sheep, which is completely incomparable to Zhang An's.

Here, Zhang An has a herd of sheep that is increasing year by year. The original few black goats have now grown to dozens, and are still increasing.

Many people in the town also knew that Zhang An raised a lot of sheep, so they had the same idea as Lin Youde and wanted to buy sheep from Zhang An, slaughter them, and then buy the meat.

But unfortunately, Zhang An was like a Pi Xiu and did not agree to their request at all.

The only people who could buy sheep from him were a few people in the village, besides the tenants of Dongli Yard.

But such situations are rare. People from Changqing Village seldom come to buy a sheep, unless an elderly person in the family passes away, and they will come as a last resort.

There were not many tenants in Dongli Courtyard. Although many of them were not short of money, they would buy a sheep just to eat mutton, just as not many people would eat a full meal of dumplings for a dish of vinegar.

As for several families buying one together, that is even rarer.

Just like slaughtering a pig, after slaughtering a sheep, there are good meat and not-so-good meat. If the two families share it equally, it is fine. However, if two families share the same sheep, they will definitely not be able to finish it in a short time, and they will get tired of it after eating it for a long time.

But if several families come together, just dividing the meat will be a headache for them.

After all, those old men and women are not simple people. They are smart people who have lived for decades.

Why do we pay the same amount of money but your family gets the good things while we can only pick up the leftovers?

Therefore, there have been very few families who came to Zhang An alone to buy a sheep to slaughter. Most of the people who came to buy it were the young people in the family.

Back in the yard, Wang Fang was cleaning the sheep's heart, lungs and other internal organs, while Zhang Jianguo poured half a bowl of vegetable oil and then cleaned the sheep's intestines in the coal ash pile.

Although these internal organs are troublesome to clean, they taste unique.

Especially the mutton offal soup and the mutton offal fried with chopped peppers made by Wang Fang, which make people want to eat them again after eating them once.

Afterwards, Zhang An unloaded the mutton, and then cut two or three pounds of meat and a few pounds of mutton bones from each person before sending the old ladies away.

Before leaving, in order to avoid being discovered by others, they found a few black plastic bags at Zhang An's house to put the things in.

"Dad, eat some meat."

While Zhang An was unloading the meat, little Siqi was watching by his side.

Ever since his grandfather made the promise last night, he has been thinking about it and has never forgotten it.

"Okay, Dad will cook you some meat."

Zhang An has never been stingy with his son. As parents, isn't everything they do for their children?

So Zhang An went back to the kitchen, took out a few pieces of mutton, washed them, and made the sauce to marinate them all.

He planned to cut some of the meat into lamb skewers and roast them for his son in the afternoon to satisfy his craving. As for the rest, he would wait until his mother was done with her work and then make braised lamb.

It takes some time to pickle the meat. After Zhang An sent his son to find his grandparents, he carried a bamboo broom and a shovel and went to the big circle.

The black goats had moved into their new home last night. He had to clean up the vacant space as soon as possible and then go to the village to drive the deer back.

When Zhang An came out after cleaning, little Siqi was already in the yard, chewing on a piece of sheep bone with great concentration.

The several big dogs in the house all squatted in a circle around him, as if waiting to pick up the leftover bones after he finished eating.

There is no doubt that his mother must have cooked the mutton and cut it specifically for him.

I don’t know when it started, but little Siqi learned to squat in the kitchen when cooking.

Wang Fang has always doted on him. Every time she cuts some cooked food, she gives him a piece to try first. Zhang An has gotten used to it.

"It tastes so good, let dad have a taste." Zhang An walked over and gestured to his son with his mouth wide open.

Xiao Siqi was not stingy towards his own people and handed over the sheep bone full of meat in his hand.

Zhang An took a bite without hesitation. Although it was only roughly stewed, the flavors of onion, ginger, garlic and various seasonings made the freshly cooked mutton bone fragrant.

At lunch, Wang Fang cooked almost a table full of mutton and mutton offal.

Now, she has adapted to life. She no longer has to plan how many days she will eat after buying a piece of meat, as she did before.

This time the family slaughtered a sheep, and she did everything she could.

In the afternoon, during a very leisurely time, Zhang An prepared to grill skewers.

After waking up from a nap, Su Ying prepared to go to school as usual.

"You don't have classes this afternoon, so why don't you just not go? Let's grill skewers at home. It's your last self-study class anyway, so it doesn't matter if you go a little later."

Zhang An knew that his wife had no classes in the afternoon and went to school only for the last self-study class, so he spoke up.

"Mom, grill some meat, grill some meat."

Before Su Ying opened her mouth, little Siqi had already jumped up. This guy was not enthusiastic about other things, but when it came to eating, he was extremely enthusiastic.

Fortunately, he met Zhang An as his father, and there was space, so he could eat countless delicious things.

"Okay, let's go later then."

Holding Xiao Siqi's hand, she immediately agreed.

So Zhang An took out the mutton that he had marinated in the morning and started to dice it, while Su Ying and Wang Fang helped to thread the skewers.

"We seem to have quite a few peppers behind our house. Why don't we pick some and cut them up and string them together?"

When Su Ying was stringing the peppers together, she suddenly remembered that the peppers at home seemed to have grown quite large.

She remembered that although grilled lamb skewers alone were very fragrant, they would taste even better if they were grilled with some green peppers.

"They are not small anymore. I will go pick some back."

After hearing what her daughter-in-law said, Wang Fang immediately got up and went to the vegetable garden to pick peppers.

In a short while, he got half a basin of water, washed it and cut it.

With the efforts of the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, all the mutton cut by Zhang An was skewered into mutton skewers. The tender green peppers in the middle were very conspicuous among the bright red mutton.

Naturally, the job of grilling skewers belongs to Zhang An.

But when he was grilling the skewers, little Siqi was watching him.

When the fragrance wafted away, the little guy would ask from time to time, "Is it ready?", looking a little impatient.

"Hey, what are you eating? It smells so good. It seems I came at the right time."

The skewers were not yet grilled when Chen Ze came over. Following the smell, he came to the backyard and leaned over to Zhang An to take a look.

Chen Ze is not like other people in the village. He would avoid others when he sees them eating.

Now, they have already regarded Zhang An's house as their second home and are not polite at all.

"Why are you slaughtering sheep today? Aren't you usually lazy?"

Chen Ze knew it was roasted lamb just by smelling it.

"We didn't plan to kill it, but one of them was so desperate that it bumped into our eldest master last night. In order to vent the young master's anger, it had no choice but to die to apologize."

Zhang An pursed his lips towards Xiao Siqi and explained to Chen Ze.

"Ah, Qiqi was hit, is it serious?"

Upon hearing this, Chen Ze squatted on the ground and pulled Xiao Siqi over to take a look.

"Nothing, just a slight rub."

So much time has passed, and even my butt that was a little sore last night has long since recovered.

"Well, well, it's really hard to be your animal."

Chen Ze originally wanted to say this, but after thinking about it, he decided not to go back.

Today, little Siqi's status in the family is higher than that of his eldest nephew Chen Shaoyu.

After all, Zhang An's family is a single-line family. Besides his eldest brother, there is also him.

After a while, Zhang An finished grilling the first batch of lamb skewers. Although there were not many skewers, they filled a large plate.

Because he was eating at home, he cut the meat into large pieces, unlike the ones sold outside, which were small pieces that were no different from diced meat.

"I'll go buy a few bottles of beer. How can we eat barbecue without that stuff?"

Chen Ze just ate a skewer and was about to run outside.

"Come on, don't go there. That stuff tastes like horse urine. It's not good to drink."

Zhang An doesn't like drinking beer. On the one hand, it's useless except for making your stomach bloated.

Moreover, there are no breweries nearby, and the beer sold locally is all brought in from other places. None of them are good quality and taste very bad.

After saying that, he went back into the house and brought out a can of cherry wine and a can of kiwi wine.

These are fruit wines brewed last year, and they taste much better than beer.

Because it has not been distilled, it is only about 20 degrees, not as strong as white wine, and tastes very refreshing.

There was also wine, but it seemed a bit weird to drink wine while eating skewers, so he didn't take it out.

"This one is good, this one is good, it smells good, and it tastes better than last year's."

Chen Ze opened the lid and was intoxicated by the smell alone. It was better than the fruit wine he had drunk at Zhang An's place before.

"Of course. The ones I made before were when I was practicing. These are definitely better now."

When it comes to winemaking, no one has ever given Zhang An any advice. He had to rely on reading books and then feeling his way forward.

Although he had brewed wine before, he was just a novice.

But now it’s different. Although he can’t be called a master chef, he is at least a skilled worker.

The alcohol content of the two bottles of wine was not high, and even little Siqi was able to sip some by dipping his chopsticks in it.

But Su Ying didn't touch a drop because she had to go to school later.

(End of this chapter)