Border Cook

There are many kinds of Sichuan cuisine, which are divided into Rong style (Shanghe gang), Yu style (Xiahe gang), and Yan gang (Xiaohe gang) according to their geographical locations and specialties. The three mainstream cuisines have their own characteristics and complement each other.

Business is booming nowadays. The Xia Ji cold pot skewers launched by Xia Mingyue are a type of Shanghebang snack in Sichuan cuisine.

The first thing Xia Mingyue is going to make today is garlic pork, which is a very common Sichuan dish.

The high-quality pork belly with alternating fat and lean parts is cooked with ginger slices and rice wine until it is 90% done. After it has cooled completely, it is cut into thin slices.

In principle, the slices of garlic pork should be as thin as possible. Xia Mingyue has good knife skills, and the kitchen knife in her hand is very sharp and easy to use, so the slices of meat she cuts are as thin as paper.

Arrange these thin slices of meat into a circle following the shape of the plate, stacking them layer by layer until the entire piece of meat is flat on the plate.

The sauce made of mashed garlic, chili oil and various seasonings is poured on the meat slices on the plate, allowing the meat slices to fully absorb the rich sauce.

The second dish was fish-flavored eggplant.

The eggplants in Jinqiu County are oval-shaped green-skinned eggplants with thin skin, thick flesh and strong fragrance. They have a unique flavor when cooked.

Cut the eggplant into long strips, fry it in a pan, take it out and pour it into the pan with fried bean paste, onions and garlic, then pour in the fish-flavored sauce made of aged vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, warm water and starch. Cook until the eggplant is soft and the soup is thick, then it can be served.

The remaining two dishes were stir-fried shredded carrots with chili peppers and fried bean curd with green onions.

All four dishes were served on the table. The sun had already set, and in the afterglow of the sunset, the five people sat at the table in the yard and began to enjoy the delicious meal.

The pork belly in the garlic pork is thin and refreshing, with the lean meat being tender and the fat being slightly chewy. It does not feel greasy at all when you take a bite, but rather has an extremely refreshing fragrance. Paired with the rich garlic chili sauce, it has a strong flavor and is very appetizing.

Fish-flavored eggplant has a sweet and fresh fragrance, but also a certain degree of spiciness and moderate saltiness. The eggplant flesh is soft and tender, with a rich flavor. When it enters your mouth, it feels like you are eating meat, with an extremely mellow taste.

When frying the shredded carrots, more peanut oil is added than usual, and they are cooked with chili peppers. The fried carrots are oily, fragrant, spicy at first, but have the unique sweetness of carrots, which is a unique taste.

The roasted bean curd sheets are extremely soft and tender. You can put down your chopsticks when they are slightly hot. When you put them in your mouth, you can smell the onion fragrance and the unique bean flavor of bean curd sheets, and the taste is quite rich.

These four homely and delicious dishes are paired with the fragrant and delicious juicy dumplings, and a bowl of authentic dumpling soup...

Everyone felt particularly full after eating tonight.

But no matter how full I was, I finally forced some space in my stomach to accommodate the snowy red bean paste mooncakes that I hadn't eaten enough of in the past two days.

The night deepened and the moon rose higher.

The night sky was extremely clear, and the bright moonlight was scattered all over the ground, making the entire earth seem as bright as day.

After clearing away all the empty plates and bowls on the table, Xia Mingyue called Jiang Zhuguo to bring up the roasted melon seeds, roasted peanuts, and fresh apples and pears that she had prepared over the past two days.

The melon seeds have an original flavor, which is light at first, and has a unique sweet aftertaste.

The apples and pears were all bought from farmers. They were not too big, but they were crisp, sweet, juicy and had no residue.

Xia Mingyue, Jiang Zhuguo and Mrs. Lu were chatting around the table, while Zhao Dahu and Zhao Erhu were playing hide-and-seek in the yard.

The sounds of laughter and playing mixed together, making the place extremely lively.

At this time, the military camp was also bustling with people. Today was the Mid-Autumn Festival, and it was also the first big day after the great victory in the battle of Changzhou City. The commander of the wing issued an order to celebrate it properly.

Therefore, the firemen got a lot of slaughtered pigs, boiled pot after pot of delicious big chunks of meat, and also heated pot after pot of wine for the soldiers to eat and drink.

There was wine and meat, and it was the Mid-Autumn Festival, so everyone gathered together happily, eating big chunks of meat, drinking big gulps of wine, and chatting and laughing all the time.

The content of their jokes, apart from those concerning the previous events in Changzhou Prefecture, were some interesting stories from their respective families. Sometimes they would be teased by others, and sometimes they would argue with others.

In short, it was extremely lively.

Lu Qiyan is now a captain, and he gathered with several other captains and several team leaders under him, drinking and chatting.

However, Lu Qiyan spent most of his time drinking and didn't say much. He would occasionally respond with a word or two and laugh for a while.

"Captain Lu is so taciturn, could it be that he misses home?" Captain Shang at the side asked with a smile, touching the wine bowl in Lu Qiyan's hand with the wine bowl in his hand.

Lu Qiyan said nothing, but drank the wine in the bowl first, and then asked, "What about Shang Dutou?"

"When you're away from home, it's easy to miss home." Shang Du scratched the back of his head and chuckled, "But my parents have long passed away, and now there are only my wife and two kids at home. Rather than saying I miss home, I'd rather miss the three of them."

Wherever the three of them are, that's home.

"I heard that Lu Dutou is already married. Doesn't he miss your wife now?" Shang Dutou returned to the topic.

Miss your wife?
Lu Qiyan paused, still without saying anything.

Want to?

do not know.

Don't want to?
Doesn't seem to know either.

The only thing we know is that it is just like the bright moon in the sky. Whether you agree or not, it is bright and clear in the sky at this moment.

Lu Qiyan felt his mood was a little complicated and he didn't know how to answer, so he just looked away and looked somewhere else.

Not far away, a large group of people were gathered in a big circle, cheering and making a lot of noise.

"What are you doing over there?" Lu Qiyan asked.

"It seems that the young general is competing with others, and many people are watching." Chen Du, who was standing next to him, poked his head out and replied.

Little general?
Lu Qiyan thought for a moment, "But An Yunji, General Ji?"

"That's right." Chen Dutou said, "Although General Ji is young and short, and his martial arts skills are not very sophisticated, when he really fights, his moves are so fast, accurate and ruthless that it is hard to defend against. Even a big guy may not be his opponent."

"I also heard that during the battle for Changzhou City, the enemy generals' heads were cut off by General Ji. The wing commander An Tingyou was very happy and praised General Ji for his wisdom and courage. At the celebration banquet, he also let General Ji sit next to him and received toasts from everyone."

"But why did I hear that this is not the case at all?" Shang Dutou said, "Why did I hear someone say that the enemy general's head was chopped off by a soldier, but the commander of the garrison stuffed the credit on General Ji's head in order to build up his prestige in the army?" (End of this chapter)