peasant young lady

Chapter 42 Rose Sour Soup Fish

Cheng Xia watched in surprise as Mrs. Chen was tinkering with a round ceramic jar, and took out a lot of pickled vegetables from the jar, including carrots, water celery, cucumbers, cabbage, leaf lettuce, etc., and took a little of each Put it in the basket beside it, it seems that it is ready to eat at night.

Embarrassed, Lin Xiu quickly picked up Cheng Xia's pannier, "Let my sister-in-law go to the mountain alone, sister-in-law has worked hard."

Cheng Xia waved her hands to show that it was okay, then handed the two fish in the bucket to Lin Xiu, and squatted in front of Chen Shi to observe the vegetables she pickled.

Could it be that this is the so-called Laotan sauerkraut in ancient times?
Cheng Xia asked excitedly, "Mother, how do you do this?"

Seeing Cheng Xia's childish question, Mrs. Chen couldn't help smiling, "This was pickled two months ago, and there were still a lot of fresh vegetables at home at that time," Mrs. Chen said, and the corners of her eyes became moist again. "But right now, there is nothing at home, and it's hard to even eat some normal food."

"Hey, mother, mother," Cheng Xia stopped, dumbfounded, and then it got too far away, "How do you do this thing, mother?"

Mrs. Chen wiped away the tears from the corners of her eyes and smiled, "Don't your natal family make this? Every family here makes pickles."

"My mother's method is very simple, just use salt to pickle directly, but I saw that this one you made seems to be more beautiful and delicious." Cheng Xia did not lie, the sauerkraut made by Chen's has a better color, And it smells sour, much higher quality than ordinary pickled vegetables.

Mrs. Chen smiled with satisfaction, and this was the first time Cheng Xia saw such a smile on Mrs. Chen's face, "I pickle vegetables differently from ordinary people."

"Mother, tell me quickly," Cheng Xia said impatiently.

"I, first mix peppercorns, star anise, fennel, tangerine peel, cloves and rock sugar together, boil in a large pot of water for [-] quarters of an hour, then pour it into a wooden basin to cool, and when it is completely cool, put the peppercorns All these things are filtered out, and only water remains. Add a large amount of salt, a small amount of white wine, and the brine from the old altar to the water, and stir evenly. Scrub the ceramic jar with white wine to make it cleaner. Then pour the freshly stirred brine into the jar, and you can add vegetables to it."

Cheng Xia nodded thoughtfully, no wonder it looks good and smells good, this is much more complicated than salting directly.

"It's not over yet," Chen continued with a smile, "When pickling vegetables, in addition to carrots and lettuce, you also need to add some seasoning vegetables, such as garlic, celery, purple basil, red bone basil, Like scallions, the dishes marinated together are delicious."

Cheng Xia listened with gusto, "I didn't expect my mother to understand this." Cheng Xia admired sincerely. In her opinion, the role Chen has always played is to be a good wife in front of Headhunter Yang, and a strict mother in front of Yang Lihua. , I didn't expect to get to know her again today.

Chen smiled gratifiedly, "What's the matter, I used to be in the Shao Mansion, oh." Seeing Cheng Xia suddenly looked up at her, Chen stopped talking in embarrassment, "I used to watch others do it, and I'll get it too, it's nothing Yes. I'll go see if Erlang's wife has finished the meal."

Seeing how the Chen family almost ran away, Cheng Xia held his cheeks for a long time and didn't understand, Shao Mansion?She must have heard Mrs. Chen talking about the Shao Mansion just now.

Could this be Chen's secret?But seeing her shyness, Cheng Xia decided to pretend she didn't hear it.

Since there was sauerkraut, she picked two roses by the way when she came back, which was just right for making fish in sour soup with roses.

Cheng Xia made up her mind to make fish in rose sour soup. As soon as she got up, she saw Yang Lihua putting the dried winter melon preserves into several small porcelain jars. The jars were all white and looked exquisite and beautiful.

By the way, if you want to make rose sauce, you must use more jars. It seems that when you go to the market in Chong'an County in the future, you will need to buy a lot of things.

"Sister-in-law," Yang Lihua looked up at Cheng Xia and looked at her, couldn't help but smile, "Can I put it away like this? I see that the sun has already set, and it will be dark soon."

Cheng Xia nodded, "It's good to pack it up." Then she walked to the stove and saw Lin Xiu started to process wild vegetables again. There were some carrots and lettuce that Chen's had just pickled, and Cheng Xia patted Lin Xiu. Xiu's hand, "Let me come, you go and take care of Xiaolong."

I haven't seen Xiaolong all this time, so he must be sleeping.

Lin Xiu shyly wiped his hands with his apron, "Xiaolong played crazy with my natal friend, and fell asleep when he got home, and he couldn't even wake him up."

Cheng Xia took out some lettuce and lettuce from the porcelain jar that Mrs. Chen put beside the stove, and smiled, "Kids are like this. Go and see him. I'll make dinner tonight."

Seeing Cheng Xia's insistence, Lin Xiu didn't say much, tied the apron around Cheng Xia's waist, turned and entered the room.

But Cheng Xia found it difficult to look at these pickled vegetables.

Sour soup is naturally needed to make fish in sour soup. The representative of this characteristic Guizhou cuisine naturally has its own unique method of making sour soup.Cheng Xia had seen her father do it before. The production steps were complicated, but not difficult, but now it was not easy, because she didn't have many things.

Some sour soups need to be cooked with the sourness of tomatoes to produce natural sour soups, and some are made with fermented rice wine, and there are many types, such as Huangping sour soup, Kaili sour soup, Maolajiao sour soup, red oil sour and shrimp sour, etc. , but Cheng Xia didn't even dare to think about it, she just hoped to make the simplest sour soup.

He was resting his chin on his brow and meditating, when he heard a bang, something hit the chopping board beside Cheng Xia, and the thing jumped twice and fell to the ground.

Cheng Xia was taken aback, and when she looked up, she saw Yang Lietou with a cold face turning around and entering the house.

Inexplicably, Cheng Xia muttered, looked down at what fell, and saw a few fresh green bamboo shoots lying quietly on the ground.

Green bamboo shoots, hey, by the way, you can cook simple sour soup with green bamboo shoots.Just do it, Cheng Xia quickly peeled and sliced ​​all the green bamboo shoots, then cut the marinated lettuce and lettuce, put them into a pot of clear water and boil them together, adding salt, cornstarch, pepper star anise and other seasonings, When the fire boils, skim off everything and leave only the sour soup.

Cheng Xia scooped out a little bit with a spoon and sipped it. It wasn’t sour enough and the taste wasn’t strong enough, but that was all she could do. She hadn’t found out if the tomato, which is necessary for making sour soup, was available here, so she had to keep it simple. Fortunately, the sour taste There are still some, and the taste is very sour, and it is not unusable.

Cheng Xia looked at the two grass carp in the bucket, thinking about whether to cut them into chunks or slices, or to follow the orthodox sour soup fish method, neither disembowelling nor removing the internal parts, but only opening a small hole in the cheek to take out The gall is then boiled whole.

After thinking about it for the convenience of eating, Cheng Xia still scraped and cleaned the scales of the two fish, opened them and removed the dirty pieces.The sour soup in the pot has been boiling, Cheng Xia directly put the rinsed grass carp slices in the pot, and re-cut the pickled lettuce and carrots to increase the sour taste of the sour soup.

The wild vegetables just picked in the afternoon were quite fresh, Cheng Xia found some basil leaves and basil leaves, washed some coltsfoot, tore them into strips and threw them into the pot.

The two freshly picked roses were originally intended to be used by Cheng Xia when taking a bath at night. When the fish is about to come out of the pan, put it in for a while, then put it on a plate and set it up.

Cheng Xia used both of these delicious grass carp today, so there seemed to be quite a lot in the pot, a big plate full.Grass carp has high nutritional value. It can warm the stomach, neutralize the liver, calm the liver and expel wind, and can also beautify the skin. Cheng Xia decided to eat more later.

There are no good-looking plates at home, and I use big pots to serve dishes. Although it is not very good-looking visually, it is very practical.As soon as Cheng Xia took out the fish in sour soup and decorated the remaining rose petals, she saw Yang Lihua in the room excitedly running up to her and sniffing it vigorously, "Sister-in-law, it smells so good, it smells so good." ah."

Cheng Xia smiled triumphantly, she was a teacher of her father, how could her cooking skills be worse.

Yang Lihua was just about to carry such a big pot of fish in sour rose soup towards the room, when she saw Yang Dalang, who hadn't seen him for two days, strolling over, smelling the smell, walked to the stove, and took Yang Lihua's work by himself.

"Second Brother," Yang Lihua said anxiously, "Where did you go to gamble after you haven't come back for two days?"

Yang Erlang avoided Yang Lihua impatiently, "I'm busy earning money for your dowry."

"Second brother, can you stop gambling and go to work in the county like the pillars in the village. It costs a few pennies a day. Last time you came back, you took away the few pennies you had at home. If you don't stop, we will What can I do after home?"

"Oh, why are you so annoying? You're going to get married sooner or later, don't worry about my business."

"Second brother, why are you so heartless, you stole all my private money."

The quarrel between the two became farther and farther away, but Cheng Xia couldn't help muttering, if Yang Erlang still stole things, did he let him steal his backpack?
But how did he know the backpack, and he didn't know how to use it, and the things in the backpack were not valuable.

It seemed that she had to find a chance to ask her family members who had seen that backpack.

You can't just eat fish in rose sour soup for dinner. Cheng Xia mixed two more cold dishes, and Lin Xiu came over to get steamed whole grains and steamed buns. This way the meal is considered ready.

Until the whole family sat down at the table and Xiaolong also woke up and nestled in Cheng Xia's arms, Yang Dalang hadn't come back yet.

The sky has completely darkened, it stands to reason that Yang Dalang should have arrived home at this point before, why did he come back so late today?

Cheng Xia couldn't help feeling a little worried.After all, Yang Dalang's health was not good, and he slept on the small table that couldn't be stretched out last night. He was afraid that he would catch cold again, or that something might go wrong on the road.

Yang Erlang and Yang Lihua couldn't bear it for a long time, they kept holding their chopsticks eagerly towards the fish, and kept looking at Headhunter Yang, the eagerness was obvious.

After waiting for a while, seeing that Yang Dalang hadn't come back, Mrs. Chen couldn't help feeling a little anxious, and went to the gate of the fenced yard and stood watching.

Cheng Xia couldn't stop looking out, but after a while, she suddenly heard Chen's exclamation, and Cheng Xia got up and ran outside.

(End of this chapter)