Chapter 136 Spicy Wild Vegetable Hot Pot

Spring plowing has come to an end. All the vegetables and grains that needed to be planted have been planted. Compared to the chaos of last year, this year has seen significant progress in every aspect.

Before the seedlings in the vegetable garden sprout, there are a few days of leisure to enjoy.

These leisurely days are quite different from hibernating in winter.

Hibernation means being idle, spending all day either cooking delicious food or lying down and sleeping. But in the leisurely days of spring, you can run around in the mountains and fields, looking for all kinds of delicious wild vegetables or picking a bunch of beautiful wildflowers.

Anyway, spring is always a lot of fun.

It's been a long time since I've had hot pot. Since all sorts of tender wild vegetables are available in spring, I'll make myself a delicious wild vegetable hot pot.

I carried my little basket, which I had polished until it shone, and went up the mountain to dig for wild vegetables.

The dandelions have grown up. Growing in the grass, they are tender and green, about the size of half a head of lettuce. We can dig up some dandelions to use in hot pot or wrap them in pancakes.

The grass has already sprouted, and I'm carefully searching for wild vegetables among it.

Suddenly, I spotted a splash of purple; the tiny purple flowers stood out strikingly against the grass.

Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be Viola yedoensis, which is a valuable plant.

According to traditional Chinese medicine, it is easy to get internal heat in spring. Viola yedoensis is a medicinal herb that clears heat and detoxifies. Eating more of it in spring can help reduce internal heat.

He took out the extra plastic bag he had brought with him and dug up the entire patch of violets on the ground.

Besides eating it as a vegetable now, I also plan to dry some and store it. In winter, if I have a sore throat or swollen gums, I can drink tea made with Viola yedoensis to relieve the symptoms.

After digging up the violets, I couldn't see any other kinds of wild vegetables for half a day, so I figured that was about enough and turned back down the mountain.

Perhaps the route we took on the return journey was different from the one we took on the way here, because we found a patch of wild onions in the grass.

As long as the hot pot broth is prepared well, wild scallions soaked in the broth will taste very delicious.

Dig deeper into the soil with a hoe and pull out the roots of the wild onions. The roots of wild onions are round, single-clove garlic bulbs, only they are very small.

Walking to the small slope outside the courtyard, it was still early, so I decided to try my luck at the pond and ravine that I hadn't visited in a long time.

As soon as I entered the mountain valley, I was greeted by fields of Sichuan peppercorns. Last year I picked some and ate them, but I didn't stock up again. This year I'll have to stock up on more.

The Sichuan peppercorns at home will probably lose their flavor soon. Pick some wild Sichuan peppercorns, dry them, and store them. They will taste much better than the ones you have in stock.

He then pulled a plastic bag from his pocket and carefully tore off all the petals and leaves of the Sichuan pepper on the ground, being careful not to pull out the roots and damage its growth.

With a plastic bag full of Sichuan peppercorns, I continued walking into the ravine. The pond there had already thawed, and looked no different from last year.

The shadows of some fish can be faintly seen in the water, so it seems there will still be no shortage of fish to eat this year.

Behind a large tree by the water, a large clump of wild celery was discovered.

The celery stalks are still thin and look incredibly tender. Just looking at them makes my mouth water. Such tender celery is delicious no matter how you eat it.

I don't know why it wasn't discovered last year.

I cut a large handful of wild celery and put it in the basket.

Now he was satisfied and carried the basket home.

I placed the wild vegetables directly by the well water, and the cool well water soaked the vegetables and my hands.

The morning's heat was significantly reduced by the cool well water.

I took the vegetables back inside, put them in a small basin, and started preparing the spicy hot pot.

Soak sweet potato starch in water until it expands, peel and cut potatoes into small pieces, and cut a piece of cured pork belly with alternating layers of fat and lean meat into small pieces.

Heat oil in a wok, add cured pork belly and stir-fry until some of the fat is rendered out. Then add fermented broad bean paste, pickled chili peppers, chili flakes, and two pieces of rock sugar and continue to stir-fry.

The chili peppers, after being stir-fried in hot oil, emitted a pungent fumes that not only made me sneeze repeatedly, but also made Xiao Di, who was standing next to me, sneeze.

Once the ingredients in the pot have dried slightly and the oil is turning increasingly red, add a ladle of water and stir with a spatula to prevent the base ingredients from sticking to the cured meat.

Add chicken bouillon, thirteen-spice powder, salt, light soy sauce, and oyster sauce to the pot, and the broth is ready.

Simply place the wild vegetables you want to cook on the stove, a small bowl of wild vegetables, a plate of meatballs, vermicelli, potato slices, and a bowl of dipping sauce, then sit back and wait to eat.

Once the water in the pot boils and a thick layer of red oil floats on the surface, add the meatballs, potatoes, and a large amount of wild vegetables.

Once the hot pot boiled again, the tender green wild vegetables were coated with deep red chili oil, and the aroma filled the entire room.

Add a chopstickful of violet flowers, dip it in the sauce in the bowl. The leaves are somewhat like willow leaves, and the small purple flowers have been scalded and softened, but the color has not changed.

I blew on it perfunctorily, put it in my mouth, and it didn't have any special flavor. I could only taste its crispness and tenderness, coated with a strong red oil aroma. It was heavy on the flavor and very satisfying.

The wild onions were almost cooked, their spiciness removed by the hot pot. The small, round garlic cloves were even slightly sweet when chewed, tender yet not mushy, coated in chili oil and seasonings, making a crunchy sound when chewed.

Dandelion also tastes good, and its ability to coat the leaves with sauce is just as good as wild onion and violet, although the heart of the vegetable is a bit bitter.

Eating such strongly flavored food, I guess the dandelion will help cool me down.

This bright red wild vegetable hot pot must be served with a bowl of rice.

Wild vegetables coated in red chili oil broth are placed on top of rice, turning the rice grains red.

Eat the wild vegetables first, then add a mouthful of perfectly cooked rice. It's a perfect combination of spicy and savory flavors without being too oily or salty.

By this time, the cured pork was almost cooked. I took out two slices, blew on them to cool them down, and ate them directly.

The cured pork wasn't particularly coated with sauce; it had the full flavor of its original cured pork.

The lean meat was still quite firm, but the fat from the fatty meat had been rendered out, making it soft to chew.

The more you chew, the more fragrant it becomes. Paired with a mouthful of rice, it always brings out an even more delicious flavor.

The potatoes are soft and tender, crumbling easily when picked up, and they're delicious dipped in some sauce.

I didn't dare cook the wild celery in advance, afraid that the flavor would be too strong and ruin the whole hot pot.

After I had cooked and eaten most of the wild vegetables in the pot, and almost finished eating the rest of the food in the pot, I finally added the wild celery.

As soon as the celery was added to the boiling pot, it released a strong celery aroma. After it softened, I couldn't wait to try it.

Surprisingly, the celery flavor wasn't too strong. It was full of spicy and numbing aroma with a hint of celery, crisp and tender, and very delicious.

After a hot pot meal, my mouth was red and my face was covered in sweat. With my big belly, I looked at the pot of red oil and really had no appetite at all.

Feeding it to the pigs wasn't an option, and dumping it directly wasn't an option either. After thinking for a moment, he carried the basin, walked a long way, and poured it into the outhouse.

After strolling around the yard and then entering the house, the air was filled with the smell of hot pot. I quickly opened both the front and back doors to let the smell dissipate.