Chapter 240 Tai'an Fish

"What?" Lu Chunmei's hand stopped.

The aunt was afraid that Lu Chunmei didn't understand, so she said, "There are those dance halls in Hong Kong, where men and women hug each other and dance. If you accompany men to drink, you will get money. If you accompany men to sleep, you will get more money."

"Ah? Isn't this immoral? Why doesn't your uncle try to bring your daughter back? He is leaving her in the fire pit."

Auntie shook her head: "At first, my two nieces wrote back, and my uncle found my husband and went to find the family of the same clan to ask them to release the two daughters. The boy from that family came back and told my uncle to take out 40,000 yuan and he would bring the two girls back."

"Forty thousand yuan? How can that be justified? He asked him to take the girl to work, not to be a pawn..." Lu Chunmei was at a loss for words, "a pawn of that kind."

"They won't reason with him. They'll let him go if he's paid." Auntie looked at her. "That guy took out 400 yuan and gave it to my uncle, saying that if his two daughters worked hard, they would give him 400 yuan a month."

Lu Chunmei also has a daughter. She said, "Who wants his dirty money? I gave the child to him so that he could take her to Hong Kong to do a decent job. Is there anyone at home? If I wanted to, I would go to their house and make trouble every day."

"You are you. My uncle earns more than 50 yuan a month, and my sister-in-law has a rural household registration and doesn't make much money a month. In addition to these two daughters, they have two sons and one daughter. The eldest son is of marriageable age, and the youngest son is still in elementary school. How do you think they will choose?"

"You want money but not children? These parents are worse than pigs and dogs." Lu Chunmei felt so angry just thinking about the little girl.

Aunt laughed sarcastically: "That night, the couple came to my house and said that the eldest and second sisters were working as waitresses, serving tea and water to guests, and that they had misunderstood before. My husband and I were stunned when we heard that. After all, they are their daughters, and even if their parents don't love them, there is nothing we can do. Their lives are getting better day by day, and it's not just the 400 yuan a month. The two girls also send money back every month, which is more than 1,000 yuan a month! In six or seven months, they saved 8,000 yuan and started building a house. This year during the Spring Festival, the boy came back and went to their house for drinks and dinner. When the boy left, three more girls followed him. When the New Year came,

I heard that several families secretly went to his house at night. After the Spring Festival, three more girls followed him.

"You knew everything, and you still let him take away?" Lu Chunmei really couldn't accept it.

"Money! Two girls can build a house in six or seven months. While building the house, they can wait for the money they send back. When the house is completed, they will not have any debt. Who wouldn't be jealous?" Auntie rolled her eyes. "Pretty girls get 200 yuan a month, pretty girls get 100 yuan a month, and those who are not pretty are not wanted."

The more Yue Ning listened, the more he felt that the young lady he met in the morning might be like this?

It is easy to get to Hong Kong City through formal channels now, but it is not that easy for ordinary people.

According to common sense, Zhou Guohua's uncle should not have sent his nephew away first, and waited until his nephew settled down before taking Sister Wanqiu in.

Why did he go to the trouble of getting both of them there? Maybe it was because the girl was so pretty?

Yue Ning was now concerned. She said, "Auntie, maybe it's not what you think. If you work properly in Hong Kong, you can make a lot of money as long as you are willing to work hard."

"I know! That's what our Lao Liu thought at the beginning. Especially when he came to our factory, he heard from the boss lady that your restaurant likes to recruit pretty girls to be waiters. As long as they are smart, studious and able to endure hardships, they can earn two to three thousand Hong Kong dollars a month. If they provide good service, they can earn more than three thousand! After the Chinese New Year, didn't the boss send a few of them to the Gangcheng factory to study for two weeks? He took the time to look for his nieces, and found them. The two nieces were sleeping during the day. After hesitating and talking to him for a few words, he felt something was wrong. He stayed where they lived, and in the evening he saw the two nieces go out, and he quietly followed them to a dance hall. He stayed until midnight and saw his niece being hugged by a man. "Auntie shook her head and sighed, "Otherwise, we would have thought we had misunderstood. He came back to find his brother, and his brother told him to mind his own business and asked him if he was jealous of their good life."

Yue Ning kept one fish, chopped the rest into pieces, separated the fish heads from the pieces, and used the fish heads to make soup later, and used one fish to make fish soup to entertain Teacher Lu.

She added scallions, ginger and cooking wine to the fish, sprinkled salt on it, and asked as she turned the fish over, "Which dance hall?"

"What's called Moon Rabbit? Oh, oh! Boss lady..." Auntie seemed to have thought of something, "I just want to talk to Sister Chunmei. Sister Chunmei is not from here and doesn't speak Cantonese. My husband won't let me tell this to outsiders."

After adding salt to the fish, it was turned over and soon slime came out. Yue Ning went to wash the fish under the tap and said, "I'm just asking casually. Junxian and I don't usually go to the dance hall, so this has nothing to do with us."

"Yes! Yes! The boss is very polite to everyone. He keeps his distance from young girls." Auntie said, "And everyone knows that the boss has a girlfriend. They all call you the boss lady."

It's good enough to know that it's called Moon Rabbit. After returning home, you can ask your friends and you'll know. Yue Ning washed half of the fish first, put it in a bamboo basket, and drained some of the water.

Washing the other half of the fish, she said, "If you have a place to stay in Hong Kong and you have some skills, you can really make more money. But if you don't have any skills, you can only earn hard-earned money. Of course, that kind of money is another matter."

"Yes! My husband and I are very happy that we can enter Yimei." said the aunt.

Her husband used to work in the factory specializing in motor winding. It just so happened that the fan motor was imported from Japan and needed technical personnel to inspect it, so they hired this old master.

When the old master came in, the canteen just hired a new auntie, so the old master introduced his wife in. Now the two of them have a combined monthly salary of over 200 yuan.

Compared with my uncle's family, whose monthly income is nearly 1,000 yuan, there is no way to compare. But compared with those working in the factory, two people earn the same salary as three or four people.

Yue Ning took a bag of sweet potato flour and added eggs to make it into a thick paste. She said to the two: "You don't need too many eggs. Five eggs are enough for so many fish. Otherwise, there will be too many bubbles when frying."

"knew."

It is said that Tai'an fish originated from fishing boats in the Chongqing area. Fishermen caught the fish and simply stewed it with local special seasonings. The authentic Tai'an fish would be added with konjac cubes, but there is no konjac here.

Yue Ning then cut the pickled radish, pickled peppers and other side dishes.

Aunt Chunmei asked her: "Ningning, we have potato eggs here, why don't we use them?"

Yue Ning knew that the potato fritters at noon had too many Northwest potato eggs, and her aunt was reluctant to give them up. She said, "Okay!"

She took a piece of lard and then some sausage, diced the lard and sliced ​​the sausage.

Yue Ning first used the diced fat to make lard. There was lard in the kitchen, and she wanted the lard residue to make potato and sausage risotto later.

The lard residue was scooped out, leaving half of the lard. Yue Ning put the fish head pieces into the pot. She used the fish head to make soup, and she used the soup to make fish head tofu soup for the workers. Of course, her fish soup also needed fish soup.

Lu Chunmei started cutting chicken pieces while her aunt went to wash the eggplants.

Yue Ning went to Lu Chunmei's place to get a bowl of chicken, marinated it with seasonings, and would make a zesty chicken pot later. He also cut some side dishes for the fish soup.

Yue Ning calculated that four dishes and one soup would be enough.

It’s almost time. The workers have dinner at five o’clock and then go back to work after dinner.

Yue Ning put half lard and half peanut oil in the pot, fried the fish for the fish soup first, and then soaked it in clean water.

Fry the fish pieces coated with a thin layer of batter until the surface is dry.

Yue Ning poured out the oil and added lard and rapeseed oil again.

"Ningning, why don't you use the oil you used for frying the fish just now?" Lu Chunmei knew that Yue Ning's cooking was delicious. Since Yue Ning was around, of course she had to learn a few more tricks.

Yue Ning put the Sichuan peppercorns and Qin peppercorns into the oil pan, and then added half of the chopped green onion, ginger and garlic: "Peanut oil is lighter in color than rapeseed oil. I just wanted to fry the fish for the soup, so of course I have to use a lighter oil. Taian fish is stewed, and I want the aroma of rapeseed oil, so I have to add rapeseed oil."

When the aroma came out, she added pickled peppers and pickled radishes, stir-fried them, then added bean paste and stir-fried it, added water and brought to a boil. When the sour and spicy aroma came out, she added the fish pieces and brought to a boil. She immediately served a large bowl of it and stewed it in a small pot later to entertain Teacher Lu.

She added green onion and celery to the big pot. The canteen had to prepare the dishes now, and it was time to eat.

While the fish was stewing, she ground the fish paste and instructed Lu Chunmei to make roast chicken with black fungus.

Yue Ning opened the pot, and the smell was like boiling oil poured into the nose, choking the aunt who was cutting eggplant and making her sneeze. Yue Ning poured chopped green onions and celery leaves into the fish pot.

As the wok turned, the sweetness of the fish mixed with the aroma of the stewed Pixian bean paste and the sour aroma of pickled radish and pickled pepper wafted out of the window.

The smell blew into the workshop with the wind. The workers who were working swallowed their saliva. It seemed that they were especially hungry early today.

The Tai'an fish was out of the pot, and Yue Ning fried the zucchini with scallion oil. Lu Chunmei's fried chicken with black fungus was also ready.

Yue Ning opened the fish head soup that had been stewing for a long time, poured a large bowl of milky white soup, put it aside, and pushed the tofu into it.

"Aunt, I'm going to make dishes to entertain Teacher Lu."

"Go! Go! I'm fine here too."

The cafeteria serves Tai'an fish, fried chicken with black fungus, zucchini with scallion oil and braised eggplant, plus a fish head soup, two meat dishes, two vegetable dishes and a soup.

As the dinner bell rang, Yue Ning saw several young men in the workshop rushing into the cafeteria like they were sprinting a 100-meter race.

In front of the canteen window, the bright red Taian fish was covered with green garlic and celery, and the oil and spicy aroma went straight into people's noses. The young man from Xiaoyanggou hurriedly handed over the enamel basin: "Aunt Chunmei, scoop more soup! I want the spicy side!"

Lu Chunmei smiled and pressed the fish pieces with a spoon, then filled a bowl with it for him. The red oil flowed down the edge of the bowl, making the young man's eyes sparkle.

The local worker was attracted by the aroma, but was a little scared when he saw the red soup. When it was his turn, he pointed to the light red area on the edge of the pot and said, "I want it less spicy here."

The aunt scooped up a few pieces of fish that were soaking in the soup with a colander, and added a spoonful of non-spicy fish head soup to another enamel bowl for him.

The worker sat down with the enamel basin in his hand, dipped the tip of his chopsticks in the soup and licked it. His eyes suddenly lit up. The spiciness was much milder than he had imagined. The salty and fragrant bean paste mixed with the slight sourness of the pickled pepper was not as spicy as he had expected, which made him want to taste it a few more times.

He took a careful bite of the fish, expecting to cough from the spiciness, but found that the fish was crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, and the spiciness seemed to be covered by a layer of oil film, which only slightly stimulated the tip of the tongue, while the sour and sweet pickled radish and the fragrance of celery stood out. The worker next to him saw that he was eating with relish, and couldn't help but pick up a piece of fish meat from the back with chopsticks. After tasting it, his eyes lit up: "The fish is very slippery, the spiciness is not too strong, and it goes well with rice!" As he said that, he added another spoonful of soup to his bowl and ate it with white rice with relish.

At the table behind them, Ah Biao's mouth turned red from eating: "It would be better if it were spicier."

Yang Zhongyi directly picked up the rice bowl and scooped it into his mouth, but he was reluctant to leave even the soup. In the end, he simply lifted the rice bowl to his mouth and ate it all, including the soup. Still not satisfied, he hurried forward to add a spoonful of rice, and asked for two pieces of fish and a spoonful of soup.