"Take the fish belly back right away. If I give you the fish head, which has no meat, that girl Nan Nan will be so angry that she won't talk to me anymore!"
"To be honest, nobody believes me anymore," Zhong Wanwan said reluctantly, against her will.
"Uncle Zheng, don't argue with me. Songbai and I got more fish, so we don't need this little bit of fish belly. Your family is different; you don't eat the meat and only stew the fish head!"
As she spoke, Zhong Wanwan picked up a steelyard and weighed the big fish head herself. Once it weighed 14 jin (7 catties), she put it in her basket and prepared to carry it away.
Accountant Zheng quickly stopped her and said:
"Master Zhong, Master Zhong, why are you in such a hurry? Fish heads and fish meat can't be converted like that. This stuff is all bones. If it were sold by the pound as fish meat, we'd be losing money like crazy!"
"Five pounds of fish head is equivalent to one pound of fish meat. I weighed it for you, but you weighed it wrong!"
Accountant Zheng weighed the fish heads and found that they were worth a little over 100 jin (50 catties) in total. According to the rules, 70 jin (35 catties) would be enough for Zhong Wanwan.
However, Zhong Wanwan was already at a disadvantage, and then no one else was distributing the fish to her. When Accountant Zheng put a fish head on the scale, the scale almost bent to the sky, and he recorded the weight according to the weight he wanted.
They meticulously distributed all the silver carp heads to Zhong Wanwan.
Zhong Wanwan's eyes lit up when she saw the fish heads. This was wonderful! How many meals of fish head stew with flatbread could she eat with this!
After Accountant Zheng finished dividing the fish heads for Zhong Wanwan, he used a handcart to deliver the fish heads, fish meat, small fish, and shrimp to Zhong Wanwan's home.
Zhong Wanwan's family was the most successful. According to the register, their harvest was second only to Director Wei's family, who also received two portions of fish from the hunting team.
But in reality, Zhong Wanwan also had an extra 150 jin of small fish and shrimp, and a large silver carp head weighing over 100 jin!
Moreover, Zhong Wanwan's family consists of only three siblings.
You could say that with just these three siblings, if they cooked fish every day for an entire winter, that would be enough to eat!
Of course, that's not how it's actually calculated, not to mention Xia Ning, who occasionally freeloads off others.
As for Master Zhong Wanwan, she and her two siblings would also send a gift from time to time.
So stewing it every day isn't feasible, but stewing one every 1-2 days is perfectly sufficient.
Tonight, I won't stew the big fish. As the saying goes, "Tofu needs to be boiled a thousand times, fish a thousand times," and fish doesn't taste good if it's stewed for too short a time.
But these small fish and shrimp, after being cleaned and stir-fried in a large iron wok, are fragrant and crispy, and taste especially delicious whether eaten as a snack or sandwiched in cornbread.
When they got home that evening, the three siblings sat under the kerosene lamp and began cleaning the small fish and shrimp.
There's no need to separate these two; just divide them by size. Squeeze the belly out of the larger ones and use them to make fried small crispy fish later.
No need to squeeze the bellies of the small ones. Clean them thoroughly, marinate them with salt, then wash off the salt and let them dry. Pour oil into a pan and stir-fry the small fish and shrimp in the pan until they are dry and crispy. They will taste especially delicious.
After stir-frying two pots of small fish and shrimp, Zhong Songbai noticed that a whole oil bottle had been used up and sighed:
"No wonder nobody wants this little gadget, it really guzzles gas!"
Zhong Wanwan was happily eating to the side when she heard Zhong Songbai's words. She smacked her lips and thought to herself, "Who can you blame for this? It's because you have too sharp eyes."
If you're blind, none of the fish in our oil jug will go down.
Worried that Zhong Songbai might be too stingy with the oil, and that reducing the amount of oil used to stir-fry the small fish and shrimp would affect their texture, Zhong Wanwan thought to herself:
"It's alright, didn't we repair tractors for the oil mill in Wanxin Commune before?"
"When we do the re-inspection in a couple of days, I'll tell Director Wan that it shouldn't be difficult to buy some internal oil from him!"
If something can be solved with money, then it's not a problem.
Zhong Songbai is more frugal than Zhong Wanwan, a modern-day nouveau riche second-generation, but even that is limited.
After all, he was born into a capitalist family and had no concept of mistreating himself or his family.
Since we can afford to buy it, and our family can afford it, then there's no objection!
Zhong Songbai agreed:
"Okay, then if I'm free, I'll go with you, sister. Otherwise, it's such a long round trip, it'll be too heavy for you to carry back!"
Then you'll definitely have something to do, and even if you don't, she'll find something for him to do.
It would be fine if he went along. He already had to bring three apprentices, and with the sharp-eyed Zhong Songbai following along, how was she going to put more oil into the soybean oil bucket? Wouldn't that just make things more difficult for herself?
Zhong Wanwan chuckled awkwardly and changed the subject:
"We'll talk about it later, we'll talk about it later!"
"Songbai, it's this late, is Xia Ning asleep yet? Why don't you go and bring her some small fish and shrimp? She'll definitely love them!"
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