Hu Chunxiao slapped his forehead, suddenly realizing what was happening.
"How could I forget that? Your husband and Yingying's husband are both regimental commanders, they have plenty of soldiers under their command!"
Her husband was a research officer in the military region, and he had no one to spare to help with the work. As a last resort, he had to hire workers himself.
To save money, she only hired two workers.
Looking at Zhou Qiqi and Zhu Yingying's side, wow, seventeen or eighteen energetic young men had suddenly arrived, making them incredibly envious.
Zhou Qiqi had already anticipated this situation, and smiled.
"I discussed this with Huaichuan last night. We have a lot of people here, so we should finish this afternoon. Once we're done here, we'll go and lend a hand to your companies."
Hu Chunxiao's eyes lit up, and without feigning refusal, she readily agreed.
"That's great! I still have two cartons of Peony cigarettes that someone gave me; I'll distribute them to the brothers later!"
"Sure!"
Zhou Qiqi nodded as well.
Shen Huaichuan doesn't smoke, so she had completely forgotten about it and hadn't prepared cigarettes in advance to reward these soldiers.
Fortunately, Hu Chunxiao brought it up.
Although these soldiers were Shen Huaichuan's subordinates, they were working for his family, so of course they couldn't be treated unfairly.
Although she didn't buy cigarettes, she did buy a lot of meat, planning to cook two big meals today.
She needed a large quantity, but the supply and marketing cooperative couldn't buy it, so she asked Director Lin for help.
Director Lin is in charge of logistics, so this is no problem for him at all.
They directly helped us contact the meat processing plant that supplies ingredients to the military canteen.
Sure enough, while the two were talking, another small truck loaded with ingredients drove up in their direction.
The fresh pork ribs on top made the onlookers' mouths water.
A small group of people were sour, saying that Zhou Qiqi spent money extravagantly.
However, Zhou Qiqi didn't have time to pay attention to those people anymore. She hurriedly had all the ingredients brought down and prepared to start cooking.
With so many people working, lunch needs to be arranged properly.
She couldn't get up that early in the morning, so she took a shortcut and let Shen Huaichuan take everyone to the cafeteria for breakfast first, because she couldn't just make do with lunch.
Today's meal is being cooked at Yingying's house. In addition to a coal-fired stove, her house also has a large wood-fired stove built by Commander Wang himself, and it is fully equipped with pots, pans, and even several kitchen knives.
This might be what they mean by poor students having too many stationery items?
She only found out yesterday that Zhu Yingying couldn't cook.
Although she has been trying hard to learn, she just doesn't have any talent when it comes to cooking.
Usually, Wang Tiejun brings back most of the food his family eats from the cafeteria.
For this toilet construction project, Wang Tiejun also transferred seven or eight people from his own regiment.
Zhou Qiqi waved her hand and took care of all the meals for these people.
In the short time that followed, Shen Huaichuan had already led his men into a vigorous and enthusiastic operation.
The craftsmen had already carefully measured the dimensions, and a dozen young men took off their shirts, wearing only vests, and got to work with great enthusiasm.
Zhou Qiqi quickly tied on her apron and got to work in the kitchen with practiced ease.
She plans to cook four dishes and a soup for lunch today.
Braised pork belly, sweet and sour pork, stir-fried shredded lettuce, cold black fungus and tofu skin salad, and a pork rib and corn soup.
Two meat dishes, two vegetable dishes, and a soup—the portions were just right, with both sweet and savory options, so she wasn't too exhausted.
Braised pork takes the most time; it needs to be simmered slowly until it's tender and flavorful.
So as soon as Zhou Qiqi stepped into the kitchen, she first cut the pork into evenly sized cubes.
At that time, foreign white pigs had not yet been introduced to China on a large scale, and meat processing plants mostly purchased local pigs from the countryside.
These local pigs are fed natural feed such as sweet potato vines and corn, resulting in delicious meat that has no strange smell at all, but rather a faint fragrance.
Unlike regular pork, it doesn't need to be blanched to remove the fishy smell. Just rinse it under the tap and you can put it in the pan to fry.
Fry over low heat the whole time. In no time, the oil in the meat will sizzle out and the surface will turn slightly yellow. That's it. Frying it any longer will make the meat tough.
Next comes caramelizing the sugar. Zhou Qiqi is very familiar with this step. She doesn't need to take the meat out; she just pushes the meat to one side and caramelizes the sugar while coating the meat with a beautiful color.
The meat chunks stir-fried this way are oily, glossy, and red, making your mouth water just looking at them.
Next, add the spices, pour in hot water, cover the pot, and let it simmer slowly for the time being.
On the other hand, corn and pork ribs is simple; once the ingredients are prepared, they can be cooked in a pot.
Zhou Qiqi was quick and efficient, and started preparing to make sweet and sour pork again.
She learned how to make this dish from a friendly auntie in Harbin when she visited the city during the winter.
Although this dish looks complicated and tedious, it's actually not difficult to make once you master the tricks.
The key is to slice the meat into even slices and coat it with the batter just right. If you do these two steps well, you've already succeeded halfway in making this dish.
Soak the starch in water for half an hour beforehand, then drain the water; it will become a thick starch slurry like yogurt.
Put the marinated meat slices in, wrap them gently, and they feel smooth and chewy, which is quite relaxing.
After coating the meat slices with batter, sprinkle a thin layer of dry starch on top, and then they are ready to be fried.
Just then, the aroma of braised pork slowly wafted out of the kitchen, mixed with the fragrance of fried pork slices, and went straight into people's noses.
The soldiers working in the yard couldn't help but glance towards the kitchen every now and then.
Zhu Yingying, who was helping to wash the vegetables, couldn't help but mutter, "It smells so good!"
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