Chapter 277 Smoked Bacon and Sausage
The days passed slowly, and in the blink of an eye it was the end of November.
Because sales at the evening market were lower, this month's net profit was lower than last month.
There was only 1,450 yuan, and after deducting Gu Hongmei's salary of 15 yuan, Qian Lan still got more than 130 yuan.
Qian Lan counted the money she received, looked at Yu Hui and asked, "Xiao Yu, are you going to smoke bacon and make sausages for the New Year?"
In previous years, Qian Lan did not make sausages and bacon because she could not get that much meat. But this year is different. They now have special approval and can buy meat directly from the meat processing plant, so she wants to get some.
"Where do we smoke it?" Smoking is the most critical step in making bacon and sausages.
Qian Lan thought for a moment and said, "I can just build a stove with bricks in my yard, and go out and chop some cypress branches to smoke with."
You must use cypress wood to smoke bacon and sausages, so that they will be fragrant.
Yu Hui thought about it and felt it was inappropriate. "In our military compound, people from all over the country live together. People from the same province as us won't mind the smoky smell of smoked bacon, but people from other provinces will inevitably find it unaccustomed. Smoking it right in the yard and making thick smoke is not a good idea."
"Then...how about setting up a simple shed and stove outside the military compound to smoke it?" Qian Lan thought for a moment and said, "It would be enough to search from morning until five or six in the afternoon."
Yu Hui nodded, "That's better."
Qian Lan said, "If we want to smoke it, we have to buy the meat and pickle it quickly. Otherwise, if we delay any longer, it will snow by the time the meat is pickled."
Smoking bacon outside on a snowy day is not a good idea.
"Okay, let's decide how much meat we want and what kind, and have the driver from the meat processing plant deliver it directly to us tomorrow."
"How about, our two families just order half a pig's leg first, each person gets half, one gets the front leg and the other gets the back leg?" Qian Lan suggested.
Half a pig's leg weighs about 180 kilograms, and a family of 40 to 50 kilograms of meat is enough.
These days, there aren't many families that can smoke forty or fifty kilograms of bacon.
"That's fine." Yu Hui nodded.
Yu Hui called the meat processing factory directly and asked them to send half a pig's leg tomorrow in addition to the meat they ordered every day.
The meat processing plant also agreed in advance that because half a pig contains ribs and pig's feet, the price would be slightly higher than the market price of meat, at 80 cents per pound.
After Qian Lan found out, she muttered that it was too expensive.
The next day, when Gu Huai went to pick up the meat, he brought back half a pig.
Fortunately, it was early and not many people saw it, otherwise it would have caused a sensation in the military family compound.
This is a big fat pig weighing nearly 300 kilograms, and half of the pork weighs 120 kilograms.
After carrying the pork back, Yu Hui asked Gu Huai to chop it in half with an axe.
Qian Lan wanted the lower half, and Yu Hui asked for the upper half. Because Qian Lan said she could have less meat, when Gu Huai chopped it, he took more of the upper part and less of the lower part.
The Gu family has 70 kilograms of meat, and the Yu family has 50 kilograms of meat.
Qian Lan gave Yu Hui the money for fifty kilograms of meat and carried the pork home.
After returning from the noodle shop in the afternoon, Yu Hui cut off the pork ribs, cut the pork into long strips as wide as a palm, washed them with hot water, applied salt, and marinated them in a large vat in the kitchen.
"Have you finished plucking the hair?" After Yu Hui finished marinating the meat, she went to the main room and asked Gu Nan and Gu Xixi who were plucking the hair from the pig's head.
She plans to use this half pig's head to make braised pig's head.
"It's finished." The two brothers said in unison.
Yu Hui picked up the pig's head and checked it. After plucked out all the hair, she took the pig's head to the kitchen to braise it.
In the evening, Yu Hui prepared to cook noodles. The hand-rolled noodles were perfect with the braised pork head.
"Mom, what are you stewing? It smells so good." As soon as Gu Dong got home from school, he ran into the kitchen and asked.
Yu Hui was opening the pot to see how the braised pig's head looked like. "Where's the braised pig's head?"
Yu Hui hung the pot lid on the hook and used a spatula to get some pork head meat down.
The spatula can easily remove a piece of pork head meat, which shows that the meat has been braised until it is very soft.
Yu Hui took a pair of chopsticks, picked up the pig's head and fed it to Gu Dong.
"How about you try it?"
Gu Dong couldn't help but raise the corners of his mouth. He opened his mouth and took the hot and glutinous pork head meat into his mouth, his eyes shining brightly.
"It's not too salty or bland, and it's glutinous and fragrant. It's so delicious, even better than the braised meat made by Grandma Xiao's family." Although the braised meat made by Grandma Xiao's family tastes good, it is still far inferior to the pig's head braised by my mother.
Yu Hui glanced at him and smiled, "Okay, go do your homework. We'll have dinner when your dad comes back."
"Okay." Gu Dong ran out of the kitchen happily and went to the living room to do his homework.
Gu Huai came back at half past five. Yu Hui asked him to move the low table from home to the kitchen so that they could eat there.
It's cold now, and the hot dishes will get cold when they are brought from the kitchen to the living room. It's better to eat in the kitchen where it's warm and the dishes will cool down slowly.
It is such a wonderful and happy feeling for a family to eat glutinous pork head meat with hand-rolled noodles in a warm kitchen.
Yu Hui also left a small bowl of pig's head for Gu Hongmei. When Gu Hongmei came back, she ate while watching TV and said that the braised pork head was better than pork belly.
When they went to bed at night, Gu Huai looked at Yu Hui and said, "This Saturday is Dongdong's birthday. I'm thinking about celebrating it for him and taking him to the city to play."
Gu Dong’s birthday?
"Of course we have to pass it," Yu Hui said, "but we still need to ask Gu Dong for his opinion on how to pass it."
How can you not celebrate a child’s birthday? After all, the joy of celebrating a birthday when you grow up is completely different from the joy of celebrating a birthday when you were a child.
When she was in school, she envied the children in her class who had birthdays. When they had their birthdays, they would invite their good friends to attend their birthday parties.
But because she was an orphan and could not prepare any decent gifts, she had never been invited.
Whenever she heard her classmates talk about how well they celebrated their birthdays and how much fun they had, she would always feel envious and wanted to have her own birthday, but she didn't even know when she was born.
When she grew up, she set the day she arrived at the orphanage as the birthday on her ID card and celebrated her birthday as well.
But she didn't feel happy when she made a wish to the candles, nor when she put the sweet cake into her mouth.
"Then ask him tomorrow morning. If he wants to stay at home, then he can stay at home. If he wants to go to the city to play, then our family can go to the city to play."
Yu Hui: “Okay.”
The next day, Gu Huai asked Gu Dong what he thought.
"Are you going to celebrate my birthday?" Gu Dong asked with some surprise.
In the past, their mother didn’t care much about them, and their father was busy with work, so their grandmother would just cook an egg for them to celebrate their birthdays.
Gu Huai nodded. "How do you want to spend the holiday? In the city or at home?"
Gu Dong thought about it and asked cautiously, "Can I invite a few good friends to come over to my house?"
Last month, the squad leader had his birthday and invited a few of his good friends to his house to celebrate his birthday. The invited people also prepared gifts for him.
Gu Huai and Yu Hui looked at each other and said in unison, "Of course."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
