Chapter 173: After distributing the New Year's delicacies and the money, I cleaned up the factory office...
After distributing the money, we cleaned the factory office, closed the doors and windows, and turned off the water and electricity. Everyone separated in front of the factory and went home to celebrate the New Year. Then we officially started work on the eighth day of the first lunar month.
"Mom, hurry home! I want to eat the braised bacon and fried shrimp you made for New Year's Eve." Pang Qiao held up her big red envelope and waved it, "I'll pay for the groceries. It's my treat."
Pang Wei also waved his red envelope and said, "I'm paying too. I want to eat braised pork."
"Okay. I'll make you braised pork, fried shrimp, and red-braised pork when we get home," Dong Xinghua said. "But you don't have to pay for it. I'll buy it myself."
In previous years, even if she would cook the dishes the children wanted, she would not be so easy to talk to.
After all, money is a person's courage. Besides the 100,000 yuan in dividends, she also received a salary of over 40,000 yuan at the end of the year. With this much money, she set aside 120,000 yuan for a house purchase, leaving over 20,000 yuan, enough for her family to have a good year and a comfortable life.
Dong Xinghua finished speaking and looked at Dong Taohua: "Sister, I'm taking the two children with me. I'll have their dad bring them to you to wish you a happy new year on the second day of the Lunar New Year."
"Let's go back. We also need to go home and prepare meals for tonight and tomorrow."
Xu Heye called two taxis, one of which was for her aunt, Pang Qiao, and Pang Wei. After sending them to the car, Xu Heye looked at Pang Qiao and Pang Wei, who were extremely excited and couldn't wait to go home for the New Year's Eve. A wicked smile appeared on her face. "Qiaoqiao, Pang Wei, come home on the second day of the New Year. Bring a change of clothes. Before school starts, let's do the tutoring and homework..."
Pang Qiao and Pang Wei: "..."
Their sky suddenly collapsed!
Dong Taohua tapped her daughter's forehead and said, "Girl, why are you scaring your cousins?"
"It's a rare New Year's celebration, but we can't let them relax for two days."
Xu Heye pouted. "They're already relaxed enough. If I don't remind them and give them a few slaps, I guarantee they'll play until school starts, and then stay up three or two all night catching up on their homework."
Dong Taohua shook her head and looked at Dong Fuyun: "Youngest, it's a bit inappropriate to stay at Xiao Lu's house for the New Year. The family compound is also a mess. Why don't you spend the New Year with me, your brother-in-law, and your niece?"
Dong Fuyun thought about it. Lu Jun had a girlfriend last year and they were already discussing marriage. He might go to his father-in-law's house for the New Year. It would be boring for him to live alone in Lu's house.
As for the Old Dong family, his eldest brother and sister-in-law were detained for over ten days for hiding their admission letter. After their release, they were constantly fighting at home. He disliked Liu Qiang's family even more. Spending the New Year with his eldest sister-in-law and niece would be better than going back to the Old Dong family to spend the New Year with them.
"Okay, then I'll go to your house to celebrate the New Year."
The four of them returned home together, and Dong Taohua began to give instructions to everyone.
"Youngest, you live in the study. Go and unfold the folding bed in the study. The bedding is in the cabinet in my room. Take it and make the bed yourself."
"Xu Hui, you and your daughter should clean the place. Wipe the sofa, tables, and chairs, and mop the floor."
Fortunately, we recently moved into a new house and hired a cleaning service to take care of it. Furthermore, since everyone has been leaving home early and returning late, we only sleep in every day. With less time at home, less garbage is generated, and the house is clean, so it's relatively easy to maintain.
"Okay." Xu Heye agreed with a smile, took the basin used for washing rags, and went to the laundry sink on the balcony to get water.
Seeing this, Dong Taohua quickly stopped her and said, "Wait a minute, let your dad boil a kettle of water and wipe your hands with hot water. Don't let your hands get frozen."
"Okay." Xu Heye said, without calling her father. She took the kettle, filled it with water, plugged it into the socket and waited for the water to boil.
Xu Hui mopped the floor, Xu Heye wiped the tables, chairs, and sofas. Dong Fuyun, who had made the bed in the study, came out to help clean and scrub the windows. Seeing that everyone was doing their job well, Dong Taohua nodded in satisfaction and then put all her energy into preparing the evening meal.
She took out steak, lamb, pork belly, chicken, duck and fish from the refrigerator and put them in the sink to thaw. Then she took out some dried goods and cooked the air-dried eel and pork belly together, which tasted salty and fragrant.
Soak the winter bamboo shoots, mushrooms, glutinous rice... and then make two servings of eight-treasure duck with the cured duck. One for tonight and one for tomorrow's New Year's Eve dinner.
The steak is stewed with sweet potato flour, added with red peppers brought back from Gan Province, sprinkled with some fennel powder, and poured around the pot with glutinous rice wine before serving. It also has a unique flavor.
The mutton is cooked to taste like mutton, and the pork belly is made of five layers of meat carefully selected by Dong Taohua, a layer of skin, a layer of fat and a layer of lean meat. The braised pork is soft and delicious and melts in your mouth.
Fried shrimp, pickled pork with preserved vegetables, steamed pork with rice noodles, stewed pork ribs with yam, three-cup chicken, and braised mixed vegetables... These dishes are all essential traditional delicacies during the Chinese New Year in Gan Province and Hucheng.
Each dish is quite large in portion and is divided into two portions after cooking, one for tonight and one for tomorrow’s New Year’s Eve dinner.
In 1991, the greenhouse effect was not as serious as it would be 20 years later. The winter in Hucheng was still very cold. Although there was no snow or ice like in the north, the room temperature often hovered around zero degrees. Even if the prepared meals were not put in the refrigerator, they could be kept for several days.
Dong Taohua has been cooking for more than 20 years. Although she has a lot of meals to prepare, she is still able to do it with ease. She knows how to soak, defrost, cut meat, prepare vegetables, steam, boil, stir-fry... and every ingredient. By six o'clock in the afternoon, ten dishes and one sweet soup are all freshly prepared.
The nine dishes are Eight Treasure Duck, Steak Stewed with Vermicelli, Zhenru Lamb, Dried Eel Stewed with Pork Belly, Stir-fried Shrimp, Pickled Pork with Duxian, Steamed Pork with Rice Noodles, Pork Ribs Stewed with Yam, Three-Cup Chicken, Braised Mixed Vegetables, and a sweet rice wine dumpling.
The rice is Hucheng's specialty eight-treasure rice, which is glutinous rice topped with lotus seeds, red dates and other sweet ingredients. The cooked rice is soft, sweet and very delicious.
Dong Fuyun and Xu Hui were very satisfied with their meal, and Xu Heye could also eat a little. However, Dong Taohua, who was more influenced by the taste of Jiangxi Province, was not very accustomed to it. It was too sweet, almost cloying.
However, there were many dishes on the table, and they were all meat. Even the only dish, called mixed vegetables, was a mixture of meat and vegetables. It was cooked with meatballs, pork skin, egg whites, quail eggs, cabbage stalks, vermicelli, black fungus and other ingredients.
Meat fills your stomach and you’ll be full after just a few bites. It doesn’t matter if you don’t eat rice.
Four people, ten dishes, we couldn't finish them at all.
But this is normal, because these dishes have to be eaten on the first day of the first lunar month. No cutting is done on the first day of the first lunar month, and new dishes will be prepared to entertain guests on the second day.
So for the next two or three days, they ate leftovers.
Xu Heye used to dislike this custom and was annoyed by having to eat leftovers every day. Wouldn’t it be better to cook less and eat fresh vegetables every day?
But later, when she was the only one left in the family of three, she missed this time very much. What's wrong with eating some leftovers? Watching the delicious dishes being brought from the kitchen to the table, that kind of satisfaction is irreplaceable.
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