Since Tian Tian’s feet were frozen last year due to carelessness, she has paid special attention to keeping her feet warm this year. Every time she comes back from outside, she will warm up her feet before going to bed, and she will put peppercorns in the water for foot bathing every night.
She didn't want to go through the experience of being woken up by itchy feet in the middle of the night every night last year. It really made her feel anxious and she wanted to scratch off a layer of skin.
Old Mrs. Tian and the others moved aside to make room for Tian Tian. The three of them, the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law, were sitting on the kang, chatting and playing cards. Next to them were mountains of peanuts and melon seeds, and a large basin of frozen pears. The ground was covered with spitted-out melon seed shells, peanut shells, and a few frozen pear cores.
Tian Mu and Tian Zhuo were playing in a corner of the kang.
Tian Yuan went out to play with his friends and was not at home.
The two brothers Tian Lisong and Tian Lilin are also playing outside and haven't come back yet.
Tian Tian relaxed on the kang for a while and found that she couldn't understand the Chuanjian and Hongshi games played by Old Lady Tian and the others. She gave up the idea of joining them and ran to the side to watch Tian Mu and Tian Zhuo playing.
When it was getting dark around four o'clock, Tian Lisong and Tian Lilin came back. Then everyone tidied up the kang and went back to their rooms to sleep.
On the New Year's Day, Grandma Tian got up at around four in the morning and started busying herself. This year, Grandma Tian didn't plan to cook too much. When she divided the pork before, she fried a little bit the day after Tian Yuan came back, and the remaining piece of pork belly was hardly touched.
Old Mrs. Tian brought back the remaining pork belly a day in advance and stewed it in the pot together with the pig's trotters brought back by Tian Lisong.
After it is cooked, take out the meat and pig's trotters, leave the broth in the pot, pour a large bowl of sauerkraut that has been cut in advance directly into the broth and stew it. After stewing for a while, put the sauerkraut into a small copper pot and place it on the brazier to stew slowly.
If you don't put enough oil in something like sauerkraut, the skin will not taste good. You need to stew it in broth and stew it for a longer time to get the meat texture.
Moreover, sauerkraut must be stewed in broth, and the same effect cannot be achieved by stewing it in water.
The sauerkraut was placed aside and slowly stewed. Old Mrs. Tian brought back the pork skin that had been cut and frozen outside to thaw it, and then burned the surface of the pork skin in the stove pit to burn off the pig hair that was not shaved clean. Then she washed the parts that were covered with ash, cut them into strips, and boiled them in water together with the pig's trotters. After the water boiled, Old Mrs. Tian took out a few large firewoods, covered the pot with a lid, and simmered it slowly over low heat.
Then Old Mrs. Tian stopped caring about it and went into the house to rest.
After the pig's trotters were stewed, Grandma Tian took out the mushy trotters and continued to stew the pig skin.
After simmering on low heat for most of the day, Old Mrs. Tian put all the pig skin and broth in the pot into a basin, placed it on the windowsill to cool, and then went back to the room to sleep.
The next morning was New Year's Eve. Old Mrs. Tian poked the pork skin jelly in the basin and found it had solidified, making a "DuangDuang" sound.
Seeing that the pig skin was ready, Grandma Tian ignored it and let it continue to dry on the side. When she wanted to eat it, she could just take it out and cut it into pieces.
I went outside and brought back some radish balls that I had made earlier, put them in water to thaw, and prepared to make dumplings after they were thawed.
In the morning, Grandma Tian didn't have time to cook, so she put the sticky rice dumplings and pancakes she had made earlier in the pot, took out the pickled vegetables, soaked them in water, cut them into shreds and mixed them simply, and had that as breakfast.
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