Chapter 64: The first update of the New Year
"so much?"
When Wang Lai Di asked, Ye Yu honestly answered what he bought.
The staples included flour, glutinous rice flour, pork, and fish. In addition, I even bought several kilograms of rice and millet from the south, and even less common lamb and lamb bones. I also bought seasonings like soy sauce, salt, vinegar, chili peppers, hot sauce, Sichuan peppercorns, and star anise. It was almost the most comprehensive purchase I had ever made.
"In the cold winter, a bowl of mutton soup warms both the heart and the stomach, isn't it nice?" Ye Yu added. "Of course, the seasoning is for the meat. We have so much meat this year, and it would be a huge waste if we didn't make it taste good!"
"When you mention food, all your fallacies and heresies come out." If feudal superstitions were not banned now, Wang Lai Di would definitely go to the Temple of Guanyin, the Goddess of Childbirth, to ask whether a Taotie or a Pixiu had descended into the mortal world in her family?
Mutton can be fooled, but nothing else can.
There are all kinds of side dishes such as melon seeds and peanuts, candied fruits, malted milk, glutinous rice noodles, fruit candies, dried persimmons, canned food in syrup, banana cakes, oven-dried fruits, peach cakes, etc.
Other things such as milk powder, eggs, red paper, lanterns, firecrackers, rubber bands, and white wine are also indispensable, as well as a pound of rare fruit, oranges.
Basically, Ye Yu bought everything that Wang Lai Di planned to buy, and even bought things that she didn't let Ye Yu buy, especially those related to food, and also one or two toys.
I haven’t played with firecrackers for a long time. I can make a slingshot with rubber bands to practice dynamic vision.
"Mom, do you think I'm missing anything?" Ye Yu was very happy with her shopping. During the Chinese New Year, some things didn't even require tickets. Besides, there were so many people buying things that it was hard for the salesperson to remember who was who. It was no big deal to just buy a few and pile them up in the space.
Yeah, I always feel like I didn’t buy enough.
"... Still buying? Why are you such a spendthrift girl?!" Wang Lai Di almost died of anger.
Ye Yu: "...Oh, during the Spring Festival, the main thing is to have a happy time."
She plans to take some time out during the Spring Festival to visit all the state-owned stores in Yanjing City, hehe.
In this day and age, sellers are the bosses, and returns are not allowed. If you sell too much to others, you will worry about being reported for speculation. Wang Lai Di could only let her son and daughter carry the things and return together. This was definitely the largest and fastest purchase she had made during the Spring Festival.
On the way, he did not forget to ask Ye Yu where the money came from.
"I traded it with someone!" Ye Yu said nonchalantly, "Mom, you know my abilities, don't you?"
Wang Lai Di was horrified when she heard this, "You are not...", but she swallowed the words back at the tip of her tongue. She looked left and right before she continued vaguely, "speculation and profiteering."
"Mom, you're really overthinking it. Who would dare to do this in the face of such a storm? Wouldn't that make the old man drink arsenic - he's tired of living?" When mentioning this, Ye Yu felt a little regretful. After killing the chicken to scare the monkey, now except for the crevices in the deep mountains and old forests, anyone who dares to open a black market will have to wait at least two years.
"That's good," Wang Lai Di breathed a sigh of relief, then glared at her fiercely, "Be frugal, be frugal. Which girl is as extravagant and wasteful as you?"
He stretched out his hand to hit Ye Yu on the head, but she dodged it reflexively and hit Ye Zhongguo instead.
Ye Zhongguo lying down with the gunshot wound:
"mom???"
When the three of them returned home, Wang Lai Di asked Ye Yu how much money she had spent today, wanting to make up for the extra money she had spent.
"I forgot."
Ye Yu replied.
Wang Lai Di was speechless: "Why didn't you forget your last name and your name as well?"
"After being called my name for 70 or 80 years, it's hard to forget it, unless I get Parkinson's or something, but that's impossible for me."
"You're getting more excited the more you talk nonsense." Wang Lai Di returned to her room and took out a few dozen yuan. It might not be enough, after all, it didn't include the tickets. The prices of those without tickets were even higher. This girl could spend 100 yuan on New Year's goods. How would she live in the future? She had to give her a bigger dowry.
Ye Yu took out a 10-yuan unity note as a token of respect, and pushed the rest back: "These are my gifts to you and Dad." And who knows, most of them might end up in her stomach.
Before Wang Lai Di could refuse, Ye Yu had already slipped away like a loach.
As expected, lunch and dinner are mainly seafood.
Wang Lai Di had almost no chance to come into contact with seafood in the past, so Ye Yu suggested that she try it at this time.
Dried seafood can be eaten in theory, but to be on the safe side and to prevent parasites, it is easiest to cook it. It is said that boiling it in boiling water has the least impact on the taste than boiling it in cold water.
Dried shrimps are really an excellent ingredient for enhancing flavor. When boiling a three-fresh soup, you can add anything you have at home, such as tofu, cucumber, chicken, dried bamboo shoots, rice noodles, etc., and then add dried shrimps to enhance the flavor. The boiling water itself can also remove the fishy smell.
Or you can steam it directly with dried salted fish, dried eel, dried anchovies, etc. People who like seafood will find it more delicious the more they chew it.
If you think the taste is too strong, some fresh and dried vegetables can be cooked together with pork belly. The fresh and dried vegetables make the pork less greasy, and the pork can moisturize the fresh and dried vegetables that have a slightly dry or even hard taste. The two are a perfect match.
But Wang Lai Di would never do this, because pork is so precious, how can she mix it with such miscellaneous things, not even wild boar meat!
Ye Yu:
“…”
“Wild boar meat doesn’t have much fat.”
If you can't use pork, you can use a little bit of lard. Add a handful of dried anchovies and some soy sauce to go with the lard. Pour boiling water over it and you will have a bowl of good seafood soup. You can use other neutralizing or masking methods to remove the fishy smell. You can also use celery, tomatoes or peppers.
Ye Yu's explanation was very logical, and Wang Lai Di felt that the fishy smell did not seem very strong.
When several generous dishes were served at noon, even Ye Zhongguo seemed to gradually like Shanghai cuisine.
But at night, when Ye Hongjun came back, perhaps because of the differences in people's tongues, he really couldn't adapt to eating these things. It was like taking Chinese medicine.
"Don't force it if you don't like it."
In addition to seafood, the bacon and smoked fish sent back by Ye Yu are also a special pairing with rice. With the smell of the seafood overpowering it, the smell of meat is really not that obvious. Even if someone really smells meat with a dog's nose, he wouldn't be sure what kind of meat it is, right?
After dinner in the evening, Wang Lai Di started rolling the dough with a rolling pin again.
Ye Yu was surprised:
“There’s even a snack?!”
I shouldn’t have eaten so much.
"Pfft." Ye Baoguo really couldn't help himself. His third sister was too funny. This might have really hit his funny bone. He held his stomach and laughed.
Sure enough, Wang Lai Di handed Ye Yu a rolling pin and said, "Eat, eat, eat. Just eat."
Further explanation: "We eat dumplings after staying up all night on New Year's Eve, on the first day of the new year, on the fifth day of the New Year, and on the first day of the dog days... Make some in advance to avoid being in a rush when the time comes."
Ye Yu:
...Just do it without being tortured!
That being said, people still took the initiative to help.
These days dumplings are mostly filled with cabbage and pork. If there is less meat, more cabbage will be stuffed in. They did this in previous years and never got tired of it. They only eat it a few times a year.
This year there are also cabbage and pork fillings, but there is enough pork. Some dumplings do not even need cabbage, and only use onions, garlic and cooking wine to remove the fishy smell and enhance the flavor. In addition, there are various fillings such as chicken, rabbit meat, carrots, etc. Dried shrimps are also a flavor.
The aroma of meat rushed into my nose unconsciously.
Can't you really eat one? Ye Yu swallowed her saliva and was cruelly rejected by her mother.
Ye Yu couldn't roll out the dumpling wrappers, but he could make dumplings. He filled the dumplings and pinched the edges all in one go. The dumplings he made were uniform in size, without cracks or leaking fillings. He made them faster and better than Ye Hongjun and Ye Zhongguo.
Even Wang Lai Di praised:
"Okay, the level has improved a lot."
"It's Hua Feifei, the sweet girl from Shanghai. She is the one who prepares the meat sauce, meat strips and bacon sent home. She is a very good cook." The whole family has tasted Hua Feifei's cooking skills, and Ye Yu couldn't help but introduce her more.
"Look at others, then look at yourself, learn more from them!" Wang Lai Di had a very good impression of Hua Feifei, and even used her to criticize her own daughter. She also told Ye Yu not to just take advantage of others, and that only when there is give and take can the relationship last.
Ye Yu pinched out a large ingot and boasted, "I have the best popularity in the village."
"You're so arrogant! You're talking big!"
Four people worked and finished the job quickly. They made a lot of dumplings, and if there was enough flour, they could have made even more.
Wang Lai Di was not a cruel person, but in the end Ye Yu coaxed her into helping her steam ten dumplings stuffed with cabbage and pork, and dipped them in a little bit of vinegar. It was a perfect match!
The next day was New Year’s Eve.
Ye Hongjun didn't go to work anymore, and he and Wang Laidie started busying around early in the morning.
The brother and sister were not idle either. They cleaned the house inside and out, hung lanterns, wrote Spring Festival couplets, cut window flowers, and even cut hair. After all, there is a saying that "getting a haircut in the first month of the lunar year will kill your uncle", and barbers' business is at its peak on New Year's Eve.
Ye Yu is absolutely a top-notch technician when it comes to cutting his own hair. He can even act like Teacher Tony for a while and help Wang Lai Di with some repairs. As for Ye Hongjun and Ye Baoguo, they can just be treated the same.
"What teacher?"
"No teacher? I mean, my haircutting skills are no worse than those of a master barber, right?"
"You're so proud of yourself, your tail is flying in the sky."
When hanging lanterns and pasting Spring Festival couplets at the door, other families would have at least two people help.
Some people post it, some people read it, and there are often noisy voices like "a little bit to the left, a little bit to the right, a little bit up, a little bit down" and "Hey, what are you giving orders for?"
But Ye Yu's eyes were as good as a ruler. When all these tasks were assigned to her, they took less than 10 seconds in total, not counting the time Ye Baoguo took to move the stool.
The father and son watching from the ground:
“???”
It seems to be really right in the middle.
The blooming time is very short, enough for Ye Yu and Ye Baoguo to light some firecrackers for fun.
The firecrackers at that time were not as colorful, multicolored, and varied as they would be in the future. Even if fireworks were available, they would not be available in ordinary homes for the time being. All that could be bought were large red clay cannons as thick as a little finger strung together in a string.
Bought from state-owned stores, the smallest one has 20 shots and the largest has 100 shots.
Taking advantage of the fact that firecrackers have not been banned this year, Ye Yu bought two strings of 100-shot firecrackers. One string will be used to crackle and welcome the new year on New Year's Eve, and the other string can be broken down one by one for the children at home to play with.
Ye Hongjun
"Child?"
Ye Yu, a man in his seventies, said confidently: "...Until we reach adulthood, we are just cubs."
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