Chapter 64: The first update of the New Year
"So many?"
When Wang Lai Di asked, Ye Yu honestly answered what he bought.
The staple foods included rice flour, glutinous rice flour, pork, and fish. In addition, we also bought a few kilograms of rice and millet from the south, and the less common mutton and mutton bones. We also bought condiments such as soy sauce, wine, salt, vinegar, chili, hot sauce, pepper, star anise, etc. It was almost the most we had ever bought.
"In the cold winter, a bowl of mutton soup warms the heart and the stomach, isn't it good?" Ye Yu added, "Seasonings are of course for processing meat. We have so much meat this year, it would be the biggest waste if we don't make it taste better!"
"When it comes to food, all your fallacies and heresies come out." If feudal superstitions were not banned now, Wang Laidie would definitely go to the Temple of Guanyin to ask whether a glutton or a Pixiu had descended to her family.
The lamb can be fooled, but the others cannot.
There are various side dishes such as melon seeds and peanuts, candied fruits, maltose, glutinous rice noodles, fruit candies, persimmon cakes, canned sweet foods, banana cakes, roasted fruits, peach cakes, etc.
Other essential items include milk powder, eggs, red paper, lanterns, firecrackers, rubber bands, and liquor, as well as a pound of rare fruit, oranges.
Basically, Ye Yu bought everything that Wang Lai Di planned to buy, and she also bought things that she didn't let Ye Yu buy, especially those related to food, and she also bought 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, is there anything else you need?" Ye Yu was very happy with her shopping. During the Chinese New Year, some things didn't even require a ticket. Besides, there were so many people buying things that it was hard for the salesperson to remember who was who. So it wasn't a 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? How can I call you such a poor girl?!" Wang Lai Di was almost angry to death.
Ye Yu: "...Oh, the main thing about Spring Festival is to have fun."
She plans to take some time out during this Spring Festival to visit all the state-owned stores in Yanjing City, hehehe.
In this era, those who sell things are the bosses, and they are not allowed to return. If they sell too much to others, they will worry about being reported for speculation. Wang Lai Di could only let her sons and daughters carry the things and return together. This was definitely the largest and fastest time she bought during the Spring Festival.
On the way, he did not forget to ask Ye Yu where the money came from.
"I exchanged it with someone!" Ye Yu said nonchalantly, "Mom, you know my abilities, right?"
Wang Lai Di's heart skipped a beat when she heard this. "You wouldn't be..." She swallowed the words back and looked left and right before she continued vaguely, "speculation and profiteering."
"Mom, you really think too much. Who dares to do this in the face of such a storm? That would make him tired of living like an old man drinking arsenic." Ye Yu felt a little regretful when it came to this. After killing a chicken to scare the monkey, now except for the corners of deep mountains and forests, who dares to open a black market? It will take at least two years.
"That's good," Wang Lai Di breathed a sigh of relief, then glared at her fiercely, "Be frugal, be frugal, what other girl is as extravagant and wasteful as you are?"
He reached out to hit Ye Yu on the head, but she dodged reflexively and hit Ye Zhongguo instead.
Ye Zhongguo lying down with a 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 answered.
Wang Lai Di was speechless: "Why didn't you forget your last name and your name as well?"
"I've been called by my name for 70 or 80 years. It's hard to forget it, unless I get Parkinson's disease, but that's impossible for me."
"You're talking nonsense more and more." Wang Lai Di went back to the room and took out a few dozen yuan. It might not be enough. After all, the tickets were not counted. The prices of those that didn't require 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 more dowry.
Ye Yu took out a 10-yuan group 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 Laidie 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 now.
Dried seafood can theoretically be eaten, but to be on the safe side and avoid parasites, it is easiest to cook it. It is said that boiling it in boiling water has the least effect on the taste than boiling it in cold water.
Dried shrimps are really the best ingredient for enhancing the flavor. When boiling three-fresh soup, you can add anything to the three-fresh ingredients, such as tofu, cucumber, chicken, bamboo shoots, rice noodles, etc. that you have at home, 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 smell is too strong, some fresh-dried pork can be cooked together with pork belly. The fresh-dried pork makes the pork less greasy, and the pork can moisten the fresh-dried pork which has a slightly dry or even hard texture. The two are a perfect match.
But Wang Lai Di would never do that, because pork is so expensive, how can she mix it with such a mix of things, not even wild boar!
Elm leaves:
“…”
“Wild boar doesn’t have much fat.”
If you can't use pork, you can use a little lard. Add a handful of dried anchovies and some soy sauce to go with the lard. Pour it with boiling water and you'll have a bowl of delicious seafood soup. You can use other neutralizing or masking methods to remove the fishy smell, such as celery, tomatoes, or peppers.
Ye Yu's explanation was very logical, and Wang Lai Di felt that the fishy smell from the sea was not very strong.
When several generous dishes were served at noon, even Ye Zhongguo seemed to gradually like Shanghai cuisine.
But at night, Ye Hongjun came back. Maybe because of the difference 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 also go well with the rice. With the smell of seafood overpowering it, the smell of meat is really not that noticeable. Even if someone could really smell the 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 out the dough with the rolling pin again.
Ye Yu was surprised:
“There’s even a snack?!”
I should have known not to eat so much.
"Pfft." Ye Baoguo really couldn't help himself. His third sister was just too funny. This might have really hit his funny bone. He held his stomach and laughed out loud.
Sure enough, Wang Lai Di gave Ye Yu a rolling pin and said, "Eat, eat, eat. Just eat."
Further explanation: "Eat dumplings after staying up all night on New Year's Eve, eat dumplings on the first day of the new year, eat dumplings on the fifth day of the New Year, eat dumplings on the first day of the dog days... Make some in advance now so you don't have to rush when the time comes."
Elm leaves:
...Just do it without being tortured!
That being said, people still take the initiative to help.
Dumplings these days are mostly filled with cabbage and pork. If there is less meat, more cabbage will be stuffed in. They did this in previous years as well. They would not get tired of it and would 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. Only scallions, garlic and cooking wine are used to remove the fishy smell and enhance the flavor. In addition, there are various fillings such as chicken, rabbit meat, carrots, etc. Dried shrimp is also a flavor.
The aroma of meat rushes to my nose unconsciously.
Can't you really eat just one? Ye Yu swallowed her saliva, but her mother refused cruelly.
Ye Yu couldn't roll out the dumpling skin, but he could make dumplings. He filled the dumplings and pinched the edges all in one go. The dumplings he made were all uniform in size, without cracks or leakage of filling. He made them faster and better than Ye Hongjun and Ye Zhongguo.
Even Wang Lai-ti praised:
"Okay, the level has improved a lot."
"And Hua Feifei, the sweet girl from Shanghai. She is the one who prepares the meat sauce, meat strips and bacon that are 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 a little more.
"Look at her, then look at yourself, learn more!" Wang Lai Di had a very good impression of Hua Feifei, and even used her to drag down 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 long.
Ye Yu pinched out another large ingot and boasted, "I am the most popular person in the village."
"You are so arrogant. You are so arrogant."
Four people worked and finished quickly. They made a lot of dumplings. If there was enough flour, they could have made even more.
Wang Lai Di was not a cruel person to begin with, but in the end Ye Yu coaxed her into steaming ten cabbage and pork dumplings for her. With a little bit of vinegar, they were perfect!
The next day was New Year’s Eve.
Ye Hongjun also stopped going to work and started running around with Wang Laidie early in the morning.
The brother and sister were not idle either. They cleaned the house inside and outside, 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 booming on New Year's Eve.
Ye Yu is an absolute master at cutting his own hair, and he can even act like Teacher Tony for a while and help Wang Laidi 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 the masters in the barbershop, right?"
"You are 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 at the same time.
Some people post it, some people watch it, and there are often noisy voices such as "a little left, a little right, a little up, a little down" and "Hey, what are you directing?"
But Ye Yu's eyes were as sharp as a ruler. When all these tasks were assigned to her, they only took less than 10 seconds in total, not counting the time Ye Baoguo took to move the stool.
The father and son who were watching from the ground:
"???"
It seems to be really right in the middle.
The time was short, enough for Ye Yu and Ye Baoguo to light some firecrackers for fun.
The firecrackers at that time were not as colorful, diverse, and colorful as they would be in the future. Even if there were fireworks, they could not fly into ordinary people's 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.
The ones bought from state-owned stores have a minimum of 20 rings and a maximum of 100 rings.
As firecrackers are not banned this year, Ye Yu bought two strings of 100-bang firecrackers. One string will be used on New Year's Eve to welcome the new year, and the other string can be broken down into individual ones for the children at home to play with.
Ye Hongjun
"Child?"
Ye Yu, an elderly man in his seventies, said confidently: "...Until they reach adulthood, they are just children."