Xu Qinyu was stunned, not understanding why Ma Liu asked this. She said, "These mushrooms are of course edible. They can be used to make mushroom soup. You don't need to add any meat. Just add some salt and finally some egg liquid. The taste is very delicious." She planned to use these mushrooms to make mushroom egg soup, and then stir-fry some winter bamboo shoots with bacon, and pair it with their white flour pancakes. It would be warm and filling.
"Young lady, what are you talking about?" Ma Liu said with a strange expression. "These mushrooms can't be eaten. They are poisonous and can kill people. That's right, young lady, you are from the capital, where there are few wild mushrooms. You must not know that people in the southwest don't pick these wild mushrooms in the mountains. Many people have died from eating them in the past. So in recent years, unless there is a famine, no one eats wild mushrooms from the mountains."
Xu Qinyu was silent. No wonder these wild mushrooms grew so lushly in the mountains.
The ancient dynasties she knew of had a long history of eating wild mushrooms, but there were also cases of people dying from accidentally eating poisonous mushrooms. She remembered that this wasn't the ancient dynasty she was from. At least, in all the historical records she had read, there was no dynasty called the Sheng Dynasty, so it was different from the dynasties she was familiar with.
She still remembered that when her original body was in the Marquis Dechang's Mansion, most of the food they ate was steamed or boiled, and some was stir-fried, but stir-frying did not seem to be popular yet, and the taste of the stir-fried dishes was also very ordinary. There were some lacking cooking methods, unlike her time, when there were dozens of cooking methods. Even ordinary stir-frying had stir-frying, slippery stir-frying, dry stir-frying, raw stir-frying, etc.
In an era when food and cooking methods were still scarce, it was normal not to be able to distinguish between poisonous and non-toxic wild mushrooms.
After all, the first person who ate crabs was probably poisoned to death by them, so people who came after them never dared to eat crabs again.
She remembered that there were indeed no wild mushrooms of this kind for sale in the capital, but there were some dried mushrooms for sale.
According to Ma Liu, they seem to call this kind of wild mushrooms "junzi" and those dried mushrooms "gu".
Mushrooms are edible and are grown by ourselves, while fungi are wild and many fungi are poisonous, so they are not edible.
But how can she convince these officers and soldiers that the mushrooms she picked are edible?
Xu Qinyu knew that even if she told these officers and soldiers that wild mushrooms were divided into poisonous and non-toxic, and that the ones she picked were non-toxic, their deeply rooted ideas would still discourage them.
Xu Qinyu had a rough idea in her mind. She said to Ma Liu and Deputy Captain Chen, "I once saw a record in a journal that some wild mushrooms are non-toxic. As long as you pick the non-toxic ones, you can eat them. If you are worried, I will stew bacon with winter bamboo shoots for you. As for these mushrooms, I will cook them for myself. You think they are non-toxic. I will cook them for you tomorrow."
Ma Liu frowned, "Young lady, don't try it. You said you only saw it in some miscellaneous notes. If you pick a poisonous mushroom, you could lose your life."
"Thank you, General, for your concern." Xu Qinyu smiled slightly. "I've been able to discern ingredients differently from ordinary people since I was young, and I often cook. When I was in the capital, I also picked some wild mushrooms in the mountains outside the city. They were delicious and not poisonous."
This is not false. Because the original body was not favored by the second house, and her uncle had some cooking skills, the original body did know some cooking skills.
Furthermore, wild mushrooms are everywhere. There are fewer in Beijing, but they are not non-existent. It’s just that the southwest has abundant rainfall, and there are countless species of mushrooms, almost hundreds of species, but there are more than two hundred poisonous mushrooms. Therefore, if you don’t know much about mushrooms, it is easy to pick poisonous mushrooms. Some mushrooms that look similar are actually not the same species, one is poisonous and the other is non-toxic, which makes it even more difficult to distinguish.
Deputy Captain Chen looked at her and said, "Since you can tell the difference, if you want to eat these mushrooms, you can cook them yourself later."
He would not let his soldiers eat these mushrooms for the time being, as it was better to be safe than sorry.
Xu Qinyu thanked him and took the winter bamboo shoots and mushrooms to the stream to wash them.
These winter bamboo shoots are particularly plump. Xu Qinyu tasted a piece of them and found them tender, refreshing and sweet without being astringent. They do not need to be blanched in water and can be stewed directly with bacon to be delicious.
She only cleaned a small part of the mushrooms, intending to cook them for herself and the Pei family.
These winter bamboo shoots are only enough for one time. Just now, she asked the officers and soldiers to continue digging winter bamboo shoots, wild ginger and wild onions in the mountains. As for mushrooms, they don’t know how to tell them apart, so she won’t let them help pick them.
Wash the winter bamboo shoots and cut them into large pieces. She had tasted bacon before, and it was not smoked very well, a little salty, and the smoking was uneven, but the quality was good. She had soaked the bacon in water for a while, and now she quickly scraped off the smoke on the bacon, washed it, and cut it into pieces slightly smaller than the winter bamboo shoots. She also washed the wild ginger and chopped it into foam.
Wild mushrooms only need to be cleaned of dirt and torn into strips.
All the ingredients were ready, the fire and the big pot had been set up, and a pot of hot water had been boiled. Ma Liu also poured a pot of hot water for the Pei family.
The Pei family and the Wen family only then learned that Xu Qinyu was going to cook for these officers and soldiers. The Wen family was really worried. She didn't know how Yu Niang dared to ask to cook for these officers and soldiers. During the whole journey, Yu Niang had never revealed that she could cook. She was deeply afraid that her daughter-in-law would offend others. She endured it for a long time before going to Xu Qinyu and whispered, "Yu Niang, what are you doing? You are the daughter of the marquis's family, how can you cook? Be careful not to cause trouble."
Xu Qinyu said softly: "Although she is the daughter of the Marquis's family, she is not favored. Okay, mother, don't worry, I will indeed cook. You can go and rest first."
Wen was stunned. Yes, if the Dechang Marquis's Mansion really valued Yu Niang, why would they replace the third girl with the second girl and send her to the border town to suffer?
While Xu Qinyu was talking, she had already heated up the big pot and poured two spoonfuls of cooking oil into the pot to melt it. When the oil was hot, she poured the chopped bacon into the pot with a sizzling sound and stir-fried it. After stir-frying for a while, until the bacon became somewhat crystal clear and some fat was fried out, she poured the chopped ginger into the pot and stir-fried it for a few times to bring out the aroma of the bacon. She then added a large bucket of hot water that she had just prepared, brought the bacon to a boil over high heat, and simmered it for a while before pouring all the chopped winter bamboo shoots into the pot and simmering it with the bacon for a quarter of an hour.
I originally planned to slice the bacon and stir-fry it with winter bamboo shoots, but I didn’t make the mushroom and egg soup, so I could only make a stew with soup.
The smoked meat itself is a bit salty, so there is no need to add salt or other seasonings, after all, there are none.
In order to cook well and understand food, she even went to the countryside to learn how to cook banquet dishes for a while, so she is very good at making this kind of big pot dish.
The ingredients also include white flour and eggs, but Xu Qinyu didn't plan to touch them. It would be perfect to stew winter bamboo shoots with bacon and eat them with white flour pancakes today. The remaining ingredients can be cooked tomorrow.
Ma Liu stayed with Xu Qinyu all the time, while the other officers and soldiers were called by Deputy Captain Chen to go to the mountains to dig winter bamboo shoots, wild onions and wild ginger. This was also Xu Qinyu's idea. He said that they had a car and could dig some of these ingredients and take them with them.
Ma Liu could smell the aroma of meat from the moment Xu Qinyu started frying the bacon. After stewing the winter bamboo shoots, the aroma soon became stronger and stronger. The aroma of meat mixed with another kind of fresh and sweet fragrance made people swallow their saliva. Even the other exiled prisoners frequently looked over here.
Wen didn't expect that her daughter-in-law could actually cook.
Pei Jianing was also awakened by the fragrance and murmured, "What a nice smell."
She had never smelled such a delicious aroma of food, not even in the imperial kitchen in the palace.
The Wen family members on the other side couldn't help but spit. Wen Yunling swallowed her saliva and rolled her eyes, "As a girl from the Marquis' Mansion, she is willing to do such a despicable thing."
Ma Liu finally believed that this young lady really knew how to cook, and he kept asking Xu Qinyu, "Young lady, when can we eat this dish? It should be cooked, right?"
Xu Qinyu said, "It's not quite done yet. Just wait another half a quarter of an hour and it will be almost done."
When cooking food, besides the proportion of seasoning and ingredients, the most important thing is to control the heat.
Some people, even if they follow the tutorial and get the proportions of ingredients and seasonings right when cooking, the food still doesn’t taste good because they can’t control the heat well.
She seems to be born with this talent. When she was a child, she would get some ingredients from the welfare home and bake them herself, and they tasted very good.
Soon, the officers and soldiers who went to the mountains to dig winter bamboo shoots and wild vegetables also came back. Many of them were attracted back by the fragrance.
"What a nice smell! What is this? It smells so good."
"Yes, I smelled it in the mountains, and I couldn't stand the fragrance, so I came back."
"My dear, when can we have dinner?"
The fire was almost cooked, so Xu Qinyu took out all the firewood from the stove, opened the lid of the pot, and finally sprinkled a handful of chopped green onions into the pot. She smiled and said, "It's ready to eat. Everyone, bring your bowls over."
The officers and soldiers hurried to get bowls and line up.
The first bowl was naturally served to Lieutenant Chen first. Lieutenant Chen took the bowl and looked at the bacon stewed with winter bamboo shoots in the bowl. The bacon was fat and lean, and the fat part was crystal clear. The winter bamboo shoots and soup were both milky white in color, and garnished with green chopped green onions. Not to mention the taste, the color alone was very attractive.
As the leader of the group, he couldn't hold back any longer and took a piece of bacon into his mouth without caring that it had just been taken out of the pot.
I was a little stunned when I took a bite. The bacon was juicy in my mouth. This was because it absorbed the fat from the winter bamboo shoots, bamboo shoot soup and the bacon itself. After a few bites, the bacon melted in my mouth. The saltiness was just right, with a rich meaty aroma and a hint of sweetness from the winter bamboo shoots.
He even doubted whether this was really the bacon they had bought before?
The bacon they cooked before was very salty and tough, making it difficult to chew. They could only chew it a few times and then swallow it.
"Boss, is it delicious?" Ma Liu couldn't help but shout at the top of his lungs while waiting in line.
Deputy Captain Chen did not answer him, but picked up another piece of winter bamboo shoots. The bamboo shoots had been stewed for such a long time but were not mushy. They were still whole and very tasty. The bamboo shoots had absorbed the fat and broth of the bacon. When he took a bite of it, it was sweet, fresh, salty and fragrant. It tasted better than the bacon, and it was so fragrant that he wanted to swallow his tongue.
It's not like Deputy Captain Chen had never eaten dishes cooked with bacon before, but he never thought they could be so delicious.
The other officers and soldiers also served their dishes and took them to the side to eat.
“This is so delicious.”
"Yes, I've never eaten such delicious food."
"Even restaurants in the capital can't make this taste."
It was finally Ma Liu's turn. After Xu Qinyu filled his plate with food, he couldn't wait to pick up a piece of bacon and put it in his mouth. He paused for a moment and then started to gobble it up.
There was also the sound of other people swallowing their saliva around. Everyone felt that they were going to be killed by the fragrance. The Pei family members could still hold it in. Although the two children were also greedy and kept swallowing their saliva, they both snuggled up in Pei Jianing's arms obediently.
In the lineage of Lord Anping, the adults were fine, but the two younger children were making a fuss, yelling for their family to come and ask for it.
But how could the Wen family come to Xu Qinyu to ask for food?
Besides, they could see clearly that there was no food left in the pot.
This big pot of bacon stewed with winter bamboo shoots was enough for each of the officers and soldiers to have a bowl. Xu Qinyu dipped the little soup left at the bottom of the pot and tasted it. The saltiness was just right. The sweetness of the winter bamboo shoots alleviated the greasiness of the bacon. Although it was not as good as what she had made before, the conditions were limited and the taste was still pretty good.
Lieutenant Chen had already finished a bowl of stewed bamboo shoots with bacon and some cold, hard white flour pancakes, which warmed his stomach and body and made him feel comfortable all over.
He was convinced of Xu Qinyu's cooking skills and knew that she could really tell the poison of wild mushrooms. He also knew that she was going to make mushroom and egg soup, so he went to the carriage and got seven or eight eggs and handed them to her. "Here, you can cook them yourself."
"Thank you, Lieutenant Chen."
Xu Qinyu thanked him with a smile and took the egg.
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