Chapter 149 Braised Wild Duck
Upon hearing this, Sang Yongjing and Sang Xingjia immediately acted according to the order.
She was not idle either. She took out the seedlings from the cellar and started working in the vegetable patch that had been dug yesterday.
It is best to transplant the seedlings in the afternoon when the sun is not so hot and the water evaporates slowly. After a night of this, the survival rate of the seedlings will be greatly improved.
But they came back a little late, so they can only plant now.
She divided the existing vegetable plot into areas and planted the seedlings one by one. As for the rapeseed seeds, she would wait until the land next to it was opened up before planting them.
After planting the last bunch of green onion seedlings on the side close to the main road, Sang Yu patted the dirt on his hands and stood up to fetch water to water the vegetables.
Looking back, I saw that the father and son who were busy making reed flowers were already covered with floating catkins.
The cattail flowers, which had remained in good condition throughout the transportation, were now damaged by the two of them, with pieces missing on the east and west sides, making them look very miserable.
"...You guys just tied it like this?" She couldn't help but question it out loud.
The two men looked up at her blankly, the meaning in their eyes was self-evident - how else to tie it if not like this?
Sang Yu slapped her forehead, thinking that she had overestimated the two people's ability to understand.
He sighed, resigned himself to his fate and walked over to squat down.
After gently flipping through the several cattail inflorescences in front of him for a while, he picked out a few of the same size and loosely tied them around the base of the stems with a rope.
She handed them the bundles and said, "Here, sort them by size first, then tie them up. Don't tie them so tightly. We want the reed flowers, not the bare stems."
"Oh, I was wondering why the catkins would float out as soon as I tied it. It turns out it's because I tied it too tightly." Sang Yongjing suddenly realized.
"Now you understand, if you don't understand anything, ask first and then do it. I'll go fetch water to water the fields." As she said that, she was about to get up and leave.
Sang Xingjia hurriedly called her: "Little sister, you stay and tie the reed flowers. I'll go fetch some water."
"You?" Sang Yu subconsciously wanted to refuse. His hands couldn't get wet.
As if he knew what she wanted to say, Sang Xingjia spoke first to assure her, "I'll use a bucket to carry water, so I'll use less at a time and won't get any water on me."
That's fine. Sang Yu thought about it and nodded in agreement: "Okay, go ahead. Remember to be gentle when watering... Never mind, I'll teach you when you get the water back."
With the previous failed case of tying catkins, she really didn't dare to trust his ability to understand anymore, so she decided to put more thought into it herself.
Not long after tying the reed catkins, Sang Yu handed the work at hand to Xie Qiujin and got up to prepare dinner.
Today's harvest is quite fruitful, and the types of dishes that can be cooked have also increased. It is worth considering whether to cook one or all of them.
But there is one dish that is definitely not to be missed.
She went straight into the cellar and grabbed the fattest wild duck, picked up the kitchen knife and bowl, and walked towards the open space between the kitchen and bedroom.
No matter what kind of livestock it is, it will basically flutter around for a while after bleeding. Since the wild duck was brought back secretly, it certainly cannot be slaughtered openly in the yard.
There is a kitchen here and it is next to the mountain wall, which is perfect for it to flutter around freely.
The grass stem Sangyu on the wild duck's beak was not untied. He grabbed the base of the duck's wings with his left hand and pinched the duck's beak with his right hand to bend the neck upward.
Pull out the fluff on the throat, cut the trachea, esophagus and blood vessels with a clean knife, and then lift the duck body to bleed it.
When the blood stopped dripping from the opening, she finally let go and let the duck flutter on the ground.
Carrying a bowl of warm duck blood back to the kitchen, Sang Yu started to boil water to facilitate the subsequent plucking and cleaning steps.
As for how to make it, she already had an idea in mind. There was a famous dish in Hubei Province that happened to use wild duck as its ingredient, and its history was said to date back to the Three Kingdoms period.
Since we happened to catch a wild duck, how could we miss this braised wild duck?
Braised wild duck, spicy snails, stir-fried yam and a bowl of shredded radish soup, just four simple dishes and one soup, that's tonight's dinner.
While boiling water, she took out about three pounds of snails, changed the water and soaked them in vinegar.
Normally, it is best to soak the snails for four to five hours or even overnight after picking them up. This way, the mud and sand inside can be spit out, and there will be no muddy smell or sand in the food.
However, firstly, time is tight, and secondly, these snails are all wild, not artificially farmed, so they should not have too strong a muddy smell.
While boiling the water, she also peeled and sliced the yam and soaked it in water.
The duck is expertly soaked in boiling water, the feathers are plucked, the abdomen is opened and the internal organs are taken out, the trachea, spleen, gallbladder and other inedible internal organs are discarded, the edible internal organs are left, and the stench gland at the tip of the duck's tail is removed.
Then use a kitchen knife to chop the wild duck into 36 pieces of equal size, add a small amount of rice wine, a spoonful of salt, a few scallions and a few slices of ginger, and rub the duck pieces to absorb the flavor and remove the fishy smell.
After blanching the duck meat and draining it, you can start making braised wild duck.
Pour enough oil into the pot, put the duck pieces into the pot and fry them. When the duck skin turns golden yellow and the bones turn white, and the duck meat is about 80% cooked, remove the duck and discard the bone residue.
Put the fried duck pieces into the pot again, add ginger slices, soy sauce, garlic, rice wine, salt and hot water to cover the duck meat and simmer.
The meat of wild duck is much firmer than that of domestic duck, so the stewing time should be longer accordingly.
It needs to be simmered for at least one hour, and hot water may need to be added in the middle to prevent the soup from drying up.
Finally, add sugar and cook until the soup can be pulled into strings. Remove from heat and serve on a plate to form a complete wild duck.
Taking advantage of this time, Sang Yu started to process the snails.
The straw basket she made temporarily and the moss she used together had a very good water-retaining effect, and most of the snails she brought back were still alive.
Pick out the dead snails and put them aside. The snail meat can be buried in the ground later as fertilizer, so there is no waste at all.
The next thing to do is a bit troublesome. You have to cut off the second to last ring of the snail tail to make it easier to absorb the flavor and smoke.
A gentle tap with the back of a knife will remove the tail of a snail, which is not very troublesome, but when there are so many of them, even the simplest task will seem too tedious.
Sang Yu was thinking that he would have to buy a pair of sharp scissors sooner or later, and he was also thinking that the other piece of land would have to be dug up almost tomorrow.
Otherwise, if the weather is too cold later, she is afraid that the rapeseed will not sprout, or that the frost will hit and the seeds will be frozen to death just after they sprout.
As her thoughts wandered, she gradually removed the tails of all the snails in the large basin in front of her.
After a simple cleaning, put the snails in a pot of cold water, add ginger slices and a spoonful of cooking wine and blanch them. After boiling, cook for about ten minutes, then take them out and soak them in cold water immediately.
Heat the pan and add oil. After the oil is hot, add the chopped ginger, garlic, and peppercorns. Stir-fry over low heat until fragrant, then turn to high heat. Pour in the snails and stir-fry. Add the dogwood powder, soy sauce, and sugar and stir-fry evenly.
Pour the remaining rice wine into the pot, add water to cover the snails, bring to a boil, cover and simmer over medium heat until the snails are well-seasoned.
After opening the lid, add some minced raw garlic, thicken the soup with starch, let the soup cover the snails, and finally pour half a spoonful of rice vinegar along the edge of the pot before serving.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com