Chapter 111 Mala Tang and Fish Ball Soup
No need to wash the pot with hot oil. Just add water and a little milk powder, and bring it to a boil over high heat.
Find the frozen small packages of chrysanthemum greens, cilantro, frozen tofu, peel and dice the potatoes, and also keep the soaked shiitake mushrooms for later use.
Once the water boils, add the prepared ingredients and various meatballs. After the ingredients are cooked, add a piece of instant noodles.
After all the ingredients are cooked, transfer them to a large bowl, pour in some of the original broth, and add appropriate amounts of homemade chili oil, dark soy sauce, aged vinegar, sugar, garlic water, and sesame paste for seasoning.
A delicious bowl of mala tang is ready.
It's been a long time since I've had mala tang (spicy hot pot). Although it's not as authentic as the ones in the restaurants, it still smells delicious.
The soup base is milky white with red oil floating on top. One sip is full of milky flavor, spicy and savory.
Today's highlight is all kinds of meatballs. The beef meatballs are chewy, and the fish tofu is tender. Paired with the spicy hot pot broth, it's a long-lost joy.
After finishing a bowl of spicy hot pot, I drank every last drop of the soup, broke out in a sweat, and felt completely refreshed. All the illness I had felt in the past few days was gone.
After spending half the day making meatballs, I was too full to move and decided to finish up my work for the day before going back to bed.
After feeding the pigs, chickens, rabbits, and dogs, washing the dishes, adding firewood to the stove, and closing the courtyard and house doors, it's finally time to rest.
Take a hot shower, change into loose and comfortable pajamas, go back to the east room, make yourself a cup of hot tea, and watch TV while drinking tea.
I was already full, but the female protagonist in the drama cooked kimchi soup rice, which looked steaming hot and very spicy. The more I watched, the more I wanted to eat, so I decided to make another batch of kimchi tomorrow.
I was quite tired today, and I started to feel sleepy after watching for a short while. I snuggled into my warm bed and had a good night's sleep.
The next morning, I woke up feeling a bit cold. When I went out to get firewood, it was chilly, and my hands and cheeks were freezing.
However, after feeding pigs, chickens, and rabbits, and using a stove and brazier, I didn't feel too cold.
After finishing the daily chores, I started preparing to make kimchi.
Take out three large Chinese cabbages, peel off the drier outer skin, cut the inner leaves into small pieces, and marinate them with plenty of salt.
The marinating process takes 6 hours, during which time other ingredients are prepared.
We only have coarsely chopped chili peppers at home, not finely ground chili peppers.
I took out the stone mill and prepared to grind a batch of fine chili powder. I tried to be as careful as possible during the process, because chili powder, whether it got into my nose or eyes, would make me feel uncomfortable.
Pour the chili flakes little by little into the small opening, turn the stone mill, and the resulting chili flakes will be much finer.
One grinding was clearly not enough, so it was ground a second time. Grinding the chili powder twice would meet the requirements for making spicy kimchi.
A bowl of coarse chili powder and a bowl of fine chili powder are placed against the wall on the cutting board. Hands and the stone mill are carefully washed to avoid accidentally hurting the dog.
Making kimchi requires glutinous rice flour, but I don't usually eat glutinous rice flour, so I have to go to the basement to find some.
Scoop out a small half bowl of glutinous rice flour, add water, and cook it in a pot while stirring until it becomes a sticky paste.
Cut two apples and one pear into small pieces, peel a few cloves of garlic, and put them all into a clean meat grinder and grind them together.
Combine the apple and garlic paste, glutinous rice paste, coarse and fine chili powder, and stir continuously until well mixed.
Finally, you'll get a bowl of bright red, sticky kimchi marinade. Cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate it first.
The cabbage still needs to be pickled for a while, so there's no rush to proceed to the next step.
Still basking in the joy of making meatballs yesterday, I plan to eat them again at noon.
Make some dough and bake a few pancakes, then cook some fish ball soup.
Heat oil in a pot, sauté chopped green onions until fragrant, add an appropriate amount of water, then add fish balls and bring to a boil. After boiling, add a small amount of salt and chicken bouillon and cook together.
Once the flatbread is done, the fish ball soup is also ready. Take a few sprigs of cilantro from the vegetable bowl, wash and chop them, and sprinkle them into the fish ball soup.
The pale white soup is topped with a few white fish balls and garnished with bright green cilantro leaves, which not only enhances the aroma but also adds a touch of novelty to the visual presentation.
Two drops of sesame oil were added, which fully brought out the delicious aroma of the fish ball soup.
I couldn't wait to put the fish ball soup on the table, and then I took two scallions from the small jar of pickled soy sauce and vegetables and chopped them into small pieces.
Today's leisurely lunch has begun.
First, drink the fish ball soup. The fish ball soup is fresh and fragrant, with a hint of cilantro, which makes up for the monotony of the fish balls.
Taking a bite of a fish ball, you can taste the original flavor of the fish balls in today's fish ball soup more than the fish balls in yesterday's spicy hot pot. The freshness and bouncy texture of the fish meat are fully displayed.
Tear off a piece of fried dough and soak it in the fish ball soup. The dough absorbs all the broth from the fish balls, and with one bite, you get the aroma of wheat flour and the deliciousness of the fish ball soup—it's incredibly satisfying.
As I ate, I felt it was a bit bland, so I picked up a piece of soy sauce and scallion and put it in my mouth. It was crunchy and crunchy, with a rich soy sauce flavor and a slightly sour taste, which greatly stimulated my taste buds.
Of all the pickled scallions, I like the white part the most. After being pickled for a long time, the white part loses its spiciness and has a slightly sweet taste. It's crunchy and delicious, and it cuts through the greasiness.
After a satisfying meal, there was some leftover fish ball soup. I tore up some flatbread and soaked it in the soup to feed the dogs, and they ate it with great relish.
After eating, I lay on my side on the sofa for a nap. When I woke up, it was already three or four o'clock in the afternoon. I went to the kitchen to check on the pickled cabbage, and it had released a lot of water.
Put the cabbage in the sink to wash away the salt. After rinsing it several times, taste it. If it's no longer salty, it's clean.
The washed cabbage was put into a pre-sewn gauze bag, weighed down with a stone, and excess water was squeezed out.
After an hour, take out the cabbage and you can start pickling it.
The sauce was prepared in advance, so the marinating method was very simple. Just put the cabbage into a large plastic bowl, pour in all the marinating sauce at once, and carefully mix it to coat every cabbage leaf.
Press the cabbage down slightly, and the kimchi is ready to be pickled. It can be eaten after pickling for at least one day.
With a devout heart, I packed the pickled kimchi into a sealed plastic jar, drooling as I looked at it, wondering how I would eat it once it was ready.
The next morning, I stared blankly at the jar of kimchi, wanting to eat it but feeling that it hadn't been marinated enough.
To distract myself, I'm going to find something to do to make time pass faster, and I'm looking forward to eating kimchi tomorrow.
The rabbit's belly is getting bigger and bigger, and I reckon she's about to give birth. The current rabbit box might be a bit small, so I'm going to make a bigger one.
He put on a thick cotton-padded coat, went to the west wing, and found ten thick wooden planks to make a 2×1×1 meter wooden box to raise rabbits.
The bottom consists of two one-square-meter wooden boards. A narrow strip of wood is used to fill the gap where the boards are joined, and some nails are driven into the strip to secure the joint.
The entire rectangular wooden box was assembled using this method, and in no time, everything except the top was finished.
Fearing that living in the dark would be bad for the rabbit's health, I used a chainsaw to cut two large windows on the side, and nailed the windows shut with transparent plastic sheets that I had bought for free before.
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