Chapter 204: Ground fungus and wild vegetables, ground vegetable pie...
The bamboo raft was not big, and the burly Zhou Ye was a match for two men. As Lin Shu collected more and more miscellaneous items, the bamboo raft was filled to the brim.
Lin Shu looked at the pile of things she had collected, the corners of her mouth curled up, and she was quite satisfied.
Finally, on the way back, I went back to my own yard.
Because the thatched house at home was built not long ago, especially the roof was replaced not long ago, compared with other thatched houses, only one corner of the thatched house at home has collapsed. If you are not afraid of getting your trouser legs wet by the dirty water, you can get off the bamboo raft and wade into the house, and you can enter and exit freely.
However, Lin Shu did not go into the house. The bamboo raft was docked next to the stove. She asked the tall and strong Zhou Ye to search inside the stove.
The pottery bowls, plates and jars that could not be taken away were hidden in the stove, and the gaps were filled with straw to prevent collisions. It is not known whether they were damaged.
Zhou Ye held the edge of the stove with one hand and reached into the oven with the other. After a moment, he turned back and said to Lin Shu, "Only one or two bowls and plates were broken. The rest are intact."
Lin Shu was delighted after hearing this. "That's great! We only need to take five ceramic bowls, three ceramic plates, and a large bowl for soup. We don't need to take the rest."
Eating from bamboo tubes isn't as convenient as eating with bowls and plates, but you don't need to take too much; just enough for your own household. If you bring too much, you'll end up having to borrow from one household to another, and if you don't handle it properly, it could lead to friction. It's better not to have to do it in the first place.
"Oh, take another wooden basin with you. I'll use it to cool the rice porridge. I tied the basin together with the table and chairs before I left, so it shouldn't get washed away."
Zhou Ye naturally did whatever she said. When the two of them returned with the pile of miscellaneous items, apart from other things, the poultry made the villagers crane their necks to look.
Zhang Lamei's eyes rolled around, and she immediately shouted, "Niece, you two are thieves, taking someone else's animal as your own? The duck in Zhou Ye's hand is obviously the one I raise!"
A man in the straw hut next door scoffed, "Mr. Lin, you're not talking about the duck that went missing while herding ducks a while ago, are you? Your duck has been missing for a while now, so how come it showed up after the flood?"
Another woman said, "I think this big white goose looks like the one I raise. Look, there's a black spot on the goose's paw. My goose has a black spot on its paw."
"There are black spots? My goose has black spots on its paws too! I was in a hurry, and when I was catching ducks and geese, one of the geese ran away. I saw this one and it was the one that ran away!"
Someone else said, "The chicken in Zhou Ye's hand is mine, there's no doubt about it, it's mine."
"That chicken is obviously mine. Look at its feathers. My rooster looks exactly like this one..."
In just a short while, several families started arguing over these poultry.
Lin Shu and Zhou Ye walked straight to the head of the village and handed over a few poultry to him.
Zhou Ye explained, "Every household's thatched hut was flooded by the flood, and many collapsed. Ah Shu and I can't tell which house is which. This chicken was found on a collapsed thatched roof, and these ducks and geese swam out of the yard, so we don't know who raised them. Please cut them in half and return them to whoever they belong to."
As soon as these words were spoken, the villagers who thought Zhou Ye and Lin Shu were going to take the things away blushed.
It turned out that Lin Shu and Zhou Ye had never intended to keep these poultry. They just saw them on the way and brought them back. If they hadn't brought them back this time, when they went down the mountain a few days later, the chickens, ducks and geese would have disappeared.
The head of the village took a few poultry, but the lawsuit was difficult to decide. In the end, as Lin Shu had expected, all the poultry were confiscated. In this way, most people were happy, after all, when they were stewed into a pot of soup, they would all get a bowl of broth.
Lin Shu put the pile of miscellaneous items she had collected into order, and without a moment's rest, she and Zhou Ye set out separately.
Zhou Ye went to find some firewood, while Lin Shu took Lin Xiaopu and Liao Dunzi to the mountains to dig wild vegetables.
Seeing this, Li Chunmiao hurriedly pushed his son and asked Wang Yingen to follow.
She was not afraid of being called a smart imitator. At this time, she had to follow the smartest people. Not only would she stay in the back mountain for a few days, but she would also learn from Lin Shu when she came down the mountain and returned to the village. Otherwise, no matter how much food they had left at home, they would not be able to survive until next year.
It’s not easy to have no food and can only eat wild vegetables!
Zhang Qiaohua was also clever. Lin Zhaodi's life was getting better and better because she had tried to please Ah Shu. How could her third aunt be any worse than an outsider? She didn't try to please Ah Shu, but she was sure to learn from her. Her family didn't know what was happening in town with Yu Shu, and since there were no children to take care of, she went out on her own, carrying a basket of vegetables and following Lin Shu and the others.
When she did this, many families followed her.
In the end, Lin Shu was followed by six or seven village women, some of whom she called aunt, and some were only two or three years older than her.
She did not hide anything and shared all the wild vegetables that could be eaten at this time of year with the village women who came with her, and also told them many ways to eat them.
Lin Shu's favorite is purslane. It can be eaten cold when fresh, and there are more ways to eat it after drying. It can be soaked and used as dumpling fillings, mixed with flour to make steamed dishes, and stewed with meat. It tastes very fragrant.
The taro stems could still be picked, but most of the taro stems on the back mountain had been picked by her to be dried and stored. If the villagers nearby wanted to pick them, they would have to go to the mountains three miles away to look for them.
Then there is the ground fungus. It looks like wood ear, so it is also called ground wood ear. There are a lot of them on the stones in the wet ground after the rain. The villagers are no strangers to what Lin Shu said.
"Ah Shu, isn't this ground roll skin you're talking about? It's everywhere in the village after it rains, on the ridges of the fields, on the slopes of the earth, and in the woods. It's a sticky mess. Can you eat it?"
Lin Shu explained, "Aunt, don't you think this ground roll skin looks a bit like wood ear mushroom? That's why it's also called ground wood ear mushroom. It's edible, but it's hard to clean. It's too troublesome, and I don't usually eat much. But food is precious right now, so we should save as much as possible. Let's not worry about these things. As long as we can eat more, that's good."
"That's right!" the woman responded quickly.
Because ground lettuce grows close to the ground, it's mixed with dead leaves and sand, making it extremely difficult to clean. If it's not cleaned properly, even if you cook it, your mouth will be full of sand. Because of this hassle, Lin Shu rarely picks it. After all, the time spent cleaning ground lettuce could be spent doing many other things.
But now she was not picky. She instructed Lin Xiaopu and Liao Dunzi to pick all the ground fungus they saw, especially those growing on rocks. This kind of ground fungus growing close to the rocks has much less mud and sand and is relatively easy to clean.
Since Lin Shu took the initiative to bring it up, she also told the village women who followed her the cleaning method.
"When washing this ground vegetable, first soak it in clean water for a quarter of an hour. After most of the mud and sand are washed away, soak it in light salt water or rice washing water for a quarter of an hour. After that, sprinkle two handfuls of plant ash and rinse it repeatedly with running water, or rinse it with changing water repeatedly. Wash it three to six times and it will be done. When washing, you can gently use the pads of your fingers to gently massage the leaves, but be sure not to use too much force to avoid damage..."
The village women who followed her were all willing to listen to Lin Shu. Not only did they follow Lin Shu to pick wild vegetables, they also wrote down everything she said.
These purslane and ground fungus are both wild grasses that can survive the winter in Tianshui Village. Who wouldn't want to have a few more wild vegetables to eat?!
Lin Shu not only explained how to clean it, but also how to cook and preserve it in great detail.
Cold-mixed ground vegetables are refreshing and appetizing, ground vegetable scrambled eggs are a classic homely dish, ground vegetable dumplings are juicy and full of flavor, ground vegetable egg soup is light and nourishing to the stomach, ground vegetable fried with bacon is unique, and the ground vegetable pie is crispy on the outside and tender on the inside!
In addition, ground spinach stewed with tofu soup, ground spinach stewed with vermicelli, etc., all have their own unique flavors.
They haven't even eaten this thing yet, but after Lin Shu described it like this, the village women all started to swallow their saliva.
I didn’t expect that the common ground rolls can be made into so many delicious dishes!
"...There's a lot of this stuff. As long as you don't mind the trouble of cleaning, you can pick as much as you can, wash it, dry it, seal it, and store it in a cool place. It won't be a problem to store it for a year or two. Just soak it in water before eating it."
The village women didn't mind the trouble at all, and they were all happy to hear this.
When everyone returned with a full load, the villagers who did not go with them breathed a sigh of relief when they saw that they had brought back only some purslane, ground rolls and mushrooms.
I thought Lin Shu took a group of people to dig up some good stuff, but this is it?
Lin Shu ignored the villagers' private murmurs.
There are indeed many edible wild vegetables in the mountains, but why do so few villagers enjoy foraging for them? This is primarily due to the inability to cook them, and the fact that most wild vegetables have a strong flavor, making them taste nothing like the vegetables grown by every household. However, many wild vegetables are incredibly nutritious, and if their flavor were improved, they would truly be considered mountain delicacies.
Lin Xiaopu and Liao Dunzi helped to wash the picked ground vegetables. The rice washing water was available at home after making rice porridge, and they grabbed a few handfuls of wood ash directly from the stove. Lin Dashan also went to fetch two buckets of mountain spring water, so there was enough water.
The two of them washed all the ground vegetables they picked thoroughly.
Lin Shu took a bowl of washed ground vegetables and dried the rest out to dry and store for later consumption.
"Sister, what delicious food do you want to make for dinner?" Lin Xiaopu couldn't help asking. She remembered it very clearly. Her sister told several aunts and sisters-in-law many ways to eat ground peas. She was very greedy when she heard it.
Lin Shu's lips curled slightly, "We still have a lot of eggs at home. I'll take out two and make you some ground vegetable pies."
What she wanted to make more was actually ground vegetable dumplings, which were similar to leek dumplings, but that method used too much oil. She couldn't use the few spoonfuls of oil she had worked so hard to get today in that way, so she decided to make pies.
First, use the half-boiled dough method to knead the dough. Stir half of the flour with boiling water and the other half with cold water. Then mix and knead into a smooth and soft dough. The dough kneaded in this way will be soft and chewy, not easy to break and will not become hard.
After kneading the dough, let it rise for a quarter to two minutes.
It is simple to prepare the filling. Dice the ground vegetable, mix it with chopped eggs, and add oil and salt.
The wrapping and baking processes have also become simpler. The dough is rolled out in thin portions, the filling is wrapped and sealed tightly, and then wrapped into a crescent shape that is easy to seal.
He Guixiang finished her work and came over to help wrap the dumplings. There was a big bowl of filling and the wrappers were thin. She made ten dumplings in total.
After the rice porridge is cooked, pour it into a clean wooden basin to cool. Rinse the pot, dry the sides, and lightly coat it with oil using a small brush. Add the ground vegetable fritters to the pan and fry over medium-low heat until both sides are golden brown. Finally, cover the pot and simmer briefly until softened. This results in a crispy crust and a delicious filling!
The first ground vegetable pie out of the oven was already in Lin Xiaopu's hands. She blew on it a few times, took a bite, and her eyes lit up as she ate. "Mmm, delicious!"
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