Chapter 34: Alkali Water Zongzi is golden in color, crystal clear, and soft in the mouth...
Lin Xiaopu immediately started praising her, racking his brains to think of all kinds of compliments. His flushed face made Lin Shu laugh out loud.
"Okay, sister, you are teasing me on purpose!" Lin Xiaopu stomped her feet in embarrassment.
"A-mei is there to be teased, hahahaha..."
He Guixiang looked at the two sisters laughing and couldn't help laughing too.
In fact, she was also surprised. Her family was poor, and they had no food to eat, so they were lucky to have food at all. Not to mention the glutinous rice dumplings, they couldn't even eat the tung leaf cakes for the Dragon Boat Festival. It was only after she married Lin Dashan that her husband's family had a better life than her own, and with the good weather in recent years, every household finally had some hope and could spare a little money to buy snacks. They could eat all kinds of baba and glutinous rice cakes, as well as fermented glutinous rice and bacon. That's when she learned to make tung leaf cakes from her two sisters-in-law.
Ah Shu's rice dumplings are much harder to wrap than the tung leaf rice dumplings. I didn't expect that after being a rich lady for so many years, she is not only good at eating but also good at doing it herself.
But she heard that young ladies from wealthy families never cook, and that a lady who does these things would be looked down upon. Ah Shu's days in the Marquis' Mansion must not be as smooth as she thought.
When she thought of this, He Guixiang looked at her daughter with a little more tenderness in her eyes.
Lin Shu had no idea what her mother was thinking. Right now, she was telling Lin Xiaopu how to make rice dumplings, step by step.
Lin Xiaopu is very good at hands-on work. He learned it after just one teaching and was able to make the dumplings quite well.
"Mother, look, look, how well have I wrapped it?!"
He Guixiang smiled and responded, "It's really beautifully wrapped. Mother hasn't even seen it yet."
"It's all thanks to my sister." Lin Xiaopu smiled slyly.
"Ah, I'm so scared. As the saying goes, a good apprentice will starve himself to death. Our little Pu is so smart. If she learns my skills, won't she be even more powerful than me, a daughter of a wealthy family?"
Lin Xiaopu laughed, "If I can learn even a little bit of what my sister does, then all the men who want to marry me will be lining up at our doorstep!"
He Guixiang joked, "You little girl, how old are you and you're already thinking about these things? Aren't you ashamed?"
"Mother, my elder sister said that as a family, we can say whatever we want to say. We don't care about those things. Others want to marry me, but I won't marry. I will stay at home and be your daughter for the rest of my life, and my younger sister for the rest of my life."
"You, wait until you really like a boy, then come and talk to me like this."
"Just say it, and we'll see."
The mother and daughter in the room were laughing, and the air was full of joy.
With Lin Xiaopu's help, the glutinous rice was gone in no time, and they were able to wrap twelve small dumplings!
He Guixiang lit a fire when she thought the dumplings were almost done, put them into the pot, and added water to cover them. She cooked them for at least an hour until the glutinous rice in them became soft.
While waiting for the rice dumplings, Lin Shu helped He Guixiang turn over the mushrooms that were drying in the yard. It rains a lot in Tianshui Village in summer, and such rare good weather cannot be wasted. When the mushrooms are almost dried, they can be taken to the town to sell at the next market.
Thinking about the purslane plants she saw on the way back, Lin Shu decided to wait until the evening when the sun was not so strong, and then she called Lin Xiaopu to go outside and pick some more purslane.
This purslane can be seen everywhere, in the fields, on the roadside, at the foot of the mountain, as long as there is sunshine, you can see its shadow.
As one of the most common wild vegetables, purslane can be eaten in many ways: it can be mixed cold, stir-fried, pickled, or added to hot pot. But Lin Shu's favorite is stewing purslane with meat.
Take advantage of the good weather these days and pick some purslane. Dry it and use it as a dried vegetable. It can be stored for a long time. Whether you are making steamed pork with rice flour or braised pork, using this dried purslane as the base will make the taste delicious! Not only that, although purslane is a wild vegetable, it has rich nutritional value and can be used as medicine, making it a good thing that can be used as both medicine and food.
Lin Shu had asked Xiao Pu about the most common wild vegetables eaten by the villagers of Tianshui Village: hummus, young mulberry leaves, bracken, toona sinensis sprouts, thorn buds, shepherd's purse, and bamboo shoots. Many of these are only available in spring, either out of season or too old to eat now. This is why fewer and fewer women are going to the back mountains to pick wild vegetables: partly because it's hemp season, and partly because there are fewer edible wild vegetables.
But purslane is in season from the turn of spring to autumn until late summer. Having experienced the bitterness of hunger, Lin Shu had long since developed a habit of stockpiling. Since there wasn't much food to stockpile in the summer, she had to stockpile some dried vegetables. She had also agreed with Ah Ye not to sell all of these dried mushrooms, but to keep some for herself.
After turning over the mushrooms in the yard, I spun hemp with my mother.
He Guixiang looked at her tenderly, "Ashu's hands are so skillful, the twine she twists out is no less than A'niang's."
Lin Shu said with a smile: "I am only good at eating, drinking and having fun, but not at anything else. For example, my needlework is just average."
The daughters of wealthy families preferred music, chess, calligraphy, and painting. They also learned needlework, but they didn't need to master it too thoroughly. After all, every family had an embroiderer, so being able to embroider something pleasing to the eye was enough. The original owner wasn't fond of this, so she'd be lazy whenever she could, so naturally, it wasn't a big deal.
When talking about needlework, He Guixiang was slightly stunned, but soon returned to normal.
Lin Shu glanced at her secretly and curled the corners of her mouth.
She did it on purpose. She was not very good at needlework, but Lin Yao was very good. When needlework was mentioned, A Niang would of course think of her. It would be better to think about her from time to time, so as not to feel sad if she suddenly thought of her after holding it in for too long.
"Sister, the Guanyin tofu is ready!" Lin Xiaopu squatted in front of the large basin full of lush green Guanyin tofu, smiling like a little god of wealth. "This time, it didn't go through Sister's hands. I made it all by myself, and the Guanyin tofu I made is no worse than Sister's."
"Xiao Pu is really amazing. From now on, the job of making Guanyin tofu will be handed over to you." Lin Shu cut the large bowl of Guanyin tofu into pieces, mixed it with the ingredients, and then cooled it with mountain spring water.
"The weather is getting hotter day by day. Let's wait for this Guanyin tofu to settle down for a while, then we can send it to the fields together with the rice dumplings. Let Dad have a snack before he goes back to work."
Lin Xiaopu immediately accepted the task, "It's very sunny outside, sister, I'll go get some food for dad."
"Let's go together."
The aroma of the rice dumplings in the pot was already wafting out. Lin Xiaopu swallowed her saliva and asked, "Sister, how long will it take before we can eat the rice dumplings?"
"It should be almost done." Lin Shu poked the zongzi with her chopsticks, easily inserting them and bringing out the slightly yellow glutinous rice. After making sure it was cooked through, she fished the zongzi out. "Look at how greedy you are. It needs to be left alone for a while. It will taste better when it cools down."
The laborer at home had to be taken care of, but the girls couldn't be left out. Lin Shu prepared three small plates of Guanyin tofu, one for each of the three of them. Even if He Guixiang wanted to eat less, she wouldn't be able to because she would watch her finish it. Lin Xiaopu didn't need her to urge her; she was a greedy little cat.
Now it was time to share the zongzi. Originally, they had planned to make ten, giving two to each of the five people in the family so they could all get a taste. Now there were twelve, so there were two extra. With five people in the family, He Guixiang insisted she only wanted one. Lin Xiaopu, though sensible, was craving one, so Lin Shu gave her two and two for herself, leaving seven. Dad got three, and the remaining four were all given to Zhou Ye.
"Let's eat first, and then we'll take it to Dad and Brother Aye." Lin Shu said.
Lin Xiaopu nodded quickly and couldn't wait to use scissors to cut the straw rope on the rice dumplings, peeling off the palm leaves layer by layer to reveal the rice dumplings inside.
The rice dumplings cooked in alkaline water are golden in color, crystal clear and beautiful.
Lin Xiaopu was so fascinated by the sight that she couldn't bear to eat it. "Sister, this zongzi is so beautiful!"
Lin Shu joked, "It's not only beautiful, it's delicious too. Why don't you take a bite and try it?"
Lin Xiaopu swallowed, looked at the tip of the rice dumpling, and took a bite.
Not only did the alkaline zongzi look appetizing, it also tasted just as my sister had said. The zongzi was incredibly soft and glutinous, and the more I chewed it, the sweeter it became. The fragrance of the bamboo leaves and the aroma of the zongzi itself became even more intense.
Lin Xiaopu took one bite after another, his cheeks bulging with food, and soon finished a small rice dumpling. "Mmm, delicious, delicious."
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