62 Crispy Bone Fish
◎Farewell, fireworks every year◎
New Year's Eve.
Xu Ruolan suggested that everyone prepare the New Year's Eve dinner together, with each person making one dish. This would be fair and interesting.
Song Jinyi is a good cook and she is usually responsible for the meals. Now that everyone is busy together, she is of course happy to see the success and agrees with this idea.
Li He reacted in the opposite way. She made a bitter face and said weakly, "But I only know how to make desserts, not cook."
Song Jinyi said, "It's not impossible. This dessert can be eaten as an appetizer before a meal and as a dessert after a meal. If you want to make it, make more. When you go out and visit neighbors, give it to their children."
Hearing her say this, Li He felt relieved and turned to look at Xie Wuyang. She had never seen him cook before and didn't know how good his cooking skills were.
Without hesitation, she asked, "What are you going to do?"
Xie Wuyang gave her a cold look and said to Song Jinyi, "I'm clumsy and really can't cook anything. What does Sister like to eat? Teach me how to cook it and I'll make it for Sister in the future."
Li He opened her eyes wide. She had always been the one to please Song Jinyi, but now she let him take it all. How shameless! She stared at Xie Wuyang angrily. Why was this guy so attentive recently? It was infuriating!
Song Jinyi nodded and agreed to the suggestion. After all, each person had a dish just for fun. It didn't matter if the dish couldn't be made. You couldn't ask someone who couldn't cook to cook.
She doesn't want to eat dark food.
Song Jinyi quickly decided on the dish and made a crispy bone fish. This fish is an indispensable dish for the New Year’s Eve dinner, which means abundance every year.
Clean the fresh small crucian carp, marinate it with seasoning for a while, and when it has absorbed the flavor, lift the fish tail and put it into the oil pan. The bright yellow hot oil will bubble around the fish body and fry it quickly until both sides are golden brown.
Crucian carp are not big in size and have tender meat. The only drawback is that the bones on their bodies are soft, small, and numerous, making it difficult to remove them. But after frying, the thin and soft bones become crispy and taste like fried potato chips, crunchy.
This step is called frying the fish.
Then take out the fried crucian carp, drain the oil, add the seasoning to remove the fishy smell and appropriate amount of water and simmer over low heat.
The key to making the fish taste outstanding lies in the last step, adding orange peel and dill. The orange peel is slightly sour and bitter, which is just right to remove the fishy smell, and the dill tastes like fennel, making the fish taste richer.
If Song Jinyi's dishes are rare imperial dishes, then Xu Ruolan's dishes are easy to cook at home.
Xu Ruolan made a dish called 馎襲, which is also a dish often made during the Chinese New Year.
In Song Jinyi's eyes, this steamed bun is more like a staple food than a dish. The reason is that the first time she saw this steamed bun, she thought of the noodles in her previous life.
Xu Ruolan cooked a pot of vegetable soup, kneaded the dough into uneven pieces, put them into the boiling soup, cooked for a while, and then served it.
When Song Jinyi brought the cooked steamed buns, she felt very emotional. She didn't expect to eat food from her previous life here.
Life is wonderful.
Song Jinyi took a bite and the taste was not amazing, but she hadn't eaten noodles for a long time and was very hungry. She wanted to have another bowl to relieve her homesickness.
As for Li He's dessert, Song Jinyi was just joking when she said it was an appetizer. The kitchen is so small and there are so many kitchen utensils, how can it accommodate three people at the same time?
Let's put this dessert aside for now.
Xie Wuyang is usually quite smart at his job, but unfortunately he has no talent for cooking. Even the simplest home-cooked dishes cannot be cooked in one day. Even if he is taught step by step, it will be too late.
She really couldn't think of any dish that could be prepared quickly.
She wanted him to participate and feel involved. The child had little sense of belonging. If she left him out this time, wouldn't he feel even more alienated?
She thought about it for a long time and finally came up with a dish that not only Xie Wuyang but also a toddler who is just learning to speak can make - the Five Spicy Vegetable Dishes.
This five-spice dish is also called the spring dish. The reason why it is called the five-spice dish is because the spicy vegetables in the food: green onions, shallots, leeks, and coriander are cut into pieces and put together on a platter.
You don’t even need to heat up the oil in a pan, isn’t that simple?
This dish was carefully thought out. It is simple and easy to make, and it suits the situation perfectly.
In ancient times, people paid attention to eating new food (Xin) during the New Year, which meant praying for good health.
Of course, these dishes were not enough for the New Year's Eve dinner, so Song Jinyi cut a plate of braised pork and made four dishes in pairs.
The meal was still held in the kitchen. This was the first New Year they spent together.
When the meal was half finished, Song Jinyi took out the pepper and cypress wine that she had bought the day before.
Drinking on an empty stomach hurts the stomach, so she took out the pepper and cypress wine in the middle. It is a wine brewed with pepper and cypress branches. It tastes slightly spicy. Drinking it in winter will make you feel a fire rising in your stomach and warm your whole body.
The four of them don't usually drink, but they feel like something is missing if they don't have some wine to liven up the New Year holidays.
This bottle of pepper and cypress wine weighs only one catty, but it costs three taels. If it weren't for the New Year, she would not have been willing to buy it.
It's not that she doesn't know how to make wine, and she also knows that selling wine can make more money than selling drinks. However, because of the Daxia liquor monopoly order, the market is strictly controlled and private brewing and selling is not allowed, so she gave up the idea.
Otherwise, when it comes to selling wine, she is also a good hand.
After three rounds of drinks, Song Jinyi saw that the dishes on the table were almost gone, except for the five-spicy dish made by Xie Wuyang, which was half left. In order to save his face, she ate the whole dish with pepper and cypress wine.
Xie Wuyang sat on her left, staring at her intently, and leaned over to ask her, "Is it delicious?"
Song Jinyi was not stingy with her praise, "It's delicious."
But she was thinking in her heart: Encourage him more. If he becomes interested and falls in love with cooking, she will teach him everything she knows. She also wants to eat a ready-made meal.
After Song Jinyi finished the plate of spicy dishes, she felt hot all over and her mind was clear. She turned around and found that Li He's head was on the table. She occasionally turned her face, and her cheeks were as red as peaches.
If she remembered correctly, Li He only drank two glasses. She didn't know whether to say that the wine was strong or that Li He had a low alcohol tolerance.
There was the sound of fireworks outside, "bang bang——". Li He had been clamoring to see the fireworks yesterday. When she heard the sound, she raised her finger. Song Jinyi almost thought she had struggled to wake up, but she saw her turn in a different direction and continue to sleep.
It seems that she is not so lucky.
Xu Ruolan drank some wine, and her face was a light pink. She didn't look drunk, but if you looked closely, you could see that her eyes were flashing with a hazy glint.
She waved her hand in front of Xu Ruolan and said uncertainly, "Are you drunk too?"
"I'm not drunk!" Xu Ruolan suddenly said loudly.
She blinked, put her hand on Song Jinyi's shoulder, and said without thinking: "Jin, I want to tell you something."
Song Jinyi thought she was drunk and asked her what was wrong.
"A Jin, you asked about my family before, and I told you that I was an orphan, with only a master and no parents. But that's not true..."
As she said this, her voice was slightly hoarse, making Song Jinyi unable to tell whether she was drunk or not.
"I have parents. My mother is gentle and virtuous. She takes care of her husband and children at home. Everyone in the village praises her as a good wife and mother. But my father is worse than pigs and dogs. When my mother was pregnant, he had an affair with the widow next door.
Because he always wanted a son, my mother had to drink such bitter medicine for so many years, and had to get pregnant for him despite her poor health. The doctor said it was a boy, but he didn't cherish it and went to hang out with the wrong people.
That woman took advantage of my father and shamelessly went to my mother, saying a bunch of dirty words, which made her faint from anger... I begged him to call a doctor, but he refused!
My mother is gone, and he listened to that woman and wanted to sell me out..."
Perhaps it was the scene that brought back memories for her, but unfortunately things and people have changed. She still couldn't let it go. After drinking, she spoke the truth and couldn't help but talk about many old stories.
It was the first time that Song Jinyi heard Xu Ruolan talk about the past, and the first time she cursed so vulgarly, which showed that the other party was even worse than she said.
After Xu Ruolan finished speaking, she lowered her head and leaned on her shoulder and began to sob, her voice muffled.
After a while, Song Jinyi felt a cold dizziness on her shoulders. She thought she must be drunk from drinking.
She slowly said, "Actually, I have something to tell Sister Ruolan. I'm not from this place, I'm from another place. Our place is very different from here. There are tall buildings and cars..."
After Song Jinyi finished speaking, she saw that she didn't react, and then she realized that she was tired of crying and fell asleep.
She shrugged helplessly and placed the person carefully on the table.
When he turned around, he saw that Xie Wuyang's eyes were clear. The two looked at each other, clinked their glasses tacitly, and suddenly smiled.
Song Jinyi pointed to the window and asked him, "Do you want to go watch the fireworks?"
Xie Wuyang nodded.
The two men put the two drunkards on the bed and went out together. Every household hung red lanterns and posted couplets on the wall, and candles were burning in the house, like a winding fire dragon parading.
Song Jinyi was holding a small red lantern in her hand, and Xie Wuyang followed her all the way to Luojin Bridge, which was a good place to watch the fireworks.
The two stood at the highest point of the bridge, with the sound of fireworks exploding in their ears. After the colorful fireworks rose into the sky, they were like shooting stars and raindrops fell down.
Farewell to the evening, fireworks are set off every year【1】.
Xie Wuyang suddenly asked her, "Sister, how do you celebrate the New Year over there?"
Song Jinyi thought no one would believe what she said just now, but unexpectedly Xie Wuyang believed it.
She met his gaze. He was indeed asking her the question seriously, and he didn't look drunk.
After a long silence, she thought for a moment and said, "I'm an orphan over there, all alone. I'll go to work, no, I'll work until New Year's Eve, then go back to my rental house alone, make a bag of frozen dumplings, and watch the Spring Festival Gala on my phone."
Xie Wuyang just listened quietly, without asking her what frozen dumplings were or what a cell phone was.
She pointed at the fireworks and said, "We're not even allowed to set off fireworks there." Then, she met his eyes and asked, "Isn't it boring? So it's better here."
There's you, Sister Ruolan, Li He, and fireworks."
As the dazzling fireworks bloomed, the colorful light was like a warm light filter, making Song Jinyi sigh: How come his profile is so beautiful? It was just like the male protagonist in the girls' comics she saw in junior high school.
She vaguely saw Xie Wuyang's lips moving, but amid the roar of fireworks, she couldn't hear what he said.
She didn't know at that moment whether the pounding sound was the sound of fireworks or her own heartbeat.
【Author’s words】
【1】-Wang Zhu
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