Chapter 176 Animals
The ice was a bit slippery, so the two men did not ride the sled again. They left the sled where it was and untied the rope on the dog.
Letting a few dogs follow behind, the two of them walked towards the lake.
Although the temperature is cold now, it doesn't feel uncomfortable to walk without wind.
It seemed that the dogs' feet were frozen by the ice, so they kept running on it without stopping for a moment.
On the small hill above the meadow, the snow was blown away by the wind, and the slope was no longer covered with ice, so some grass was exposed.
The grass was no longer as green as before, but had turned yellow. The two climbed to the top of the hill and looked at the lake.
I actually saw a group of animals by the lake not far away.
"It's a deer!"
Zhao Yeqing lowered his voice, fearing to scare them.
When the wolves were there before, they suspected that they were attracted by a herd of deer nearby, but they never found any traces of them. So how come there were a herd of deer here now?
Mu Xi pointed in another direction and lowered his voice, "Look over there."
Zhao Yeqing squinted his eyes and looked over. It was a black animal of considerable size.
"Black blind man?"
But the black bear shouldn't be this big.
“It’s a brown bear.”
Zhao Yeqing widened his eyes when he heard this. Where did the brown bear come from in their place?
Mu Xi's gaze shifted to the mountain in the distance that was covered with snow all year round.
"It should have come from over there."
Zhao Yeqing also looked over there. The mountain was still as white as ever, which reminded her of a possibility.
"Did the earthquake trigger an avalanche on the mountain over there, causing the deer and brown bears to run over here?"
Mu Xi nodded, "It's possible."
Otherwise, generally speaking, unless animals need to migrate, other animals are unlikely to leave their original territory.
What's more, a bear that needs to hibernate will not appear outside at this time and move its territory.
The deer looked like a sika deer, with round spots on its body.
There were about seven or eight sika deer in the herd. Like the bears, they did not stay by the lake, but walked forward to observe possible places to live.
The two men were afraid of being discovered by the bear, and several dogs were still running on the meadow behind them, so they hurried down the hill and called the dogs to go home.
“There are probably many creatures on the meadow now that weren’t there before.”
The geographical conditions and climate of that mountain are different from those of the meadow. The animals over there will run over and show no signs of going back.
Either the temperature of the meadow is now suitable for them to live in, and the mountain over there is still not safe, or it is an animal's warning that there may be more disasters.
After returning home, Mu Xi went to cook first. Zhao Yeqing brought the puppies back to the room and wiped their pads clean before putting them in.
The weather now is not suitable for stir-frying. The dishes will get cold soon after being taken off the fire.
Mu Xi heated up the oil, took out the pickled peppers from the jar, put them into the pot, stir-fried them until fragrant, then added water and brought to a boil.
Put dried vegetables in boiling water.
The day before yesterday, Zhao Yeqing said that the food was a bit bland, so he was thinking of making a pot of beef in sour soup tonight.
The ingredients were not strong enough and the sour taste was not obvious, so he added some vinegar.
The freezing point of vinegar is minus two degrees Celsius, and it has already frozen into ice cubes.
You can only sit by the stove, wait for it to melt a little, and then quickly pour the melted vinegar into the pot.
A little bit of vinegar is enough. The dried vegetables put in the pot include Chinese cabbage and dried tomatoes.
The sour taste of sun-dried tomatoes is also quite noticeable.
Mu Xi covered the pot and waited until the sun-dried tomatoes inside had melted a little in the soup before putting the beef in.
The sour taste makes people salivate.
Sour soup rice is Zhao Yeqing’s favorite, so the first meal cannot be made with just steamed buns or noodles.
The sour and spicy taste was especially appetizing. Zhao Yeqing ate a big bowl of it and saved the remaining soup for the next meal.
The steamed buns at home were almost used up, so Zhao Yeqing took out some highland barley flour and mixed it with a little flour to knead the dough. With highland barley flour, the consumption of wheat flour could be reduced.
You cannot make steamed buns with just highland barley flour. Unprocessed highland barley flour is a broken chain. You have to add some wheat flour to it before kneading the dough to make steamed buns. The steamed buns made are also more nutritious than ordinary steamed buns.
The notes only contained the original owner's recipe for steamed buns, which added wheat flour. Zhao Yeqing flipped through the book and found out that highland barley could not be kneaded into dough.
Mu Xi was preparing to make filling for the buns. He did not thaw the beef, but simply sliced the hard beef into slices and then chopped it up.
The chopped beef will thaw just by grabbing it with your hands.
You also need to put some water in it. Soak the ginger slices and peppercorns in the water, and then add them to the chopped beef filling in portions. Use your hands to check until all the water and seasonings are absorbed by the beef.
Heat oil in a pan, fry the bay leaves, star anise and peppercorns to create fragrant spice oil, pour the oil into the minced meat and use the oil to lock in the moisture in the beef filling.
The beef filling will freeze after a while, so you can’t just scoop a little filling into each bun or dumpling like you did in the past.
You have to pinch the meat filling with your hands first, roll it into balls and place them on the chopping board. It doesn’t matter if it’s frozen hard, just put it directly in the dumplings when wrapping them.
It locks in moisture even more when frozen.
When the dough was fermented the next day, Zhao Yeqing couldn't wait to steam the freshly made buns to try.
The fluffy and soft buns came out of the oven, and Zhao Yeqing blew on them slightly to cool the surface.
She took a careful bite, and the rich juice inside overflowed. Fortunately, she took a relatively small bite, so she blew into her mouth and then sucked out the juice inside.
The beef soup inside is very delicious. Even if you suck up the soup before eating the buns, the meat filling inside is still juicy and not dry at all.
The beef that Mu Xi chose was not purely lean, but had some fat and tendons, and the meat filling was slightly chewy when bitten.
The meal made her want to eat Chaozhou beef balls again.
Mu Xi also ate a bun and said as he ate, "What's wrong with this? I have nothing to do at home now, so I'll just do it."
After eating the buns, Mu Xi returned to the room and smashed a large stone into it, revealing a large piece of beef.
Zhao Yeqing was afraid that he would get bored of beating him, so he took out a martial arts novel by Mr. Jin from the original owner's book collection and told the story in a very emotional way.
This novel is very classic. The characters and plot are so impressive that even a minor supporting role is so impressive that she has never been able to forgive the stinky Taoist priest in the novel since she was a child.
She skipped that part.
There were many novels of Mr. Jin on the table. Zhao Yeqing guessed that
"The original owner lived alone on this meadow, raising dogs and sheep. He probably had some dream of living in seclusion as a martial arts hero."
When I was halfway through a book, the beef in the pestle was pounded into a paste.
Teochew meatballs are only considered good if they are pounded until the meat becomes gelatinous.
There was so much noise in the house all morning that the two of them didn't hear anything in the yard.
Mu Xi wanted to take the pounded beef into the kitchen to make meatballs, so he opened the door.
I made eye contact with the tall black figure in the yard...
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