Chapter 391 White Hair Tofu
Mu Xi supported the cooking table with both hands, and watched Zhao Yeqing walk to the greenhouse in the courtyard through the window. He said loudly: "If there is nothing you want to eat, I will go to the nearby forest to find some wild vegetables."
The current weather is not only suitable for the growth of wild plants, but also very suitable for the growth of vegetables. The vegetables in the greenhouse in the yard cannot be eaten up at all. If it were not for laying eggs, I guess there would be no need to feed the chickens with grain. The vegetable leaves picked every day would be enough.
She wouldn't bother looking for wild vegetables if she couldn't finish the ones at home. She didn't believe that she couldn't find what she wanted to eat with so many varieties of vegetables.
I went around to the back of the climbing vegetables and saw a pumpkin vine that had already climbed up the wall and was growing outward. I lowered my head to avoid the vines above my head, walked over, squatted, and picked a tender pumpkin that was as big as a bowl.
This season is not the one for pumpkins to ripen. I don’t know when this one bore fruit and it has been hiding in the corner without being discovered.
Before picking the fruits, Zhao Yeqing pinched them with his fingernails to make sure they still had enough moisture and were not too old. Otherwise, he would just leave them on the vine to save seeds.
Special varieties of tender pumpkins have been bred for the market. Even if they grow into old pumpkins, they are not sticky or sticky, but have a crispy and tender taste.
The seeds of her pumpkin came from the one she found in the vegetable garden at the foot of the mountain a few years ago. It is a genuine farm pumpkin. If you pick it when it is tender, it will be a young pumpkin. If left to grow, it will become a soft and sticky orange-yellow old pumpkin. The taste may not be as crispy and tender as the varieties on the market, but in terms of aroma, it is far superior.
Generally pumpkins only start to bear fruit recently, but this one has grown so big, it is an early-maturing one. Zhao Yeqing held the tender pumpkin back to the kitchen and said, "Look, it grew just for the fire in the kitchen today."
I'm tired of eating green leaves. There are few fruits and vegetables in this season, and a pumpkin is a rare thing.
Mu Xi took it, washed it and cut it into shreds. Seeing that the time was almost up, he threw the chestnuts into the pot.
The water level in the pot that originally covered the chicken has now dropped by half. Pour in the chestnuts, stir a few times, cover the pot with a lid and continue simmering.
Zhao Yeqing set up another pot, rubbed the pot with ginger and sprinkled some salt, put the fish pieces in and fry until golden brown, then added a small amount of water and the previously fried tofu, and stewed them together. When the water was almost dry, pour in a small bowl of sauce and starch water to thicken.
The sauce is a small amount of dark soy sauce, salt and shrimp powder. It would be even better if there was oyster sauce, but it is something that cannot be made even if one knows how to make it, and there are no oysters growing in the mountains, so one can only think about what can be used to make a substitute.
When the sauce became thick and the chestnut chicken was cooked, Mu Xi picked two garlic sprouts, tore them into several pieces with his hands, threw them in, stirred them for a while, and served them out of the pot.
The duck soup was cooked ten minutes ago. After Zhao Yeqing released the steam from the electric pressure cooker and opened the lid, a rich sour aroma wafted into his nose.
No salt was added during the stewing process, as pickled radishes have a high salt content. After it was done stewing, I tasted the soup with a spoon and found it a bit bland, so I added some salt and pepper.
After Mu Xi served the chestnut chicken, he quickly rinsed the pot and poured the tender pumpkin shreds into it and stir-fried them.
Three dishes and a soup were placed on the newly replaced small dining table. The family only had strong liquor for cooking, so Zhao Yeqing poured two cups of soy milk as drinks.
The dogs' meal consisted of pork shanks and sausages cooked by Zhao Yeqing on a small firewood stove.
The small sausages are specially made for dogs. They are pure meat sausages without salt. They are cooked in bone broth and served with bone broth rice. There is one sausage in each dog rice bowl.
After Zhao Yeqing raised his glass and said "Let's eat", the four dogs lowered their heads and started to chew the sausages at the same time. If they were a second late, the sausages might have fallen into the mouths of the dogs next to them who had finished eating the sausages.
The fish was tender and the tofu had a strong bean flavor. The sauce coated every piece of tofu and fish. After removing the big bones, the fish was mashed with chopsticks, mixed with rice and drizzled with some sauce. Mu Xi finished half a bowl of rice in just a few bites.
I first put two bowls of sour radish and duck soup in small bowls so that it can cool down faster. If I get tired of the food, I can drink a mouthful of sour soup and then add refreshing pumpkin shreds. It will whet my appetite so much that after finishing a bowl of rice, it feels like I didn't eat anything.
The duck stewed in a pressure cooker is so tender and boneless that you hardly need to chew it. The duck meat is also tender enough, and the duck skin has been stewed until it is almost melting.
Zhao Yeqing picked up a soft and glutinous chestnut, which broke when he gently picked it up with chopsticks. After being coated with the brown sauce, the taste became even more mellow. After the meal, only half of the chicken was left, but not a single chestnut was left.
Mu Xi secretly sighed that it was a mistake. He should not have chosen soy milk as a drink before the meal because he was worried about it going bad. He should have prepared malt tea in advance to help digestion.
After they had eaten and drunk their fill, they slumped in the dining chairs for a few minutes. After looking at each other, Mu Xi resigned himself to standing up and clearing the dishes, putting the unfinished food into the refrigerator and washing the dishes at the same time.
Zhao Yeqing sat for two more minutes, then took a rag and wiped the table and countertop. The dog bowls didn't need to be cleaned, as the bowls used by the dogs at home were cleaner than those that had been washed.
After cleaning the kitchen, the two still felt full, so they walked back and forth in the yard to digest the food.
The moon was dim and the stars were sparse, and night insects were chirping somewhere.
They waited until they were no longer bloated before taking a shower. The steam from the hot water and the rise in blood sugar caused by excessive carbohydrate intake made them both drowsy after the shower. They fell on the bed and had a good night's sleep.
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Since the refined kitchen was put into use, the couple's enthusiasm for cooking has reached an all-time high.
Zhao Yeqing was processing the half-finished fermented bean curd when he thought of the oyster sauce he wanted to use on the day he started cooking but had none, and he didn't know what to use as a substitute.
He was so absorbed in his thoughts that the tofu in his hand almost tilted and fell to the ground.
Mu Xi took two steps over to steady the winnowing basket containing the tofu. Seeing that the tofu cubes on it were motionless, he breathed a sigh of relief and asked, "What are you thinking about? How can you be so absent-minded when facing such a smelly thing?"
Zhao Yeqing was startled by the tilted tofu, but luckily the tofu had a certain stickiness after fermenting and becoming smelly, so it did not roll to the ground.
Now she didn't have time to think about the substitute for oyster sauce. When she came to her senses, the stench of tofu made her feel dizzy.
Before making fermented bean curd, the tofu has to be left out until it becomes smelly and grows white hair. The weather now is perfect for making fermented bean curd. The warm weather and high humidity allow the tofu to ferment quickly and cultivate lactic acid bacteria. The tofu blocks covered with white hair look like little hamsters that are very easy to rub.
The next step is to remove the white hair, roll the tofu cubes in strong liquor, coat them with chili powder and salt, and place them neatly in a jar.
Mu Xi looked at the tofu that had not been coated with chili powder and was placed aside. He covered his nose and asked, "What is this for?"
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