Chapter 398 Kiln Chicken
Too bad I have to wait another week to eat it.
The only thing he could do was to make something else to satisfy his craving. Zhao Yeqing thought about frying the ginger leaves for dinner, and then stir-frying the ginger leaves with bacon and pairing it with rice. Just thinking about it, he wasn't so craving for hotpot anymore.
While Zhao Yeqing was cooking dinner, Mu Xi walked into the yard and started rubbing mud.
When dealing with rotten beans a few days ago, Zhao Yeqing saw the flock of chickens swarming in and suddenly realized that the number of chickens in his home had exceeded the limit again, and he had to eat more.
These past two days, whenever he had free time, he would roll mud balls in the yard, and when the mud balls were dried, they could be used to make kiln chickens.
It is not difficult to make kiln chicken, the main thing is to do the preparatory work well.
Especially for earthen kilns, the mud balls needed should be solid but not hard. That is, the mud can be mixed with water and formed into balls and then left to dry, but the best state is that it can still turn into earth residue when squeezed.
After Mu Xi had kneaded the mud blocks needed for the earthen kiln, he took the broken tiles that had fallen from the roof before. Those tiles that were not too broken into pieces were kept.
Both of them have a habit of not wanting to throw things away. Whenever they can use something, they are reluctant to throw it away. When they think that something will be useful one day, they feel happy all over.
Then he sighed and said: See, it’s useful to keep it.
This earth kiln is built with irregular mud balls, which always leave many gaps. At this time, tiles are needed to cover the gaps to ensure that the temperature inside the earth kiln does not dissipate.
The earthen kiln cannot be too big, otherwise the chicken will not be cooked through; nor can it be too small, otherwise the kiln door will not be big enough and it will be difficult to light the fire.
First, we dug a pit and placed a few bricks at the bottom before we could build the earth kiln. After all, the weather is still a bit humid now, and we are afraid that the humidity of the soil will be too high and the kiln fire temperature will not be enough.
After building the kiln door with bricks, they used mud balls to surround it to build a circular earthen kiln, which became smaller as it went up.
After building the earthen kiln, the most important step left is to marinate the whole chicken, which must be marinated one day in advance.
Each family's recipe for pickling is a little different. Some people only apply salt and oil, some people add onions, ginger, garlic, onions and chilies, some people apply soy sauce and oyster sauce, and some people apply salt-baked chicken powder. If you like a unique flavor, you will also add sand ginger.
The two prefer the original taste. After adding onions, ginger and garlic to the chicken's belly to remove the fishy smell, they only applied oil and salt on the surface. They thought that if the subsequent seasoning was too light, they could make a dipping sauce with soy sauce. Adding millet pepper, chopped green onion and coriander could make it a spicy dipping sauce.
The chicken has to be marinated overnight, and you also have to consider the ingredients for wrapping the chicken before grilling it.
Zhao Yeqing took out the tin foil that he had been reluctant to use from the cupboard. This thing could not be recycled. He had found a few large rolls of it in the kitchen of a hotel in the tourist area. Over the years, it had only been used to seal the homemade brick oven.
Zhao Yeqing gestured to the size of the chicken, carefully cut out two pieces and put the rest back. He would take them out again when the sweet potatoes planted this time were harvested. Next time he made kiln chicken, he could also kiln some sweet potatoes to eat.
The tin foil is the outermost layer wrapped around the chicken, and there is another layer of leaves in the middle.
You can use large bamboo leaves, or you can use rice dumplings leaves, lotus leaves, or banana leaves to wrap it.
The leaves in the bamboo forest behind my house are small leaves, and there are no rice dumplings leaves. The only options are lotus leaves and banana leaves.
You have to go to the monkey base on the path down the mountain to get banana leaves. There is no risk to your life, but you may get bruised. The banana trees planted at home have just broken through the soil and are less than ten centimeters tall, so it is still too early to use their leaves.
The most suitable thing at the moment is lotus leaf.
The lotus pond at home has grown a small leaf, but it's just tiny leaves. Zhao Yeqing sighed when he thought of the lotus pond. Logically, it should have grown big leaves after so long, but the first batch of lotus seeds planted turned black and died just after they grew leaves.
The seeds we are planting now are the new seeds we picked from the swamp later.
The two guessed that it was because the pond was dug too deep and too much water was added in the early stage. After learning from the last lesson, they filled the bottom of the pond a little, fished out the group of shrimps that had been raised with great difficulty, and kept some small ones. The big ones were made into dried shrimps that night.
The lotus seeds planted later were polished and planted directly at the bottom of the pond, leaving only two or three centimeters of water level. The pond water was deepened only after the first leaf floated to the surface. Unfortunately, the small shrimps that were left behind had died, and I haven't had time to get some back during this period.
So now if we want to get lotus leaves, we have to go to the swamp. It just so happens that I have recently made several trips back and forth to transport sandy loam, which consumed a lot of gasoline and emptied two large gasoline barrels. This time I can go there and load up the gasoline, and also see if there are any more accidents with the landslide.
The two men marinated the chicken and went to sleep. They went out early in the morning to pick lotus leaves to fill with gasoline.
This time, the two were extra careful when going down the cliff. Mu Xi's safety rope was tied to a big tree farther away from the edge of the cliff, and Zhao Yeqing also tied a rope for himself. The two were afraid that something unexpected might happen here again. If the rock and soil on the edge of the cliff were unstable, the safety ropes on their bodies could save their lives.
Fortunately, there were no accidents throughout the process. While Zhao Yeqing was waiting up there, he used a telescope to observe the situation on the slope over there, and it seemed that there was no difference from before.
Wait a little longer.
After getting the gasoline and lotus leaves home, Zhao Yeqing saw some ripe black lotus seeds and collected them all, as they might be useful in the future.
The lotus leaves were taken home, Zhao Yeqing processed the chicken, and Mu Xi started to light the fire in the earthen kiln, making sure the fire was burning vigorously.
The earth blocks are burned hot, and the firewood that has been continuously added in the middle is consumed. The red charcoal in the middle of the earth kiln accumulates more and more. After the open flame has been extinguished, the wrapped kiln chicken is placed in the middle of the red hot charcoal.
Zhao Yeqing stuffed the remaining mud balls into the kiln door, and Mu Xi took the sand that he had prepared in advance and covered the entire kiln to prevent any heat from leaking out.
The chickens in the kiln this time are not small, there are two in total, and it is estimated that it will take more than three hours to take them out of the kiln.
One is shared by two people, and the other is a snack for the dogs at home.
The dogs had a very hard time some time ago. In addition to herding sheep and cattle, they also had to solve the problem of food and clothing for themselves.
It wasn't something the two requested, but mainly because there were more rabbits on the meadow and the dogs had red marks on their mouths when they came back every day.
They will go home for dinner these days. Zhao Yeqing guessed that they must be tired of eating rabbit meat. Today, when the two of them eat the kiln chicken, the dogs must have a share.
The sky turned yellow and the sky was filled with sunset glow.
What the two of them waited for was only a dog.
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