Chapter 45: Sleeping on the Floor
It was indeed me who forgot to remind him, and I couldn't help feeling a little guilty.
"You fell in? I built the pit so casually, there's no reason you couldn't see it."
The grass on the path was all thin, upright grass, and the holes were covered with large fern leaves, which were laid flat on top and did not grow upright.
Mu Xi picked up Huhu and said, "This little thing fell in when I was walking in front of you. The dirt on my pants was rubbed off when I went down to pick it up."
Huhu let out a howl, looking pitiful.
Zhao Yeqing asked them to wash up, "I'll cook first, you two wash up and come back to eat. Do you want to steam, boil or fry the dumplings?"
"Anything is fine."
She was just asking this question. Only children make choices, so of course adults want everything.
Steaming and frying dumplings can be done at the same time. The former does not require watching the heat, while the latter requires watching when they are turned over.
Heat oil in a frying pan and place the dumplings on top. When you smell the aroma of the dough, pour some water on them, cover with a lid and simmer for a few minutes.
Take advantage of the free time to prepare a dipping sauce. She likes to dip fried dumplings in oil and chili, steamed dumplings in vinegar, and boiled dumplings do not need a dipping sauce, just add the seasoning to the dumpling soup.
Fortunately, I bought chili powder when I bought the seasonings before. The chili tastes better when it is added freshly.
The most fragrant oil for making spicy chili peppers is the cooking oil. Unfortunately, there is no onion and the coriander also died heroically in the hail a few days ago. The cooking oil can only be fried with green onions and spices such as bay leaves, cinnamon and star anise.
Both pots are occupied now, so you have to wait until they are ready to be cooked before you can heat the oil.
Zhao Yeqing took a small bowl and poured out the aged vinegar first.
I don't have special dumpling vinegar at home, but the taste is pretty much the same with a little sugar in the old vinegar.
She likes sour food, and she added sugar because she was afraid that Mu Xi couldn't eat it too sour. She usually drinks the remaining vinegar directly after eating dumplings.
Dumplings that have not been frozen cook faster, and fried dumplings and steamed dumplings come out of the pot almost at the same time.
Each fried dumpling has a crispy shell underneath, and can be served on a plate after being sprinkled with a handful of cooked sesame seeds.
Take the steamer off the big pot. The water underneath is still boiling. It is clean and can be used directly to cook dumplings.
Put the dumplings into the pot and use the back of a large spoon to gently push them to prevent them from sticking to the bottom of the pot. Wait for a minute and you no longer need to watch them once they float up a little.
Heat oil in a pan, add the star anise and green onions, and fry over low heat until all the ingredients are dry. Then turn off the heat and wait for five minutes until the oil temperature drops. Pour a spoonful of oil on the chili powder and mix well. This way, the chili powder will not get mushy when you pour hot oil later.
Heat the remaining oil on the fire. When a slight smoke appears, the oil is already boiling hot. Now pour it all on the chili powder.
In an instant, the aroma of the pepper was stimulated and the saliva in the mouth began to secrete uncontrollably.
The dumplings in the pot are ready. Put the fried golden and crispy scallions on the bottom of the bowl, add soy sauce, oyster sauce and a little dried seaweed, pour the boiling hot dumpling soup on top, then put the dumplings in the pot into the bowl and sprinkle with a handful of chopped green onions.
Three kinds of dumplings were served on the table, and the dipping sauce was divided into two portions. This time, half of the dumplings were consumed, and the rest were put into a bag and frozen in the freezer.
Seeing Mu Xi coming back from taking a bath, she put down her chopsticks and silently recited the names of several elderly people.
Mu Xi stood beside him, with the corners of his mouth slightly curved, his casual eyebrows looking somewhat gentle, his lips gently opening and closing, muttering something silently.
You can be seated and eat in a few minutes.
"Yuanbao's is made with cabbage, and Liuye's is made with green onions. We mix the two together and we have all three flavors." Zhao Yeqing gave a brief introduction and stopped talking.
Because the freshly poured chili oil is so fragrant.
Fried dumplings are the most filling. In terms of order, you should eat boiled dumplings first to prevent the dumpling skin from being swollen by the noodle soup, then eat steamed dumplings, and finally fried dumplings.
The boiled dumpling soup is the wonton soup base that my grandma used to prepare, except for a spoonful of lard, otherwise it would have been more fragrant.
The skin of the freshly made dumplings will not become hard and will become slightly transparent.
Gently bite open the dumpling skin with your teeth, and the hot steam will come out from inside. Put it into aged vinegar to cool down, and then you can pick it up and eat it directly.
She bought aged vinegar, which had a pungent aroma and was extremely sour. She squinted her eyes when she ate a dumpling that was soaked in aged vinegar, but she couldn't help but pick up the next one immediately.
The chili powder used in chili oil is a mixture of several kinds of chilies, which is both spicy and fragrant. The auntie who mixes the chili powder for her in the vegetable market is married from Sichuan Province and is very good at mixing chili powder.
This time she used rapeseed oil, which has a more complex and layered spicy aroma. It’s still a bit painful to make dishes or seasonings that consume so much oil.
Unfortunately, there is almost no lard from wild boars, so the family can only rely on purchased vegetable oil, and it is unknown when we can replenish it.
Mu Xi recalled, "Didn't you also go to the oil press in town when you were a child?"
Zhao Yeqing remembered, "I've been there. When I was a kid, I bought tea dregs to wash my hair... Do you want to make oil yourself?"
When I was a child, the oil press in the town was an ancient wooden oil press, which was later replaced by machines.
Wood oil pressing uses the impact and compression of wood to squeeze out the oil.
"I saw it when I was a kid and I remember it. The principle is not complicated and it should be possible to operate it."
Zhao Yeqing had not originally envisioned this method. She thought that if there was no oil in the future, she would see if she could get some fat from chickens and rabbits.
But now that he suggested pressing the oil themselves, she began to think about the principle.
In theory, as long as there is enough strength, oil pressing is not difficult, but the oil yield of the traditional method of oil pressing is definitely not as good as that of machine pressing.
There are wild tea seed trees on the mountain, but their yield is unknown, so you need to look for them carefully when the time comes. They are usually harvested after October, so there is no rush.
During the meal, they talked about the situation on the top of the mountain. Mu Xi said that he only saw a car, there were no bodies nearby, and there were no supplies in the car except some wrenches and tools.
After inserting the key in the car, he drove it back and parked it on the road at the small intersection.
After finishing the meal of dumplings, Zhao Yeqing looked at the fan and made a suggestion.
"Why don't we sleep on the floor in the living room from now on?"
Mu Xi looked up in surprise, "Are you okay?"
Zhao Yeqing raised his foot and threw the slippers on his feet over, saying unhappily: "I'm afraid you will faint from the heat when you sleep at night, and I will have to collect your body."
The temperature tonight feels about the same as during the day. The wind from the fan is hot. Only when the door is opened and the air circulates, the house becomes a little more comfortable.
Recently the sun has been very strong during the day and the moon has been very bright at night. There is not a single star to be seen in the deep blue sky, which is very rare in the mountain sky. The stars that should have appeared are all silently obscured by the moon's brilliance.
She thought about it and suggested letting Mu Xi sleep on the floor in her room, but after saying that, she felt it was a bit strange, so she changed her mind and said it would be better to sleep in the living room.
Mu Xi heard her change her words again and again, but still refused, "No, go back to your bed, it's fine with me..."
The tone was a little strange, making Zhao Yeqing look up at him in confusion, but he saw that he was frowning, stroking his mushy back with his slender fingers, with a smirk on his lips and a teasing tone.
"I can't sleep on floors that aren't tiled."
What responded to him was Zhao Yeqing's other slipper.
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