Chapter 465 Beef Jerky
After peeling the skin of several fish, only the white fish meat was left inside. Two complete pieces of fish meat were cut along the fish bones and set aside to marinate with ginger and garlic to remove the fishy smell.
The fish skin had been soaked in ginger juice in advance. Mu Xi placed the small clay stove with charcoal that he had brought back from the village on the kitchen floor.
Zhao Yeqing placed the fish skin on the metal grid above and slowly roasted it until the skin was slightly blistered and finally turned golden and crispy before placing it on a plate to cool.
This is not difficult. It mainly tests your patience. You can't use too high a fire. The fish skin is made of gelatin. If the fire is too high, it will burn in a short time. If the fire is too low, it will not be fluffy and crispy enough and will become hard.
You have to be very patient and sit there and keep turning it over.
The two of them have been trained to be very patient over the past few years. They sit opposite each other and chat while grilling, and the time passes quickly and is not difficult to endure.
When the fish fillets were grilled, some of it was moist and when it dripped into the charcoal fire, it would splash out a puff of white smoke. Mu Xi drove Zhao Yeqing to sit at the dining table and continued to grill the fish next to the cooking table.
Worried that the smell would be too strong on his body, he took off his shirt. However, as soon as he took it off, the sparks from the broken charcoal fire landed on his chest, so Mu Xi put on the apron again.
Zhao Yeqing rushed out of the kitchen when he went to get an apron naked. Thinking of the head rising and falling at the end of the bed that night, her breathing became a little disordered.
Half an hour later, I peeked in from the door and saw that Mu Xi had already put on his clothes and was washing the metal net containing the grilled fish and fish skin in the sink.
She coughed lightly and walked in, taking the plate of fish fillets away.
This is not the finished product yet, the finished product needs to be air-dried after baking.
There is a big temperature difference between morning and evening now. It’s almost evening now and the weather is not hot. You can hang it outside in the cool breeze to dry and you can eat it in two days.
The fish skin can be eaten directly. Mu Xi scooped a spoonful of sweet wine from the jar, boiled it, and then put an ice cube to cool it down. Zhao Yeqing sprinkled chili powder with salt and homemade five-spice powder on the fish skin. The crispy golden color of the fish skin and the bright red of the chili pepper made his mouth water before he even ate it.
The sweet wine feels slightly warm, which is perfect for drinking at this time.
They simply cooked some noodles for dinner, and then the two of them sat in the kitchen drinking and eating fish skin.
The fish skin was very popular. A whole plate was gone before two glasses of wine were finished. Zhao Yeqing was still not satisfied and wondered whether he should kill more fish and make it tomorrow?
But she didn't want to eat fish meat. How many fish would have to be killed to eat just the fish skin?
Mu Xi didn’t really like fish. He would get tired of eating anything that wasn’t chewy. It was not as good as the beef jerky they had made before.
When they were smoking the beef sausages this time, the two of them also made some beef jerky and didn't eat it. At that time, they couldn't eat all the fresh beef that couldn't be put in the freezer, so they put the dried beef jerky aside for the time being.
Until now, the two of them almost forgot about it.
Mu Xi hurriedly took out the sealed beef jerky from the cabinet, checked it left and right, and breathed a sigh of relief when he found that it was not moldy.
This time they made semi-dried beef jerky, not the fully dry kind before, which is not as durable. Fortunately, they remembered it.
This beef jerky looked very tempting on this greedy night. When Zhao Yeqing made it, she chose half fat and half lean beef. After it was made, she tasted a piece. The lean beef was chewy, and the butter was fragrant and full of milk flavor when she bit it.
(Pictures available here)
It is much more delicious than ordinary lean beef jerky, and it doesn't seem dry at all because of the fat.
But the quantity was really not much, a large piece of beef brisket only gave me a small bag of beef jerky.
It is best to heat the jerky with butter before eating it. Put it in the microwave on low heat for 30 seconds. The lean meat will not be dry and the fat will be just right to sizzle and release oil.
Not only is it suitable as a snack, but when you cook clear soup noodles in the morning, you can cut the heated beef jerky into small pieces and put them on the noodles. The combination of carbohydrates and fats will keep you energetic all day long.
When you get up in the morning, the first meal you cook is definitely not for humans, but for pigs.
Since I was a child, I have seen that people in the village feed pigs cooked food, and only occasionally feed them raw pig grass. If there is a good harvest of sweet potato vines, they will feed them raw food for a period of time.
Some time ago, the pigs didn't like to eat much. After the two men cut down the banana tree, they fed the pigs the heart of the banana tree. During this period, the pigs had a great appetite and they were still not satisfied after eating a big pot.
The heartwood of a banana tree or plantain tree is white and tender. It breaks easily with your hands and is very juicy. Farmers in my hometown use this method when their pigs refuse to eat.
The tree only bears fruit once. After it was cut down, the small banana tree growing next to it from the same root system began to grow rapidly. In just a few days, the leaves seemed to have grown a lot bigger.
There were two banana trees in the yard. The fruits of the previous one were eaten up, leaving only one with fruits still hanging on it. This one matured a little later, and the fruits are just beginning to turn yellow.
Zhao Yeqing picked a few green ones and left them in the kitchen for a few days until they turned yellow. He chopped them up and put them in a pot mixed with honey to make banana jam. When it was done, he suddenly remembered -
Ah, forgot to make the melon bean paste.
Fortunately, I now remembered that there were still two watermelons in the field that had not been eaten, so I quickly fermented the needed soybeans.
She is familiar with the process of fermenting soybeans. As long as the weather is normal, she can successfully ferment the soybeans with her eyes closed.
After fermenting the soybeans, she opened the jar of bean paste she had made earlier. She had eaten it twice before, but it was never as fragrant as it is now. There was a faint smell of alcohol in it.
I scooped out a small bowl and used it to roast the duck tonight.
Speaking of roast duck, Zhao Yeqing was craving for the roast duck with crystal clear and shiny skin. He had wanted to build a roast duck oven next to the brick kiln. It happened that there were some materials under the shed over there. The ducks at home were multiplying more and more, and they would definitely be of use in the future.
Zhao Yeqing was preparing dinner in the kitchen, and called out to Mu Xi to kill the ducks. Mu Xi had just emerged from the sheepfold, dragging two baskets of wool to the kitchen window and asked, "Do you want to make some this year?"
Zhao Yeqing felt a headache when looking at the wool. It was troublesome to deal with the wool. The wool was dirty and smelly, and it took a lot of time to clean it. Now the weather was warm all year round, so he could not really use it.
The felt blankets that were made before are now in the cupboard. The original owner also had a lot of wool stored in the house. Zhao Yeqing waved his hand and said, "Don't use it. Pour it all into the compost bin."
The main component of wool is keratin, which is made up of amino acids. It is an excellent material for composting. Since people can't use it, it can be converted into food.
When Zhao Yeqing worked in the city, most of the money he earned throughout the year was spent on food and drink. He ate, spent money and lost weight at the same time, feeling both painful and happy.
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