Chapter 42 A horse won't get fat without night grass.
After the slaughtering is completed, the next steps are skinning, cleaning, and chopping.
Zuo Shan didn't plan to save the bamboo rats for winter, because she and her baby Achen urgently needed to supplement their protein and fat intake.
However, it was impossible for her to eat more than five pounds of meat in a short period of time, not because she couldn't finish it, but because she couldn't bear to waste it.
I remember my grandma in the countryside used to like to make meat sauce when she bought pork. She would cut the pork into cubes or thick slices, add water, salt, soy sauce, star anise, Sichuan peppercorns, dried ginger, etc., and simmer it in a pot over low heat for more than two hours until all the fat in the pork was rendered out and the water was boiled off. That's how you make meat sauce.
Meat sauce processed in this way can be stored for twenty days to a month without spoiling, even in the sweltering summer.
Without hesitation, Zuo Shan picked up an old kitchen knife, cleaned the bamboo rat of all its meat, and then cut it into small cubes the size of a fingernail before starting to cook it in a pot.
Forget about using any seasonings; she could only add salt and cook it. Just before it was done, she added sesame powder to finish the dish perfectly!
She couldn't resist sneaking a bite of the meat before it was even cooked. Luckily, Xiao Bao was fast asleep, otherwise he would have come running for more. Even so, he turned over a few times in his sleep and occasionally sniffed and drooled.
Even Mao Li couldn't help but exclaim, "It smells so good! It's a pity that we mechanical people don't eat food and only absorb solar energy. Otherwise, I would like to try the taste of this bamboo rat meat."
Left Fan: Luckily you don't eat, otherwise my and Ah Chen's share would be even smaller!
Ah Chen Baby: There's no share for me!
The cooked meat sauce was placed in the smallest bamboo basin, and then a slightly larger one was placed on top to prevent the flavor from escaping.
Then, I used the pot that had been used to make the meat sauce to cook a porridge of wild vegetables. The wild vegetables were a mutated artemisia that I picked yesterday. Artemisia is best used to make qingtuan (green rice dumplings) and fried rice cakes, but unfortunately, I don't have the means to do that now, so I can only use it to make porridge.
Moreover, there are fewer and fewer yam strips available for making the porridge, so we need to find some mutant plants with high starch content to maintain the quality of the porridge.
But today is different. The pot that had been used to cook the meat sauce was covered with animal oil and meat juice. Even though we didn't add a single bit of meat sauce, it was still delicious enough!
Zuo Shan ate so much that he bit his tongue until it bled – and I'm not exaggerating, he really did!
However, she was still very satisfied. Even the irritability, depression, and low mood after killing someone seemed to be soothed by this big bowl of vegetable, meat, and yam paste.
Patting her full belly, Zuo Shan couldn't help but sigh: "A horse won't get fat without night grass! If I had a few more of these late-night snacks, I probably wouldn't be so skinny. The feeling of having an extra meal is just too wonderful!"
Happiness is so simple. Why didn't she realize it when she was making braised beef instant noodles in her dorm before?
As a fellow foodie, Zuo Shan decided to be generous this time and next time she went shopping in District 48, she would give Uncle Wu Qiong some bamboo rat meat sauce and a small dish of pickled vegetables.
Unfortunately, she hasn't found any wild vegetables suitable for pickling. It's not that leafy greens can't be pickled, but she's afraid of ruining the pickling brine, which would be a loss.
Besides pagoda cabbage, Jerusalem artichokes, and carrots, the best vegetables for pickling are cabbage and the heart of Chinese cabbage. She doesn't know the rest because all she knows comes from her mother's practical experience.
After eating and drinking his fill, Zuo Shan began to ponder a serious question.
Will she still be able to live in District 50?
She knew that it would be difficult to resell a house in the 50th district, meaning that if she wanted to leave, the house might not be able to be liquidated.
With only the 40,000 silver coins in her account, it's unrealistic to buy a house in another district, but renting a house in District 48 should be possible.
She recently went to the exchange hall to ask Chi Xiaofan about it. People from District 50 who want to rent a house in District 49, except for those like Qi Yang who have married a native of District 49, must pay a deposit of 10,000 silver coins to be eligible.
Residents of District 49 who wish to enter District 48 must pay a deposit of 20,000 silver coins and also require a guarantor.
The purpose of this is to prevent people from outside the area from entering the inner area at will and disrupting the social order of the inner area.
This sounds very unfair, but the laws of the wasteland are made by the strong. They have no pity for the weak. To them, ordinary people with low combat strength have only one purpose besides wasting food: to slow down the continuous decline in population.
To put it bluntly, they have only one purpose: to maintain the population base.
Although Zuo Shan was indignant, he could accept it. When in Rome, do as the Romans do; this is a rule that ordinary people should follow. Unless you are powerful enough to change the rules, you can only accept it.
As a resident of District 50, she would need to pay a deposit of 30,000 silver coins and find a guarantor if she wanted to rent a room in District 48.
She had two targets for this guarantor: Minister Wen and Uncle Wu Qiong, but ultimately, she didn't have any deep relationship with either of them.
This matter still needs to be planned slowly, but she must get it done before giving birth. Otherwise, once she gives birth, she will become a sitting duck in District 50, and everyone will know that she received a reward of 5,000 silver coins. The probability of her being targeted is too high.
There's no such thing as a thief who can be on guard against thieves for a thousand days. Once someone has their eye on you, it's impossible to guard against them all.
But even if she could persuade one of those two to act as guarantor for her, most of her savings would be gone in an instant. How would she and her baby live in the future?
Sigh! No matter what, you still have to save money!
In her original world, there were many ways to make money. Even ordinary people with no special skills could earn enough to support their families by selling their physical labor.
But for ordinary people in this world, all they do is scavenge. Even if they want to become a low-level civil servant like Chi Xiaofan, it is said that they need connections and academic certificates.
But what does she have now? She's penniless, has no education, and no connections.
If it weren't for the little bit of common sense she had accumulated in her original world that allowed her to dig up a new species of vegetable called Pagoda Vegetable that wasn't listed in this world's database, she wouldn't even be able to afford basic necessities, let alone immigrate to District 48.
Self-pity is not in her nature, so Zuo Shan decided to continue scavenging, but she would be more careful in the future and never go out alone.
After a hearty late-night snack, she slept soundly until dawn, unusually missing her morning exercise.
Remembering that she had gotten a big bamboo shoot yesterday, she decided not to go out to scavenge today, but to stay home and process the big bamboo shoot.
Just as she guessed, the bamboo shoots were wrapped in very tough layers, and it was obvious that they would be very chewy.
However, the tender bamboo shoots in the center exceeded her expectations. There were a full four kilograms of tender bamboo shoots that could be eaten directly, and after removing the outer skin, there were a full ten kilograms of old bamboo shoots.
The bamboo shoots are naturally diced and dried, and stored for later use in soups to enhance the flavor. This stuff won't spoil even if stored for a year or two.
She kept half a kilogram of tender bamboo shoots to stir-fry, and threw the rest into the kimchi jar, filling the empty space completely.
After twenty days of pickling, the relatively thinly sliced pagoda cabbage is ready to eat. Although the taste is slightly inferior to that of cabbage pickled in old brine, it is considered a top-quality dish in this wasteland where there are no side dishes to accompany rice.
Zuo Shan decided to make a trip to District 48 tomorrow to deliver some delicacies to Uncle Wu Qiong, a gourmand, and also to discuss the rental guarantee with him.
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