Chapter 488 489: Oil-bottomed Meat
Yang Chunyan looked at the eaves of the backyard and asked, "Are the cypress branches ready?"
"Put the cypress branches, sugarcane peels, and peanut shells on the washboard." Zhang Xiuxiang said as she put the bowls, chopsticks, and plates into the pot.
Yang Chunyan took the loofah and said, "One of us washes it, and the other cleans it."
"That's right!" Zhang Xiuxiang stood in front of the big pot inside, "Chunyan, do you think it's a good idea to run for the director of women's affairs?"
Yang Chunyan turned her head and looked at her, "Why do you ask this?" Could it be that Li Qiuyue talked to her about it?
Zhang Xiuxiang whispered, "I heard from Aunt Xu that Xiang Qunying went to Secretary Xu a few days ago and said that she would quit at the end of the year."
Yang Chunyan still thinks being a team leader is better than being the women's director. "It's her business whether she does it or not. We can't do it!"
Zhang Xiuxiang looked around, leaned forward and whispered in her ear: "Yan'er, I think one baby is too few. If I were the director of women's affairs, someone would have tipped you off if you wanted another one."
"Second sister-in-law, it's really not necessary!" Yang Chunyan looked at her gratefully, and after thinking for a while, she came forward and said, "Huaian and I bought a piece of land in Ning'an. If we want to in the future, we can hide there."
Zhang Xiuxiang looked at her in surprise, "Really? If Qiuyue knew, she would probably go hide with you!"
Yang Chunyan nodded and said, "Don't tell your third sister-in-law about the house yet. We can talk about it later!"
"Got it!" Zhang Xiuxiang said, "Is there any more land? If there is, we will buy it too!"
Yang Chunyan didn't expect that she also wanted to buy it. "I'll talk to Huai'an and ask him to ask Brother Huang and Doctor Xiao Wang to help find out next time he goes to Ning'an. I'll tell you when I find it."
Zhang Xiuxiang looked at her with a smile, "Ever since I followed you to dig herbs and sell them for money, I realized that it's right to follow you!"
Second sister-in-law is so fierce!
Yang Chunyan said with a smile: "Aren't you afraid that I will lead you into a ditch?"
"Don't be afraid!" Zhang Xiuxiang said without even thinking about it.
The two sisters-in-law were cleaning in the kitchen, while Zhao Huifang and Li Qiuyue were sitting in front of a square stool with a chopping board, cutting meat slices.
The best pork for stuffing sausages is front leg meat that is 30% fat and 70% lean. Before slicing, remove the white membrane, fascia and cartilage on the meat.
Cut into thin large slices so that the stuffed sausage will not fall apart when cooked and sliced.
In those days there were no machines for filling sausages, so everyone cut bamboo tubes from the bamboo forest, passed the sausage casings through the tubes, put them on, and then they could fill the sausages.
Yang Chunyan and Zhang Xiuxiang cleaned the stove and came out. Seeing that the basin was already half filled with meat slices, they helped to cut the remaining meat and poured the five-spice powder, salt, chili powder and rock sugar prepared by Zhou's mother into the basin.
Zhao Huifang rubbed her sore wrists, "Okay, I've mixed the seasoning and kneaded it. I still need to marinate it for an hour before I can stuff it into the sausage."
Zhang Xiuxiang patted Yang Chunyan and said, "It takes a lot of strength to knead this. You two should move aside. My sister-in-law and I will do it."
Yang Chunyan stood up and stepped aside. "The chili powder and salt are very spicy. I should have brought the plastic gloves from home."
Zhang Xiuxiang and the other person squatted in front of the large wooden tub. "It's okay. We'll be done in ten minutes if we act quickly."
After the two of them had kneaded the seasonings evenly, Yang Chun poured a bowl of sorghum wine into it, and the two of them kneaded it for a few more minutes before stopping.
Yang Chunyan hurriedly brought a basin of hot water to the two of them, "Wash quickly, or it will be painful."
"Yeah!" Zhao Huifang and the other person hurried to wash their hands.
Yang Chunyan returned to the kitchen, washed and blanched the top-quality pork belly and pork belly that Zhou's mother had reserved for frying, and then drained the water in a colander.
Zhao Huifang and Zhang Xiuxiang burned the pork skin, scraped it clean after it turned brown, cut it into pieces of 70-80 liang, mixed it evenly with salt, white wine and Sichuan pepper powder, and marinated it until the next afternoon when it can be fried.
According to legend, the fried pork with oil bottom was made when Zhuge Liang personally led the army in the west to fight. Because the army had traveled thousands of miles, the battle line was too long, logistics supply was difficult, and the climate was hot, the meat delivered to the front line had already rotted and was inedible.
In order to solve the problem of nutritional supplements for the soldiers, Zhuge Liang marinated pork with secret ingredients according to the local climate and conditions, fried it to remove the moisture and fat, put it into jars, sealed it with oil, and stored it in cellars.
There is also a local legend in the southwest that oil-bottomed meat was developed by the Zuo people who lived in "Zaoduyi" in ancient times to prevent pork from rotting and spoiling in the hot summer. It was later discovered and promoted by Zhuge Liang.
Fried pork can be stored for months or years without going bad. Although this kind of meat is not fresh pork, it tastes like glutinous meat cakes, melts in your mouth, is fat but not greasy, and has a long-lasting fragrance.
These days, fried meat is made with pork fat. Before frying, remove the seasoning from the marinated meat and let the surface moisture dry.
Remove the dregs of the refined green pork fat, and then put the marinated meat into the oil pan to fry. When frying the meat in the oil bottom, the moisture in the meat must be dried and fried thoroughly.
Keep frying until the meat skin is browned and makes a clattering sound when tapped, otherwise the fat will become rancid and bubble, and the meat will become moldy and spoiled.
Finally, put all the fried meat and oil into the earthen jar. The oil must cover all the meat. After sealing, place the earthen jar in a dry and ventilated place. It can be opened after half a month.
There are many ways to cook oil-bottomed meat. You can steam it, stir-fry it, or stew radish. You can also stir-fry green and red peppers, garlic sprouts, cowpeas, green beans, etc. It is simply a delicacy.
After the sisters-in-law had seasoned the fried meat and put it into the wooden barrel, Yang Chunyan and her sisters-in-law went to the door of the main room.
Four people divided the work and cooperated with each other. Two people stuffed the sausages, and two people kneaded the stuffed sausages with their hands to compact the meat slices inside and make the stuffed sausages uniform in thickness.
Then divide it into sections every seven or eight inches, tie them tightly with white cotton thread, and then use a fine needle to poke the bubbles, hang them in a ventilated place, and dry them in the sun for a week before they can be smoked.
…
After Zhou's mother and Zhou Huaian saw Zhou Yiding and Secretary Xu off, they began to hang and smoke the bacon.
Zhou Yumei and Luo Haili each lived in one of Zhou Huaian and Zhou Huaishan's original rooms. Zhou Huairong's room was filled with a dozen jars of truffle wine, and Zhou Huaijun's room was used to hang bacon, ham and cured pig's trotters.
Zhou's father had already set up seven or eight hard-headed springs inside. Zhou Huaian stepped on the ladder and hung the pickled pork on it. The pickling of ham and cured pig's trotters involves many steps and takes a long time, so they are still kept in a large vat.
He hung strips of bone-in ribs and butcher's meat, which were two fingers thick and fatty and exuded the aroma of pepper and salt, on bamboo poles.
Zhou's mother stood below and watched, the smile on her face never stopping.
She used to dream about when her life would be like what the old people told her, that every New Year, strips of smoked, waxy, fat bacon would be hung on the beams of the homes of the wealthy landlords.
"Youngest, your big brothers can take it home to smoke. If there's no room in your backyard, you can smoke it here and then send it over."
"Great!" Zhou Huaian hung up the last piece of bacon, jumped off the ladder and looked at the bacon above his head with a smile, "It makes me feel at ease just looking at it."
Zhou's mother piled pine needles and peanut shells under the bacon, and broke off cypress branches on top, saying, "The bacon will only smell good if it's smoked well."
Zhou Huaian took out a box of matches, took out one and lit it with a "sizzle" sound, and then ignited the pine needles. "The wild boar bacon that Uncle Daqing and I smoked in the yard last time at the forest farm tasted delicious!"
"As long as it's meat, it tastes good no matter how it's cooked."
Zhou's mother piled the half-dried sugarcane peels on top of the cypress branches, and the house was immediately filled with smoke, which carried the scent of cypress and sugarcane.
Zhou Huaian kept fanning himself, "Oh my! It's unbearable, it's just like smoking away mosquitoes." After saying that, he whooshed out like a rabbit.
Zhou's mother was so frightened that she cried. She quickly put some cypress branches on the meat and followed him out. "Huifang, is the pork marinated?"
Zhao Huifang stuffed the meat slices into the bamboo tube. "It's marinated. We've also cut the lard. All you have to do is fry it tomorrow."
Zhou Huaian sat for a while, then squatted next to Yang Chunyan, "Bacon is not as delicious as sausage, so we should put more in it."
Yang Chunyan smiled and said, "Two large basins of meat should be enough."
After hearing this, Zhou's mother did some calculations and said, "I have saved about 100 kilograms of meat for sausages, so each family can get more than 20 kilograms. There is also so much bacon and deep-fried meat, which is enough."
After hearing this, Zhou Huaian thought for a moment and said, "Mom, give me some seasoning. I'll go back and marinate the mutton and have Doctor Xiao Wang send two legs to the boss in the provincial capital."
Yang Chunyan thought of the city dwellers who had no place to raise chickens and ducks, "Mom, go buy a dozen roosters tomorrow, and pickle some ducks. Send a few over when the time comes, and we'll eat the rest ourselves."
Zhou Huaian was delighted after hearing this: "Salmon, chicken, fish, and sausages, this year is too fat!"
Mother Zhou couldn't help but roll her eyes at him as she thought of the past. "In the past, you said that the New Year was boring. You suffered all year long and couldn't even have a good meal during the New Year. This year, I'll let you eat as much as you want."
Zhou Huaian got up and sat on the recliner. "I haven't been craving meat for a long time. Now I can't eat much even if I want to."
"There is a meat dish every day. If there is no meat, we will stew bone soup." Zhou's mother said and suddenly remembered something, "Did Yiding tell us what to do with the meat in his house?"
Zhou Huaian thought about it, "He asked you to help pack more than ten kilograms of sausages, fry a jar of oil-bottomed meat, and pickle the rest into bacon."
"It's really not possible to have no woman in the house!" Zhou's mother sighed, "Luckily I scraped a lot of casings. Youngest, go to the kitchen and get the meat. I'll cut it and marinate it overnight and serve it to him tomorrow."
Zhou Huaian lazily got up and went to the kitchen, then came out with a basket in his hand, "Have Aunt Jiang and the others taken away all the meat they bought?"
Zhou's mother put the chopping board on the stool and said, "They took it away at noon. The five of them bought thirty kilograms each, and one of them bought fifty. There were still more than twenty kilograms of meat left from the big fat pig."
"I raised a fat pig weighing more than 330 kilograms for a year and a half, and sold it for only 210 yuan. The rest was the meat, offal, and a pig's head."
As she spoke, she remembered that she had asked her eldest wife to lend them some money to repair their house and she would pay him back after selling the fat pig at the end of the year. However, they had four pigs in the pen and no one agreed, because they were afraid that they were too poor to pay him back.
Now that I think about it, isn't it just like the saying, "One field ridge is rotten three times, and you will be poor and rich three times before your old age." Just move on.
(End of this chapter)
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