Fresh Pueraria root has an unpleasant smell, and it doesn’t taste good if eaten raw.
But when it is cooked, the smell is gone and the taste is soft, delicious, and even has a hint of fragrance.
The only problem may be that there may be some dregs.
But the starch content of Pueraria root is high in winter, so there is not much residue.
The kudzu roots dug up by Gao Mingcheng are all of advanced age, with thick rhizomes. The lightest ones weigh three or four kilograms, and the heaviest ones weigh more than ten kilograms.
Fortunately, although Xuanmei was a woman, she had strong hands. She held the kudzu root in one hand and the brush in the other, and quickly washed all the kudzu roots clean.
When passing by her own field, she saw that half of the taro in the field had not been dug up, and the leaves on the ground had withered after being hit by the frost.
The weather here is not too cold, so the taro will not be frozen underground, so they can dig it up as they eat it. Some farmers who sell taro will decide the time to dig the taro based on market conditions.
Xuanyuemei was just thinking about digging some taro to eat when she saw her brother.
So many beauties called out, "Brother! Bring me a hoe and dig me some taro to eat."
Zhang Chengyuan came empty-handed, as he had just let his sheep out to the field to graze. This time he came to give Xuanmei some kudzu root paste.
However, Xuanmei asked him to dig taro, so he went to the shed without saying a word and got a hoe and a basket. He picked up the hoe and dug a row of land, and found about ten pounds of taro.
There are two kinds of taro. The one with a thick root is called Taro Mother, and the small taro growing on the side is called Taro Boy.
The texture of taro is soft, sticky and sweet, while the taste of taro is slightly worse, so if you go to the vegetable market to buy vegetables, it is best to buy taro instead of taro.
After Zhang Chengyuan dug the taro, he brought it to the pond, sank the entire basket into the water, and then shook it. During the shaking process, the taro in the basket collided with each other, and the mud on the surface naturally fell into the water.
When it's almost finished washing, just use your hands to wipe it a few times and it will be clean.
Zhang Chengyuan carried the wet basket and walked towards Gao Mingcheng's home.
After entering the yard, he put down the basket and said to Manyimei, "Let me do it."
In just a short while, Xuanyue had already found all the tools for grinding Pueraria root.
A large basin and a tool similar to a washboard, except that it has an iron sheet embedded in the middle.
This iron sheet is densely nailed with holes, so the other side of the iron sheet is curled up and feels very rough when touched.
This tool is needed to grind the raw materials when making sweet potato flour and kudzu root.
Xu Xuanmei had already been grinding for a while, but it was a little difficult. After hearing what Zhang Chengyuan said, she immediately stepped aside and let Zhang Chengyuan grind it.
Zhang Chengyuan sat on a small stool, holding the wooden board steady with one hand and grinding the kudzu root on the rough iron sheet with the other hand. With his up and down movement, the kudzu root was ground into a paste and then fell into the basin below.
"Brother, you men are still stronger." Many beauties watched from the side and praised with a smile.
Zhang Chengyuan helped to grind the Pueraria root, so she could free up her hands to do other things.
We had eaten all the rice cakes last night, so we had to cook today. The meat dishes included the wind-blown pork stored at home and the wild rabbit meat that Gao Mingcheng got this morning.
As for vegetables, there are even more. The cabbage sprouts, red cabbage sprouts, celery, lettuce, romaine lettuce, Chinese cabbage, radish, and mustard greens grown in the fields can all be eaten now.
But Xuanxuanmei plans to make cuttlefish stewed with taro today.
Soak the cuttlefish, wash it, cut it into strips, and then stew it with taro. The flavor is unique.
Many people liked it after eating it once. Gao Mingcheng also likes to eat rice with taro soup and can eat a big bowl of rice in one go!
The last time Gao Mingcheng went to Guangzhou, he bought a lot of cuttlefish, squid and dried salted fish. He brought some back this time as well, just enough to stew a pot.
Xuanmei first took out the cuttlefish to soak it, and then was busy peeling the taro.
It’s true that taro is delicious, but it’s also true that it’s difficult to cook.
Taro is a plant of the genus Colocasia in the family Araceae. If people touch the mucus under the skin of taro, their fingers will itch, so if you want to eat taro, you must make your hands itchy first.
Xuan Mei processed the taro as quickly as possible. By the time she cut the taro into pieces and threw it into the iron pot to stew, her fingers were already itching.
But many beauties were not in a hurry. In the process of fighting with taro, many beauties knew that as long as they warmed their hands with fire, they would not be so itchy.
If it is not convenient to bake, just bear with it and it will be fine after a while.
At this moment, Xuan Duomei was making a fire and warming her itchy hands. The warm firelight reflected on her hands, making them feel warm and itchy.
Xuanyuemei couldn't help but lower her eyes to look at her hands. Before she married Gao Mingcheng, her hands would get frostbite every year, and her fingers would have cracks. It was painful when she touched water.
People in the village say that once you get frostbite, it will last a lifetime and there is no cure.
She used to believe in many things, but now she doesn't.
Since she married Gao Mingcheng, her living conditions have improved and she gradually stopped getting frostbite. After she went to the county to open a clothing store, she never got frostbite again and her fingers no longer cracked.
Now her hands are of course a little rougher than those of people in the city, but they are delicate compared to her peers in the village.
She had never dared to imagine having such a pair of hands before.
When the fire grew bigger and her hands weren't so itchy anymore, Xuanyuemei came to the yard and watched Zhang Chengyuan work.
Although the wind was chilly, the sun still brought warmth to people. Zhang Chengyuan sat in the yard, basking in the sun while rubbing the kudzu root in his hand. There was already a lot of kudzu root paste in the basin below.
After all the kudzu roots are ground, the next step is to wash out the starch in the kudzu paste, filter it, and let it settle. Then wash it again, filter it, and let it settle again until the kudzu powder is clean. Then take it out and dry it.
In the era when there were no machine processing, if people wanted to eat delicious food, they had to go through a series of processes, such as kudzu starch, sweet potato starch, and lotus root starch.
However, although they also have lotus flowers here, the amount of lotus roots produced is small, and most of them are eaten directly instead of being used to make flour.
It took Zhang Chengyuan a whole morning to grind all the Pueraria root.
Just as he breathed a sigh of relief, Gao Mingcheng came back carrying another bag of Pueraria root!
Seeing Zhang Chengyuan, Gao Mingcheng also greeted him: "Brother."
Hearing Gao Mingcheng's voice, Xuanyuemei came out of the kitchen and said with concern: "Are you hungry? Lunch is ready. You can eat after washing your hands. Brother, you can also eat at my place at noon."
Zhang Chengyuan wanted to refuse, but Xuanmei and Gao Mingcheng asked him to stay for dinner.
After washing his hands, Gao Mingcheng went to the table to eat with Zhang Chengyuan. When he saw the dishes on the table, his stomach almost made a noise.
I had a simple breakfast. After being busy all morning, I was already very hungry.
He immediately served himself some rice and some vegetables. He ate a bowl of rice with the stir-fried rabbit meat, and another bowl of rice with the cuttlefish and taro soup.
Seeing Gao Mingcheng eating with big mouthfuls, many people smiled happily. Knowing that Gao Mingcheng had a big appetite, she fried two wild rabbits and stewed five catties of taro!
"This tastes delicious!" Gao Mingcheng gulped down half a bowl of cuttlefish and taro soup with a look of satisfaction on his face.
Logistics is not well developed now and people in the village are not rich. Most people have never eaten cuttlefish stewed with taro. Taro is usually cooked directly and eaten. If it can be stewed with pork bones, it would be a rare delicacy.
But no one knows since when, this dish of cuttlefish stewed with taro has become a local delicacy for entertaining guests.
Whenever there are weddings or funerals, or when guests visit, the host will usually prepare this dish of cuttlefish stewed with taro, and people will eat it with gusto and never leave any.
"This dish is delicious!" At the dinner table, even Zhang Chengyuan, who was usually taciturn, couldn't help but praise it after eating this dish.
Perhaps this dish just happened to be destined to the locals, so it has been passed down since they tasted it.
After eating and drinking, Gao Mingcheng rested for a while, then prepared to go into the mountains again with an empty bag.
He felt much more at ease having Zhang Chengyuan come to help at home.
Black Tiger and Elf's lunch was much richer than in the morning, so the two dogs were particularly energetic. When they entered the mountain, they kept hiding in the bushes, not knowing what they were thinking.
Occasionally, Gao Mingcheng could hear the sound of small animals fleeing and hiding.
He didn't care and continued running towards the place he had marked.
He walked briskly on the flat hillside, climbed the narrow cliffs like a monkey, and quickly entered the deep mountains.
It is said that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.
When climbing, due to the complex terrain and difficulty of climbing, you can only find a flatter path to walk on, which inevitably requires taking a detour.
Gao Mingcheng has good physical fitness and can climb mountains easily, and the two dogs are not weak either and can keep up with him. Even if one of them can't keep up, it is smart enough to take a detour.
The mountains are much more desolate in winter, and many small animals hide themselves, only coming out to look for food when they think it is safe.
Walking on the dead grass, Gao Mingcheng looked around and found that there were still green plants on the slope. These plants were relatively short and usually inconspicuous, but they were particularly eye-catching among the dead grass on the ground.
This is Viola yedoensis, which likes light and moisture, but is also shade-tolerant and cold-resistant, and is not picky about soil. It has strong adaptability and is easy to reproduce, so they can be seen everywhere in the mountains.
They are inconspicuous at this time, but when they bloom, the purple flowers all over the mountains look very beautiful.
Because it blooms in early spring, when all the flowers are not yet in bloom, it can stand out from the crowd, and its flowering period is very long, lasting for more than twenty days!
The reason why Gao Mingcheng knew it so clearly was that Viola yedoensis was also a Chinese medicinal material and was recorded in Chinese medicinal material books.
Viola yedoensis is cold and slightly bitter, and has the effect of clearing away heat and detoxifying. It is mainly used to treat jaundice, dysentery, mastitis, red and swollen eyes, pharyngitis; it can be applied externally to treat injuries from falls, carbuncle, snake bites, etc.
It has many functions, but the difficulty is that it can be found everywhere and is easy to collect.
Many thoughts flashed through his mind, and his big feet ruthlessly stepped on a cluster of violets, flattening them. But after the big feet left, the flattened violets stood up again, trembling slightly in the breeze.
People have to encounter many hardships in their lives, and the same goes for plants and trees. Only by withstanding the pressure and fighting against the hardships can we usher in a better tomorrow.
Gao Mingcheng walked quickly through the forest and soon found a kudzu root. He followed the vine to the root and began to dig the soil.
For the entire afternoon, Gao Mingcheng was walking through the mountains and forests, sometimes searching, sometimes stopping to collect. Interestingly, while looking for Pueraria root, Gao Mingcheng actually dug up seven or eight winter bamboo shoots.
This can be considered as not doing one's job properly, but now that I have seen it, I have to dig it out!
Compared with spring bamboo shoots, winter bamboo shoots are much more delicious. Stir-fried pork with winter bamboo shoots is tender and delicious!
The spring bamboo shoots are large and thick, and there are many of them, but the spring bamboo shoots here are a bit numb and need to be soaked before they can be eaten.
Although winter bamboo shoots are delicious, it is not easy to dig them out. Because spring bamboo shoots emerge from the soil and can be seen at a glance, but winter bamboo shoots are hidden in the soil and require experienced people to successfully dig them out.
Gao Mingcheng also knew something about the method of digging winter bamboo shoots. It mainly depended on the growth of bamboo to determine the location of underground bamboo shoots. Winter bamboo shoots naturally sprouted and grew from bamboo shoots.
Sometimes you can dig up three or four winter bamboo shoots from a bamboo shoot!
Gao Mingcheng walked and dug along the way, no matter whether it was kudzu root or winter bamboo shoots, as long as he saw it, he could see the shadow of the hoe waving it.
By the time it got dark, Gao Mingcheng had already reaped a lot of rewards, so he prepared to go down the mountain.
He looked around but didn't see the two dogs, so Gao Mingcheng shouted loudly: "Black Tiger, Elf, go back!"
The sound echoed in the empty mountains, and the sound waves spread far and wide.
This feeling of emptiness suddenly made Gao Mingcheng realize that the world was so vast, and he himself was so small.
A few seconds later, the familiar barking of a dog dispelled Gao Mingcheng's perception. He saw the black tiger and the elf jumping out from a forest, and each of the dogs was holding a pheasant in their mouths!
When Gao Mingcheng saw the pheasant in the dog's mouth, his eyes lit up.
Don’t mention it, he hasn’t shot a pheasant in the mountains for a while!
The reproductive capacity of pheasants is not as strong as that of rabbits. In the past two years, Gao Mingcheng would occasionally hunt pheasants in the mountains to eat, but in the past two years, perhaps because he rarely went into the mountains, it was difficult to encounter pheasants.
"Woof woof!" The two dogs ran to Gao Mingcheng, put down the pheasants in their mouths, and then started barking as if to ask for credit.
Those dark dog eyes were full of requests for praise.
A pair of big hands fell on the dog heads. Gao Mingcheng touched one dog head with one hand, without any partiality.
"Well, you are awesome! Where did you get the pheasant?" Gao Mingcheng praised and asked again.
The black tiger understood, turned its head towards a place, and then barked twice, as if to say that it was there.
Gao Mingcheng looked in the direction of the sound and saw that the forest there was dense and it was difficult to get in.
He immediately gave up the idea and decided to let the pheasants go.
Pheasants naturally don’t hibernate. They are cold-resistant, can walk on the snow, can drink water with ice chips, and can live in the wild overnight. Their physical fitness is also excellent! (End of this chapter)
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