When Yu Yao got home, she first put the duck parts and pig intestines into enamel basins and soaked them in water, and then she started to prepare the braising liquid.
Qin Province has a lot of seasonings, and Yu Yao brought a lot with her when she came. In addition, whenever she passed by a supply and marketing cooperative or a state-run Chinese medicine store, she would also prepare some if she saw that it was not available.
There's no shortage of spices right now.
After preparing the brine, Yu Yao unscrewed the coal stove lid, emptied out the coal ash, let it ventilate, and then took a clay pot to start simmering the brine.
The key to delicious braised food is the braising liquid. In addition to using plenty of spices, you also need to simmer pork bones to make a rich broth.
Since Yu Yao didn't have any pork bones, she chopped up pig's feet into pieces and used them to make a stew.
The process of making braising liquid isn't difficult; it's just time-consuming. Many delicacies require time to prepare in order to achieve sufficient flavor. Simply seeking speed and convenience by using technology and brute force is a crooked approach.
This process takes time, so Yu Yao cooked the food while preparing the remaining ingredients.
The key to cooking good pork intestines and duck parts is thorough cleaning.
Pig intestines are harder to clean. You can use flour, salt, and vinegar to scrub them.
In those days, flour was a refined grain that had to be eaten sparingly, so no one would be willing to use it to wash pig intestines. Yu Yao simply used wood ash instead.
Yu Yao went to the stove and used fire tongs to take out a small bowl of wood ash.
The wood ash in her house is made from windbreak wood collected from the windbreak forest. Some windbreak wood has a fragrance, and the resulting wood ash also has a faint grassy aroma. It is better than flour for scrubbing pig intestines.
Yu Yao scrubbed the pig intestines several times with wood ash until they were clean.
It's true that the wisdom of the masses is boundless; even something as humble as wood ash has many uses.
Besides its common uses as fertilizer and for improving soil, it has many applications.
Sprinkling a layer of wood ash on stored potatoes and sweet potatoes can help preserve them and prevent moisture buildup. In some traditional medical practices, wood ash can also be used to stop bleeding from minor wounds and has antibacterial and disinfecting effects.
Wood ash is a natural alkaline additive that can be used to make a variety of traditional foods, such as alkaline rice dumplings and ash water steamed buns.
Yu Yao put the cleaned pig intestines aside and began processing the duck parts.
After picking vegetables from her house, Song Yufeng saw that she still had so many unprocessed vegetables and came over to help. "Why did you buy so many sea ducks? They're very fishy and don't taste good."
Yu Yao said, "I plan to make braised dishes. I have a way to remove the fishy smell of sea duck. It's not difficult, just a few steps."
She briefly explained the steps to remove the fishy smell, and Song Yufeng was dumbfounded: "Does making a duck product really require so many steps? We just throw it into the water to boil, take it out and eat it, at most adding some scallions, ginger and garlic while boiling."
Now she understood why Yu Yao's cooking was so delicious.
Halfway through processing the duck, a rich aroma of braised meat gradually wafted out, and Song Yufeng couldn't help but swallow.
Isn't this too fragrant? It's the first time she's ever smelled such a wonderful aroma.
After the two finished processing the duck products, they carried them into the kitchen, where the aroma became even more enticing.
Yu Yao looked at the braising liquid, scooped out a large bowl, and said, "Sister-in-law Yu Feng, here's a bowl of braising liquid for you. Besides meat and duck, you can put whatever you want in it, like potatoes, pumpkin, green beans, wide rice noodles, bamboo shoots, etc."
As she spoke, Yu Yao took a small piece of pig intestine from the duck parts and handed it to Song Yufeng along with some other duck parts.
These were meat dishes, after all, and Song Yufeng was a little embarrassed to accept them, but she really couldn't refuse because Yu Yao's cooking was so delicious.
She hasn't been able to eat much lately due to the summer heat and her pregnancy, and she's lost a lot of weight. She's fine, but she's worried about the baby in her belly.
Just smelling the aroma of braised food had whetted her appetite, so Song Yufeng didn't refuse.
Remembering that Yu Yao had mentioned bamboo shoots could be braised, she quickly went back inside to transfer the braising liquid to her own bowl. She then took the bamboo shoots she had picked from the mountain the day before and some wide rice noodles that her mother had brought from home, and brought them to Yu Yao.
The warmth and kindness between neighbors grows stronger through this give-and-take.
During the braising process, the lid cannot be covered; the fishy smell must be allowed to dissipate with the steam. This caused considerable hardship for the other military dependents around Yu Yao.
The neighbor's yard.
The Lei family, who had just moved in, were having dinner, but the three of them couldn't eat.
Lei Xiaojun, that mischievous kid, couldn't sit still. He didn't even like his favorite vegetable pancakes. Instead, he sat on the doorstep with his rice, enjoying the aroma in the air.
Commander Lei and Su Meihua are adults, they can't do that, they have to maintain their adult demeanor and sit at the dinner table.
But this smell is so strong that some people can't stand it.
Commander Lei couldn't help but sniff, "What's going on next door? It smells so good!"
Su Meihua looked worried and took a bite of food. "You're making braised food, aren't you? When I came back earlier, I saw Yu Yao carrying a bunch of duck parts, pig intestines, and pig's feet. Why don't we have braised food tomorrow? I'll go to the supply and marketing cooperative and buy some to braise."
Commander Lei agreed wholeheartedly: "We haven't eaten meat for half a month either. Buy more; this stuff keeps well, and one meal can last for several days."
The Lei family wasn't the only one tempted by the aroma. Everyone was so hungry by the unprecedented fragrance in the air that they all thought of buying some ingredients the next day to make their own braised dishes.
Only Song Yufeng and Battalion Commander Wu ate with particular relish.
Making braised food is quite troublesome, so Yu Yao made extra. She kept some for herself to take with her, and planned to send the rest to her parents and brother so they could try it too.
The day's rest came to an end quickly, and Yu Yao rode her bicycle to work early in the morning.
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