Chapter 31 Chapter 31 Spicy Chicken Ding 2nd update is here~……
After returning home, Zhao Mingsheng asked Meng for a needle and thread, strung up the fresh chili peppers he had bought that day one by one, and hung them on the window frame to dry.
The red peppers strung together look like firecrackers set off during festivals and holidays, which is both festive and beautiful.
Just wait for four or five days of drying and you’ll have crispy dried chilies ready to eat!
I can’t help drooling just thinking about it.
Some of the peppers he bought were already dried. Zhao Mingsheng would take a hot stone slab and bake the dried peppers on it. This way, the roasted peppers would be more crispy, dry and fragrant.
For a moment, the whole yard was filled with pungent and fragrant smells.
In order to facilitate storage, Zhao Mingsheng crushed the roasted dried chilies with a stone mill and placed them in jars.
The same goes for Sichuan peppercorns. A portion of the whole peppercorns are kept, and the rest are roasted on a stone slab, ground into powder, and sealed in a jar.
Ground Sichuan peppercorns are easier to flavor. Sealing them in a jar makes them easier to use and prevents the flavor from escaping. These are the little tricks Auntie Zou taught her.
When she was almost done, Zhao's father also came back from collecting herbs in the mountains.
As soon as he entered the door, he shouted happily: "Girl, come here and see what I found on the mountain."
"What?" Zhao Mingsheng came over curiously.
Father Zhao took out a cloth bag filled with something from his backpack and put it on the ground.
She walked to the cloth bag and was about to untie it, but the bag suddenly moved, which scared Zhao Mingsheng!
She couldn't help but take a small step back. During this time, the cloth bag shook even more violently, as if something was struggling to get out.
Zhao Mingsheng was extremely frightened for a moment.
“Coooooo…coooooooo!”
Zhao Mingsheng: Cuckoo?
Father Zhao laughed out loud twice, walked forward, untied the bag, and took out the things inside.
A small head with a pointed beak, two claws, and a pair of wings, isn’t this a chicken!
But why is this chicken different from the ones she has seen before?
This chicken has gray feathers all over its body, with white dots scattered on the gray feathers, which look very beautiful. Its slender neck is covered with a circle of blue-purple feathers, and its claws are different from ordinary chicken claws, they are red.
Zhao Mingsheng asked in confusion.
Father Zhao explained, "This is a guinea fowl from the mountain."
As luck would have it, on his way down the mountain, he happened to find some movement in the grass. He parted the grass and saw a dying guinea fowl that had fallen from somewhere. It looked like it had fallen quite hard, with even its claws and wings broken.
Although this guinea fowl is also a kind of free-range chicken, its wings are strong and it can usually fly dozens of meters away, so it is difficult to catch.
But today I happened to be run into by Zhao's father.
"It's still a hen. If its claws weren't broken, it could still lay eggs."
Father Zhao's tone sounded somewhat regretful.
Zhao Mingsheng also felt sorry for the chicken and thought his father's kindness as a doctor had come to the fore. He was just about to say, why not raise it and see if its claws can grow back?
Then Zhao's father changed the subject and said, "Let's have chicken stewed with mushrooms tonight!"
He turned around and took out another handful of fresh mushrooms from the basket without any hesitation.
"This guinea fowl paired with these mountain mushrooms is truly a unique combination! So delicious!"
Zhao Mingsheng: ...Daddy, please wipe the saliva that is about to flow down while you are talking.
Not long ago, they rescued a human from the mountains, and this time, they rescued a chicken from the mountains. They saved the human, but the chicken was not so lucky.
Zhao Mingsheng took a last sympathetic look at the chicken. The next time he saw it, it would be in the pot.
The chicken looked skinny on the surface, but it was actually quite meaty. After Zhao's father cleaned up the chicken feathers and internal organs, he weighed it and found that it still weighed about three or four pounds.
Zhao Mingsheng divided the chicken into two parts, used half to stew chicken with mushrooms, and prepared the other half to make stir-fried spicy chicken.
Just as she was putting the chicken and mushrooms into the pot to stew, she heard Aunt Wang's familiar and resonant voice outside the courtyard, "Is Doctor Zhao home?"
Zhao Mingsheng's heart skipped a beat. She thought of that rainy night. I hope something happened again.
She hurried out of the yard and saw Aunt Wang's happy face, and she felt relieved.
It seems like there is good news.
Sure enough, Aunt Wang pushed a cart and unloaded a large sack from the cart.
"I never had the chance to thank you properly for what happened with our little tiger last time. Now the potatoes in our field are ripe, so I'll give you this bag of potatoes. They're not worth much, so don't despise them!
As she spoke, Zhao Mingsheng shifted his gaze to the sack.
Wow! That bag of potatoes is half a person's height, and it must weigh about 40 to 50 kilograms. How long will it take to eat it all?
Zhao Mingsheng didn't want to eat herself into a potato, so she said with a bitter face, "Aunt Wang, our family can't eat so much, please take some back."
"Why not eat them all? These potatoes are durable and won't go bad for a month or two. In winter, you can eat them all winter long."
Aunt Wang was a straightforward person, even her thanks were casual. If he continued to be polite to her, she would probably get angry, so Zhao Mingsheng had no choice but to accept it.
Aunt Wang originally wanted to help her move in, but the delicate little girl waved her hand and said no, and picked up the huge sack with just one hand, as if it was filled with light paper instead of potatoes.
She was dumbfounded and her eyes were wide open.
This daughter of the Zhao family has extraordinary arm strength! She's worthy of being someone who works in the fields every day.
Potatoes are a good thing. They can be used as vegetables and as food. For those who cannot get enough food, they are the best food.
But for the Zhao family, how to arrange these potatoes gave Zhao Mingsheng a headache. They couldn't eat potatoes for every meal, right?
Zhao Mingsheng returned to the kitchen. The chicken and mushroom stew was already bubbling. She covered the pot. The chicken and mushroom stew needed to be stewed for a longer time to be delicious and flavorful.
Cut the remaining half of the chicken into small pieces, add onion, ginger, garlic and cooking wine to marinate, then put it into the pan and fry it over low heat until golden brown. After increasing the oil temperature, fry it a second time. The chicken fried in this way will be crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, and it can also lock in the gravy.
Heat oil in another pan, add onion, ginger, garlic, whole peppercorns and freshly roasted chopped chilies and stir-fry until fragrant. Then pour the fried chicken into the pan and stir-fry to fully dry out the fat in the chicken. Sprinkle some white sesame seeds on it before serving to increase the aroma.
Zhao Mingsheng originally planned to stir-fry two vegetarian dishes, but now that he had so many potatoes, he could make a dish of cold shredded potatoes and a dish of dry-pot potato chips.
Fresh potatoes are big and round, and one can make a large dish of stir-fry.
Zhao Mingsheng cut the potatoes into shreds, poured balsamic vinegar and soy sauce on them, placed chopped green onions, garlic and dried chilies on top, and finally poured a spoonful of hot oil and mixed evenly. A dish of cold shredded potatoes was ready.
Cui Cen was waiting at the dining table early for dinner. Before the dishes were served, he could smell the aroma, which was fragrant and spicy, and it was hard to describe how delicious it was.
He rested his chin on the table and muttered pitifully, "When is dinner? I'm starving."
Zhao Mingsheng walked past him with spicy chicken in his hand. The dog's nose immediately smelled the scent of food and he sat up straight.
"You didn't eat well at noon."
Zhao Mingsheng finally discovered that Cui Ergou would not eat properly when she was not at home. How could he be like a child when he was such a grown-up?
"The lunch doesn't taste good." Cui Cen took the plate from her hand in a servile manner, "I'll serve it, I'll serve it."
Would Cui Ergou feel that the food was not delicious?
Zhao Mingsheng was very surprised that a glutton would say that the food was not delicious anymore.
Are you too tired and stressed out teaching the kids lately?
Zhao Mingsheng began to reflect on himself and wondered if suddenly giving him the task of being a teacher was too much for him.
But there is currently no suitable candidate to replace Cui Ergou, so he has to bear the consequences for now.
Zhao Mingsheng thought silently in his heart, and when he looked at Cui Ergou again, there was a hint of guilt in his eyes.
Cui Cen took the plate and met Zhao Mingsheng's slightly complicated gaze as soon as he looked up. He couldn't help scratching his head.
I was just serving dishes, so there was no need to be so moved. Could it be that I didn't do enough work?
Cui Cen thought about it and realized that he had indeed eaten more and worked less since he came to this family. If he continued like this, he was afraid that he would be despised. So he secretly made up his mind to eat less in the future.
So at dinner time, Cui Cen, for the first time ever, only had half a bowl of rice.
Zhao Mingsheng felt even more guilty when he saw this. He must have been under too much pressure! He usually ate three bowls of rice, but today he only ate half a bowl!
So she offered him the chicken drumstick from the chicken stew with mushrooms and said softly, "Eat more."
Cui Cen had no nerve to eat the chicken leg, so he quickly said modestly, "Brother Zhao is usually busy with his studies, so he should eat it."
Zhao Qingyue was confused, but he quickly realized that it was impossible for his son to eat before the head of the family had even eaten.
"Father, you worked hard collecting herbs today! You should be the one eating them."
Father Zhao looked at the chicken leg in the bowl and handed it to his wife without any hesitation.
"Your mother is weak, she should eat a chicken drumstick to nourish herself."
Mrs. Meng was very touched, but she felt even more sorry for her children. She passed the chicken leg to Zhao Mingsheng and said, "My daughter, you've worked so hard to prepare such a table of dishes. Please enjoy the chicken leg."
Watching the chicken leg go around and around and return to his bowl.
Zhao Mingsheng: ...
She gave it to Cui Ergou again and said fiercely, "You eat it."
Cui Ergou quickly stuffed the chicken leg into his mouth. Mm, it smells so good!
Zhao Mingsheng asked, "Is the chicken leg fragrant?"
Cui Ergou held a chicken leg in his mouth, grinned and replied: "It smells good!"
Zhao Mingsheng breathed a sigh of relief. The chicken legs still tasted delicious, so there was still hope. At worst, she could make chicken legs for Cui Ergou every day.
When Cui Cen finished his half bowl of rice, Zhao Mingsheng deliberately looked at the bucket of rice and said, "Oh, I made too much rice today. It's going to be wasted!"
When Cui Cen heard that too much rice was wasted, he quickly raised the bowl in his hand and said, "Give me another bowl, don't waste it."
The chicken and mushroom soup is delicious and fresh, and one sip of it will make your tongue fall off; the spicy chicken that is fried until well-seasoned is the best to eat with rice, and even the chili peppers in it are included. Mix it with rice, and it will be fragrant and delicious, and you will eat it all up.
In the end, there was not a single drop of food left on the table, including the bucket of rice.
In the following week, Zhao Mingsheng deliberately cooked more rice every day, and there were chicken legs every day.
A week later, Cui Cen, who had promised to eat less, gained weight visibly.
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