Chapter 32 Chapter 32 Potatoes are gone Potatoes are a good thing...
The weather in June is like a child's face, changing in an instant.
It rained heavily for several days in a row, and the peppers that were originally drying outside the window had to be brought back into the house and taken out again when the weather cleared up.
Zhao Mingsheng looked at the dripping raindrops and sighed slightly. She still preferred sunny days.
She was still worried about the herbs in the medicine field, and wondered if they would be affected by the rain.
Having nothing to do at home these days, she decided to take the bag of potatoes.
Ever since she came back, the Zhao family's stomachs have become picky. It's okay to eat potatoes for one or two meals, but if they are asked to eat them every day, Zhao Mingsheng will be the first one to disagree. If they eat like that, they will turn into potatoes.
But we can’t let this big bag of potatoes sprout, right?
One day when she was getting flour, she came up with a good idea.
You might as well make potatoes into potato starch.
Do what you say!
It just so happened that the rain trapped all the men at home, and Zhao Mingsheng didn't let them idle around, so he made them all make potato starch.
Mash the fresh potatoes into a paste, then put them into clean water and rinse them continuously. The originally clear water becomes visibly turbid.
Until the large pieces of mashed potatoes are washed into potato residue, you can use a sieve to sift out the potato residue.
After the water used to wash the mashed potatoes evaporates, what remains is potato starch.
Three big men, one mashed the potatoes, one washed them, and one used a sieve. The three of them worked all day to finish the big sack of potatoes.
Cui Cen was in charge of using the sieve. After a whole day, his arms were so sore that he couldn't even lift them. After sifting the last basket of potatoes, he was so tired that he lay on the ground, not wanting to move a finger. He didn't understand what was so good about sifting these broken potatoes.
It wasn’t until I ate the smooth and glutinous potato noodles in the evening that I realized how delicious it was!
The smooth and glutinous potato flour was very chewy, but it slid down my stomach before I could even take three bites.
With the rich soup, I ate three big bowls without realizing it, without leaving even a drop of soup.
On a rainy day like this, eating a bowl of potato noodles with hot soup is the best thing to do. It will warm your internal organs after eating it.
Cui Cen said that if he could please give him three more bags of potatoes like this, he would still be able to do it!
At night, Zhao Mingsheng looked at the peppers in the room and sighed. If the rain didn't stop, the peppers would get moldy at home, which would be a pity.
The next day, God seemed to have heard her words and the sky cleared up early, ending the rainstorm.
Zhao Mingsheng felt very lucky. Fortunately, the sky cleared up. If it had continued to rain, not only would the chili peppers have no way to dry, but the people at home would have gotten moldy.
After several days of heavy rain, the only thing that made people happy was that Aunt Zou’s moldy tofu was very successful.
As soon as the rain stopped, Aunt Zou knocked on the door and called Zhao Mingsheng to make fermented bean curd.
Today is the last step of pickling fermented bean curd. Soak the fermented bean curd in Qingshan Village's unique green wine for a while, then roll it in the prepared dipping sauce, turning it from a white fat man into a big red coat.
Aunt Zou worked step by step, and did not forget to tell Zhao Mingsheng the recipe of the dipping sauce.
The key to the dipping sauce is to fry the chili powder in advance so that it is easier to marinate and absorb the flavor.
Finally, seal it in a jar and marinate it for four or five days.
While helping, Zhao Mingsheng told Aunt Zou about his experience of selling fermented bean curd that day.
"Auntie Zou, I've made an agreement with the man selling steamed buns. If you have fermented bean curd in the future, you can take it to him and sell it. Two pieces of fermented bean curd for three copper coins."
Aunt Zou was so moved that she didn't know what to say. "Thank you, girl!"
Her father-in-law passed away early, and her mother-in-law had a serious illness a few years ago and passed away after spending all the family savings, leaving behind a large amount of foreign debt.
Poor Aunt Zou’s son is almost twenty years old and still hasn’t gotten married. Isn’t it because his family is poor and owes a lot of debts? Which family would be willing to marry their daughter to them!
Every time she thought of this, her chest ached.
Her husband and son worked day and night, and all their earnings went towards paying off debts. If she could earn a little extra, wouldn't the family feel a little more relaxed sooner?
As she thought about it, her eyes couldn't help but feel hot, but it was only for a moment, and she endured it.
Why are you crying!
She didn't shed a single tear even when life was the most difficult. Now that life was getting better day by day, she couldn't cry!
This time I made more than ever before, pickling seven or eight jars in total.
Before leaving, Aunt Zou gave one of the jars to Zhao Mingsheng.
Zhao Mingsheng was about to decline, saying he could pickle them at home, when he heard Aunt Zou say:
"Take it and eat it. You've helped me so much, and I haven't thanked you properly yet!"
She patted the back of Zhao Mingsheng's hand, and the more she looked at her, the more she liked her. What a good girl! The Zhao family really brought back a good daughter!
If their family didn't have so many troubles, she would have wanted to propose marriage. But it was just a thought. How could the rough man in her family be worthy of this fairy-like person?
Zhao Mingsheng thanked Aunt Zou, went back home, changed his clothes and prepared to go to the medicinal field.
Seeing that everything was in good condition, she breathed a sigh of relief. Although some of the herbs that didn't like water were a little wilted, it wasn't a big problem. Their roots hadn't been damaged by the soaking, and they just needed to be exposed to the sun to be fine.
Because it had been raining for several days in a row, the medicinal fields had not been properly taken care of, and Zhao Mingsheng found that a lot of weeds had grown there.
Zhao Mingsheng was about to remove them as usual, but he carefully discovered that something was wrong. These were different from the weeds he had seen before.
Looking closely, isn’t this a wild vegetable also recorded in the "Compendium of Materia Medica"?
It turns out that after the rain, there are not only fresh mushrooms and tender bamboo shoots, but also lush green wild vegetables.
There are many kinds of wild vegetables growing here, including radish sprouts, alfalfa, and shepherd's purse.
Zhao Mingsheng felt it was a pity to treat them as weeds, so he picked them all and put them in his backpack.
"Compendium of Materia Medica" says that these wild vegetables can not only fill your stomach but also serve as medicinal materials for clearing away heat and reducing fire. It would be a pity to waste them like this, so it is better to take them home and cook them.
Besides, she had never tasted wild vegetables before, so she couldn't help but want to try them. She could use these to make a wild vegetable feast tonight!
After digging up the wild vegetables, Zhao Mingsheng removed some real weeds, dug up some mature medicinal herbs and went home.
After returning home, Zhao Mingsheng didn't even have time to unload the basket on his back. He took the wild vegetables and went straight to Aunt Zou's house to ask her how to cook them.
Aunt Zou is an old hand at eating wild vegetables. There is no wild vegetable she doesn't know. She can tell at a glance that these are freshly sprouted wild vegetables, which are at their freshest and tenderest.
It is great whether eaten cold or made into wild vegetable dumplings. The alfalfa in particular is perfect for making dumplings.
But when she saw the alfalfa Zhao Mingsheng had brought back, Aunt Zou laughed out loud. "Girl, although all the alfalfa is edible, only the top part is the newly sprouted tender part. You can't pull it up by the roots like you did."
Aunt Zou picked up a plant and pointed it at Zhao Mingsheng. "The bottom part is old and not tasty."
Zhao Mingsheng pinched the root of the node and then pinched the tender buds at the top. He found that it was indeed different. The top broke off with a pinch, but the root was old and connected to the tendons, and could not be broken even if pinched.
Aunt Zou kindly reminded her, "Next time, remember to only pinch off the top of the alfalfa. It grows fast and will start growing again in a few days."
She picked and chose in the basket and picked out a few stalks of stalks. "Stalks like this should be dug up with their roots, so that their roots are fresh and tender."
Zhao Mingsheng nodded, having learned a lot of new knowledge this time.
After knowing the method, she went back and prepared to put it into practice.
According to the method taught by Aunt Zou, first pinch off the top node of the alfalfa, and then wash the pinched part and the shepherd's purse with clean water.
Chop the washed alfalfa and shepherd's purse and mix them with the pork filling. Add a little fennel and stir into the meat filling.
Knead the dough separately and prepare the dumpling wrappers.
The dough for dumpling wrappers should not be too hard or too soft.
Place flour at the bottom of the basin. Zhao Mingsheng holds a bowl of cold water in one hand and stirs it clockwise with chopsticks in the other hand, adding some cold water from time to time. Stop adding water when the flour is stirred into flocs.
The kneaded dough needs to be left to rest for a while so that the dumpling skins rolled out will be smoother and chewier.
While the dough was resting, Zhao's father suddenly called Zhao Mingsheng to the pharmacy.
Zhao Mingsheng thought something important happened, so he quickly put down his work and rushed over.
As soon as she entered the pharmacy, she saw Zhao's father holding a plant of medicinal herb she had just picked today - Astragalus.
"This...where did this come from?" Zhao's father was so excited that he couldn't speak clearly.
The expression on his face was even more excited than the last time he saw He Shou Wu.
"I just picked it from our herb garden."
Zhao Mingsheng didn't know why he was so excited. It was just astragalus. There were still a lot of them in the medicine field.
She looked at Father Zhao suspiciously, and suddenly an idea came to her mind.
There are many medicinal herbs for replenishing qi deficiency in the "Compendium of Materia Medica", but only astragalus is listed as a top-grade herb, which is enough to show its importance.
There are many prescriptions using Astragalus as medicine, the most commonly used of which is to soak Astragalus in water, which is used to treat kidney yang deficiency.
Zhao Mingsheng looked at the Astragalus, and then looked at his father who was holding the Astragalus treasure in his hands.
Zhao Mingsheng: ...
It seems like I accidentally discovered another secret.
Thinking back, Dad seemed to have been complaining about back pain quite often recently, and he felt very weak after making potato starch that day.
Isn't this exactly what kidney yang deficiency is?
I didn’t expect that my father, despite his age, is still so good at supporting me.
"Growing it in your own medicinal garden?!"
Father Zhao tried hard to recall that he seemed to have dug up some Astragalus seedlings before, but the seedlings were too weak, so he buried them in the medicine field and never took care of them again.
A prescription he was researching recently required Astragalus membranaceus. He had gone up the mountain to collect herbs just for this Astragalus membranaceus, but unfortunately, wild Astragalus membranaceus in the mountains was too rare, and he couldn't find it no matter how hard he searched.
I didn't expect it to be in my own medicinal field.
I tried to pick herbs but didn't find any, but the seedlings I planted accidentally grew!
"Daddy and Mom have such a good relationship."
It was a sudden and incoherent sentence, and Father Zhao didn't understand what it meant.
Father Zhao scratched his head and chuckled, "Of course. Your mother and I have always had a good relationship."
Zhao Mingsheng shook her head helplessly. It seemed that with this astragalus, she might soon have a younger brother or sister in the near future.
"Then Daddy, please take care of your health recently."
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