Chapter 42 Chapter 42 First experience of oil pressing
Miao Ying wanted to try other methods first to see if he could squeeze out the oil. After all, you can't use a butcher knife to kill a chicken, and it's not realistic to use such a large machine to squeeze out such a small amount of oil, so he wanted to try a simple method first.
After the rapeseeds on the small drying mat were dry, he collected some of them, selecting the large ones to use as seeds, and prepared to try to extract oil from the rest.
The injuries on Huo Xing's body were also discovered by his grandmother and mother. They didn't let him go out recently and asked him to help Miao Ying. He worked quickly and well, and Miao Ying was very satisfied.
Miao Ying spent a day making some simple tools. During this time, he had been trying to find a way. The hardest thing to find was the tools for making cake dough, which required iron. He knew that the world had very strict control over iron, and all the iron tools in the house were registered.
But when he really grows a lot of rapeseed in the future, he still has to make iron tools, and then he still has to find someone to cooperate with, and he has to be a powerful person.
The first step in extracting oil is to fry the rapeseed. Huo Xing lit a low fire in front of the stove, and Miao Ying kept frying the rapeseed in front of the pot. Under the low fire, the rapeseed made a popping sound and emitted some fragrance.
Huo Xing couldn't describe the smell; it was a fragrance he had never smelled before. Miao Ying had never actually fried rapeseed before, so he could only rely on his feeling to judge whether it was done.
Miao Ying took the roasted rapeseed out of the pot. Their family didn't have a millstone, so Miao Ying was at a loss for a moment. He looked at Huo Xing and said, "I want to grind them into powder."
Huo Xing thought about it and found the pestle they used to pound malt when making sugar. After cleaning it and letting it dry until all the moisture was gone, he poured the roasted rapeseed into it.
After that, Miao Ying didn't need to do anything, Huo Xing pounded the rapeseed grains into rapeseed powder, and pounded it very finely. Miao Ying found the cloth from before, wrapped the pounded rapeseed powder in it, and put it into the pot to steam.
Then he wrapped the steamed rapeseed powder into the wheat stalks he brought back from Ye Feng's house. It would be best to use wheat straw, but there was no wheat straw available now, so using straw would be the same.
Originally, the oil pressing required using an iron ring to tie up the dough, but now he didn’t have an iron ring, so he had to think of other ways.
While the steamed rapeseed was still hot, Miao Ying quickly wrapped the dough and placed it on a large stone. He and Huo Xing had worked on this stone yesterday, carving a long groove into it for the oil to leak out. However, he didn't know if such a simple operation could actually produce any oil.
It was Huo Xing's turn next. Miao Ying looked at him with some concern: "Will it tear your wound?"
Huo Xing was holding a sledgehammer in his hand. Miao Ying tried to lift it, but he couldn't.
As Huo Xing's stone hammer fell on the dough again and again, Miao Ying stared at the groove anxiously until he saw the dark rapeseed oil slowly flowing out.
Miao Ying jumped up excitedly. Huo Xing also stopped the sledgehammer in his hand and looked at him quietly. Miao Ying's eyes were bright. He turned to look at Huo Xing and said, "I'll make you something delicious tonight."
Huo Xing nodded, then continued hammering, and the oil dripped along the grooves into the jar prepared by Miao Ying.
He didn't have much rapeseed, and the oil yield of rapeseed was about 30%. He used five pounds of rapeseed to press the oil, and the oil yield was probably only about one pound and five ounces. This was mainly because the tools for pressing the oil were not good enough, so he just used it for an experiment today.
Huo Xing's breathing gradually became heavier. He was very tired from swinging the sledgehammer. Miao Ying brought him a bowl of water and repeated, "I'll make you something delicious tonight."
Huo Xing smiled and said, "Okay."
When Li Hongying and the others came back, they also saw the oil can that Miao Ying had placed aside. "What is this? It smells quite nice. What are you two doing at home?"
"Mom, look, the stuff I brought back can be used to make oil." Miao Ying showed them the oil can. "I want to grow this in our fields and then open an oil press. That way, our family will have a craft that can be passed down. Even if Xiaobao doesn't make a name for himself in school, he'll still have a way to make a living."
Miao Ying didn't know how his words would shock Li Hongying and her grandmother. They only knew that Miao Ying had done so much for the family. Making sugar alone was a skill that could be passed down in their family.
Li Hongying was not good at speaking. She hugged Miao Ying gently and said, "Thank you, Xiaoying."
Miao Ying's hands hung stiffly at his sides, then he gently raised them and patted his mother's back: "It's okay, Mom. We are a family."
His eyes fell on his grandmother again, and his grandmother just looked at him tenderly.
After packing up their oil-pressing tools, Miao Ying took out the remaining residue from the cake dough. After beating it countless times, the residue had turned into small cake pieces. They could no longer be eaten, but could be used to feed chickens.
The chicks they brought back from Ye Feng's house have grown up now. They were eating the malt and glutinous rice residue they used to make sugar. Now they have rapeseed residue to eat, and they will probably grow even better. Miao Ying remembered that they used to call this thing "ku", but now they just want rapeseed residue.
Holding the hard-earned rapeseed oil, Miao Ying looked pious, ready to show his skills tonight.
We don’t usually eat meat at home, and Miao Ying is now used to cooking in a big pot. Although the taste is not particularly good, the advantage is that the ingredients are fresh and all grown by themselves.
Today he looked at the potatoes in the kitchen. Usually they boiled potatoes and ate them as a staple food. Today he wanted to make fried shredded potatoes, which he had not eaten for a long time.
Miao Ying also honed his knife skills while working in his previous life, especially shredding potatoes, which he did quickly and well. After shredding, he washed off the starch, put oil in the pot, added the shredded potatoes when the oil was hot, and stir-fried them over high heat, and the aroma was instantly brought out.
Huo Xing, who was sitting in front of the stove and lighting the fire, swallowed his saliva. Miao Ying said again: "Let's buy some meat tomorrow. The fried meat will be more fragrant."
For dinner, they fried a few vegetarian dishes, shredded potatoes, cabbage, and radish, but the whole family enjoyed them very much. Once again tasting the flavor of rapeseed oil, Miao Ying felt so happy that he wanted to cry. After finishing his meal, he put down his chopsticks and looked at his family who were eating so happily: "How about it, I plan to plant this when I plant in the fall this year!"
Huo Xing naturally listened to whatever he said. His grandmother and mother were a little hesitant at first, but after tasting the oil tonight, they no longer had any objections. Huo Xiaobao was still young and only knew how to eat, so the family unanimously approved the idea of planting rapeseed.
After dinner, Huo Xing also told them about the money he had earned. There was nothing to hide between family members. Li Hongying thought for a while and said, "The village has harvested wheat now, and it will be time to pay taxes soon. We don't have any food at home, so we can only pay. We need to prepare some money to pay the taxes."
There are five people in their family, excluding the child Huo Xiaobao. The land tax, head tax and grain tax for each person add up to nearly two hundred coins, and their family has to pay nearly one or two taels of silver.
Now, after their family's hard work, their family savings are already much more than many people's families, but Miao Ying has no real feeling that they are rich, because everything they have to do next will cost a lot of money.
They couldn't keep living in this cramped house; they also needed to build a house of their own.
His oil pressing business also needs financial support. Not to mention other things, even the wooden press for pressing oil would cost a lot of money. They couldn't make it themselves, so they could only hire a carpenter. As for the iron for pressing the cakes, they didn't know if they could get it. Anyway, everything cost money.
After dinner, Miao Ying went to feed the chickens for his grandmother. Their chickens were raised behind the house. His mother and grandmother also opened a small vegetable patch at the back. With chicken manure as fertilizer, the vegetables grew lushly.
Their chickens are well-raised, but the hens are not yet laying eggs, and the roosters are raised with their heads held high and their chests puffed out. It seems that when they crow, there will be no peace in the house.
"Grow up quickly! Huo Xiaobao is in a critical growth period and needs to eat more eggs." Miao Ying poked the hen's wings and said, "Hurry up and lay more eggs."
When he returned to the yard, he found that his grandmother and Li Hongying were still staring at the oil jar, and would occasionally lean over to smell it. If the jar was not so broken, Miao Ying felt that they would treat it as a family heirloom.
Huo Xing was collecting firewood in the kitchen, while Huo Xiaobao was sitting in the yard, reciting his lessons while shaking his head. A few days ago, Master Song came to find Miao Ying and said that Huo Xiaobao could transfer from Master Ning's class to his class, and asked them to prepare pens, ink, paper and inkstone to start learning calligraphy.
Miao Ying gave Huo Xiaobao the set he had bought earlier to use temporarily, and would buy him a better one later.
Miao Ying called him over and asked him to recite in front of him. Miao Ying's study was not very good. He could not even recite all the poems he had memorized in school before. So when he heard Huo Xiaobao reciting, he was just confused. But Huo Xiaobao was reciting with great enthusiasm.
Night gradually fell. It was dark at this time and there was no entertainment. After washing up, everyone went back to their rooms to sleep. Miao Ying's life was very regular now. He went to bed early and got up early. He was in a good mood. The previous head injury was no longer serious. After a while, his body should be able to recover better.
He checked Huo Xing's wound by candlelight and found that he had used quite a bit of force today and the wound had split open again. Miao Ying treated it for him again. After extinguishing the candle, the two lay down together.
The bed was still small, and the two of us were pressed very close together. We had slept like this before, but today, when we slept together, we felt itchy all over. It wasn't the kind of itch that just floated on the skin, but the kind that came from the gaps between our bones.
Miao Ying turned over and pulled up the quilt to cover his impulsive behavior. Huo Xing stretched out his hand to him, and Miao Ying almost jumped up: "What, what are you doing?"
Huo Xing looked at him in confusion: "I'm just tidying up the pillow, what's wrong?"
Miao Ying looked at him and smiled awkwardly: "It's okay."
Huo Xing chuckled, and it felt like countless ants were crawling on Miao Ying's back again. He looked at Huo Xing with some suspicion, because his voice was not like this before.
Miao Ying swallowed his saliva and pulled the quilt up to cover his eyes. Huo Xing reached out and pulled the quilt down a little: "It's stuffy."
Miao Ying didn't let him move. The two of them pulled each other on the quilt for a while, but Huo Xing's hand reached to another place. Miao Ying opened his eyes wide and looked at him in disbelief.
So despicable!
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