After a day of rest, Su Nian and the others can no longer be lazy.
Su Nian and her friends’ task today is to peel chestnuts.
Looking at the chestnuts piled up in Uncle Liu's yard, everyone felt scared.
Even when wearing gloves, it still pricks your hands!
"Most of these hairy chestnuts are ripe and have shed their shells automatically. Pick those out first!" Su Nian squatted on the ground, looking at the pile of hairy chestnuts worriedly.
She picked up a table leg that Uncle Liu, a carpenter, had planed out in the yard and used it as a wooden stick, and casually knocked on the chestnuts on the ground.
The chestnut shell was smashed to pieces by her, and the chestnut almost broke all over her face.
"Got it!" Su Nian said, and ran back to get the axe for the three of them.
With a wooden stick in one hand and a hatchet in the other, you can easily knock out the chestnuts. If the chestnuts are difficult to knock out, you can use the hatchet to cut or dig them!
"Niannian! You are so smart!" Sun Yanyan was so happy that she could peel the chestnuts without getting pricked. She also imitated Su Nian and peeled a few chestnuts neatly.
"Hehe, of course!" Su Nian admitted it bluntly.
All three of them started laughing, and just as they were chatting and laughing while peeling chestnuts, Captain Chen arrived.
"Su Zhiqing! It's settled!" Captain Chen came in from outside pushing his bicycle. As soon as he entered the door, he said with a smile without even putting down the bicycle.
"What's settled? Captain Chen?" Su Nian asked in confusion.
"The candied haws are ready! I took the candied haws you made to the supply and marketing cooperative to find Director Huang! I agreed with her that I will supply her with them at seven cents a string! The supply and marketing cooperative sells them for ten cents a string!" Captain Chen said with a smile.
"It's settled so quickly? That's great!" Su Nian didn't expect Captain Chen to be so efficient.
"Fast? I stopped her yesterday and it took me two trips to reach an agreement. How can you call it fast?" Captain Chen said with some dissatisfaction.
"It's already very quick! I thought we wouldn't be able to reach an agreement until our hawthorns went bad." Su Nian said with a smile.
"How can she be so slow? You hurry up and make the candied haws. I have to deliver the goods. Then I'll try the fried chestnuts! I'll go and stop her then!" Captain Chen said hurriedly, pointing at the pile of raw chestnuts.
"Okay!" Su Nian responded with a smile.
Seeing that Sun Yanyan and the others were able to peel chestnuts, Su Nian collected a small handful of chestnuts, cut them with a kitchen knife, and went to Uncle Liu's kitchen to make candied haws and sugar-fried chestnuts.
When Su Nian entered the kitchen, she saw a straw rack stuck in the stone mortar, the kind used to sell candied haws.
A wooden stick was tied with straw, and the candied haws could be inserted on it without knocking off the candied wings. Su Nian secretly laughed at Captain Chen's thoughtfulness.
This time, the person helping in the kitchen was Captain Chen.
"Captain Chen, all of these require sugar. White sugar and brown sugar are so expensive now, 80 cents a pound, and you need a ticket. Can we buy them?" Su Nian asked uncertainly.
"You don't have to worry about the sugar! Our village finally has a side business, so the higher-ups will have to support it, right?" Captain Chen said enthusiastically.
Su Nian felt relieved when he saw Captain Chen like this. This is a good gun. From now on, he will use it as much as he can, and Captain Chen will be responsible for charging into battle. Isn’t it very useful?
Su Nian calculated that this amount of sugar cost 80 cents per pound, and he also needed sugar coupons. He would use half a pound of sugar for the experiment first.
Put in water, add sugar, simmer on low heat after the sugar is dissolved, and cook the syrup. Seventeen strings of candied haws can be made with this half pound of sugar. Su Nian saved some sugar and used a little less ingredients than what she eats.
"Captain Chen, look, this is made by saving some white sugar. It's a little smaller than the candied haws wings we eat. I deliberately lengthened the top of the candied haws wings!" Su Nian said, pointing to the candied haws inserted in the straw rack.
"Well! Not bad. This is not much different from what we ate before, and it's much better than what we saw in the supply and marketing cooperative!" Captain Chen stood up, walked around the straw rack, and said while looking at the candied haws on it.
"Seventeen strings of candied haws, one cent a string at the supply and marketing cooperative, we wholesale them for seven cents, and half a pound of candied haws is forty cents. If we don't count the tickets, we can make seventy-nine cents!" Su Nian carefully calculated the cost of the candied haws.
"Really? Can you earn that much?" Captain Chen's eyes lit up when he heard it and he asked excitedly.
"Yes! What you negotiated with the supply and marketing cooperative was seven cents a string, and sugar eighty cents a pound. Our hawthorns have no cost!" Su Nian said with a smile.
"How can it be considered no cost? Our labor is not a cost!" Captain Chen said with a smile.
"Hey! That's true! Without labor costs, people won't work! Then we can reduce it by another 19 cents, and make a profit of 60 cents!" Su Nian said with a smile.
"Sixty cents is not a small amount. A full work point earns only forty cents a day! This is just a side job. It's good to have an extra cent of income! Chestnuts! Come and see how much half a pound of sugar-fried chestnuts cost!" Captain Chen said anxiously.
"Okay! Then I'll make another one!" Su Nian said with a smile.
Sugar-roasted chestnuts are simpler, so Su Nian uses the simplest method.
Just add a little oil, sugar and water and stir-fry it.
Current conditions do not allow us to fry chestnuts with sand, so how much sugar would we need?
"Can chestnuts be fried like this? It even requires oil!" Captain Chen frowned as he looked at the sugar-fried chestnuts.
Nowadays, this oil is even more precious and difficult to obtain.
"Also, when frying with sand, you need to add sugar! What a waste to put sugar in sand!
Or, why not give up on roasting chestnuts? Roasted chestnuts are 30 cents a pound. So, one pound of sugar can roast ten pounds of chestnuts, which is three yuan..."
"Fry! We must fry the chestnuts!" Captain Chen said anxiously before Su Nian finished speaking.
A pound of sugar costs 80 cents, and a pound of sugar and ten pounds of chestnuts cost three yuan. After removing the ticket, you can still make two yuan. How can you give up roasting chestnuts?
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