The wild boars and other game I hunted while I was there, as well as the game I hunted myself.
In my previous life, I always bought fruit with a basket, but now I put eggs on top of it.
As for the seasonings, I've put them in the living room now.
There's still fruit in the warehouse. As for persimmons, apples, and dates, we'll have to wait until next spring to deal with them. We can eat the rest that can't be processed, and somehow we can get rid of some of them. As for the rest, we'll deal with that later.
The food that used to be stored in the warehouse is now kept in the kitchen. However, there isn't much food left in the kitchen, so most of the things I don't use are kept in the living room. I plan to make more cooked food and store it here while everyone is home during the winter. I don't want it to be like this autumn harvest, when not only was there not enough food prepared, but we also ate a lot of our old stock and almost finished it all. So I'm going to stock up on more food while there's nothing to do during the winter.
Instead of rushing to make noodles, they took out the wild boar and all the prey from their spatial storage and started making various kinds of cured meat, sausages, glutinous rice sausages, and so on. As for the pheasants and rabbits, they cleaned them thoroughly and used the same seasonings as for the cured meat.
For example, for 10 jin of pork belly, use 300 grams of salt (150 grams of salt is enough for 10 jin of meat), 5 grams of star anise, 3 grams of cardamom, 3 grams of cinnamon, 1 gram of Sichuan peppercorns, and an appropriate amount of high-proof liquor.
First, pour 300 grams of salt into a pot and stir-fry until hot. Then add 5 grams of star anise, 3 grams of cardamom, 3 grams of cinnamon, and 1 gram of Sichuan peppercorns. Stir-fry over low heat until the spices are fragrant, then turn off the heat and let it cool.
Prepare some high-proof liquor beforehand. Rub the liquor evenly all over the pork to sterilize, disinfect, and enhance its aroma. Note that you should not wash the pork after buying it, otherwise it will easily spoil during marinating, and the watery texture will make it difficult to handle.
Logically speaking, the time around the winter solstice is the best time to cure bacon, but in Northeast China, you don't have to worry about that; you can just make it as soon as the weather gets cold.
Actually, curing bacon is very simple. It doesn't necessarily have to be pork belly; other meats will do. I just cut off some of the lean meat from the parts with more lean meat to make sausages or steamed buns.
Cut the meat into strips about 1 inch wide and 7 inches long; cutting them too thick or too long will make it difficult for the meat to marinate and for the meat to work properly; also, poke a hole in the skin at one end of each piece of meat so that it can be strung up and hung to dry.
Then, evenly coat the pork with the stir-fried salt, making sure to coat every part. Place the salted pork in a clean, dry bowl or jar, and add the remaining spices, but do not add any excess salt. Then cover the jar and marinate for about 3 days.
During the curing process, the bottom and top pieces of meat should be swapped every day to continue curing. After curing, tie the meat with a rope through the poked hole, and then immerse the pork in warm water for a few seconds. This will prevent the cured pork from being too salty and will make it look better. After scalding, hang the pork outdoors to dry for about 10 days before eating.
The remaining pheasants and rabbits were treated in the same way. Because I was worried about someone suddenly coming over, I didn't hang the meat out to dry in the yard, but instead kept it in the living room, where there was space to dry it, so I hung it on the grape trellis.
After finishing that, I remembered there were fish in the kitchen tank, so I pickled them using the same method. The only inconvenience was that fish was more troublesome to prepare than pheasants or rabbits, but no matter what, I had to do it, right?
As for sausages, it's even simpler: using 10 pounds of pork as an example, you can't just use lean meat, otherwise it will be dry and tough and won't taste good. The best ratio is 3 parts fat to 7 parts lean meat for the best taste.
Main ingredients: 5000g pork leg meat; Side ingredients: 1 pack of pickled sausage casings, 50g scallions, 50g ginger; Seasonings: 100ml high-proof liquor, 60g chili powder, 30g Sichuan peppercorn powder, 10g thirteen-spice powder, 150g salt, 30g sugar; Funnel for holding the liquor; Cotton thread and string as needed.
After removing the skin from the pork leg, wash it thoroughly and let it dry. First, slice it, then cut it into small strips. Place the sliced meat in a bowl and set aside. Adding 30g of white sugar enhances the flavor, while adding 100ml of high-proof liquor helps to kill bacteria. (You can add some chili powder if you like it spicy.)
Prepare either pig intestines or chicken intestines, making sure they are thoroughly cleaned and soaked in warm water for 30 minutes. Prepare the necessary tools for making sausages: scissors, clean cotton string, and a funnel for holding the liquor.
Add finely chopped scallions and ginger, the finer the better. Then, add the chopped scallions and ginger to the bowl containing the meat, along with 100ml of high-proof liquor, 60g of chili powder, 30g of Sichuan peppercorn powder, 10g of thirteen-spice powder, 150g of salt, and 30g of sugar. Mix well. Place the sausage casing over a funnel and tie a knot at the other end. Holding the funnel in your left hand, use chopsticks in your right hand to slowly stuff the marinated meat into the casing, pushing the meat down with your hand as you do so. Once a section is fully packed, tie it tightly with string to separate it. One section of sausage is now complete. Be careful not to pack it too tightly, as this can cause the casing to break.
After the sausage is stuffed, poke holes around the sausage with a needle or toothpick to release the air, otherwise the casing may break or separate from the meat when the sausage is drying.
The next step is to hang the stuffed sausages to air dry. Hang them in a cool, shady place, avoiding direct sunlight, and let them air dry naturally. When the surface of the sausage wrinkles and it feels dry and firm to the touch, but still has some elasticity, it's ready to be removed. If it's dried too much and becomes too hard, it will taste too tough and dry, and won't be very tasty.
After washing the dried sausages, steam them in a steamer for about 15 minutes. Remove them and let them cool until they are no longer too hot to handle, then slice and plate them. It's best to eat them while they're hot; this makes the sausages more oily and flavorful. The sausages smell wonderful while steaming, filling the whole house with a delicious aroma. They are incredibly fresh and delicious, with a salty and savory flavor infused with a rich aroma of wine, and a particularly prominent spicy and numbing flavor that intensifies with each chew.
After processing all of that, all that was left was the pig skin, pork ribs, pork bones, pig's head, and offal. The pork ribs were all made into braised pork ribs, and the pork bones were reserved for radish soup. The pig skin, pig's head, and offal were all braised. Aside from the remaining pork bones, there was no rush to process the rest. If the rest were processed outside, not only would Chen Enpeng and his family be aware that they were eating meat, but the entire brigade would also know. That would be disastrous. It was much more convenient to cook it in the space, at least the smell of meat wouldn't waft out.
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