Volume 1: Reborn in the 1980s, selling lunch boxes with my mother Chapter 28 Rape Snake
There were two full bags of water chestnuts, but the amount of water chestnut meat that was peeled out was less than a basket.
Jiang Tian picked a dozen slightly larger ones, took them to the kitchen, washed them, cut them into shreds, and made a pot of stir-fried water bamboo with chili peppers. She also added two spoonfuls of lard while frying. The water bamboo, which was originally a bit bland, immediately became oily.
Originally, this dish tastes best when fried with shredded pork, but these days when there are no guests at home, most people are reluctant to spend money to buy meat.
There are still a few strips of bacon left at home, but they were saved for treating people to a meal when the rice was harvested. If we eat it now, do we have to spend money to buy bacon later?
Needless to say, the gossiping women in the village will definitely nag you to death.
After frying the water bamboo, Jiang Tian cut the washed lentils into shreds and stir-fried them with shredded chili peppers. Finally, he made a tomato and egg soup. The simple two dishes and one soup were ready.
The most popular dish was the shredded wild rice cooked with lard residue. Jiang Cheng was sweating profusely while eating it, and he did not forget to ask his sister -
"Sister, when are you going to make that fish stew with pancakes again?"
Jiang Tian rolled her eyes at him: "Mixed fish stew is easy to make, I just don't like to clean up the fish and shrimp, it's troublesome!"
It’s no wonder that the master craftsman who taught her this skill in her previous life didn’t want to make it anymore after a while, as the preparation work for this dish was too troublesome.
First, you need to raise both ends of the snail and cut off their butts.
Then cut open the loach and eel, remove the internal organs, wash them, cut them into sections and set aside.
If you want to add crucian carp to enhance the flavor, you must first kill the crucian carp and clean it, marinate it with scallion, ginger and cooking wine for half an hour, then dry it, coat it with batter, fry it until both sides are golden brown and set aside.
If there are other fish and shrimp, they should also be cleaned one by one.
So even though the ingredients of this dish are not expensive, the processing process is complicated, so the one sold in the store is not cheaper than the braised carp, because it takes a lot of effort!
Jiang Cheng loved this dish so much that he took over the job without hesitation.
"Sister, take your net to the river tomorrow and fish a few times. When you come back, I'll kill the fish. I've prepared everything for you. Can you do it for me again?"
Jiang Tian thought about it and realized that there was no TV at home, and it would be boring to have Jiang Cheng pretending to be sick at home all the time, so she nodded and agreed.
"Okay! Tomorrow morning, mom and I will go collect the eel fishing rods, and then we will go to the river to cast two nets."
After dinner, Jiang Tian washed the pots and dishes, while Hu Qiongfang took a chopping board and a kitchen knife, sliced the water chestnuts that had just been chopped today, placed them on two shallow bamboo plates, and then placed firewood pile in the yard. After two days of drying, the water chestnuts were ready.
Thinking of what Jiang Cheng said, Jiang Tian washed the dishes and found the bamboo basket used to hatch chicks at home in the spring. She sprinkled some leftover rice from washing dishes on it. The leftover rice was soaked in lard and smelled especially fragrant. When she put it in the water, fish and shrimp came to eat it.
After putting it away, he tied the bamboo basket with a rope and threw it into the ditch behind the yard.
Early the next morning, Jiang Tian went to pick up the two bamboo baskets from the Houtou ditch.
Before the bamboo basket was out of water, the sound of fish moving around inside was heard.
Jiang Tian quickly increased the speed of her hands.
I lifted the bamboo basket up and looked inside. Hey! There were quite a lot of things inside.
There were two small eels as thick as index fingers, a dozen loaches, but the most numerous were crucian carps the size of a palm, and there were also many minnows.
Jiang Tian was too lazy to sort them out, and poured them directly into the bucket he brought with him.
Then go and pick up the second bamboo basket.
This time the harvest was even bigger than the first time. There were even two arm-long black carp in the bamboo basket!
Jiang Tian happily walked back carrying the bamboo basket and half a bucket of fish.
Just when I was thinking that two black carp could be used to make a large pot of pickled fish, an unpleasant voice suddenly came to my ears.
"Hey Tiantian, you went fishing so early in the morning? You are so diligent."
"Hey, these two silver carps are great. I was just about to go to the market to buy two fish. My family is hiring people to harvest rice tomorrow. How about you sell these two fish to me?"
As he said this, he was about to reach out to grab the two black carp.
The person who was speaking was Grandma Hong Xia who lived across the street from their house. This old woman and her grandmother Wang Chunmei were birds of a feather. When they were together, they would always think about how to scheme against their daughters-in-law and how to control their own children.
The stomach of a normal person is filled with internal organs.
They both have a lot of bad intentions in their minds!
And he especially loves to take advantage of small opportunities.
When her family had a funeral before, all the neighbors came to help. Others were eager to work until dark before going home, but she came in the morning to sign in, took her grandson to have breakfast, and then used the excuse of sending her grandson home to linger until it was almost time for lunch before coming back.
She was not very active in her work. When the funeral was over and the host was distributing the remaining food to the people who helped, she ran away faster than anyone else.
Even though she keeps saying "I want to buy fish", she is actually sure that Jiang Tian, the junior, will be embarrassed to accept money for these two fish, so she will definitely give them to her for free in the end.
Unexpectedly, Jiang Tian pulled the bucket back and said to Zhu Hongxia with a smile:
"Grandma Hongxia, are you going to buy some fish? That's great. It saves me from having to take them to the market to sell them."
"Then please come home with me. I don't have a scale with me."
Zhu Hongxia's mouth twitched twice, she cursed inwardly, forced a smile, pretended to pat her waist, and asked -
"You girl! You know how to live your life, calculating every little penny."
Jiang Tian didn't like to hear this.
"Grandma Hongxia, you know what our family is like now. My second uncle has taken all the money in the family. The three of us, mother and daughter, want to spend every penny wisely. If we sell these two fish, we can make a lot of money. We can also buy some soy sauce, vinegar, etc. for the family."
Zhu Hongxia curled her lips and asked, "How much do you plan to sell this fish for per pound?"
Jiang Tian smiled and said, "I've asked around. At the fish stalls in town, silver carp is 35 cents and black carp is 50 cents. If you want to buy some, Grandma Hongxia, I'll give you a discount. I'll charge you 40 cents per pound for these two black carps. Is that okay with you?"
Zhu Hongxia immediately rolled her eyes at her and said, "Forty cents a pound? I might as well go to the river and cast a net to catch them myself."
Jiang Tian didn't bother to pay attention to her and picked up the bucket: "Then you hurry up and put down the net. I'll go home, have breakfast, and then sell the fish."
"Hey! You girl..."
Zhu Hongxia watched Jiang Tian run away with the bucket of water.
When they got home, Hu Qiongfang had already taken all the eels off the hook and thrown them into a large vat. There were already more than ten pounds of eels in it. If they saved some more, they could go to the provincial road to sell them again.
I was lucky today. In addition to the eel, I also caught a rat snake.
Local people have the habit of eating rat snakes in summer. This creature is not yet a protected animal, and it can often be seen in rural vegetable gardens.
It is said that children are less likely to get prickly heat if they drink snake soup in the summer. In the past, Hu Qiongfang would catch a few snakes every year and stew snake soup for her two children.
Looking at the snake, Jiang Tian's saliva was almost flowing out.
"Then make pickled fish for lunch and snake soup for dinner."
