binnovel Chapter 11 No Rural Areas in the Past 4
Chapter 11 No Rural Areas in the Past 4
Sunday was a beautiful sunny day, with the outdoor temperature probably reaching the teens around noon. The neighbors all got up early.
Those who needed to buy groceries went to buy groceries, and those who needed to buy wine went to buy wine. Everyone started preparing early. Liu Yuxi also got up early to wash up and eat before going out. She needed to go outside to bring back meat, fish, braised offal, and roast duck.
As she walked along the street, she looked at Beijing in the 70s. During this period, she had been either at school or back in her courtyard house, and had not had a detailed observation of Beijing now.
Unlike later generations, where skyscrapers are everywhere, the buildings now have a sense of historical weight. On the streets, you can only see bicycles and buses, and occasionally a private car will pass by. Sometimes, you can also see old men driving donkey carts, horse-drawn carts, or oxcarts.
She came out on a mission. After wandering around for a while, she headed back. In a deserted alley, she took out 10 jin (5 catties) of pork belly. She thought that if she cooked all of it into braised pork, her neighbors would definitely not agree. So she planned to use six jin (3 catties) of it to make braised pork and the other four jin (2 catties) to cook with other dishes.
She also brought out ten catties of braised offal, including liver, intestines, heart, and lungs. There were only 30 people in the whole hospital, and even if you included the children, that's ten people per table, so you could only set up three tables. Therefore, she brought out three roast ducks.
She originally wanted to take two big fish, but after thinking about the number of people in the yard, she only took one. One fish would be enough to make a big pot of fish soup.
On her way back, she passed by the neighborhood office (nowadays, the leaders are usually on duty at the neighborhood office on weekends), and she called out to Director Yin, asking him to come to their compound for lunch. She wanted to take this opportunity to thank Director Yin and the neighbors. Director Yin couldn't refuse her and agreed, saying he would come over after get off work at noon.
Back in the courtyard, the neighbors were all surprised to see the fish, meat, roast duck, and braised offal he was carrying. Some asked him where he had bought so much pork belly, others asked him where all these things came from, and still others scolded him for wasting money.
She said, "My classmate's family works at a slaughterhouse, so I made arrangements in advance. The fish was swapped with someone else, and the braised dishes and roast duck were also prepared in advance by someone else."
In the end, the neighbors could only tell her that she was being too extravagant and shouldn't do it again; they had no other recourse. The items were already bought, and she had even informed them beforehand, so she had already accepted the favor and couldn't very well return them.
However, the smiles on everyone's faces were impossible to hide. After all, these days, it's rare to have such a hearty meal of meat. The children were even more excited, surrounding Liu Yuxi and shouting, "Meat! Meat!" "Fish!" "Roast duck!"
Hearing the children's shouts, everyone couldn't help but chat happily. "Are we going to eat our fill this time? I've never eaten so much meat before!" "You bet! This fish is huge!" "This roast duck smells amazing! A whole roast duck at Quanjude costs eight yuan!" "This braised dish would be a great accompaniment to drinks!"
Happiness is contagious, and Liu Yuxi and several aunties and grandmothers got busy together. Early in the morning, several men set up a stove in the corner of the yard, and each family brought a lot of firewood from their homes. The staple food was steamed buns made from a mixture of flour and water. Each family brought some flour, which was mixed together and then distributed to each other's homes to steam.
The others washed vegetables, moved tables and chairs, and the few skilled cooks worked on the makeshift stove. Liu Yuxi decided to cook braised pork and fish soup (after all, she had read novels from that era that said people in that time didn't cook fish well).
It wasn't that she thought her skills were particularly good, but rather that she had a cheat code! Modern seasonings are incomparable to those of the 70s. With all that technology and rudimentary techniques, even dipping shoe insoles in them would taste delicious!
Besides, she has oil, so she can add more oil. Even if she pours too much, the neighbors will just say a few words to her. It's not easy to have a big meal like this, so she can't leave any regrets!
Thinking about the seasonings she would need later, she secretly slipped home, filled the oil jar at home first, and then found a jar of lard in the kitchen of a restaurant in the space to replace the one at home.
I unpacked the braised pork sauce, poured a bowl of it, and took some common ingredients like scallions, ginger, garlic, star anise, and cinnamon. I didn't dare take much else and moved all of these to the temporary stove for later use.
The neighbors were amazed when they saw her carrying out two cans of oil, which were almost full. They wondered how she had managed to save up so much oil. But seeing Liu Yuxi's generosity, they were even more excited for lunch.
Liu Yuxi divided the pork belly into about 6 jin (3 catties), and left the rest to Aunt Wang and the others to prepare other dishes. She first cut the meat into thin strips about eight centimeters wide and put them into a large pot of boiling water to remove the blood.
Apart from Zhang Qing, the deputy director of the logistics department, everyone else was a little confused by this action. They all felt that rinsing the meat with water would remove a lot of oil. Zhang Qing was in charge of logistics, and the textile factory canteen was under her management, so she knew that this was to remove the blood from the meat so that it would taste better when cooked later!
After Zhang Qing's explanation, everyone suddenly understood why the chefs in the state-run restaurants cooked such delicious food. There were so many tricks to cooking a dish. But that was all they knew. Asking them to cook like that would be impossible, with so much oil!
Liu Yuxi took the meat out, cut it into pieces the size of mahjong tiles, and cooked it according to the tutorials she had learned from Douyin. Finally, she added braised pork sauce and an appropriate amount of water, covered the pot, and let Li Hai's third daughter, Li Junxiang, cook it over a high flame.
Then I took the big fish and first removed the fishy tendons. I even explained this step to all the older women in the family. This simple and inexpensive trick was something they were all very happy to learn.
The fish was too big, and Liu Yuxi was worried that if she cut it into pieces and stewed it directly, the meat wouldn't taste good. So she removed the fish meat and had the men who were free to chop it into minced meat to make fish ball soup.
Several men took turns chopping the ingredients and soon finished, filling a large basin. Liu Yuxi then prepared the seasonings, added four eggs, and had the men take turns stirring in one direction until the mixture became elastic. The mixture was then set aside for later use.
After all the dishes were cooked, only the fish soup was left. She poured about two ounces of oil into the pot. Luckily, she poured it quickly because Aunt Wang snatched the oil can away and insisted on scooping some oil back from the pot.
Liu Yuxi put the fish head directly into the pot before Aunt Wang gave up, but she was still muttering, "How can you be so careless? There's enough oil for half a month, you don't know how to manage money at all!"
Liu Yuxi ignored her and just kept laughing as he fried the fish head and bones. Once the fish head and bones were fried, he added hot water from the pot next to him, along with scallions and ginger, and brought it to a boil over high heat.
While everyone was distracted, I poured in some more cooking wine. When the fish soup turned white, I called over a few aunties and grandmas to make fish balls in the soup. Once all the fish balls floated to the surface, I added a handful of bok choy, seasoned with salt, and turned off the heat when the water boiled.
"The food is served!"