EBE Chapter 182 Other Hills Not Found
Chapter 182 Other Hills Not Found
The Zhou family has been making a living from the land for generations, and they value the land the most. When the old man was alive, he stayed in the land all year round and regarded the land as his life.
The other members of the Zhou family naturally agreed after receiving the true teachings. Nothing was more important than the land. Besides, it took several days to find the pine mushrooms, and there was a high possibility that they would not be able to sell them if they took them to the county town. Why bother? It would be better to go into the mountains to find some for themselves after the work was done.
Zhou Dacang said, "Well, I'm planning to start repairing the house tomorrow. Among so many houses, ours is the most dilapidated. I've discussed with everyone to help us repair our house first tomorrow, and then repair the other houses. We'll do it one by one, and there won't be many houses. It will only take about ten days."
Li said, "It won't take that many people to repair the house. One or two people from each family will be enough, and the rest can go to the fields to open up wasteland."
Zhou Xing hurriedly asked, "We have to provide meals, right? How many meals?"
Zhou Dacang said: "Two meals, just like when we were in the village. We will take care of the lunch and dinner." In the village, people don't get paid for asking for help. It's like exchanging work with others. You help me today and I help you tomorrow, working half a day and returning half a day's work.
Zhou Xing said anxiously: "But we don't have any vegetables at home, what can we eat?"
For two meals, even if there are two people in each family, plus the whole family, that would be almost twenty people. It is not easy to cook for so many people, especially for those who do heavy work. They can't just drink soup. There must be at least one meat dish for two meals. When you are in the village, you can kill a chicken at home, and a few eggs laid by yourself can also be a meat dish.
"Why are there no vegetables? We just chopped two badgers into pieces. One is enough for two meals. Add some wild vegetables and more soup. The soup, meat and vegetables will make you full." Zhou Guo pointed to the piece of meat beside him. "Two are enough for two days."
Li nodded, "You can also add some wild mushrooms. Matsutake mushrooms are so delicious, it will definitely taste good if you add them in."
When the old man heard that he was very protective of his food, he quickly said, "No, no, you don't know, there are not many pine mushrooms in the mountains. It seems that they are only found in a few specific mountains. I went to other mountains today and searched half of the mountains, but I didn't find a single one. This thing is very precious. Let's keep it for our family."
The Zhou family was shocked.
"Ah? No more?!"
"So it's only in those few mountains, and on the top of the mountains. As expected, good things are rare and can't be found everywhere."
Zhou Guo felt deeply regretful. He took a look at the remaining pine mushrooms and suddenly couldn't bear to eat them bag by bag. After this period of time, he would have to wait until next year to eat them again. That was a year.
She decided that when she ate fried matsutake mushrooms later, she would only fry one basket of them, and cut the rest into shreds and fry them with badger oil. When she wanted to eat them, she could scoop out a spoonful and stir-fry them, which would also be very delicious.
After the meal, Zhou Xing cleared the dishes, Li started to boil badger oil, and Zhou Dacang and others took machetes and saws to saw wood. They sawed the wood section by section and polished it with a knife. When it was almost usable, they even saved the money for stools.
Zhou Guo brought the remaining matsutake mushrooms over and began to slice them one by one. After slicing, she began to cut them into strips. The strips were of uneven thickness, but she didn't care about that. She wasn't a cook, so as long as she could cut them, it was fine.
The old man at the side saw her cutting the vegetables into shreds one by one and couldn't help asking, "What are you doing? Are you not frying them today? Are you stir-frying them instead?"
Zhou Guo said without even looking up, "Didn't you say there aren't many left in the mountains? I thought I'd cut the rest into shreds, fry them with badger oil, boil them into pine mushroom oil, and store them in a jar. This way it can be kept longer. When I want to eat it later, I can scoop out a spoonful of oil and put it in the dish. It will also have the aroma of pine mushrooms."
The old man opened his mouth, wanting to say something but not saying it. After a while, he said, "It's not like there's nothing left in the mountains. I guess we can still pick up a few sacks of oil later. If you want to press oil, there's plenty later. Can't you let me, your master, eat fresh oil for a few more days?"
He wanted to eat freshly picked apples, but how could the oil be good if it was pressed? The freshness would be fried away.
Zhou Guo said, "I'll give it to you to eat. I didn't mean to fry all of it. I left some for you. I just wanted to fry it while the oil was just being boiled to save the trouble later."
She originally wanted to keep only half a basket of pine mushroom slices, but the old man looked at her eagerly, so she had to keep more than a basket, and she probably cut up half a pot of them.
At this time, Li's oil was also boiled out. Today, the two badgers were big and had a lot of oil, so half a pot of oil was boiled out.
After Zhou Guo waited for the oil to cool down a little, he put the shredded pine mushrooms into the pot, pressed them down with a spatula, kept the fire on the stove low, and simmered them slowly.
But the old man was still waiting to eat the fried pine mushrooms, "How long will it take?"
Zhou Guo clapped his hands and said, "About half an hour."
"We are going to eat fried pine mushrooms. Are we not going to eat it tonight? I can't sleep without eating it." The old man specially left a bowl of wine, just wanting to drink it when eating this. Are we not going to eat it now?
Li also said, "Yes, everyone is waiting to eat. The master is also waiting for wine, so he only drank one bowl. Can't eat any faster? Use a bigger fire. It will take a long time to finish such a small fire." As she said that, she went to add firewood.
"Hey, no." Zhou Guo hurriedly stopped her. "Oh, Mom, you've been cooking for so many years, don't you know that when the fire is high, the oil temperature will be high, and when the oil temperature is high, it will easily burn. Then my pot of mushrooms will be ruined. You wait, I'll be back soon." After saying that, he walked out of the yard.
"Hey, where are you going so late? Be careful of snakes in the grass." Li shouted loudly from behind.
Zhou Guo replied: "I understand."
The moon was bright tonight and she could see the ground clearly without a torch. She ran to the river and searched around. In a short while, she found a thin, large and flat stone. She washed it and carried it back.
When they saw her coming back with a slab of stone in her arms, they said, "Why did you bring back a stone? It's too thin to be used as a stool."
Zhou Guo said: "This is the pot. We will use it to fry pine mushrooms tonight. We still need to build a stove."
Zhou Dacang said, "This is easy. Just build one with stones. Come on, Damao, give me a hand and pick up some stones."
Zhou Guo boiled a pot of hot water, scalded the stones, placed them on the stove, and lit a fire underneath. Soon the water on top boiled dry.
Place the mushroom slices on the plate and brush them with oil. The slices will sizzle in the oil under the roasting fire. Roll them up, sprinkle a few grains of salt on them, and then you can eat them.
"I don't know if it's because of the difference in the pot, but I always feel that it tastes better this way." The old man ate mushrooms and drank wine while looking at this special "pot", thinking it was a treasure.
Zhou Dacang and others said it tasted better.
Zhou Guo ate a piece suspiciously, "Yes, it seems different, so I have to keep this pot." Then he suddenly had an idea, "I wonder if cooking with this pot will be different?"