Traveling through the mountains and farming

Chapter 137 Spicy River Prawns

During the meal, they added charcoal several times, and the charcoal taken out from the stove hole always burned for a shorter time.

This gave Lin Wan the idea of ​​making charcoal.

They can now prepare the charcoal needed for the winter.

In my original memory, in winter, a hole the size of a wooden basin was dug in the main room, and every day the unburned charcoal from the stove hole was shoveled in to the hole for warming.

Of course, her original stepmother would never allow her to have any free time, let alone sit by the fire and keep warm.

In the main hall of her house, Li Changyi also reserved a hole for her to use for warming fire in winter.

It seems that there is no skill in making charcoal in earthen kilns here, so people just use the charcoal fire in the stove or burn firewood on the spot.

Fortunately, she had followed her grandfather into the mountains to make charcoal before. Her grandfather would chop wood and make charcoal in early winter every year. After the charcoal was done, he would send a few sacks of charcoal and kiln ash to each of his daughters, for fear that the daughters who were married would not live in the mountains and would have no charcoal for warming themselves.

Grandpa always thinks that his cooking is better than others.

Lin Wan grew up in her grandmother's house. After going to school, she spent every winter and summer vacation at her grandmother's house in the mountains. She is very familiar with burning charcoal and making fire in winter.

The first thing grandma did when she got up every day was to light the charcoal brazier for the fire, and then she would call her to get up.

These are warm and precious memories that we may never be able to experience again.

Lin Wan's eyes turned red without her noticing. Li Chongle, who was sitting next to her, noticed her abnormality and asked with concern:

"Sister-in-law, what's wrong with you?"

"It's too spicy, and the charcoal smoke from under the hot pot burned my eyes." Lin Wan turned her head hurriedly and answered while concealing her emotions.

Li Chongle looked at Lin Wan and clearly felt that his sister-in-law was in a bad mood.

Could it be that he is too tired recently? In that case, he will have to share more of the housework in the future.

He immediately picked up the fish tail from the pot and gave it to Lin Wan. He remembered that his sister-in-law liked to eat fish heads and tails.

Li Ke and Lin Jing saw this and also picked up some shrimp and fish for Lin Wan respectively.

Lin Wan looked at the bowl that was suddenly full of food, and her depressed mood instantly dissipated a lot.

"thank you all."

Doctor Zhong next to him looked envious, and Lin Jing sensibly picked up a piece of fish for him.

He smiled instantly. Although he had no brothers or sisters, he had a little apprentice.

Although the young apprentice doesn't talk much to him normally, the kid still has him as his master in his heart at critical moments.

I'll teach him to recognize a few more medicines when I get back.

Then he happily picked up the piece of fish in the bowl and continued eating.

~

Several other families also started to eat lunch one after another. Since the last implementation of the three meals a day from the same big pot, many of them have become accustomed to three meals a day.

There were also families who changed back to eating two meals a day, but as they went out to hunt every day, they also had to farm and raise livestock at home, which increased the energy consumed by their bodies, so they gradually changed back to the old way of eating.

Especially after obtaining large amounts of konjac and kudzu, those families who were originally hesitant resumed eating three meals a day.

At Grandpa Li's house, the three youngest grandchildren have been eagerly waiting for their own meal since Li Ke brought them the spicy shrimps.

They had long wanted to taste the chili peppers that Li Chongle and his sister had mentioned, especially since Li Ke had described to them how delicious the spicy shrimps were.

When the food was served, they each prepared a glass of water, then picked up the spicy shrimp with chopsticks, slowly put them into their mouths and took a light bite. Perhaps with Li Ke's experience, they tried carefully and were not immediately choked by the spiciness.

Instead, their fathers Li Changyi and Li Changli were coughing due to the spiciness.

They immediately handed their glass of water to their father and introduced the pepper.

Li Changli recovered and said, "You little brats, why didn't you warn me that this dish is so spicy?"

"I was so focused on eating new food that I forgot about it." Li Chongping explained with a chuckle.

He then encouraged others to eat the shrimp quickly, as he thought it was delicious.

Some people were afraid to pick up their chopsticks after taking a bite, but some others were still reluctant to eat more. In particular, Li Changli, who felt the spiciness at the beginning, liked it very much and said that he would go to the pond or other place in the afternoon to get some shrimps to taste again.

Uncle Li was very supportive after hearing this. He really liked this spicy shrimp, so he quickly said:

"Okay, you guys make more this afternoon."

Several children also cheered, and after dinner they were ready to go shrimping in the afternoon.

Unexpectedly, when they were getting ready to set off in the afternoon, several other families also thought the spicy shrimps were delicious and wanted to make an appointment to go shrimping together.

They went to several places and caught a wooden bucket of big river shrimps, a bucket of snails, and two large buckets of river clams.

When they brought these to Lin Wan for help, she was in a dilemma because she didn't have many chilies left at home, only enough to fry a small portion of shrimp.

When everyone heard Lin Wan's words, they couldn't help but show disappointment on their faces.

"Cousin, there are so many shrimps. How can a small portion be enough?" Li Chongping said anxiously.

"Yes, and there are also these snails and river clams. Can you see how to make them delicious?" Li Changli also echoed.

Seeing everyone's expectant and eager looks, Lin Wan quickly thought of various ways to cook shrimps, such as braised prawns, garlic shrimps and pepper and salt shrimps.

She knew that Aunt Li still had some garlic. Doctor Zhong recently learned that cinnamon, star anise, bay leaves, pepper, fennel and other spices could be used for cooking, so he went to the mountains to look for them and prepared a lot of them for Lin Wan.

When Lin Wan saw this, she was shocked. Doctor Zhong had gone to great lengths to search all over the mountains for food.

Doctor Zhong would occasionally ask Lin Wan what other herbs she could use for cooking, and he would be responsible for getting them for her.

So Lin Wan can make pepper salt with peppercorns and salt.

I had already thought about how to deal with the shrimps. As for the snails and river clams, as soon as Lin Wan saw them, two of her favorite ways of cooking them popped into my mind.

After planning how to cook these ingredients, Lin Wan comforted everyone and said:

"Don't worry, everyone. Although we don't have enough pepper, we can make the shrimp into different flavors to ensure that everyone is satisfied. We can make the snails into spicy snails, but we need to let them spit out the sand for a few days before making them. As for the clams, we can make black bean clam soup, which will definitely taste good."

Everyone had great faith in Lin Wan's cooking skills and felt that her arrangements must be correct, so they asked what they needed to do.

Then Lin Wan told them how to process the ingredients, and they divided the work among themselves and started to act.

Aunt Li had black beans at home, so I was assigned the task of making black bean and clam soup at her home, which was relatively simple.

Because Lin Wan told her that she only needed to boil the black beans and the cleaned clam meat together, and then add some salt at the end.

Lin Wan felt that the only regret was the lack of pepper, and she didn’t know whether pepper had been introduced from overseas at that time.

This black bean and clam soup will be more delicious and rich with the addition of pepper, but it's a pity that it is hard to find now.