This winter has come at a rapid pace.
The first cold wave had just ended, and it only took a day or two for the temperature to warm up. In the blink of an eye, the second cold wave came unexpectedly.
Most of the flying knights who went out have returned. Only some of the flying knights who went to the distant auxiliary nest have not returned to [Xinyang City] and will most likely have to spend the winter there.
After all, the flying knights are not like the pavement ant transport team that transports charcoal. Even in winter, they can go out as long as the wind is nice and the sun is shining.
Suddenly entering winter, the originally busy life suddenly became leisurely. The entire nest was relatively crowded. Unlike before, when most ants were working outside, they were now a little idle.
The ants in the Ant Alliance have a clear division of labor, unlike in the old Big-headed Ant Kingdom, where worker ants had to do everything. Most of them had no clear division of labor and went wherever they caught.
So this season, the ants in the farm and the hunting ants are all idle, and the protagonist does not let them wander around the nest without having anything to do. Most of the time, they can only lie down and take a nap in their dormitory nest, and occasionally come out to take a walk. .
The ants in the workshop are still working, and they spend three days fishing and two days drying nets. After all, the raw materials are only those in stock. Many of the workshop's products are not in great demand in winter, and there are no urgent production tasks.
Winter is such a leisurely season for cave-dwelling ants. Fortunately, they will not get bored.
The only ones who remain normal are the worker ants who handle the nest's affairs. They still have to clean up the nest every day, collect the dirty garbage produced by the ants and throw it to a centralized location to maintain the safety of the nest's building.
The protagonist also suddenly felt free. In his palace in the ant mound on the ground, there were no messengers constantly coming and going to report and ask for instructions. He also had time to focus more on other things that interested him.
He first drew the calendar for the coming year on the square, paper-like hay leaves that he had processed. He drew dozens of copies at once. This took some time, and it was really difficult to hold the charcoal with a pair of forelimbs. Convenient and dexterous, like holding a pen with only two fingers.
He will give these calendars to some high-ranking ants in the country, such as ministers of various ministries, heads of ant tribes, representatives of conferences, etc., to cultivate their date awareness.
The protagonist spends the rest of the time thinking about dishes, preparing to launch a series of new dishes at this year's New Year's banquet.
In the past, the food of the Ant Alliance was relatively simple, although cooked food and salt were promoted. For this reason, each sub-nest built combustion chambers, and also had a large amount of salt reserves purchased through trade.
But the daily diet is still relatively simple. Most of the meat of the ants is roasted. Sometimes they also use pots and pots produced in pottery workshops to cook. Plant food is similar. The seeds are roasted or boiled, and some fresh Leaves, stems, and fungi are eaten raw.
This year, the iron production of the Ant Alliance has increased significantly. In addition to meeting military needs, it can also make people rich. The protagonist has other ideas.
In December, the blast furnace in [Xinyangcheng] finally cast an iron pot as big as a large walnut. They also sent ants to temporarily widen the passage from the blast furnace to the cooking combustion chamber and transport the iron pot there. .
With the iron pot, the protagonist can finally try cooking!
An iron pot is necessary for cooking to ensure that the dishes are heated quickly and evenly, and the food is delicious and fragrant. However, the earthenware pot cannot meet the requirements and can only be used for cooking.
After coming to this world of ants for so many years, the protagonist has almost forgotten the taste of cooking, but the beautiful memories still linger in his heart. What I miss the most are those home-cooked dishes in my heart!
For example, fried pork with chili pepper, the protagonist wants to restore this favorite dish first.
There is no chili in Ant United Kingdom? But there are alternatives!
The Ant United Kingdom is now a large territory, and there are different products in different places, especially the Black Forest area, which is rich in products and many uncommon plants can be found, some of which can be used as spices.
Under the deliberate arrangement of the protagonist, the local deputy nest collected a lot of wild onions, wild ginger and other spices. These treasures are now piled in the food warehouse in [Xinyang City]!
If you want it spicy, you can use dogwood instead of chili pepper. The edible variety of Cornus officinalis is called Cornus officinalis, also known as red onion and green pepper.
Before chili peppers were introduced to China, in addition to ginger and garlic, Chinese dishes mainly relied on dogwood to obtain spiciness. Before overseas chili peppers were introduced to China in the Ming Dynasty, traditional Sichuan cuisine basically relied on dogwood to prepare the spiciness. Among the ancient "six flavors" The spiciness refers to the spiciness of dogwood.
An old saying goes: Pick Cornus officinalis in August, pound and filter the juice, add lime and stir it into a mixture. It is called mugwort oil or spicy rice oil. It has a spicy taste and can be used in food.
The protagonist didn't know such a complicated processing method. He directly used the spicier leaves of the dogwood as ingredients. There were a lot of dried dogwood leaves in the food warehouse in [Xinyangcheng], so it wouldn't be a problem to use them throughout the winter.
The meat he chose was tender fly maggot meat. He soaked the dried meat first and then cut it into slices.
The iron pot is placed on a special stove. The stove is a small blast furnace made of bricks, which is half a decimeter high. The feed port below is taken care of by a team of ants responsible for lighting the fire.
The iron pot is placed on the stove, and the handles at both ends of the pot are hung on the wooden frame with ropes. There is also a continuous earthen platform surrounding the pot. The earthen platform is about two centimeters away from the edge of the pot for the ants responsible for stir-frying to stand.
There is a long wooden board on the earthen platform that extends to the pot like a diving board. This is where the ants responsible for dropping food work.
Under the order of the protagonist, the team of chefs who experimented with the dish of Fried Fly Maggot Slices with Dogwood began to get busy.
The pot is heated first, and then the feeding team pours vegetable oil into the pot using a clay pot. The oil smoke quickly rises and floats out from the smoke exhaust vent.
The feeding team added some chopped ginger and garlic, and then the stir-frying team used four long wooden sticks to start turning the pot.
The aroma of fried ginger and garlic filled the air, and the protagonist sniffed the aroma greedily.
When the fly larvae meat slices were poured in, the sound of "stab, sting, sting" was extremely beautiful. The stir-frying team quickly started working hard. The white fly larvae meat slices were quickly coated with grease and quickly turned golden.
The ingredients for the ants are processed thinly and cooked quickly. They cannot be fried in the pot for a long time, otherwise they will not only become old, but even burnt.
The dogwood leaves were also quickly thrown into the pot. The fuel team no longer added fuel. The stir-frying team continued to stir-fry a few times with the remaining fire and temperature, and sprinkled in fine salt powder and stirred a few more times.
Then the pot team pulled up the rope with all their strength, and the iron pot was hung under the wooden frame, away from the still-warm stove.
Another team of ants moved the pottery plate over. The team that raised the pot raised the rope on one side to tilt the iron pot. The team that stir-fried worked together to use wooden sticks to pull the fried dishes into the plate.
The dish was brought over and the protagonist took a bite and said, "Delicious!"
