Lin Chou slept until noon the next day.
Regular customers all know that Boss Lin, who is not doing his job properly, has gone to Heishenhai to have fun again, so no one has bothered him yet.
However, he was still woken up—by his own stomach.
Yesterday I only had half a meal at sea, and the aftereffect of my sleep was a grumbling protest in my stomach like a ring.
"Hiss...so hungry..."
I looked at my watch subconsciously, and sure enough, I had completely missed the breakfast and lunch time for myself and all the guests.
After washing up casually, I jumped down from the home tree in a hurry.
The air is as fresh as ever, well, the crowing of chickens and the barking of dogs are peaceful.
"Good morning, boss."
Su Yourong blinked her big eyes. She was wearing a Lolita-style short-sleeved high-waisted retro dress today. The dark black color was very cute.
"Shihu~ It's already noon~"
Lin Chou waved his hand to signal the two of them to get out of the way, and rushed into the kitchen from the back door.
"It's delicious. Where is it? I remember there are some leftovers..."
Su Yourong's little face was tangled and she held up her skirt and turned around.
"Don't you look good in a small skirt? How come Shihu is swollen and doesn't react at all?"
dining room.
"Ahem, Boss Lin!"
"Bao Er? You're here so early... Oh, by the way, you came to see me before, right? Do you have any fresh ingredients?"
Bao Er seemed a little embarrassed, scratched his head and said,
"No, it's just the newly pickled salted vegetables at home. My old man insisted on giving them to you with my own hands - they are just ordinary salted vegetables. I told the old man several times that you don't need them. Well, the old man... cough cough cough... is very willful in his old age. If I don't follow the instructions, I'll hit my head with the crutch."
"Salt vegetables?" Lin Chou showed a big smile, "Yes, why don't you need it? I'm hungry."
Bao Er was surprised and pleasantly surprised. He quickly ran out and picked up a pickle jar from his motorcycle.
"Boss Lin, do you still use this thing? Nowadays, there are very few people in the base city who specialize in pickling this thing. They have all thrown it away..."
Lin Chou said,
"In the past, my old man had to eat this with every meal. By the time I took over the small restaurant in the alley, most of the old people in the alley who knew how to make salt vegetables had passed away. I ate it when I was a child and no longer wanted to eat salt vegetables. The smell is just disgusting, and when I grow up I try to look for it but can’t find it.”
The so-called salted vegetables generally refer to vegetables that have been pickled with salt, and the names vary slightly from place to place.
The "salt vegetables" Bao Er refers to are actually by-products of pickling mustard heads.
When Lin Chou was a child, the old people in the alley who knew how to pickle mustard heads liked to use a clay pot with a rough roasting and a lid. The bottom was covered with wood ginger, peppercorn leaves, a little shochu, and evenly mixed into kimchi water, and then the mustard heads were mixed. Soak the mustard tassels in the kimchi water with the roots facing down. Then roll the mustard tassels into lumps and stack them neatly. Finally, sprinkle salt evenly on the tassel balls. It only takes a few days to ferment after being covered. If it is sour, take it out and eat it.
This kind of crude pickled mustard is more commonly known as pickled mustard. The mustard tassels above it have been dried out of excess water due to the coarse sea salt grains, making it unbearably salty. You need to prepare it before eating. It takes about a day to soak, but even so, the salt content of just one mustard tassel can easily fill a whole bowl of rice porridge.
Mustard tassels have a faint sour and stinky smell. Except for the alleys in Xiacheng District, they rarely appear on Mingguang's dining table. They are almost always thrown away. The elderly cannot tolerate this kind of waste, so they like to eat them in A few layers of mustard mustard are placed in the pot of pickled cabbage heads. The combination of the freshness of mustard mustard tassels and the pungent bitterness of mustard tassels is unexpectedly popular. Many people in the alley like the taste of this salted vegetable - well, come to think of it. Potherb mustard is also a variant of mustard, with one root and one leaf used for the mustard head.
The pickled cabbage heads can be sold and used to stir-fry shredded pork, which is delicious and goes well with rice.
The worthless leftovers such as salted vegetables were left and distributed to the neighbors in the alley, so the taste of salted vegetables filled almost the entire childhood of Lin Chou and his friends in the Pythagorean Alley.
The moment Bao Er saw Lin Chou's expression, he knew that he was lucky again.
"Haha, really... My old man was so frightened by the accident in Heichenhai last time that he still keeps saying that he is seasick - he doesn't go to Market No. 11 to sell a stall anymore. He spends all day Make some messy things at home, make bean paste, pickles, pickle dumplings, bacon and cured fish, etc. I just opened a jar of pickled vegetables a while ago and you insist on giving me a jar. I'm still thinking about you. It’s definitely not good for you.”
Lin Chou rolled up his sleeves, stretched out his hand and pulled out a pickled vegetable head from the clay basin.
"I really don't like cabbage, but potherb mustard and mustard stems, hey!"
"I occasionally want to try pickling some, but my father said that this thing is very important in 'popularity'. The older you are and the more experienced you are, the more fragrant the dishes will be, so I have never tried it - before I only pickled them. Once you taste the chili pepper, it has no taste at all except sourness.”
Bao Er said,
"Ha, my old man said the same thing. I won't be allowed to touch his precious jars of kimchi, pickles, and sauerkraut at all. He said that young people's palms tend to sweat, which will sour the whole jar of good vegetables."
Lin Chou smiled and said,
"The old man is right - haven't you eaten it yet? I happened to use this salt vegetable to make a dish that I ate when I was a child. You can eat it before leaving."
What else could there be?
Bao Er rubbed his hands and salivated,
"Can you help me?"
After saying that, I felt that I was really stupid. When did Boss Lin use someone else to cook?
Lin Chou waved his hand,
"It'll only take a few minutes, just wait."
Simply wring out the salted mustard seeds and mustard greens, cut them into small dices and soak them in a sieve to remove the salt. Lin Chou began to prepare other "side dishes".
Before the scientific research institute increased the yield of potatoes to tons per acre, people in the alleys liked cassava that also grew in the fields. They were everywhere in the city and in the wild. They dug up the roots and washed them. It is fragrant and sweet after being soaked and steamed. It can also be ground into tapioca flour and can be used in various ways.
When Lin Chou was a child, his father would often crush steamed cassava into a puree and lie to Lin Chou, saying that it was mashed potatoes. Lin Chou actually believed it and thought that his father had changed his temper and was willing to buy potatoes for him to eat, and the salted vegetables were cassava. fixed combination.
Take out the pork bone soup placed in the thermostatic cabinet and pour it into a large pot to boil, and use it to cook the cleaned pig intestines.
A piece of cold cooked pork belly was cut into 2 millimeter cubes and stir-fried in a dry pan until oil came out. Then the cut salt vegetables were added to the pan. Then, Lin Chou was finally willing to buy out the pickled chili peppers that she had made, which was a huge failure.
As soon as the jar of pickled peppers was opened, a strong sour smell hit their skulls directly from the nose, making their scalps feel like electric currents were running through them.
Bao Er pinched his teeth and spoke with a drooling voice.
"Hiss... Brother Chou, is this jar of chili peppers soaked in vinegar? This is too scary..."
Lin Chou coughed,
"I'm good at smoking bacon and cooking. As for kimchi...and noodles, it's like they are natural enemies that you can't mess with - but today I met them all."
Bao Er blinked,
"Is there anything that even your boss Lin can't make?"
"That's what I'm saying, if I'm omniscient and omnipotent, why would I be a little cook here..."
The corner of Bao Er's mouth twitched. I really don't know if you are a humble old man or if you are obsessed with the authorities. Are you still a little cook? whispering sound!
Take out a large handful of the sour pickled peppers and throw them into the pot. The pickled devil peppers are filled with sour water and are stimulated by the hot pot. The steam immediately gushes out like a mushroom cloud. Roaring.
Bao Er was agitated by the sour smell.
"Oh shit, Boss Lin, your sour chili pepper is so sour that I'm a little bit over the head - when the heat hits me, I actually feel a little dizzy as if I've drunk too much!"
Lin Chou was so angry at this guy's ability to act cute.
"Stay far away and faint."
After the fire comes to a boil, use a slotted spoon to squeeze out the acidic water in the sour peppers, then remove the peppers and discard them.
Divide the cooked salted vegetable soup into two pots, and thicken the gravy in one pot.
Drain the cooked pig intestines and slice them with a diagonal knife. Stir-fry the onion and ginger without adding any oil. Stir-fry until the water is dry and the fat is released. Pour it into the Qingquan Mountain. Turn the pot over the fire and simmer the intestines with wine.
After the wine fire is extinguished, pour the remaining unthickened salt vegetable soup into the sausage pot and cook together.
"It's almost time to prepare the real goods."
Lin Chou took out a bag of flour from the cabinet, dissolved a spoonful of lard in water, and kneaded the dough.
"Eh? Boss Lin, this is tapioca flour, right? The color looks similar."
"Yes, one-third of taro powder is added to it."
Tapioca flour is a little less tough than flour. It needs to be beaten hard to form a ball. Then cut it into pieces the size of glass marbles and flatten them gently with your thumb and index finger, leaving a round pit on each side.
In a pot of boiling water, put the processed cassava dough into the pot and cook.
The cassava dumplings become translucent after being cooked, crystal clear and sticky, and the shape resembles abacus beads.
The shape of this cassava dumpling was taken from the abacus, a Hakka dish that Lin Chou's father had made before the Catastrophe.
Put the cooked cassava dumplings into a bowl, scoop out a few pieces of fat intestine and put them into the bowl, pour the salted vegetable and sour soup thickened with gravy, and finally sprinkle with chopped green onions and minced chili peppers.
Bao Er probed his head and said,
"Boss Lin, your dad was too kind to you when you were a kid - why did he put so much effort into cooking for you?"
Lin Chou scratched his head,
"When I was a child, I was weak and had a small appetite. My family was poor. Salted vegetables, cassava flour, and pig intestines were very cheap. The combination of meat and vegetables was nutritious and healthy. But when I was a child, I didn't have chili. I only used kimchi soup, which tasted bad. Quite a few.”
"Why are you talking so much? Have a taste, you have a capacity? Chi Zhi? What are you doing? Eat! By the way, let's see if that guy down the mountain is starving to death!"
Well, Wu Ke can't live without Lin Chou now. Since the last time he and two bodyguards risked their lives to try to "scientifically" specialize in cooking, he has never touched the stove again.
"Bai Liu."
Four heads suddenly appeared at the door: Chi Zhi, Su Yourong, Wu Ke, and Si Gouzi.
Si Gouzi's head was pressed against the door frame, and the huge nose that poked in occupied more than half of the dining room.
Si Gouzi sniffed with the tip of his nose raised, and the strange sour smell made him sneeze several times in succession. Tears and mucus came out, and he ran away with his tail between his legs without looking back, leaving a miserable howl along the way.
"Ouch...owow, owwow!"
Lord Gungun, who was enjoying the cool air behind the mountain stream, barely raised his eyelids to take a look when he heard the movement in front of him, and turned over angrily.
"Ouch."
Keep sleeping.
Lin Chou looked at the three of them speechlessly,
"What are you doing?"
Wu Ke wiped his face and found a handful of notes in his hand.
"Ahem, let's play Landlord. After playing Landlord for a while - I didn't win any money. I just had fun."
Lin Chou was surprised,
"Big-breasted sister, are you going to fight the landlord with Wu Ke??"
Chi Zhi said weakly,
"I've washed the dishes several times, it's very boring..."
And added,
"It's me and Yourong fighting the landlord."
Wu Ke nodded repeatedly,
"Hmm, eldest sister Akazhi and Yourong - and the Undergraduate Landlords."
"Okay, I don't have time to be poor with you, let's eat first."
Wu Ke took a quick step,
"What is this, an upgraded version of pimple soup? Can I apply for a bigger bowl? I haven't eaten well in several days..."
Lin Chou rolled her eyes and said,
"This dish is called Abacus with Minced Pork in Sour Soup, thank you."
Wu Ke couldn't wait to throw a cassava dumpling into his mouth.
"Ah, emmm, hiss... so sour... so spicy..."
“There’s rice over there—how many times have I told you, this is food, not rice!”
The cassava dumplings bounce in your mouth when you bite them. The first thing your taste buds perceive is the acidity of sour chili peppers and the spiciness of paste chili peppers. When the huge amounts of sourness and spiciness are majestic in your mouth, you can only smell the fragrance. White rice can save everyone's fate.
Wu Ke quickly took a big mouthful of rice and couldn't help but suck up the soup.
"It tastes so strange. What are the vegetable grains in this..."
The special fermented aroma of salted vegetables finally escapes from the prison of sour and spicy food under the isolation of rice. The minced meat provides sufficient fat and caramel aroma, which is its best power source.
The mustard seeds and mustard stems, which make a crunching sound when chewed, were originally evenly attached to the surface of the cassava dumplings. When the cassava dumplings disintegrated under the teeth and turned into soft fragments, the vegetables could no longer be concealed. .
It is fragrant, crisp, and sweet with a hint of sourness, just like the taste of spring that has been artificially stored.
But this is not the end, the last thing left is still the cassava dumplings.
After the salted vegetables and spicy and sour dishes, the sweetness of the dumplings composed of tapioca flour and taro flour comes back again, making it full of flavor.
At this time, a large piece of trembling fat intestines is added, and the lining is fully functional. It is so satisfying that you can’t stop!
Bao Er's eyes lit up after eating.
"Oh my God, Boss Lin, you didn't put any seasoning in it. This is not very scientific. It's delicious. It's so damn delicious - what, do you still have some hot pepper paste? Please give me some more. More!"
Su Yourong's mouth was oily,
"Good times, very good times!"
Lin Chou tasted a few bites and felt that it was really amazing that his father could get the inspiration for this dish from mashed potatoes with meat sauce - and how damn picky he was when he was a child to need such a powerful food. Toy to get it done?
There's no point in talking more. It's time to get down to business.
After all, the best answer to how a dish tastes is knowing how well it lasts.
