The warehouse under the night was full of laughter.
Aunt Dong was taking a few women to make pancakes, with a lot of minced meat added to the pancakes.
Usually the cakes they eat are vegetarian cakes without meat, so this meal is a very good celebration, and it is filling.
Aunt Dong had someone buy the meat outside just now.
The mercenary who had just returned was washing away the dust with a bucket.
Shen Yan also wiped his body happily with water, and then started kneading noodles in a wooden basin.
He proposed that he would cook the meal tonight, but there were forty or fifty people, and it was a holiday-like day, so how could they leave it to him without any worries.
But I also left some flour and minced meat for him.
The addition of a newcomer like Shen Yan has naturally become the focus of discussion among some people.
Not long after, word spread about Shen Yan's identity as a young handyman and a wandering poet from other places, attracting many curious eyes.
While making noodles, Shen Yan listened to other people's lively conversations and got a lot of news from them.
For example, this mercenary group of forty or fifty people has a name, the Tiger and Leopard Mercenary Group.
For example, some members of the Tiger and Leopard Mercenary Group are called Captain Zhao Kuo, while others are called Commander Zhao Kuo. Especially those mercenaries with missing arms and legs like to be called this.
commander? A very strange title.
Shen Yan didn't care. Maybe the leader of the mercenary group was called that?
After Aunt Dong and the others finished baking their wheat cakes, each of them gnawed one wheat cake at a time, especially the children, with expressions of delicious satisfaction on their faces, and their little mouths were as oily as the Chinese New Year.
Shen Yan was actually hungry, his stomach growled, but he really couldn't stand the taste of wheat cakes.
Shen Yan only had some flour and minced meat on hand, and it was impossible for him to make complicated and exquisite food, so he chose to make the simplest and most homemade noodles and roll them by hand.
Hand-rolled noodles are stronger and chewier than machine-cut noodles, and they are sold at a higher price in noodle shops.
To make delicious hand-made noodles, you also need some skills.
For example, in the first step, kneading the dough, you must first add water little by little to knead the flour into floc, and then knead it into a ball. Through continuous kneading, the dough will be even and soft and hard. This process sounds simple, but the taste of the noodles basically depends on this process.
There are two types of hand-made noodles. One is alkaline noodles. Now that there is no alkali, we can only make the second type.
After the dough is kneaded, it needs to be rested. It needs to be covered with a basin for about twenty minutes.
During the twenty minutes of waiting, Shen Yan separated the minced meat, boiled the fatter ones with a little oil, and chopped the leaner ones into minced meat.
Then mix salt into the meat filling and fry in hot oil until it becomes minced meat.
What he wants to make is the simplest noodles.
When the sauerkraut is ready, the dough will also wake up.
I found a wooden stick of moderate thickness and started rolling out the dough.
Roll out the dough bit by bit, then fold it into several layers like a quilt.
At this time, you only need to cut it with a knife to get the noodles.
It can be cut into wide noodles or narrow noodles. The wide noodles have a rich flavor, while the narrow noodles are soft and elastic.
Shake the cut noodles out and you will find noodles one by one. When kneading the noodles, they are well kneaded and are very tough and not easy to break.
Shen Yan's normal operation aroused the interest of many people.
"What is this doing?"
"Not like scones."
A few children, in particular, grabbed the wheat cakes in their hands, tilted their heads and gathered around to watch the fun, as if they had encountered something novel.
Shen Yan boiled a pot of water, grabbed a handful of cut noodles, put them into the water, and stirred them with a spoon to avoid burning the pot.
Cook for a few minutes, wait for the noodles to float, check their color, and then take them out of the pot.
Put the hot, white and tender noodles into a bowl, sprinkle some salt, spread the meat sauce on it with a spoon, and a bowl of the simplest sauce noodles is completed.
Of course it would be better if there were other condiments, but now there is nothing except oil and salt.
But even so, compared to the wheat cake that couldn't be knocked open, Shen Yan was already very satisfied.
Even a few children almost stared into the bowl, looking at the wheat cakes in their hands and the noodles in the bowl.
"what is this?"
"It looks pretty good."
"It smells good."
White strips, topped with meat sauce, although simple, it looks really good.
Not only the children, but also the other mercenaries cast curious glances at the food they had never seen before.
Shen Yan was indeed very hungry. He mixed it a few times with chopsticks, then picked up a handful of noodles and put it into his mouth, and started to slurp it.
It tasted simple, but Shen Yan was so moved that he almost cried.
As soon as you take a bite, you will be filled with the aroma of the food and the strong taste, and your stomach will greedily want to eat it.
After Shen Yan finished two bites, he looked up and saw the child from the mercenary group wiping the saliva from the corner of his mouth.
"How about some for you too?"
Shen Yan made another pot, put the cooked noodles into bowls, sprinkled them with salt, and put a spoonful of meat sauce on top.
Several children also learned to mix the noodles, and then used chopsticks to pick up the noodles and put them into their mouths.
Just one chew, and the taste is completely different from the previous baked wheat cakes that fills the entire mouth. It is delicate, fragrant, and mixed with the aroma of meat.
His eyes lit up, and he ate happily. He silently put the unfinished wheat cake aside.
The woman who saw Aunt Dong making pancakes looked confused.
The cakes they bake are famously delicious among several nearby mercenary groups.
Shen Yan thought to himself, yes, we have to cook another pot.
Simply roll out the remaining dough into noodles and cook.
The other mercenaries and Zhao Kuo came over to have a taste of the novelty, and were a little stunned after this taste.
The taste of soybean noodles is indeed good, but it also has the disadvantage that it cannot be stored for a long time like wheat cakes.
The mercenary group bakes wheat cakes, which can last for a week once baked. In other words, the fire only needs to be turned on once a week, while for noodles, the fire must be turned on every time. This is a different eating habit.
Shen Yan's delicious noodles actually brought him closer to the other members of the mercenary group, and they could chat with each other from time to time.
After drinking another bowl of noodle soup, several children gathered around Shen Yan again, looking at Shen Yan with smiles.
"Dad Dong said you can tell stories."
Their mercenary group is very small, and there were no wandering poets at all before. Every time they heard that those large mercenary groups had their own wandering poets, they were particularly envious.
Shen Yan was stunned, what else could happen?
He had quite a few stories about coaxing children, but he was just not prepared.
Looking at the child who was speaking, everyone called this child Locust Cub.
At this time, the sky had already darkened.
The yard outside the warehouse was lit with kerosene lamps. The light of the kerosene lamps was yellow and swaying. A group of mercenaries who had been busy all day gathered together, making it look a little warm.
Shen Yan looked at Locust Cub, tapped a broken pendant hanging around Locust Cub's neck, and said, "Show it to me?"
It's not right to call it a pendant. It's just an old, peeling gourd wrapped with a rope. It can't be considered an accessory.
Shen Yan had actually paid attention to the little gourd from the first moment he saw the child.
The locust cub was a little reluctant to part with it: "This is the only thing my parents left me."
Shen Yan thought to himself, a relic?
Zhao Kuo and his mercenary group actually raise orphans? This seems a little different from the cruelty they showed due to the lack of supplies along the way.
Shen Yan did not take off the locust cub's gourd, but held it directly in his hand. After looking at it carefully for a while, he found that the red paint on the gourd had almost peeled off, revealing the official mold inside. He held it in his hand and the size was very comfortable. .
"The red lacquered katydid gourd from the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty is still an official model. This is a good thing."
Shen Yan continued: "I will tell you the story of the Grasshopper Gourd."
"During the Kangxi period, playing with grasshoppers was popular in both the market and the palace, and a series of industries were born, such as the production of grasshopper gourds..."
"The grasshopper gourd made by a master craftsman can allow the grasshoppers living inside to survive the winter smoothly, keeping it warm in winter and cool in summer..."
"The best grasshopper gourds are worth a lot of money, and they are usually given as tribute to dignitaries in the palace."
"For example, this red painted grasshopper gourd, judging from its texture, glaze color, etc., must be a high-quality tribute. It is impossible to say that there have been several grasshopper generals living in it..."
Except for a few children who blinked their eyes after hearing this, the other mercenaries were also amazed.
A small gourd actually has its own story?
Shen Yan's voice seems to transport people to an era too far away to be counted. In that era, strange and obscene techniques were prevalent, real and ethereal.
…
It's getting late, and the excitement is getting louder.
However, several children gathered around Shen Yan and listened to the story of the Grasshopper Gourd. Especially the Grasshopper Cub, holding the gourd in his hands, smiled very brightly. It turned out that such a meaningful thing left to him by his parents was not just a piece of cake. An object, but a kind of longing.
It's a lively night. Zhao Kuo and the others have been away for about three months, and now they are finally back. The fatigue from the journey is also showing at this moment.
Blow out the lamp and sleep.
The warehouse was segregated into two parts, with men and women living separately.
A collective dormitory.
However, it is enough to provide shelter from wind and rain and a bed.
Shen Yan was actually just as tired. He also helped pull the truck in the desert, which consumed a lot of energy.
As soon as I lay on the bed, I fell asleep.
There were a few children who secretly wanted to tell Shen Yan a story. They lived in a warehouse, which was convenient and extremely skinny. However, Zhao Kuo twisted the back of his neck and threw them back.
Zhao Kuo rubbed his "handicrafts" again before falling asleep.
Shen Yan slept very deeply, which was the best sleep he had in the past two days.
In the dream, I seemed to hear the screams of the Grasshopper, one twice, countless sounds connected together, as if I had arrived in the Kingdom of the Grasshopper.
When Shen Yan woke up, there was no one in the warehouse, but outside the door, there was a strange sound of rustling.
Chen Yan rubbed his eyes and pushed open the warehouse door. The child Locust Zai was standing outside...
However, goosebumps stood up all over Shen Yan's body, and his pupils dilated violently.
"Insect...insect plague?"
So...so many grasshoppers.
