Chapter 37: Flavorful and Delicious
Eating pig slaughter dishes is all about the atmosphere. Regardless of how it's made, as long as there are a lot of people and it's lively, it's enjoyable to eat.
The atmosphere right now was excellent. On the large rice threshing ground, there was the large pot for braising on the south side, the cutting board for chopping vegetables on the west side, a large wooden basin for washing pig offal next to it, and the freshly cut meat spread out on the other side.
Although many villagers had gone home early, there were still quite a few people left here at this time.
Chen Fan stood in front of another cutting board, with a basin of pig blood and a basin of bone broth brought over.
The bone broth was for mixing with the pig blood, so naturally, it didn't need to be simmered for too long. As long as it had color, it could be used. The pork bones could be put back into the pot to stew other dishes, at least to add some meatiness.
Captain Yang, Master Zhu and his two apprentices, Liu Ju Jiang, the four people from the village who were helping, Aunt Yang and three women of similar ages, plus Yang Ju and Jiang Lili, surrounded Chen Fan in a semi-circle.
A dozen children stood in the distance, also looking on with curiosity.
Seeing this situation, Chen Fan simply laughed. "Learning something a hundred times is not as good as practicing it once. How about a few people try it? Who wants to come?"
Liu Ju Jiang stood up without saying a word. Yang Ju looked at her parents and also stood up.
Jiang Lili wanted to move but was afraid of being said to be showing off, so she restrained herself and stood in place.
However, two other women also stood up.
That made four people.
Chen Fan had them divide the ingredients into four parts and then began to direct, while also explaining the tips and tricks,
"The best ratio of pig blood to bone broth is 1 to 1.3, which is 1 jin of pig blood plus 1 jin and 3 liang of broth. If you don't have broth, you can use hot water. You can't put too much broth or too little. If you put too much, it won't set. If you put too little, it will be too hard and not tender enough. Put the green onions, ginger, garlic, and salt into the bone broth first..."
Master Zhu stood on the outside, couldn't help but nod slightly, and said to Captain Yang, "You picked up a treasure."
Captain Yang grinned from ear to ear, turned to look at him. "Of course. Yesterday he taught the whole village how to make soft-shelled turtle, and today he's teaching us how to make blood sausage. Regardless of whether it tastes good or not, this intention is rare."
Master Zhu first nodded, then shook his head. "This intention is indeed impeccable, but what's most rare, in my opinion, is that he doesn't keep things to himself. Do you know what's most feared when learning a skill from a master?"
Captain Yang, "What?"
Master Zhu's expression was very complicated. "What's most feared is not being allowed to practice!"
After a pause, he continued, "Just now, this young comrade said something that revealed the essence of learning a skill, which is 'Learning something a hundred times is not as good as practicing it once.' When I was learning pig slaughtering from my master, my master made me do odd jobs for him for 2 years before he was willing to teach me how to scrape hair. I scraped hair for another year before he let me make the first cut. Then he slowly taught me how to blow air, how to skin, and how to cut meat more smoothly. I learned for 5 years, before and after, before I was considered to have completed my apprenticeship.
In fact, what's so difficult about slaughtering a pig? As long as you're willing to practice, kill more and practice more, and the master gives more guidance and points out the mistakes, you can become very skilled in half a year at most.
That's why I said this young comrade is good. He teaches the real skills right away. It's very rare."
In this era, having a skill could be passed down in the family. Some people could even rely on their skills to get a job and enter the city. As long as Chen Fan's cooking skills were half as good as his eloquence, getting a job at the commune's guesthouse as a second chef would probably not be a problem.
Teaching the skills that are essential to the household, probably only a labor model on the newspaper could do that.
Hearing Master Zhu's words, Captain Yang also nodded secretly, looking at Chen Fan, who had his hands on his hips and had the demeanor of a great general, with a thoughtful look in his eyes.
Behind Master Zhu, his two apprentices also couldn't help but look at each other, both showing bitter smiles.
When they followed Master Zhu, it was 2 years of doing odd jobs and 1 year of scraping hair before they really started learning how to slaughter pigs. After that, the master didn't move anymore. All the pigs assigned to their group were slaughtered by the two apprentices. The master just sat and watched, pointing and gesturing.
According to what the master said, calculating the time, they would have to wait another year before they could complete their apprenticeship?
On the other side,
Chen Fan, seeing that someone was doing it for him, had a great time directing. These people were all used to doing kitchen work, so they moved quickly. In a short time, they had filled four sections of blood sausage.
Each blood sausage was 80 centimeters long. They were tied with ropes and thrown into a large pot to cook.
At this time, Liu Ju Jiang also began to prepare his pig slaughter dishes, with Jiang Lili and Yang Ju helping by his side, working enthusiastically.
Aunt Yang, with several women, put all the cut meat strips into a large wooden basin, then sprinkled salt on them, grabbed the salt, and rubbed the meat strips hard. Each rubbed meat strip was handed to another person.
That person first cut a small opening in the skin of the meat with a knife, then put on an S-shaped iron hook and hung it on a bamboo pole to dry.
They were making cured meat. Besides cured meat, there were also cured ribs, cured pig legs, pig heads, pig butts... They didn't waste anything at all. They also left some meat to make cured sausage.
He didn't know how long it had been, or what time it was. Chen Fan was already dizzy from hunger. Finally, all the dishes were ready, and it was time to eat.
Today, they were still divided into two tables. The men sat at the main room, and a large square table was also set up in the inner room. The four women who helped and Jiang Lili all went inside to eat.
There were also a dozen children who didn't have seats, ranging from two or three years old to twelve or thirteen years old. They could only stand in the room and eat with bowls in their hands. A few of the older ones grabbed a bowl full of dishes and ran out happily to eat.
At this time, Chen Fan learned that these four women were the wives of the men who had helped build the stove and catch the pig, and those four people were all Captain Yang's brothers.
Except for the three sisters who had married into other villages, all five of the Yang brothers were here.
However, this was just counting the brothers. If you counted the cousins, there were 23 of the Yang family in this generation.
Chen Fan couldn't help but click his tongue secretly. No wonder he could be the captain; there were more people and more strength!
A hole was dug in the middle of the large square table, and there was an iron frame underneath, holding a small charcoal stove, the one that was used to stew the soft-shelled turtle soup yesterday. Now it was taken over, and a small round iron pot was set up on it.
Pig heart, pig lungs, large intestine, pork bones, streaky pork, and other parts of the meat were piled up in the pot, the meat pressing down on the Chinese cabbage. Under the heat of the charcoal fire, the broth bubbled and emitted a rich aroma.
This was the pig slaughter dishes made by Liu Ju Jiang. One pot of dishes was enough for everyone at the table to eat.
The dishes that Chen Fan contributed were on the side.
Besides a plate of blood sausage and a plate of stir-fried pig liver, he saw the chubby streaky pork and couldn't help but cut half a jin, added carrot slices, potato slices, and garlic sprouts, and stir-fried two plates of twice-cooked pork.
Unfortunately, this wasn't Chenghua pork. Eating twice-cooked pork had to be with Chenghua pork. The others were a little lacking.
Finally, plus the radish stir-fried with pork cracklings, the red choy sum stir-fried with pork cracklings, and the stir-fried lotus root slices stir-fried by Aunt Yang, it was extremely rich.
Chen Fan also swallowed, unable to help but sigh.
Two days ago, he was still thinking about how he would live after transmigrating to this era, and that he might not be able to eat a piece of meat for a long time. As a result, after being here for only two or three days, what kinds of things had he eaten?
Except for the first meal, which was stir-fried Chinese cabbage and steamed egg custard prepared by Jiang Lili, the second meal was the steamed soft-shelled turtle he made himself, and the third meal was the braised soft-shelled turtle he ate at Captain Yang's house, plus drinking a lot of wine.
The fourth meal was warming up the soft-shelled turtle from the previous day at the Educated Youth Spot, which wasn't bad either. Now was the fifth meal.
Pig slaughter dishes!
This life was flavorful and delicious.
(Radish Stir-Fried with Pork Cracklings)
(End of Chapter)
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