books44 Chapter 261 Hot Pot (2)
Chapter 261 Hot Pot (2)
Lin Lanshan followed her sister's hand and looked in the direction she was pointing.
The eaves of the storage room were covered with a thick layer of snow. It looked plump and white, just like a candy house from an animated cartoon I watched as a child.
It's both dreamy and cute.
But reality is reality. If they don't remove all this lovely snow... after a few more hours of piling it up, they might have to climb onto the roof and repair the house!
So she nodded in agreement, "We have to sweep, definitely! Shall we sweep now?"
Lin Chunyi replied, "That's not necessarily the case. Our house has a roof made of good tiles and good wood, so a little snow won't be a big problem."
"Let's quickly cut up the pork tenderloin for the crispy fried pork and marinate it, then chop the ground pork. While we're marinating, we can go shovel snow, so we can do both at the same time!"
The two sisters returned to the kitchen and got to work.
Lin Chunyi cut three pounds of pork tenderloin, which had no fat at all, into evenly sized strips about the thickness of a finger.
Pour in a little bit of water infused with boiling water and ginger, then add dry-fried Sichuan peppercorns, salt, pepper, and soy sauce. Mix these seasonings evenly over the meat strips and marinate.
At this moment, Lin Lanshan was chopping meat filling for making egg dumplings with both hands, holding a knife.
Seeing that her younger sister hadn't finished chopping the meat, Lin Chunyi took a fruit knife and began scraping off the black membrane and white tendons from the fish meat. She then chopped the clean, pinkish-white fish meat and stirred it with some scallion and ginger water to remove any fishy smell.
When she returned after burying a bowl of minced fish in the snow to freeze it, Lin Lanshan had already chopped the minced meat and mixed in the seasonings.
The two gave Taozi and Tuanyuan Ankang some fruit, telling them to stay obediently in the kitchen and repeatedly instructing them not to eat anything indiscriminately. Then they went to the storeroom to get a bamboo rake and a ladder and began shoveling snow from the rooftops.
With a reach of his hand and a hook of his bamboo rake, a large piece of "Snow White Cake" fell heavily to the ground and shattered into pieces.
Honestly, this job is actually quite stress-relieving!
Lin Lanshan hooked a piece and found it very interesting, so she got the urge to play with it.
She used a bamboo rake to draw a square shape out of the thick snowdrift, then hooked it back with her hand.
A solid, square "cake" detached from the snowdrift and slowly fell to the ground with a "thud".
"Hahaha~" She laughed so hard she couldn't stop, then drew a circle, a triangle...
After sweeping the roof of this room, she dragged the ladder to another roof and drew heart shapes and hexagons...
"Sis, look! I made you a cake, come and take it!"
"Huh?" Lin Chunyi, who was also having a great time building snow mounds, looked at her sister with a bewildered expression. Then she saw a large, square snowball flying towards her.
"!!!"
"Snapped!"
Of course, the snow couldn't have hit Lin Chunyi. After all, while they were playing around, Lin Lanshan wouldn't risk her sister's safety.
She simply went back to the kitchen, grabbed a small shovel, shaped a square of snow, and, with a little less force, threw it onto the ground in her sister's direction.
She's got the aim to deliver a "cake" to her sister remotely without accidentally hitting her.
Lin Chunyi squinted and replied, "...Thank you, but I'm afraid I can't digest such a big cake by myself. You should eat more too!"
Then she made a snowball with her bare hands and threw it accurately at the eaves closest to her sister.
The snowball immediately burst open, splitting into countless small snowballs. Some of them left marks on the younger sister's head, neck, clothes, and face.
"Ouch~ It's so cold!" Lin Lanshan shivered, grimacing as she yelled, "Lin Chunyi, you're such a cheapskate, you can't take a beating!"
She gave her sister a "cake", and her sister actually replied with a "little bomb"!
That's too much! There's no love left, absolutely no love left!
"Tsk, she's the one who's accusing others first. I wonder who's really the one who can't take a joke~" Lin Chunyi pouted and continued sweeping her roof.
"Hmph~" Lin Lanshan wrinkled her nose like a rabbit and made a dissatisfied hmph from her nose.
Snow removal wasn't difficult, but moving the ladder back and forth took time. The two worked for almost half an hour before finally clearing all the snow off the roof.
They also piled up several more snowdrifts, each about half a person high, in the yard. They thought that if the snow hadn't melted by tomorrow, they would make a few snowmen.
Make a proper snowman, not one of those crooked and deformed ones from last year!
After tidying up, the two left the bamboo rake and ladder standing outside the kitchen, figuring they might need them again tomorrow, so they didn't put them back in the storage room.
They went back to the kitchen, blew on the steam, rubbed their reddened hands and cheeks, and prepared to start frying the crispy pork.
Lin Lanshan sat in front of the stove, stuffed a handful of pine needles into the stove where only a few flames remained, and then added firewood to start a fire again.
"Sis, the pan is hot, have you prepared the batter yet?"
Lin Chunyi held the bowl with one hand and used chopsticks to stir the eggs and flour in the bowl. "I'm stirring it now. You can pour in the oil. It'll be ready soon."
The batter for fried pork belly is usually made by mixing equal parts starch and flour, then adding a little water and a small amount of egg liquid.
They didn't have starch, so they had to use all flour. This made the fried pork pieces softer, unlike the crispy kind sold in stores that crackle when you bite into them.
It's okay. When they were little, they always ate their grandparents' and maternal grandparents' version of tender and crispy pork back in their hometown, hahaha...
Since this crispy pork will always be soft no matter how you make it, why not just add a few more eggs and use them instead of water to mix the batter?
Lin Chunyi added an egg to the salted flour, then another... until the batter became thick and she had left a pile of eggshells on the table before she stopped.
The batter, made without a single drop of water, was incredibly thick! She poured in the pork tenderloin strips and reached in to continue stirring. The sticky paste covered her hand, making it impossible to spread out.
After each strip of pork tenderloin was coated with the sticky batter, she called out, "Lanshan, is the oil hot yet? I'm going to fry the crispy pork. Turn the heat down to low."
"Hurry up, the oil in the pan is almost smoking!"
Lin Chunyi picked up a strip of pork tenderloin and gently placed it into the oil. The paste on the pork strip began to bubble and set.
Seeing that the first piece of crispy pork was starting to take shape, she quickly placed the second piece at a distance...
Three pounds of pork tenderloin strips can't be fried in a short time; they have to be added one by one.
Lin Lanshan lit the small stove and brewed a pot of osmanthus and bayberry drink, letting it cool. She stood by the pot, watching until she felt sleepy, before finally finishing frying all the crispy pork.
"Finally finished frying. Go wash your hands, I'll fry some tofu puffs." Lin Lanshan grabbed a slightly hot piece of crispy pork, blew on it, and handed it to her sister's mouth. Then she took a bite herself.
Then they started putting the tofu, cut into small cubes, into the oil.
The tofu contains moisture, so when it hits the oil, it sizzles and pops like firecrackers, making a huge noise.
Lin Chunyi, with a piece of crispy pork her younger sister fed her in her mouth, dipped her hands into the basin of water and gently rubbed away the almost dried paste. She mumbled, "Mmm! Crispy pork with Sichuan peppercorns is so delicious."
The freshly fried, semi-crispy texture is perfect for steaming in a bowl with a spoonful of water and a touch of vinegar. Then, place a handful of tender pea shoots in another bowl, and invert the steamed crispy pork onto the pea shoots...
Memories of the taste of banquets from my childhood suddenly flooded back...