Sisters in the Deep Forest Valley: Many Fun Things

Chapter 71 Spicy Stir-fried Clams

"Okay, let's go see if there are any wild roses left tomorrow and pick some."

"Great! With the honeysuckle we dried a while ago and some dried osmanthus flowers left over from last year, we can make three different scented soaps!"

Forgetting the unpleasantness from earlier, the two best friends held hands and happily went home.

They took a hot shower and changed their clothes.

I washed the blueberries twice and then spread them out loosely in a winnowing basket.

The two baskets of small, bluish-purple fruits filled the two sisters with immense satisfaction.

Blueberry freedom!

The next day, the two sisters began preparing the materials for making soap.

To make homemade soap, you need to prepare lard, shell powder, and wood ash.

Lin Chunyi looked at the book, somewhat worried, "Shell powder, does it have to be from the sea to work?"

Can we catch some river clams in the stream? This book doesn't mention that..."

"I don't know, I'm terrible at chemistry, really terrible at it!"

All I know is that making soap requires calcium oxide, or quicklime, from seashells.

It seems that this is added to stabilize the solid state of the soap.

They're all seashells, so there shouldn't be any difference, right? Let's try a small amount first.

The two divided the work: Lin Chunyi went to cut bamboo to make molds, while Lin Lanshan went to the stream to collect clams to make quicklime.

Even if we can't make soap, at least we can still have a spicy stir-fried clam meal!

Lin Lanshan, carrying a bamboo basket, went out the door and came to the stream.

She took off her shoes and socks, rolled up her trousers high, and then went into the water. She bent down, searching for clams in the crevices of the rocks and in the mud and sand…

"Quack quack," two geese swam past Lin Lanshan's hand.

She glanced at the basket next to her, which contained only a handful of clams.

With both hands, I gently gripped the necks of the two geese to prevent them from swimming away.

"Gah?"

Lin Lanshan pulled An'an and Kang Kang to the front of the bamboo basket.

"Take a close look at this, and find it. Once you find it, put it in this basket. Go on."

An'an and Kang Kang were having a great time swimming when they were conscripted.

Reluctantly and slowly, they used their beaks to poke at the stones in search of clams.

"Whoever finds the most will be rewarded with a melon!"

melon?

An'an and Kang Kang splashed around, their heads plunging into the water, shoveling rocks and mud everywhere with their mouths.

Lin Lanshan got splashed with water, so she quietly moved away and continued to collect clams.

Two incense sticks' worth of time passed...

Lin Chunyi, carrying a bamboo basket in her left hand and dragging a bamboo pole with her right, came over and called out from the bank:

"You even tricked An'an and Kang Kang into coming to help! How's it going? Is there enough food for one dish?"

Lin Lanshan held up the bamboo basket in front of her sister and shook it, making the clams inside crackle and pop.

"It's so hard to find in such a shallow stream. The three of us have been searching for so long, and this is all we've found."

Lin Chunyi threw the bamboo on the ground, glanced at the less than two handfuls of clams in the bamboo basket,

"It's okay, we mainly want the powder, not to eat it. Look again, if you can't find it, that's fine."

I'll go check in front of the peach grove to see if there are any wild roses left.

Lin Lanshan quickly got ashore, "Wait!"

She washed her feet, dried them on her pants, and without even putting on socks, put on her shoes.

"Sister, I'll go too. An'an and Kang Kang can continue looking for the rest."

An'an, Kang Kang: ...

The joys and sorrows of the two geese are none of Lin Lanshan's business.

All she had to do was happily follow her sister around and go pick flowers together.

Fortunately, the temperature in the valley is colder than outside, so flowering and fruiting are mostly slower than outside.

Amidst a large thicket of bushes nearly as tall as a person, clusters of pink and magenta single-petaled roses exude a rich fragrance.

"It smells so good, like roses!"

Lin Chunyi gently touched the rose, and five petals fell into her palm.

"Looks like we're lucky. If we had come a few days later, the flowers would have withered."

"Hurry up and pick them, just the petals. These wild roses will bear fruit later, and then we'll make wild rose jam."

The two spent the whole afternoon picking roses, removing all the intact petals from the patch of wild roses.

When the bamboo basket was full, Lin Lanshan took off her outer garment before she could fill the remaining flower petals.

The two returned to the stream.

With about three handfuls of clams in the basket, An'an and Kang Kang went ashore.

They huddled on the ground, their necks stretched out straight, like two dead geese.

Lin Lanshan asked in surprise, "Wow, who's so amazing to have found so many clams?"

The two "dead geese" came back to life and started quacking and squawking at each other.

She shook her head. "You can't even count, how would I know who found the most..."

An'an and Kang Kang put their necks on the ground again.

Lin Lanshan picked them up and headed home.

He said, "Seeing how hard you all worked today, not slacking off at all."

I've decided that you two will both get to eat melons as a reward!

After arriving home, An'an and Kang Kang received their reward for their hard work that day, each enjoying half a melon!

Lin Chunyi dragged the bamboo pole and carried two baskets home.

They watched as the other little ones enviously stared at An'an and Kang Kang, enjoying the show.

She patted their heads, "You'll get a reward next time you do well!"

Peach and Tuan Tuan Yuan Yuan: For the sake of the melons! We need to work hard!

Lin Chunyi regretted those words countless times afterward...

Because Taozi and Tuanyuan Ankang rarely went out to play starting from the second day.

They would often wait outside their bedroom early in the morning to start work...

They thought they should buy some melon seeds and plant melons all over the valley, otherwise the reward wouldn't be enough.

Lin Chunyi poured the river clams into a basin, added water and some salt, and waited for the clams to expel the sand, which took about half an hour.

At this time, the two sisters went to wash and dry the rose petals.

After the clams expelled the mud and sand, Lin Chunyi picked a handful of scallions and went into the kitchen to start chopping vegetables.

"Sis, will soap made from stir-fried clams with chili have a spicy flavor?"

“I wasn’t planning on frying them shell and all. You’ve come at the perfect time. Go and boil the clams in water for a little while, then take them out, open the shells, and take out the meat.”

"Oh fine."

She put the clams in a pot of cold water and boiled them until they opened slightly, then quickly took them out and removed the clam meat one by one.

At this moment, Lin Chunyi poured oil into the heated pot, added sliced ​​garlic, minced ginger, dried chili peppers, and a spoonful of chili oil.

Next, add the cleaned clam meat, stir-fry, then add two spoonfuls of water and one spoonful of soy sauce, and sprinkle with a little salt.

Stir-fry until the sauce thickens, then sprinkle with chopped green onions and remove from heat.

Lin Lanshan washed the clam shells clean and laid them on a winnowing basket. When she returned, her sister was just putting a large plate of spicy stir-fried clams on the table.

The two of them finished their dinner with a pork bun and a spicy clam.

The next day, at noon.

Overnight, the clam shells and rose petals were dried, and it was time to start making soap.

First, render the remaining 20-odd catties of pork fat from last time using the usual method for rendering lard.

Except for not adding any seasonings or spices.