Free Days in Siheyuan

Chapter 36 Pickles
The family has been very busy these two days. They have been preparing the ingredients needed for pickles. Buying vegetables and pickles is a laborious task that requires the whole family to work together.

After all, these pickles are a year-round meal, especially in winter, except for cabbage and radishes, the rest depends on these pickles.

Just imagine, in the cold winter, when there is a world of ice and snow, one morning, when you reluctantly come out of your warm quilt and are shivering.

Scoop a bowl of hot rice porridge from the pot, and then take out a small plate of pickled pickles from the vat, because the porridge is too hot, you need to drink it in circles, and then put a small pickle in your mouth, and immediately The whole person is satisfied, and the taste is like a ray of sunshine in winter, refreshing and warm.

After the first frost, the moisture in the vegetables has decreased a lot, and the pickled vegetables taste much better at this time.

"Xiaoyu, do you have any salt at home?" Zhang Guifang turned to Zhang Yu and asked.

"There are still more than two catties. I don't know if it is enough?" Zhang Yu went back to the house and looked at the large salt in the cabinet. It was the salted fish he bought last time, and there was not much left.

"Not enough, I have to finish marinating the food here today." She pointed to the washed dishes and put them at the door to control the water.

"Then I'll go to the supply and marketing agency to buy some more." Zhang Yu wiped the water from washing the vegetables on his hands, and was about to go out.

Just happened to meet face-to-face with my little uncle who came back from get off work, "Xiaoyu, what are you going to do?"

"I pickled pickles at home today, and the salt at home is not enough."

"I brought it back." Zhao Wenzhuo raised the cloth bag in Yang's hand, and then continued: "I thought that today's pickles at home must be salty, so I brought them back by the way when I passed by the supply and marketing cooperative after get off work. .”

After finishing speaking, he put the bicycle away, and took the big salt in his hand to ask the sister-in-law for credit.

"Look what I brought?"

Seeing the big salt that Zhao Wenzhuo brought, Zhang Guifang praised him a few times: "Hey, the sun is coming out from the west today? There is work in my eyes!"

"Aren't you thinking that you are busy these two days?" Zhao Wenzhuo felt a little embarrassed. Because of work, he really didn't take care of his family much, and he felt a little guilty about it.

"Okay, okay, let's see how the vegetables and water are doing, and prepare to marinate when they are dry." Seeing her husband's guilty expression, Zhang Guifang quickly changed the subject.

In fact, what he did was good enough. When the eldest brother and sister-in-law were serving in the army, he was the one who encouraged and supported herself, especially after the two sacrificed, it was he who pulled her out of the grief of losing her family.

Even Xiaoyu is educated and loved as his own child, silently guarding the family in a corner he can't see.

Thinking about it, he patted his face, is he really old?It is easy to think wildly, and there is so much work to do, how can I have time to think wildly.

The large and small vats used to pickle pickles, taking advantage of the good weather yesterday, the eldest brother and the others have already moved out, scrubbed clean, and dried the water.Now it is neatly placed under the eaves, waiting for my sister-in-law to use it.

The first thing to pickle was small cucumbers. This was when Zhang Yu went to the countryside to purchase a few days ago. He happened to meet several families cleaning up cucumber seedlings. Seeing that there were still many small cucumbers on them, he replaced them.

And those families thought they had other dishes, so they didn't care much about these small cucumbers. Now that someone wanted to change them, they readily agreed.

At this time, Zhang Guifang looked at the big basket full of small cucumbers. Although they were crooked, they were only delicious when marinated.

"Mother, why is this cucumber so ugly?" Zhao Xiaoping looked at the dried cucumber and said to the little girl.

"It's ugly, this kind of cucumber is good for pickling vegetables." Zhang Guifang replied angrily, then turned to Zhang Yu and said, "Xiaoyu, don't listen to your sister's nonsense, this time you can buy the pickled cucumbers." By the way, don’t look at it’s not-so-good-looking, it tastes better when it’s marinated like this.”

Then continue to educate Zhao Xiaoping: "The price of this pickled cucumber is not cheap, and the cucumber has no seeds, so it is more crispy and tastes better when marinated."

After pickling the pickled cucumbers, my sister-in-law also soaked sauerkraut. The Chinese cabbage bought that day, after peeling off the excess cabbage and rotten leaves, put the cabbage heart in hot water, and then put it directly in the vegetable jar.

After pouring the long-cooled rice soup into the vegetable jar, cover the lid of the vegetable jar, and press a big stone on it, and then wait for the catalysis of time, and wait for the food to be eaten.

Of course, the peeled cabbage gang was not wasted. I made some at noon, shredded the cabbage gang and mixed it with vinegar and pepper. The taste was not bad.

By the way, there is also a lot of more important potherb mustard.

In winter, when you have a little leisure time, buy a little meat, chop it into minced meat, use it to fry mustard mustard, or wrap mustard mustard buns with hot rice porridge. The taste makes people think about it. Drooling.

My sister’s method of pickling potherb mustard is relatively simple. Spread a layer of potherb mustard and a layer of large salt evenly in the tank, and then spread it layer by layer. After all the layers are spread, sprinkle another layer of large salt to seal the tank. .

After finishing, Zhang Guifang straightened her waist, then patted the salt particles on her hands and said, "It's done, just put the lid on."

"Sister-in-law, is this all right?" Zhang Yu had eaten many delicacies made of potherb mustard in his later life, but he had never seen how it was pickled. He always thought it would be troublesome, but he never thought that it would be like this Simple.

"Then what's the problem? You can eat it in a month. Then I will make you mustard buns."

On the following day, Zhang Guifang pickled radishes, mustard greens and a lot of other things one after another.

Especially the mustard greens, because it is not easy to buy this year, so I finally bought some. Zhang Guifang treated it very carefully. Instead of pickling the whole thing like in previous years, it was pickled very carefully, and even served with radishes.

Wash it, cut off the hair on both sides of the lower half, cut it into thick shreds and wash it with boiling water, mix the shredded radish and mustard lump together while it is hot, put it in a sealed container and simmer on it.

"Mother, how long will it take?" Zhao Xiaoping is the only girl among the children, and my sister-in-law thinks it's time for her to learn some housekeeping skills, so she pulls her over. The other is to let her learn from the side.

"Stew it for a day or two, and once you open it, you can smell the pungent aroma."

Although Zhang Yu was not the main force of the pickles, he did a lot of work, and fell asleep as soon as he touched the bed that night.

On the third day, my sister-in-law took out a small dish of shredded mustard greens from the vat, mixed it with salt, vinegar, sprinkled with sugar, and even extravagantly fried some dried red peppers in fragrant oil and poured it on top, then stirred uniform.

The family who watched were a little stunned, but no one talked too much. If something bad happens, they won't be able to eat.

As soon as the pickles were on the table, the family didn't care about eating other dishes, and all stretched out their chopsticks towards the pickles in the middle of the table.

"Sister-in-law, it's delicious. That's your skill." Zhang Yu gave his sister-in-law a thumbs-up.

"Eat more if it tastes good." Saying that, Zhang Guifang picked up another chopstick for him.

(End of this chapter)