The meat will not be fresh if the fish is dead, so in the midst of the commotion, Xu Chen asked Feng and others to quickly take the fish to the river and slaughter them.
In addition, in order to test the taste of the sashimi sauce made with vine fruit sake lees or simple wild onions, turmeric and ginger, he specially selected the largest fish and went to the river to process it with a stone knife.
Just when the mountain was bustling and busy, the mother got the news and came down with a large group of women in a hurry.
By the time the women arrived at the river, the beach was already crowded with people, many of whom were carrying heavy fish in their hands.
A group of hunters were using shells picked up casually on the river beach or improvised stone blades to disembowel the shells, scrape off the scales and remove the gills, and then neatly place the washed shells on the rocks on the river beach.
Xu Chen is handling the fattest fish.
This fish weighed more than ten kilograms, and its scales were so strong that it could not be scraped off with a shell, so it could only be chopped down with a stone axe.
Gu Heju was on the left and right helping to support him.
Scales bigger than coins and blood splashed around, covering their bodies and faces.
After finally scraping off the fish scales, Xu Chen wondered if he could peel off the fish skin and make a pair of rain boots. After all, the water in winter is too cold.
But unfortunately, because the knife was too blunt, neither the stone knife nor the shells were sharp enough. After cutting for a long time, the fish skin looked like a torn rag, so I could only sigh and give up, and then the stone ax brutally cut the fish.
Split into two pieces, left and right.
It is said that it is split, but it is actually better to say that it is smashed.
Anyway, the last two halves of the fish looked terrible. The backbone and fish bones were completely mushy, and it was basically impossible to distinguish the flesh, skin and bones.
Fortunately, this fish is big enough. After removing the head and dividing it into two halves, each still weighs several kilograms.
After a lot of effort, he finally used a piece of shell to slowly cut off a large bowl of fish meat, but he couldn't figure out the shapes one by one, and it really couldn't be shaped into thin slices.
A large group of people almost gathered around Xu Chen to watch him work.
I don’t know why he put so much effort into scraping off the fish meat one by one.
At this time, Feng and other hunters had already disemboweled, gutted, scaled and washed all the remaining fish, so Mother arranged for a group of women to carry the fish back for cooking in the evening.
A few days ago, when Xu Chen suddenly wanted to leave a group of Uzbek people to help repair the house, Mother was still worried about not having enough food, but Xu Chen dug up a lot of yams in a blink of an eye, so that she and several older women could eat.
He breathed a sigh of relief.
But then Xu Chen came and stayed with ten Muya tribesmen.
Although there are more and more people working and the progress of building the house has become faster, food is still Muba's biggest concern.
But today Xu Chen suddenly brought back so many big fish that her worries disappeared instantly.
Seeing Xu Chen sweating profusely while working hard, my mother felt distressed and sad, and her eye circles began to turn red unconsciously.
The more magical Xu Chen acted, the more nervous and uneasy she became.
But Xu Chen has never worried about getting married.
Now he just wants to continue to live happily in the Ba clan and keep moving forward step by step according to his own plan.
As long as the peace, tranquility and development of exchanges between tribes are maintained, in two or three years, the stereotype of men getting married, which is inconsistent with the historical view of development, may be completely changed because of him.
"Ye Ga, take it back!"
Xu Chen handed the large bowl of fish meat to Ye who had been crowding in the circle to look at it without blinking. Then he looked at the two halves of the fish that had been cut to pieces by himself, and couldn't help but twitch his face a few times.
What a fish, but he was fucked into a piece of junk by himself.
Although there is still a lot of meat, most of it is stuck together with fish spines and fish bones, and a piece of fish skin is full of holes. Even if it is taken back and cooked, it will probably be unpalatable. It would be a pity to lose it like this.
After much deliberation, he decided to take it back and mash it thoroughly to see if it could be made into fish balls.
After a group of people returned to the kiln in a lively manner, Xu Chen rushed a group of people to continue working.
You can't just eat my food and drink my food and still want to be lazy.
At this time, a group of Hu people who came to exchange goods were still extremely excited and envious, and were still discussing these big fish with pictures and comparisons.
Xu Chen called two potters to discuss the deal with the Hu people.
After two transactions with foreigners, Xu Chen already had a serious psychological shadow.
He decided not to participate in such sadistic transactions in the future, leaving everything to the pottery factory to make its own arrangements.
There are only five tribes nearby.
Moreover, the items exchanged were similar. They were mostly animal skins, and there were also a variety of random stones. For example, he didn’t care about the brocade-feathered animal teeth that other tribes valued. He might as well get some gold and gems.
.
Although gold, turquoise, and amber are of no use at the moment, at least they look comfortable. As the tribe slowly expands and commerce develops, in ten or twenty years, maybe these things will become valuable after being converted into currency.
After the other two transactions, the exchange ratio of animal skins and pottery has been basically determined. One sheepskin is exchanged for two bowls, one sheepskin plus an inferior animal skin is exchanged for three plates, and wolf skins and cowhide are more expensive.
The animal skins are exchanged for clay pots, pots, pots, etc. of different sizes. As for the other random rocks and other things that you don’t recognize, you can just exchange them for some. If they are too cheap, just take them back.
Business is business. You can bargain, but it can't be too outrageous. Just make sure the goods are genuine and fair. He won't act like a bad guy.
In addition, we should also put some pressure on these primitive savages who sing and dance when they are full and have enough food to compete with the third brother, so that they can not just live with a full stomach, but also make them feel that they need to work hard to obtain these exquisite things.
pottery and linen, so that they would have the motivation to move forward.
The two potters followed the instructions and went to discuss a deal with a group of Hu people.
Xu Chen stood aside and watched for a while, then went to handle his fish balls with a twitching face.
He threw the two halves of the smashed fish he brought back into a pottery pot, found a wooden stick as thick as an arm, and simply used a stone ax to shape it into a wooden pestle, and then sat by the kitchen fire and pounded the pestle.
stand up.
“Moxy Gaga!”
Ye walked in quietly and squatted in front of him, his face full of curiosity.
"Fish Ball!"
As Xu Chen explained, he handed the wooden pestle over and continued to pound.
Ye quickly took the wooden pestle and pounded it gently.
"Yes, just like this, smash the fish meat..."
Seeing her careful and serious look, Xu Chen stood up with great satisfaction and went to prepare other ingredients.
To make fish balls, you need starch.
However, it was impossible to have starch at the moment, so he could only find some edible wild beans from the room, put them in a stone pit where he usually pounded them into paste, and slowly pounded them into powder with a stone pestle.
The stone pit was too shallow, it was just a natural depression, and the beans were round and round. They jumped around when he was punching them, which made him upset.
It would be great if there were metal knives, at least they could be made with a stone mortar or stone grinder. In this era where food depends entirely on God, everything is a mess.
However, in order to be able to eat this fish ball, he could only endure the frustration and slowly smash the beans.
"Chen Ga, look...look!"
After working for half an hour, I just smashed a bowl of bean noodles that looked like minced beans. It was very rough and I didn't know if it could be used. Just when Xu Chen sighed, Ye came over with a pot of mashed fish meat.
Xu Chen used chopsticks to pull it a few times and found that although the fish meat had been pounded and looked very rotten, a large number of fish bones and fish bones were mixed together, so he handed the chopsticks to Ye and asked her to slowly pick out the bone spurs inside.
He continued to smash beans.
“Are the fish balls delicious?”
Ye, who was picky about fish, suddenly turned around and asked.
"It should be... delicious!?"
Xu Chen answered with a guilty conscience, and even had a trace of doubt himself.
The fish meat is fishy, and the salt content of freshwater fish is very low.
There is a saying in cooking called salted fish and bacon.
It is best to pickle freshwater fish with salt to allow the salt to blend with the fish meat. The fish produced in this way will taste better. If the fish is not pickled, you need to increase the proportion of seasonings and seasonings when cooking. In short, it should not be too much.
It should be light, otherwise the smell will be too strong and it won’t taste good.
Several regions that prefer to eat freshwater fish use this method, such as spicy fish, boiled fish, hot pot fish in Sichuan and Chongqing, chopped pepper fish in Hunan, fish in sour soup in Guizhou, etc.
But right now, it happens to be a lack of salt and various seasonings.
Therefore, even if the fish balls are made, we still don’t know how they will actually taste and whether they can be tolerated.
But now that fishing nets have been invented, we will probably have to eat a lot of fish in the future.
Confucius said: You will never tire of fine food, and you will never tire of fine food.
Therefore, the fish meat should naturally be as thin as possible, so that it will not be stuck by the fish bones and it will be more enjoyable to eat.
One bite of fish balls is much more comfortable than carefully eating fish with bones.
Therefore, in order to eat this bowl of fish balls, Xu Chen worked hard for nearly an hour, and finally got half a bowl of wild bean flour that seemed to be relatively fine. The remaining coarse part was poured into an earthen pot and cooked in the evening.
Eat multigrain porridge.
Ye Ye basically picked out all the larger fish bones and fish bones in the fish, but Xu Chen was still uneasy. After washing his hands, he carefully pinched the fish together several times and picked out many small broken bones.
.
Fortunately, this fish is large enough and does not have particularly fine burrs, so after picking it twice, it is basically guaranteed that it will not get stuck when eating.