When Zhao Jun returned home, Wang Meilan and the others had almost finished picking off the four jackals.
Two male jackals weighing about 40 kilograms. After skinning each one, the meat and bones were not even 30 kilograms.
The King Jackal is bigger, but the black tiger eats a lot of meat, and the remaining skin is the same as the two male jackals, weighing only twenty-five or six kilograms.
And after the mother jackal was finished, she didn't even have twenty pounds of meat, only the breast, thighs, belly, tenderloin, and a little bit of meat on the neck.
The two male jackals were both whole, so Wang Meilan gave them to Zhang Yuanmin and Jin Xiaomei respectively.
As for the jackal king and the mother jackal who lack belly meat, they can keep them for themselves.
At noon, Wang Meilan fried eggplant slices, potato slices, and steamed noodles with steamed buns, and simply took a bite.
In the afternoon, Wang Meilan asked Zhao Jun to take an axe, chop the jackal into small pieces including the bones and meat, and blanch them in a large pot.
Put the cold water in the pot, and as soon as the water boils, a fishy smell spreads throughout the house.
It happened that Zhao Jun came back from outside after going to the latrine. As soon as he entered the house, he saw Wang Meilan holding a fence in hand and standing in front of the pot, preparing to fish out the meat.
"Brother Jun is back." Just as Jie Chen came out of the back room, he walked to the pot, sniffed twice, and then said, "This meat smells very strong."
"No way." As she spoke, Wang Meilan used a fence to fish out the meat, poured it into a basin, and washed it twice with water.
After washing off the foam on the meat, Wang Meilan picked out a piece of meat from the basin, held it in front of her nose and smelled it.
"Mom." Zhao Jun asked from the side: "Do I need to pick up some peppers?"
Wang Meilan threw the meat into the basin and said to Zhao Jun: "Gather more."
After Zhao Jun heard this, he went out of the house and picked off the dried chili strings hanging under the eaves, and pulled five dried chili peppers from above.
Mountain livestock has a strong smell, so when cooking, the dried chili peppers must be pressed down.
Zhao Jun's family eats a lot of game, so Wang Meilan dried a lot of dried red peppers.
When Zhao Jun entered the house holding red peppers, he saw Wang Meilan pulling out a cloth bag from the bottom of the dish rack, opening the mouth of the bag, scooping out a scoop of soybeans, pouring them into a basin and soaking them in water.
There's nothing I can do about it, the smell of jackal meat is so strong that even chili peppers can't suppress it.
The soybeans were soaked for an hour and became swollen. Wang Meilan looked at the time and saw that although it was just after two o'clock in the afternoon, she put the jackal meat into the pot.
If an animal like a jackal is roaming around in the mountains and forests every day, its meat must be firm and won’t rot if you don’t let it roam for a while.
And once it was stewed, it took four hours.
It happened to be past six o'clock, and Li Baoyu and Li Dayong, father and son next door, came back. According to past practice, in situations like this, Zhao Youcai should be working overtime in the cafeteria and would not come back to eat.
So, Wang Meilan called Zhao Jun to put the table.
Today Wang Meilan cooked two dishes. In addition to chili and soybean stewed jackal meat, she also fried a leek and egg.
Because there were a lot of chili peppers in the jackal meat, the two little girls definitely couldn't eat it. So, Wang Meilan heated up the leftover braised pork from yesterday and gave it to Zhao Hong and Zhao Na.
Beside the Kang table, little Zhao Na held up her rice bowl and said to Zhao Jun: "Brother, give me a little less."
"Hey." Zhao Jun agreed with a smile, only filled Zhao Na's rice bowl with a bowl, and then took the bowl handed over by Zhao Hong.
At this moment, a dog suddenly barked twice outside the house.
Jie Chen, who was sitting on the edge of the Kang, leaned back and glanced out the window. Then he turned quickly to Zhao Jun. Wang Meilan said: "My uncle is back."
"Huh?" Wang Meilan heard this and quickly put on her shoes and got off the kang. When she went to the window, she saw that Zhao Youcai had already arrived at the door of the room.
The next second, Zhao Youcai entered the room. While taking off his coat, he asked: "Where are you eating?"
Before Zhao Jun and the ministers could answer, Wang Meilan grabbed Zhao Youcai from behind and asked, "How did you come back?"
"Take a car." Zhao Youcai lied, his face was neither red nor white, and he said with a smile: "This afternoon, people came from the city, I held the spoon, and after finishing the work, I didn't catch the commuter bus, so the factory sent a car to take me back.
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Wang Meilan felt that it was reasonable, so she didn't ask any more questions, but said to Zhao Youcai: "The thermos in the outer room is the water I just boiled. Make some tea and drink it yourself."
"Well..." Zhao Youcai said with a smile: "I will eat first, and then drink tea after eating."
"Huh?" Wang Meilan was startled when she heard this. She and Zhao Youcai have been married for so many years. She has become accustomed to Zhao Youcai not going home for dinner as long as there is entertainment in the place. This has been the case for more than 20 years, why haven't they been here these days?
Is it the same?
Yesterday he said he drank and didn't eat. But the day before yesterday and today, he didn't eat or drink for two days, which is strange.
"Uncle, you get on the Kang." Jie Chen stood up sensibly and said to Zhao Youcai, "I'll get you a bowl."
"Good boy!" Zhao Youcai praised him. Seeing Jie Chen walking out of the house, Zhao Youcai shouted: "Bring the wine too, let us drink some."
After saying that, Zhao Youcai took off his shoes and got on the kang, sat down inside the kang, took the cup and bowl handed to him by Jie Chen, took the bowl with his right hand, clasped it down, and poured the two drops of water from the bottom of the bowl onto the kang table.
At this time, looking at Jie Chen who was pouring himself wine, Zhao Youcai smiled and said: "After you get home, you can drink with me during the meal. Unlike your brother Jun, I don't drink."
Zhao Jun glanced at Zhao Youcai, smiled, and said, "I can't drink with you, but I can buy you big biscuits."
As soon as Zhao Jun said this, the smile on Zhao Youcai's face instantly froze.
At this time, Wang Meilan on the side felt that there was something in Zhao Jun's words, and hurriedly asked: "Son, what do you mean by big biscuits?"
"How can there be such a big biscuit?" Zhao Youcai quickly took over the conversation and said, "It's not right to drink alcohol with that thing."
Zhao Jun took a deep look at Zhao Youcai, and he felt that he was acting strangely these days. In Northeastern dialect, he said: Not a good person.
Meeting Zhao Jun's gaze, Zhao Youcai smiled at him with bared teeth, then turned around and stretched out his chopsticks to pick up the meat in the basin.
Zhao Youcai is a chef, and he knows all the common ingredients well. He picked up a piece of meat and suddenly stopped when it came to his mouth.
Zhao Youcai turned the piece of meat over and took a look. He looked at Wang Meilan in surprise and asked, "Is this dog meat?"
"What are you talking about?" Wang Meilan rolled her eyes at him and said angrily: "When has our family ever eaten dog meat?"
When Zhao Youcai turned to look at Zhao Jun, Zhao Jun smiled and said: "Dad, try it, this is red dog meat."
When Zhao Youcai heard this, he went up and tore off a strip of meat from the bone. When he chewed it in his mouth, he felt that the meat was very thin and chewy.
When Wang Meilan stewed it, she put a lot of chili peppers and soybeans to suppress most of the fishy smell.
But these are not important. What is important is that Zhao Youcai is hungry.
Today, Liu Jinyong and Hong Yuntao did not go to Xinlangchang. After Zhao Youcai led Wang Qiang there, no one greeted them.
Fortunately, those who returned to Leng were all formal employees of the forest farm, and everyone knew Master Zhao.
But once he entered Guileng's shack, Zhao Youcai was in trouble.
There was a smell of everything in that shack.
In the past, Zhao Youcai really didn't care. However, he still wanted to sneak out the cannon eggs to get the bonus. If he was covered in the smell of cigarette smoke, could he take a shower and change clothes again tomorrow?
So, Zhao Youcai took Wang Qiang to the cook's shack, ordered two bowls of radish stick soup from the old cook, and ate the big biscuits he got on credit from the small store.
After he had eaten and drank enough, Zhao Youcai asked the old man for half a bottle of boiling water and poured it into the military kettle he carried with him.
Then, Zhao Youcai and Wang Qiang once again set out on the road of pig hunting. But this afternoon, he didn't even see a single pig hair.
It was around four o'clock in the afternoon when Wang Qiang begged for mercy and said he would not follow Zhao Youcai tomorrow.
Li Dayong couldn't ask for leave, and Zhao Youcai had such a helper around him, so he had to win over him. Moreover, he himself was tired and hungry at this time, so he went back home.
And as soon as you enter the house, you eat meat on the Kang. Such a day is so beautiful.
The more the food tasted, the more delicious it became. Zhao Youcai simply put down his chopsticks, picked up the jackal meat and started to chew it.
Xie Chen raised a glass to him at the side. Because his hands were oily, Zhao Youcai pinched the cup with his right thumb and index finger, and raised the other three fingers to clink a glass with Xie Chen.
Drinking heavily and eating meat, Zhao Youcai felt that living like this was very comfortable. It would be even more perfect if he made all the meat himself.
Suddenly, there was a chaos of barking dogs outside. Zhao Youcai didn't even bother to eat the meat. He threw the meat into the bowl, put the cup on the table, and walked sideways around the Kang table.
At this time, someone outside was heard shouting: "Zhao Jun! Zhao Jun!"
When Zhao Jun heard this, he quickly put down his chopsticks. Wang Meilan also said: "Son, go and have a look."
But after Zhao Youcai heard this voice, he stretched his legs and sat back to his original position.
Wang Meilan, Zhao Jun, mother and son came out of the house and saw Ma Ling standing at the door, looking into the courtyard.
Zhao Jun trotted all the way, came in front of Ma Ling, and asked: "What's wrong?"
At this time, the girl's family was thin-skinned. Before getting married, Ma Ling never came to Zhao Jun's house.
Therefore, Zhao Jun knew that she must have something important to come to him at this time.
To be continued...