The family has been very busy these past two days, and has been preparing the ingredients needed for pickles. Buying vegetables and making pickles is a laborious task that requires the whole family to work together.
After all, these pickles are the food for the whole year, especially in winter, except for cabbage and radishes, all the rest depends on these pickles.
Just imagine, in the cold winter, when the sky is full of ice and snow, one morning, you reluctantly come out of your warm bed, shivering.
Scoop a bowl of hot rice porridge from the pot, and then take out a small plate of pickles from the pot. Because the porridge is too hot, you need to drink it in circles, then put a small pickle into your mouth, and immediately
The whole person is satisfied, and the taste is like a touch of sunshine in winter, refreshing and warm.
After the first frost, the moisture in the vegetables has reduced a lot, and the taste of the pickled vegetables will be much better at this time.
"Xiaoyu, do you still have salt at home?" Zhang Guifang turned to Zhang Yu and asked.
"There are still more than two kilograms, I don't know if it is enough?" Zhang Yu went back to the house and looked at the large salt in the cupboard. It was the same salt he bought for pickled fish last time. There was not much left.
"It's not enough. We need to finish marinating the food here today." She pointed to the washed vegetables and put them at the door to control the water.
"Then I'll go to the supply and marketing cooperative to buy some." Zhang Yu wiped the water on his hands from washing vegetables and prepared to go out.
I happened to bump into my uncle who was coming back from get off work and asked, "Xiaoyu, what are you going to do?"
"I'm making pickles at home today. I don't have enough salt at home."
"I brought it back." Zhao Wenzhuo raised the cloth bag in his hand, and then continued: "I thought that the pickles at home today must require a lot of salt, so when I passed by the supply and marketing cooperative after get off work, I brought it back with my hand. .”
After saying that, he put the bicycle away and took the big salt in his hand to ask his sister-in-law for credit.
"Look what I brought?"
Seeing the big salt that Zhao Wenzhuo brought, Zhang Guifang gave him a rare compliment: "Oh, the sun is coming out in the west today? There is actually something in my eyes!"
"Isn't this because you are busy these two days?" Zhao Wenzhuo was a little embarrassed. Because of work, he really didn't take care of his family much, and he felt a little guilty about this.
"Okay, okay, let's see how the water control of the vegetables is going. Once dry, prepare to marinate." Seeing her husband's guilty expression, Zhang Guifang quickly changed the subject.
In fact, he did a good enough job. When his elder brother and sister-in-law were serving in the army, he always encouraged and supported her. Especially after the two of them died, he was the one who pulled her out of the grief of losing her family.
Even Xiaoyu was taught and loved as if he were his own child, silently guarding the family in a corner that he couldn't see.
I thought about it and patted my face. Is it true that I am old? I tend to think randomly. There are so many things to do, so I don't have time to think.
The large and small tanks used for pickling pickles were moved out yesterday by my elder brother during the good weather, cleaned and dried. Now they are neatly placed under the eaves, waiting for my sister-in-law to use them.
The first thing to pickle was cucumbers. When Zhang Yu went to the countryside to purchase a few days ago, he happened to encounter several families cleaning cucumber seedlings. He saw that there were still many small cucumbers on them, so he replaced them.
Those families thought they had other dishes, so they didn't care much about these little cucumbers. Now that someone wanted to change them, they readily agreed.
At this time, Zhang Guifang looked at the large basket full of small cucumbers. Although they looked crooked, they were delicious when pickled.
"Mom, why are these cucumbers so ugly?" Zhao Xiaoping looked at the dried cucumbers and said to her sister-in-law.
"Why is it so ugly? This kind of cucumber is perfect for pickling." 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 cucumber.
By the way, even though it doesn’t look very good, it tastes better if it’s pickled like this.”
Then he continued to educate Zhao Xiaoping: "This small cucumber is not cheap, and the cucumber has no seeds, so it is crispier and tastes better when pickled."
After pickling the pickled cucumbers, my sister-in-law also pickled the sauerkraut. She peeled off the excess cabbage stems from the Chinese cabbage she bought that day, and after the leaves rotted, she ran the cabbage hearts through hot water and placed them directly in the vegetable vat.
After pouring the long-cooled rice soup into the vegetable jar, close the lid of the vegetable jar, press it with a big stone, and then wait for time to catalyze it and eat it.
Of course, the peeled cabbage was not wasted. I made some at noon, cut the cabbage into shreds, and mixed it with vinegar and chili. It tasted pretty good.
By the way, I also made a lot of the more important porridge.
In winter, when you have a little leisure time, you can buy some meat, chop it into minced meat, and use it to stir-fry snow mustard, or make snow mustard buns with hot rice porridge. The taste makes people want to eat it just thinking about it.
Drooling.
My sister-in-law's method of pickling mustard seeds is relatively simple. Spread a layer of mustard seeds and a layer of salt evenly in the jar, and then spread them layer by layer. After everything is spread, sprinkle a layer of salt on the jar to seal it.
.
After finishing, Zhang Guifang straightened up, patted the salt particles on her hands and said, "It's done, just put the lid on."
"Sister-in-law, is this good?" Zhang Yu had eaten a lot of delicacies made from potherb mustard in later generations, but he had never seen how to pickle it. He always thought it would be troublesome, but he never expected that it would be like this.
Simple.
"Then what's so difficult about it? You can eat it after a month. Then I'll make you some snow buns to eat."
The next day, Zhang Guifang pickled radish, mustard greens and a lot of other things one after another.
Especially the mustard dumplings. Because it was not easy to buy this year, I managed to buy some. Zhang Guifang treated them very carefully. Instead of marinating them whole like in previous years, they marinated them very carefully and even added radishes.
Wash, trim off the hair on both sides of the lower half, cut into thick shreds and boil in boiling water. Mix the shredded radish and mustard sticks together while it is hot, and simmer in a sealed container.
"Mom, how long should it be simmered?" Zhao Xiaoping is the only girl among several children. My sister-in-law thought it was time for her to learn some housekeeping skills, so she pulled her over and started working on the side.
The other is to let her learn from the side.
"Simmer it for a day or two, and when you open it you can smell the pungent aroma."
Although Zhang Yu was not the main picker, he still did a lot of work and fell asleep as soon as he got into bed that night.
On the third day, my sister-in-law took out a small dish of shredded mustard greens from the small vat, mixed it with salt, vinegar, sprinkled with sugar, and even extravagantly fried some dried red chilies with sesame oil and poured it on top, and then stirred
Uniform.
The whole family was a little dumbfounded, but no one said anything. If something bad happened, they wouldn't be able to eat.
As soon as the pickles were served on the table, the family no longer cared about eating other dishes, and all stretched out their chopsticks towards the pickles in the center of the table.
"Sister-in-law, it's delicious. This is what you're good at." Zhang Yu gave his sister-in-law a thumbs up.
"If it's delicious, eat more." Zhang Guifang said and gave him another chopstick.
