Put the sweet potatoes with their skins into the pot, steam them for about a quarter of an hour, and then set them aside to cool.
The stove was not busy during this period. Zhuang Keqing prepared a lot of sweet potatoes, enough to steam them five or six times. When they are all steamed, they can be peeled and cut into strips.
I won’t do anything for the fans today, just process the dried part of the sweet potato.
There was no time to make lunch at noon, so she just took some steamed sweet potatoes and shared them among a few people to eat together, and then cooked a decent meal in the evening.
In the afternoon, Qin Manzhi coaxed Aman to sleep. Zhuang Keqing and Shen Ling piled the steamed sweet potatoes into baskets and took them to the yard for further processing.
The two of them worked on this job for half an afternoon, but eventually the round bean sprouts were no longer enough, so Zhuang Keqing went to Aunt Li's house next door and borrowed a few more to get enough.
The steamed French fries need to be dried for a full day. If it happens, you can save time to make vermicelli tomorrow.
"Aling, we're done here, you can go and take a rest."
Zhuang Keqing took the last piece of dried sweet potato and put it in a sunny place in the yard. She looked back at Shen Ling and said with a smile.
"Um."
Shen Ling nodded, but didn't rest. He just turned back to the eaves and took out a heavy bluestone slab.
The stone slab was about four palms wide, with a deep rounded groove on the top for holding pens, and a circular depression dug on the side for storing water.
He placed the slate under the sun, then went into the house to get a pen, filled the water storage with clean water, and then stood under the sun to practice calligraphy.
He has been practicing calligraphy on his left hand for several months. Now, although it cannot be compared with the right hand before, it can still catch his eye a little bit. He thinks that after practicing for a while, he can give up the slate and write with pen and ink. When the exam comes, the questions It's not big.
Zhuang Keqing had nothing to do for the time being, so he stood aside and watched Shen Ling write.
The sun fell on the young man's dark hair, faintly creating a golden halo around him. His eyes like cold springs under his eyelashes only stared at the stone slab quietly.
He has a focused look, handsome posture, straight back, and his writing is flowing like clouds and smoke.
Zhuang Keqing is not a good calligrapher, but in her opinion, this ordinary rabbit hair pen and the simple bluestone board have not damaged the charm of the above words at all.
She couldn't help but deeply lament her lack of vocabulary.
Now even if I want to praise you, I can only say one dry sentence: Your handwriting is so beautiful.
Forget it, it's better not to say it, it's embarrassing.
Just thinking about it, she felt her cheeks burning with embarrassment.
But even though Shen Ling was practicing calligraphy, he still put some thought into Zhuang Keqing. He glanced over and noticed that the girl's cheeks were slightly red, so he said: "The sun is still a little bright, so just go inside and don't bask in the sun. "
Zhuang Keqing smiled back, "It's not serious, I want to stay here with you."
Shen Ling was stunned for a moment, and the slight coldness hidden in his eyes instantly melted away, and his eyes became as gentle and caring as if they were dipped in honey.
Qin Manzhi carried Aman out of the house and was about to call her daughter and son-in-law when she saw a boy and a girl standing close to each other in the courtyard. Their shadows were drawn into a long and thin line by the sunlight, overlapping and entangled together.
After raising her index finger to the baby in her arms and making a "shush" gesture, Qin Manzhi quietly went to the kitchen.
I'll make dinner tonight, she thought.
…
The villagers are paying attention to the harvest of the dry fields, while the farmers are busy with sweet potatoes.
The method of making sweet potato vermicelli is cumbersome. You need to chop the materials, filter out the starch and dry them in the sun. And there is no crusher like later generations here, so Zhuang Keqing thought of simply peeling the sweet potatoes and cutting them into small pieces, mixing them with water and then using them. Hydraulic stone grinding.
This method is really good. It's just that it's more troublesome to cut into pieces. Add water to the ground potato pulp and just use a tofu filter to filter it until no starch comes out.
By the time all this work was done, several large wooden basins had been filled with the filtered powder slurry.
The remaining dregs are not wasted. They can be dried directly and used as feed. It is also good for Dahei at home to change the taste from time to time.
After waiting for the starch to precipitate, pour away the water in the upper layer, leaving the powder below, which needs to be dried in the sun.
Dried sweet potatoes are relatively simple.
After drying, steam it, steam it and dry it again, steam it three times and dry it again. When the final product is finished, it is waxy and tough, and tastes sweet.
"These dried potatoes are pretty good. I'll go back and get some for the people who sent me sweet potatoes."
Qin Manzhi was busy working on the stove and had no hands to take the dried potatoes from her daughter, so she had to open her mouth to eat.
"Well, I should give some to the village chief's house, but this stuff is very tough, and the old man's teeth are not good, so I'm afraid he won't be able to eat a few pieces."
Zhuang Keqing turned around and stuffed a piece into Shen Ling's mouth and asked, "Does it taste the same as the one you had in the county?"
"It's better than that." Shen Ling nodded.
Now all the harvested dried potatoes are taken back to the main room.
They used a cane basket of raw sweet potatoes, and half of the basket was left after drying and processing, which means that the yield rate is about 50%. This shows that the sweet potatoes of Erlizi Village have a high starch content.
In this case, she can expect a high production rate of vermicelli from now on.
After getting the cloth bag, Zhuang Keqing and Shen Ling put away the dried potatoes and sent them out to others after the vermicelli was ready, saving them two more trips.
Li Guihua has not been doing any embroidery work these days. She is busy harvesting rice at home and finishing bagging it, and she has to clean up the fields non-stop. Liu Zhuzhu is in the fields all day long, so she also took Hanwa to work beside the fields.
She finally took a break today, but when she saw the dealer, she was still busy. Her family didn't have a field, and the tofu business wasn't open these days, so why was she so busy?
Moreover, there are rows of beauties in this courtyard, and I don’t know what they contain.
A few days ago, the girl came to borrow several beauties from her. She hurried to the field and took the ones she usually used, but the other party said they were not enough. She had no choice but to take some from her husband and make them. I borrowed a few new ones that were sold when I was preparing for the big collection.
I’m not saying I feel bad, I just don’t know what they want all these sprouts for? Aren’t those rice fish dried in the sun before?
Once her curiosity arose, she felt itchy as if she was scratching her heart and lungs. Li Guihua didn't show any pretense and just took Hanwa out to the banker's house.
I don’t know what it is, maybe I’ll find out if I ask?
"Sister-in-law Qin."
Li Guihua shouted at the door.
Qin Manzhi didn't hear her in the kitchen, but Zhuang Keqing came out. Seeing that it was Aunt Li next door, she hurriedly stepped forward and opened the fence of the small courtyard.
The wall of the banker's house was low, and Li Guihua had already seen from outside that the beauties all over the yard were filled with white lumps, but she had never seen them before and couldn't figure out what they were.
"Aunt Li, come in and sit down."
Zhuang Keqing greeted her warmly, and seeing that Hanwa was following Li Guihua, he hurriedly turned around, grabbed two dried sweet potatoes, and stuffed them into the child's hands.
"Try the dried sweet potatoes that Uncle Liu sent earlier."
"Dried potato?"
Li Guihua took a stick from her son's hand and took a closer look.
It's about the same color as a sweet potato, but it looks a little transparent. When you pinch it and bounce it, it smells sweet.
Without thinking, she opened her mouth and bit off a piece of it, which made the silly boy next to her so anxious that she almost cried.
Why did you snatch his snacks?
"Girl, this is made of sweet potatoes!?"
The villagers usually eat a lot of sweet potatoes, and everyone also likes the taste, which is soft and delicious.
But this dried potato is quite chewy when you eat it in your mouth, and it has more sweetness. Not to mention the caramel you eat during the same festival, it is not much different. And the main reason is that it is durable! It's okay.
For grinding teeth, it is no worse than peanuts and melon seeds.
The most important thing is that it is produced on our own land, so it doesn’t cost any money!
"Aunt Li, it's delicious. I'll bring you some more."
Zhuang Keqing went back to the house and wrapped some in oil paper, tied them with hemp rope and handed them over carefully.
Li Guihua took it, and it wasn't until she returned to her yard that she remembered that she hadn't asked what those white lumps in the sun were.
But Hanwa couldn't care about this. He got new snacks, which were still sweet. He hurriedly opened the paper bag, took several sticks of dried potatoes, and ran out to find other kids to play with.
Li Guihua followed behind and couldn't stop shouting.
In the evening, the children of several villagers who had gone out to play came back. As a result, at the meal stall, they were clamoring to have their mother make dried sweet potatoes to eat.
"What? Dried potatoes?"
"Today, silly boy brought me some food and gave me a small piece to taste. It was sweet!" The little one in the family started to make trouble by tugging on the adult's sleeve.
"Forget it! You still want something sweet? I can't afford it!"
If the child refuses to obey, he will lie down and roll around on the ground, with tears and snot running all over his face, crying and howling: "Silly boy, he said it is made of sweet potatoes. I have so many at home, but my mother doesn't even make them for me to eat! Wow!"
The adults originally planned to let the little one cry and stop when he got tired of crying. But how could they have imagined that the dried sweet potatoes their children said were actually made of sweet potatoes?
"What did you say? Stop crying and speak more clearly!"
