Chapter 12 A Homely Feast in a Mountain Village

"Xiao Shunzi, sister, don't be impatient, let's watch me perform next." Yang Jibin squatted down with a fishing tackle, found out a few other holes near the hole, and slowly put the hook with the bait into the hole. After putting it in the hole, slowly push and pull up and down to lure the eel to take the bait. Yellow eels are easy to take the bait, and although they are cautious by nature, they are too greedy to eat, and when they see food, they can't help but wait for a while before going up and biting the bait. Sure enough, within a few minutes, Yang Jibin felt that his hand was tight, and there was an eel eating the hook, so he immediately pushed it inward, so that the hook all entered the mouth, and turned the angle, pulled out of the hole, and grabbed the neck of the yellow eel with the other hand to raise the fish hole.

Pinch the yellow eel also has some particularity, that is, try not to pinch the tail end of the eel, so that when encountering a slightly larger eel, it is very easy to be struggled off, it is best to pinch the head end of the eel down two or three inches, or not to grasp the waist, so that the grasp is stable, the eel is difficult to break free. Because they secrete a very oily mucus all over their bodies, they can slip out of your hands if you're not careful.

The first battle was successful, although the yellow eel was not big, Yang Jiya and Yang Jishun smiled, and they were very interested, "Brother, can you teach me how to catch the yellow eel?" Yang Jishun said a little eagerly, in his opinion, catching yellow eels is very simple.

"Well, I'll teach you when you're older, you don't have that much strength to catch it now." After speaking, Yang Jibin began to find the yellow eel cave again. After turning several ridges, nearly 20 yellow eels have been harvested in the barrel, adding up to three or five catties. Yang Jibin looked at the sun in the sky, it was not early, so he took Yang Jiya and Yang Jishun to the mountain stream to touch the snails and river mussels

This mountain stream is very clear, the bottom of the stream is a small stone, there are many snails and mussels in it, these shellfish aquatic animals are not as slippery as fish and shrimp, they are very easy to catch. The snails and mussels in the mountain streams are not small. This river mussel, also known as river crooked, river clam, bird shell, Shih Tzu tongue, etc., belongs to the mollusk phylum Gills mussel family, is an ordinary shellfish aquatic animal. Its shape is not much different from the clams that are popular in coastal cities, and the meat of the river mussels is particularly crispy and delicious, which is a delicacy for feasts.

After a while, the three of them returned with joy, and as soon as they returned home, Yang Jibin said to Li Wenrong, who was preparing to make dinner: "Mom, you can rest well today, we just got some delicious food back, let's cook a few of us tonight." Without waiting for Li Wenrong's objection to speak, Yang Jibin began to order, "Sister, you go to the courtyard to pick a few fresh vegetables, brother, you are responsible for burning the fire, and I will kill the yellow eel first." ”

Seeing that Yang Jibin's arrangement was in good order, Li Wenrong was no longer entangled, so he walked out of the kitchen with a smile.

Yang Jibin first put the yellow eel into the basin and prepared to kill. The easiest and most convenient way to kill a yellow eel is to grab the eel's tail with one hand and quickly lift it, and throw the eel's head to the hard ground or the edge of the pool, so that the live fish will be knocked unconscious, and then it can be slaughtered calmly. The main point of this method is that one action must be fast and accurate, and the other is that it must be captured and slaughtered one by one, and it is not possible to catch a few at a time to save trouble.

After the eel is knocked unconscious, fix the head and neck of the eel on the wooden board with nails, straighten the tail of the eel with the left hand, poke the blade from the neck of the fish with the right hand, and draw the belly of the fish from top to bottom along the belly of the fish to the tail of the fish by closely following the backbone of the fish, take out the internal organs, turn the back of the fish and cut both sides of the fish bone in the same way to remove the eel bone, so that a complete eel meat can be prepared. After cleaning, you can choose between shredding and slicing.

The best way to take the screw meat is to cook it directly in the pot, and then pick out the meat with tongs, if you directly use a hammer to break the meat, it will be difficult to pick the shell fragments cleanly, but it is even more troublesome.

The trick of cutting the mussel meat: first hold the mussel tightly with the left hand, the mussel mouth is facing up, and then use the right hand knife to pierce the mussel from the water outlet of the mussel, close to the flesh shell wall on one side into the body, the depth of penetration is about 1/3, scrape the mussel shell muscle, then pull out the knife, and then use the same method to scrape off the other end of the shell muscle, open the mussel shell, and the mussel meat can be taken out intact.

After all the preparations were done, Yang Jibin walked to the stove and instructed Yang Jishun to use firewood to increase the firepower, wait for the pot to be spicy, pour rapeseed oil, and then pick up the spatula and start stir-frying. In these years, there are no briquettes, no gas tanks, no natural gas and electric woks, etc., and the cooking is made of crop straw or pine needles, dead branches, etc. as firewood, so if you want to fry good vegetables, this heat is very important, and it is necessary to have a certain amount of fire experience to keep the fire sufficient and stable. Fortunately, there are forests everywhere in the mountains, and the so-called green mountains are not afraid of no firewood, and there are many pine needles and dead dry branches that cause fire in the mountains and forests, and the firepower is no less than natural gas.

Yang Jibin's first dish is to stir-fry the screw meat, the specific method: 1. Add salt to the washed screw meat and rub it vigorously before flushing, so that each snail meat does not have a little intestine on it, and it is thoroughly cleaned; 2. Stir-fry the snail meat in hot oil, and stir-fry until fragrant; 3. Prepare minced ginger, minced garlic, green garlic and dried red pepper finely chopped, perilla leaves; 4. Ginger, garlic, chili pepper and chili powder under the remaining oil, pour in the fried snail meat, sprinkle salt, spray a few drops of rice wine and brew; 5. Add the remaining drops of green garlic and shiso, pour a little soy sauce and sprinkle a little MSG and finish.

The second dish is braised yellow eel, the specific method: 1. Wash off the blood of the eel with salt water, catch the cleaned eel segments; 2. Marinate the marinated eel segments with pepper, ginger and cooking wine for a short time; 3. Chop cucumbers, celery, ginger, red peppers, and garlic seeds for later use; 4. Heat the oil in the pot and heat it over high heat; 5. Then add the marinated eel segments and stir-fry the aisle oil; 6. Fry until golden brown, shrink the eel and roll it up and set aside. 7. With the oil from which the eel has been fried in a pan, pour in the ginger and garlic cloves that were prepared earlier; 8. After stir-frying, add a spoonful of bean paste, dried chili powder, and a little sugar and stir-fry; 9. Add the eel that has been oiled before, add the cucumber and stir-fry. 10. Add a small amount of water, salt, soy sauce, add parsley and red pepper when the cucumber is slightly cooked, and add a little monosodium glutamate when it is out of the pot.

The third course is stir-fried spicy river mussels. The specific methods are: 1. Pierce the mussel from the mussel with a knife, cut the mussel shell, take out the essence of the mussel meat and throw away the impurities. 2. Place the vinegar. Rice wine. Salt is poured into the mussel meat and washed. Rinse well and cut with a knife for later use. 3. Wash and dice the chili, chives, garlic and ginger respectively. Pour the appropriate amount of oil, salt, sugar, and soy sauce into a bowl. 4。 Pour water into a wok and boil the pot and blanch the mussels. 5. Pour rapeseed oil into the wok, add the river mussels and stir-fry after the oil is hot, put in the cooking wine, pour ginger and minced garlic into the bowl, season with light soy sauce, oil, salt, sugar and pepper, and finally add chili pepper and diced chives. The shellfish itself is very rich in umami, do not add monosodium glutamate when cooking, and should not put more salt, so as not to lose the umami, and the mud sausage in the shellfish should not be eaten.

The fourth dish is Di San Xian, which is a favorite dish of Yang Jibin when he was in school in Northeast China, the specific method: 1. Peel and cut the potatoes into 0.3cm thick slices. Wash the long eggplant, remove the stem, and cut the skin into hob pieces. After removing the stems and seeds of the green and red peppers, cut them into triangular pieces. green onions and garlic, finely chopped and set aside; 2. Take a small bowl and pour in soy sauce, sugar, salt, rice wine, water and water starch to make a sauce; 3. Pour more oil into the pot, heat it to 8 hot, fry the potato slices and eggplant pieces respectively until golden brown and remove them; 4. Leave some bottom oil in the pot, heat over high heat, when the oil is 7 hot, add minced green onion and half of minced garlic, fry until fragrant, add fried potato slices, eggplant pieces and green and red pepper pieces, stir-fry for half a minute; 5. Finally, pour in the pre-prepared sauce, stir-fry quickly over high heat for 1 minute, and sprinkle the other half of the minced garlic before removing from the pot.

Yang Jibin was busy in the kitchen for a while, and after a while, stir-fried screw meat, braised yellow eel meat, stir-fried spicy river mussels, vegetarian fried water spinach, ground three fresh, dry stir-fried green beans, and tomato egg soup were served one after another. Yang Jibin picked up a screw meat and put it in his grandfather's bowl, and said, "Grandpa, how can you taste your grandson's craftsmanship, grandma, mother, sister, and little brother." ”

When it comes to eating snails, you have to have a little skill, the snail should put the tail of the snail into your mouth with your index finger and thumb, and suck it inside, and what comes out is a spicy juice. By the way, suck and pull hard. This is called "wanting to capture the old indulgence" and then turn the snail around. Put your head in your mouth and suck it in. The whole snail meat is in the mouth. Therefore, when you clamp the screw, you have to clamp off the tail to have more benefits. Taste carefully, fragrant, spicy is really delicious, not in vain to work for so long.

After Li Wenrong tasted every dish, he felt that the taste was really good, and he was very surprised: "Bin Bin, when did you learn to stir-fry, it's delicious?" ”

"I've never eaten pork, I haven't seen a pig run, I often see you stir-frying and cooking, won't it be okay, or the name you take, Bin is also a civil and military all-rounder, no way." Yang Jibin said modestly.

"Bin Bin has grown up, so good, we should also enjoy it." Feng also felt comforted.

"Xiaobin, what's the name of your dish, there are artichokes, green peppers, and eggplants, why haven't I seen this kind of practice, but it's quite delicious." The attentive sister asked a little puzzled.

"This is my self-created dish, named Di San Xian, the color and flavor are complete, what's the matter, this is completely grandmaster-level level, amazing." Yang Jibin tasted it himself, and he felt very good, good raw materials are capricious, and he was ten times better than what he had tasted when he was in school in Northeast China.

Grandpa drank rice wine, and didn't like to eat more snails and mussels, and grandma also didn't eat much because of bad teeth. So basically the meat was basically contracted by Yang Jibin, Yang Jiya, Yang Jishun, and Li Wenrong. The little gluttonous cat Yang Jishun really didn't dare to compliment his appearance, he ate in the dark, and his face and body were covered in oil, and his little red face could sing without makeup, but he still shouted "delicious and delicious" while eating. Yang Jiya's appearance is much more elegant, but looking at his expression, he should also be quite satisfied with this table.