Bring the wooden table under the pergola, prepare a clean clay pot and a bamboo sieve, then some peeled pecans, and finally bring out a jar of syrup.

After everything was ready, Chen Xu also put loneliness and loneliness behind for the time being, and began to prepare to make rice candy.

First of all, pour the dried river sand into the clay pot and tell the apricots to make a fire.

"Brother, can this sand be fried and eaten?" Although Xing'er was very obedient and began to light a fire, her face was full of puzzlement, and even Wang Wu and Wang Qi stared at the pot full of sand with big eyes, with a confused expression on their faces.

"No, you'll find out later, heat the sand and fry it dry first!" Chen Xu shook his head and didn't bother to explain, as the saying goes, seeing is believing, as long as the glutinous rice is fried into rice flowers for a while, they will naturally understand everything.

As the temperature in the clay pot gradually increased, the sand began to exude a hot smell, Chen Xu used a large wooden spatula to constantly stir-fry, so that the sand became drier, and also made the sand heat evenly, after continuing to fry for a few minutes, Chen Xu made a spoonful of lard in it and continued to fry, and then a rich taste of lard came out.

"Brother, you still say that the sand is not fried and eaten? Otherwise, what would you do with grease? Xing'er was even more puzzled, Wang Wu and Wang Qi also nodded again and again, and looked at Chen Xu at the same time, with an expression on their faces that you want to give an explanation.

Chen Xu continued to ignore them, and after stir-frying for a few more minutes, the sand in the pot had completely mixed with the melted lard, and the sand looked shiny and scattered.

When I was a child, my mother used sand to fry rice flowers are old sand that has been used year after year, and there is no need to put oil, but if you don't put some oil, this new sand will be easy to stick together, and at the same time, it will also make the sand and rice not stick together, otherwise the fried rice will not be eaten at all.

Seeing that the sand in the pot is almost there, I poured a cup of dried glutinous rice into the pot with a small bamboo cup, and then covered it with sand, and after the fragrance of rice came out, I kept stir-frying with a wooden spatula, accompanied by a crackling sound, and the glutinous rice mixed with the sand began to crisp and swell. After a few minutes, the surface of the sand turned into a layer of white flowers of puffy rice that looked like snow grains, and at the same time, an extremely human aroma of fried rice emanated, which could be smelled throughout the yard.

"Wow, the rice grains have grown up, mother, come and see, my brother fried a cup of rice into a pot of rice, and our family will no longer be short of food in the future~" Xing'er shouted excitedly, turned around and went to the room to pull Chen Jiangshi out to see.

Chen Xu couldn't cry or laugh, but he didn't have time to explain, and after continuing to stir-fry a few times, some rice grains began to burn slightly, so he quickly took the bamboo sieve, scooped up the full pot of rice and sand with a gourd scoop and poured it into the bamboo sieve, and after shaking it back and forth a few times, the sand fell into the clay pot one after another, and all that was left in the bamboo sieve was fried rice.

Chen Xu grabbed a handful of rice flowers with his hands and looked at them, and found that it was very clean, with almost no sand, but he continued to shake it vigorously a few times before pouring the rice flowers into the dry clay pot next to him.

"Let's try it all and see how this fried rice tastes?" Chen Xu said with a smile.

"Can I eat this?" Wang Qi and Wang Wu were quite hesitant, for fear that their teeth would be gone, because since ancient times, they have never heard of frying rice with sand.

But Xing'er couldn't wait to grab a handful and stuff it into her mouth, accompanied by a crunchy sound, the little girl's excited hands grabbed a handful and continued to stuff it into her mouth.

"Eat slowly, don't choke! Mother, you can also taste it, it's delicious. After Chen Xu admonished him, he also grabbed a handful and stuffed it into his mouth, and after chewing, he suddenly felt that his mouth was full of crispy, and a thick aroma of rice flowers that was the same as his childhood rushed into his brain.

Seeing that Xing'er, Chen Xu, and Chen Jiang were all eating, Wang Wu and Wang Qi couldn't help it, and each grabbed a handful and began to taste it, and then ...... There was no then, the two rough and burly guards turned into rice flower beasts, and started work left and right, and they couldn't stop eating at all, and soon a pot of rice was eaten cleanly.

"It's delicious, crispy and fragrant, much more delicious than fried beans!" Wang Wu and Wang Qi did not hesitate to praise, and Xing'er's two little hands picked out the last few grains of rice flowers in the clay pot and ate them, and they still looked at the clay pot reluctantly.

"Okay, make a better rice candy in a while, and carefully break the little belly!" Chen Xu gave a helpless warning, and then poured a cup of glutinous rice into the clay pot and began to fry it, and Xing'er heard that there was a more delicious rice candy, so she licked her mouth and began to make a fire intently.

An hour later, a large pot of fried rice was placed on the table, and Chen Xu had already begun to fry pecan kernels.

Pecan is an ancient tree fruit native to China, different from the common big walnut in later generations, the big walnut is actually called walnut, it was brought back from the Western Regions by Zhang Qian in the Western Han Dynasty, the fruit is large, the appearance is round, the pit is also large, the skin is thin and the kernel is more, and the oil content is large; The pecan fruit is small, the appearance is ridged, the pit is small and thick, particularly hard, the kernel is also small, it belongs to wild nuts, but the nutritional value is extremely high, it has been picked and eaten by the ancestors of China in the very ancient Xia Shang period, and the walnut of later generations is actually cultivated by the selection of pecans, and Qinling is one of the concentrated production areas of pecans, and pecans in addition to the fruit, walnut trees are also an extremely rare and excellent wood, is one of the materials for making high-end furniture.

Because pecans are grown in the dense forests of the mountains, it is more difficult to pick, although the sugar and wine shop in the town has also purchased some, but there are not many, and it is very troublesome to break open the thick shell to get the kernels inside, so Chen Xu only got seven or eight catties. After frying the walnuts, seeing that it was still early, Chen Xu simply went into the house and took out a big bag of chestnuts, poured some and put them in the pot and fried them with sand.

Chestnut, also known as chestnut, is a special nut in China, the edible record can be traced back to the primitive society, to the Shang and Zhou dynasties, has already become a well-known fruit, and the farmers in the mountainous areas are particularly familiar, there are many on the mountains near Xiaohe Village, so this thing is also a very good food to survive the famine, almost once the autumn is over, every household has to go up the mountain to pick reserves.

But people like animals more, now in the Qinling Mountains, there are more monkeys than people, not to mention squirrels, foxes, hedgehogs, black bears, wild boars, antelopes and pandas and other vegetarian and omnivorous animals, all over the mountains and wilderness, especially monkeys, a group of dozens or hundreds, whistling and whistling away, where there is anything delicious in their control, and on the steep rock wall to climb Ruofei, like a fairy master on the top of the big tree, it is simply the biggest scourge of human survival, As long as these chestnuts begin to ripen, the hedgehog-like skin begins to crack, and basically there is nothing to do with humans, black bears and wild boars are afraid of monkeys, because these goods will squat on the tree and throw down with chestnuts full of thorns, and it is a group attack, and the wild boars with thick skin and rough flesh can only be defeated and smashed and flee, so once they meet, humans can only run as far as they can, so even if there are a lot of chestnuts on the mountain, but the villagers can not get their hands on it, they can only pick up some leaks on the ground, And many of these fallen insects have already given birth, and sometimes they can't get a few catties in a busy day.

And these chestnuts are not big, commonly known as cone chestnuts, only the size of a thumb, belong to pure wild nuts, and the trees are particularly tall, the highest is dozens of zhang high, and the chestnuts of the dwarf trees and big kernels that were improved and grafted in later generations are completely different.

In the future, there is a snack called sugar fried chestnuts on the street, that is, the chestnuts are fried repeatedly in a clay pot, and some sugar must be put in, there is no white sugar at the moment, Chen Xu naturally does not put it, if you put a lump of sugar syrup in it, it is estimated that this pot of sand will be useless.

"Wang Wu, you come to help me fry!" After flipping through it a few times, Chen Xu felt that it was a waste for someone not to use it, so he asked Wang Wu to help fry the chestnuts, while he went to prepare a cutting board and a knife, as well as a clay jar for storing rice candy, and when everything was done, the chestnuts were almost cooked.

"It's okay, it's okay, take the pot to the side and pick out the chestnuts!" Chen Xu took one out of the pot and tasted it, and found that it was ripe through, and when he opened the hard shell, a strong fragrance emanated, and the entrance was soft and glutinous, much better than the sugar-fried chestnuts he had eaten before.

After eating two or three hot chestnuts, Chen Xu washed his hands and rolled up his sleeves to start preparing for the final step of making rice flowers.

Put a clean large clay pot on the earthen stove, then pour some syrup in the jar into it to boil, and when there are dense bubbles in the pot, pour some of the fried rice and fried walnut kernels into it, and stir-fry it continuously with a bamboo shovel, so that the syrup and rice walnuts are evenly mixed together, the process is very fast, and it is over in just ten minutes.

"Mother, get the cutting board ready!" Chen Xu commanded, Chen Jiang quickly cleaned up the cutting board and put it on the table, Chen Xu shoveled all the fried rice candy to the cutting board, and then quickly beat the rice candy while it was hot to make a large square sugar cake the size of a cutting board, and after cooling it a little, he pressed it with his hand and found that it had been solidified and firm, so he used a knife to cut the sugar cake into long strips about three inches wide, and then cut it into thin slices about half a centimeter thick.

"Mother, do you see it, just cut it into such a size!" After cutting one piece, Chen Xu handed the knife to Chen Jiang, and then picked up a piece and put it in his mouth to eat.

Because it's still hot, it's not crispy because it's soft, but because it's mixed with pecans, it's all unusually sweet.

Xing'er saw that Chen Xu started eating without saying hello, so she naturally refused to lag behind, and quickly grabbed a piece and ate it, "Wow, it's so delicious, brother, is this rice candy?" ”

"Well, when it cools down, it will be more delicious, you go to wash your hands and put the rice cake cut by your mother into the clay jar, remember to put a layer of sugar cake and sprinkle a layer of rice cake, otherwise it will all stick together and break when you take it out!"

"Mmmm~" The little girl nodded while eating, and Chen Xu was about to fry the second pot of rice candy.

And Wang Wu and Wang Qi squatted on the ground like two black bears, constantly eating fried chestnuts.

While a group of people were busy preparing snacks for the New Year, several horses were also coming along the winding mountain road, and soon came to the head of Xiaohe Village.