60s: I have a store

Chapter 168 Salt and Pepper Lobster

The old man and the old lady also helped out, doing chores like soaking glutinous rice.

Before making zongzi, you must soak the glutinous rice for a while, because soaking will make the zongzi more compact and the cooked rice softer. After soaking the glutinous rice in water, the glutinous rice will absorb water and swell, so the friction between the glutinous rice will be greater, and the zongzi will not fall apart.

A lot of materials need to be prepared, fortunately Zhou Yimin has abundant supplies.

"Okay, Yimin, wait for others to do it!" said the old man.

It's not for their family to eat. Since it's for other people to eat, they have to let others do some work as well.

Zhou Yimin nodded, stopped, and left the rest of the work to the women in the village.

Just then, Third Aunt came quickly with a few village women.

When they entered the door, they first greeted Zhou Yimin's grandparents before greeting Zhou Yimin.

When they entered the house, they saw the big bucket of sticky rice soaked in water and were amazed. Sometimes, Uncle Sixteen's generosity made them feel painful.

"The meat has been cut, you guys marinate it." Zhou Yimin said, giving direct instructions without any more politeness.

"Why are you cutting the meat?" someone asked puzzled.

Some people have seen meat dumplings before, so they asked, "Are they meat dumplings?"

He took a breath.

Meat is so precious nowadays? Only my Sixteenth Brother could think of using meat to make zongzi.

Who doesn’t like rice dumplings with meat?

Don’t say that northerners only like to eat sweet rice dumplings, not salty ones with meat. In today’s world, even if the rice dumplings are tasteless, people still like to eat them.

You know, no matter what, zongzi is also made of glutinous rice.

Rice itself is a fine grain, and many people want to eat it but cannot!

Not to mention salty rice dumplings with meat.

Zhou Yimin nodded: "There are also dates, beans, peanuts, etc., pack a little of each, in different flavors."

Speaking of meat dumplings, Zhou Yimin even recalled the mooncakes he had eaten as a child in his previous life, which also contained fatty pork. This also shows that people in the past were hungry for meat.

Mooncakes in the north and south seem to be different.

Among them, the most well-known in the south are Cantonese-style mooncakes and Suzhou-style mooncakes.

Cantonese mooncakes are world-famous, mainly because of their exquisite selection of ingredients and production techniques. They are characterized by their thin and soft skin, beautiful and exquisite shape, and exquisite packaging.

Su-style mooncakes are Su-style pastries, loved by people in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions. They are characterized by crispy crust, beautiful color, rich but not greasy fillings, and a crispy texture.

The biggest difference between it and Cantonese-style mooncakes is its puff pastry. The production process of Su-style mooncakes generally includes making puff pastry, wrapping fillings, shaping, baking, etc.

In his previous life, Zhou Yimin saw Su-style mooncakes and heard from his friends that they were also mooncakes, which shocked him so much that he was speechless. He had always thought that mooncakes were just like Cantonese-style mooncakes and that they were the same across the country.

In the north, there are Beijing-style mooncakes and Jin-style mooncakes.

Beijing-style mooncakes look a bit similar to Suzhou-style mooncakes. Both have crispy crusts, a bit like the mung bean cakes in the south.

On the contrary, Jin-style mooncakes are somewhat similar to Cantonese-style mooncakes, at least in appearance and shape.

The women brought rice dumplings and other things.

Otherwise, Third Aunt would just be calling a few people and it wouldn't take that long at all.

Knowing that Yimin would need to make so many rice dumplings and that there would not be enough rice dumplings leaves at home, they collected some from every household in the village and brought them over.

Next, it is time to soak the rice dumplings leaves, wash the rice dumplings leaves, etc.

There is a lot of work to do in making zongzi. After finishing all the preliminary work, the village women left tactfully and said they would come back after noon. The glutinous rice must be soaked for at least four or five hours!
In the village, everyone is already discussing making rice dumplings.

This kind of thing couldn't be kept secret, so several people were called in to help, and Zhou Yimin didn't intend to hide it.

"Uncle Sixteen really said he would give it to everyone to eat?"

"Nonsense! Can you finish hundreds of kilograms of glutinous rice?"

With the addition of other ingredients, it is no problem to wrap hundreds of dumplings, and it is not difficult for everyone in their village to get one.

"That's right, you are indeed the Sixteenth Uncle."

It is true that they can wrap hundreds of fist-sized zongzi. There are only a few hundred people in Zhoujiazhuang, so it is possible to give each person a zongzi to taste.

Everyone immediately became excited, as they had also heard that the rice dumplings might contain meat.

At noon, Zhou Yimin began to process the lobsters, first washing the surface of the lobsters clean.

Place the lobster head on a cutting board, use a knife to scrape off the spikes on the head, and then split the head in half.

Then open one side of the lobster head that has been split into two. The so-called opening is just like lifting the lid of a crab. Just grab one side of the lobster's large whiskers and break it apart.

After breaking it open, remove the dirt inside. Many parts of the shrimp head are inedible, and the internal organs are basically in the shrimp head.

Finally, chop the cleaned lobster into small pieces. Use the back of a knife to pat the relatively thick parts of the lobster's legs and whiskers so that they are neither broken nor shredded. This is to make it easier to absorb the flavor when frying.

In fact, if you want to steam it, you don't have to go through so much trouble. After cleaning, just put it on and steam it, then remove the dipping sauce and you can eat it.

But Zhou Yimin thought that his grandparents might not be used to eating steamed seafood, so he wanted to make a salt and pepper lobster dish.

I came to light the fire and while doing so, I watched carefully how my elder brother cooked this dish.

After processing the lobster, Zhou Yimin began to make pepper salt.

Peel and wash the garlic, then chop it into minced garlic. Take a quarter of the red pepper and cut it into small pieces like the minced garlic, and set aside.

The next step is to fry the Huai salt.

It is very simple to stir-fry Huai salt. The so-called Huai salt is a combination of table salt and five-spice powder.

Soon, the aroma was fried out.

The two little guys, Lai Cai and Lai Fang, were sniffing around the pot.

Fortunately, I have just changed my bad habit of blowing my nose, otherwise, I would feel uncomfortable listening to the sound.

Uncle San also came back from work.

The aroma was so delicious that he could smell it as soon as he got back to the area, and he couldn't help but quicken his pace. He couldn't help but follow his children's example and went to the kitchen to take a look.

"Shrimps this big, they must have become spirits, right?" he couldn't help but sigh.

Zhou Yimin: "I heard that the largest lobster of this kind weighs 30 to 40 kilograms, so this one is considered small."

Zhou Xuqiang widened his eyes and took a breath.

Thirty or forty kilograms of shrimp?
Scary!
"Take it out and prepare to eat." Zhou Yimin said again.

Then, he took out another bottle of red wine, which he also brought back today. There were 5 bottles in total, and 4 of them were kept with his grandfather!
"Grandma, please try it." Zhou Yimin picked up the best piece of lobster meat and gave it to his grandma.

The old lady smiled so hard that her teeth were showing and her eyes were not: "Okay! Yimin, you should eat more."

Zhou Xuqiang and his wife ate some lobster legs and were very satisfied. They even drank a small glass of so-called foreign wine. This was enough for Zhou Xuqiang to brag about for a week.

(End of this chapter)