Xing'an Mountains 1984: Starting from climbing mountains to support the family

Chapter 17 How can you be a father like you, playing in the mud with your children?

After the clay balls are rolled, they must be dried in the shade before being buried under the stove. If they are not dried in the shade, they will easily crack and such clay balls will have little power.
Of course, there are also clever ways to do this, such as adding salt to the mud. Adding salt to the soil will make it resistant to high temperatures, and the more it is burned, the harder and stronger it will become.

As we all know, the Northeast region is rich in black soil rich in organic matter, but in fact, the black soil in the Northeast is only located at the top layer of the land. There is a lot of sticky yellow mud in the layer below the black soil, and there is no shortage of such yellow soil in Jiuqutun.

Chen Weidong took a shovel and walked out of the yard. After digging up the soil about 40 centimeters thick, he saw the yellow mud underneath. Then he dug out a lot and brought it back to the yard.

Then, stir it and add salt to the soil.

Then he rolled the soft yellow mud into long strips, used small pieces of wood to divide them into small pieces as evenly as possible, and used his hands to make small mud balls.
A few little guys followed suit and started playing with mud!
In his previous life, he had never played like this with his daughters, and Chen Weidong was happy to take them to play in the mud.

After more than an hour of work, more than a hundred yellow mud pellets were formed, and the little ones' hands were dirty.

Xiaowu's face was covered in dirt like a kitten, and Xiaoliu, who had crawled over at some point, was even dirtier. He sat on the ground with mud in his hands, babbling.

"Weidong, look at how you can be a father. You are already so old, but you still take your child to play in the mud!"

When Liu Xueting saw Chen Weidong playing in the mud with the children, she couldn't help but roll her eyes at him, then picked up Xiaowu and Xiaoliu and wiped her face and clothes.

Chen Weidong laughed dryly, then put more than a hundred formed mud balls into the stove, and then took the children to wash their hands.

Then he grabbed two younger kids and played with them for a while.

Children are very interesting. In his previous life, Chen Weidong was busy traveling every day and had no time or mood to spend time with the little ones.

In the blink of an eye, it got dark!

The badger meat had been marinated by Liu Xueting. At this time, the blood had already come out of the badger meat soaked in water by Chen Weidong.
While Chen Weidong was cleaning the badger meat again, Liu Xueting steamed the rice again and started to light the fire and boil water.

"Weidong, how do you prepare badger meat? Badger meat is quite fishy. Is your preparation edible?"

Liu Xueting had cooked badger meat before. It was a badger caught in the mountains when Uncle San was not yet eaten by wild boars. She brought a piece of badger meat for Chen Weidong's family to eat. However, the meat cooked by Liu Xueting had a fishy smell and was difficult to swallow.

"Wife, just look at the badger meat I made. I guarantee you'll want to eat more after eating it."

Although Chen Weidong thinks he is in his sixties or seventies now, he feels much younger in his heart when facing his young wife and young children.

"You Northeastern gentlemen just love to brag!"

Liu Xueting shook her head in disbelief.

"Xue Ting, then you better watch out!"

While chatting and laughing with his wife, the water boiled. After the water boiled, Chen Weidong put the badger meat into the boiling water.

Use a spatula to stir constantly and skim off the blood foam.

When there is no more blood foam, take out the badger meat and set it aside.

After cleaning the pot, Chen Weidong scooped a spoonful of oil and put it into the pot.

With a sizzling sound, Chen Weidong poured the badger meat into the pot and began to stir-fry it. When the badger meat was stir-fried until golden brown, he took it out.

Add oil, onion, ginger and garlic again, and stir-fry the badger meat in the pan again.

Some loose baskets were also put in to remove the fishy smell. Loose baskets refer to bulk liquor. The one Chen Weidong took is local liquor made from corn. It can be directly boiled in a boiler, so people can drink it even if they don't have money at home.

In this era, almost all the men in Northeast China drink alcohol. Even if they can't have a full meal, they still have something to drink.

Especially in Northeast China, when the weather is cold, drinking alcohol can help keep warm. But for men like Chen Weidong who usually do such tiring work, their bodies cannot bear it without drinking some alcohol!
Therefore, Chen Weidong usually treasures the wine at home and is willing to drink a little bit every day.

In fact, Chen Weidong also knows a way to remove the fishy smell, which is to use heavy oil and heavy ingredients.

In addition to adding chili peppers and cooking wine to remove the fishy smell, you can also add more oil and increase the amount of various seasonings. This is called heavy oil and heavy seasonings.

This method is usually used by chefs to deal with stale meat. After stir-frying for a while, Chen Weidong added a large amount of water to the pot and told Liu Xueting to watch the pot and simmer it over low heat.

After the badger meat is stewed, the rice is also steamed!

Then, the family sat at the table.

"Wife, try it and see if your man is blowing it."

Chen Weidong immediately picked up a piece of meat and handed it to Liu Xueting's bowl.

Liu Xueting tasted it tentatively, then looked at Chen Weidong with disbelief.

"How is it, wife? I soaked it for so long and added some fennel to remove the fishy smell!" said Chen Weidong.

"It's delicious! I didn't expect your cooking skills are so good. When did you learn it?"

Liu Xueting blinked, her black hair spread out behind her, her fair and delicate face had a blush, and there seemed to be stars twinkling in her pair of dark and bright eyes.

"Weidong, why are you staring at me like that? Is there something on my face?"

"Ahem~" In front of the child, he still didn't say the words "Because you are so beautiful".

"No, I saw a chef making it in a local restaurant," Chen Weidong made an excuse.

Hearing mom say it's delicious, the little ones are eager to try it.

Chen Weidong served a bowl to each of the little ones.
"Dad, it's delicious~"

"Mmm, dad's cooking is so delicious!"

"..."

After dinner, Chen Weidong came to the stove and began to take out the mud balls from the stove.

Not all mud balls were baked well. There were probably more than ninety usable finished products. Chen Weidong took a mud ball and found that it was indeed very hard, no less than ordinary pebbles.

The key is that they are all about the same size and very regular.

"Whether we can beat the Greyhound tomorrow depends on you!"

At night, under the kerosene lamp that had just been filled with kerosene.

Chen Weidong was sewing a cloth bag to hold the mud balls. The cloth was cut from his own worn-out clothes. The cloth was precious and there was no extra cloth at home.

Liu Xueting came over.

"Children, are you all asleep?"

"Sleep! What are you doing? Why did you cut the nice clothes? Although the clothes are a little torn, they can still be worn!"

Liu Xueting said with heartache.

"Make a cloth bag to hold the mud balls so that we can go hunting in the mountains tomorrow. When we make money, will you still worry about me having nothing to wear?"

Chen Weidong smiled.

"Look at what you're doing! You're so clumsy, let me do it!"

Liu Xueting didn't say anything more. She was not the kind of person who asked questions.

(End of this chapter)