Liu was a little worried: "Do you want to fry it? Is there enough oil at home, or... I'll go to your Aunt Zhou's house to borrow some?"
Xiaocao thought for a while, and said, "The catty of soybean oil I bought yesterday hasn't been touched yet, so it should be enough! However, white sugar is used to make bad fish, and it's too late to buy it now... I don't know if Aunt Zhou's has any..."
Zhou's family is recognized as one of the better-off families in the village. The men can earn money outside the home, and the women can also earn a lot raising chickens at home. The Fang family has never been harsh on children. If anyone in the village can borrow sugar, it is probably her family.
Liu took off her apron and said with a smile, "Let me ask, how much will it cost?"
Xiaocao said: "It's just seasoning, a handful is enough..."
"A small handful? Cao'er, maybe you don't know the price of white sugar? It costs two hundred and sixty yuan a catty! You can get dozens of copper coins for a small handful! Your aunt Zhou, No matter how much you love the child, you won't buy so many back." Yu Hai couldn't help reminding.
Xiaocao stared and said, "What? Candy is so expensive! My God, ordinary people really can't afford it..."
Mrs. Liu gave her a blank look, and said with a smile: "Sugar is not what ordinary people eat. What kind of fish do you cook? You need such expensive things as seasonings, so you can't even get back the cost?"
Xiaocao looked at more than a hundred small fishes pickled in the basin, and thought in her heart that if they were worth two pennies, it would be no problem to sell them for sixty or seventy pennies. If the bad fish is not seasoned with sugar, I am afraid that the taste will be much worse. If you put a little less... it should be fine, right
"Mother, I'll go to Aunt Zhou's house with you to have a look." Xiaocao stuffed the sweet potato that she gnawed a few mouthfuls into Xiaoshi's hand, stood up and followed Liu out of the gate.
After walking about 300 meters, he knocked on the door of Zhou's house. The person who opened the door was a young man with delicate features, twelve or thirteen years old, with a healthy wheat color, his eyes curved like crescent moons, and the corners of his mouth slightly raised. When not smiling, it also gives people the feeling of smiling, which makes people feel very eye-catching at first glance.
"Wenhua! Why didn't you follow your father to sell goods today?" Seeing the young man slightly surprised, Liu couldn't help asking.
Zhou Wenhua coughed twice, breathing heavily in his chest. He suppressed the itching in his throat, swallowed, and said: "When I came back yesterday, I took off my clothes due to the heat, but I caught the wind and felt uncomfortable. Dad asked me to rest at home for two days. Cough cough... Aunt Yu, Sister Xiaolian, are you here to look for my mother?"
Liu said with concern: "Have you asked the doctor to come and see it? Don't rely on your good health to drag a minor ailment into a serious one."
"I've seen it for Dr. You, and prescribed it. I've already taken it twice, and I feel much lighter. Ahem... Mum! Aunt Yu and Sister Xiaolian are here..." Zhou Wenhua seemed certain that she was Yu Xiaolian, Xiaolian Cao just laughed it off and didn't correct him.
Mrs. Fang came out of the house, saw the two of them, smiled and said, "Xiaocao is back from the pier! How is the business today? Your stewed dishes are so delicious, so many people must love them? - Wenhua, This is your sister Xiaocao, not Xiaolian. Xiaocao is slightly whiter than Xiaolian, her skin is also thinner, and she is a little shorter. If you don't look carefully, you really can't tell the difference. It is reasonable for you to admit your mistake. "
Zhou Wenhua touched the back of his head embarrassingly because he recognized the wrong person, and raised his smiling mouth, saying: "So it's Sister Xiaocao! In the past, it was Xiaolian who came with Aunt Yu, and I thought you were her. Hearing from Shanhu , Your body has recovered recently. Congratulations!"
A boy of twelve or thirteen years old is already so good at talking, he really is a material for a salesman. Xiaocao smiled at him, and said: "The previous few times, Brother Wenhua was not at home. Today is the first time we meet, and it is inevitable to admit mistakes. Sometimes my mother will not pay attention, and she will also mistake us! Who told us What about growing into a face?"
Zhou Wenhua was so amused by her pretended helplessness that his brows and eyes widened. His chest, which was heavy due to illness, seemed to be much more relaxed.
"Aunt Zhou, do you have white sugar at home? I want to make a new kind of food, without such a blind taste..." Xiaocao looked at Fang expectantly, afraid that if she said no, then today's bad fish would not be able to cook...
Fang smiled and said: "What a coincidence, if you had come one day earlier, my family really didn't have any. Yesterday when your Uncle Zhou came back from selling goods, he weighed forty or fifty yuan of candy for the children - you said you have that money, why don't you cut it more?" Some meat, or more white rice and noodles, but you actually bought that expensive thing... Linglong, give the leftover sugar from yesterday to Sister Xiaocao to taste!"
Although Fang's mouth was complaining, there was a smile in the corner of his eyes. From her and the man's point of view, it doesn't matter if they suffer a little, but they can't let the children be like them when they were young, they have never seen anything, and they go to the town to be pointed and pointed by people like country bumpkins.
Xiaocao took a look at Zhou Linglong's hand, and found that the so-called white sugar was a candy like old rock candy, no wonder it was sold for a penny.
From the bag of candies, she chose a piece of candy the size of an egg, about one or two weights, and it was worth fifteen or sixteen yuan, and said with a smile: "Aunt Zhou, I want this white sugar for I cook and sell it on the pier, how much is this piece of candy, I can’t make money, let you suffer... "
Mrs. Fang took a look at her, and said with a smile: "The relationship between our two families, what are we talking about? Your brother Wenhua is not feeling well, there is no taste in his mouth, and he has no appetite. I ate the stewed vegetables I brought back yesterday, but I didn't like it. No mouth, and I ate an extra bowl of rice. When you make new dishes, just send some to your aunt!"
Xiaocao thought for a while, nodded and said: "Okay! Even if you don't tell me, you won't forget to give you some to try. Thank you very much. It's almost time. I have to go back to fry fish..."
On the way back, Mrs. Liu didn't say anything, but she was thinking in her heart: "Although the fish is caught at home, it doesn't cost money, but there are only seasonings and oil, at least thirty or forty renminbi... Can this make money? "
When I got home, Xiaocao prepared all the seasonings and materials I needed. The fish was almost marinated, so I added half a catty of soybean oil to the iron pot on the stove and heated it up. When cooking, sprinkle some water into it to remove the fishy smell in the soybean oil.
Then remove the heat from the bottom of the pot, and when the oil is still 70% hot, put in the marinated small fish, fry them thoroughly one by one, and remove them.
The stoves in the countryside generally have two pots on the left and right, usually one for cooking and the other for cooking. Xiaocao put the chopped green onions, ginger, and garlic into another iron pot, spread a layer, put the fried fish on the bottom of the pot, put the larger ones on the bottom, and put the smaller ones on top.
Scoop out half of the base oil for frying fish, put the rest into shredded dried chili and stir-fry until fragrant, then add vinegar, sugar, rice wine, onion, ginger, garlic, pepper, fennel, cinnamon and other spices, and sprinkle with soy sauce. Seeing that the soup was running low, she added an appropriate amount of Lingshi water and brought it to a boil.
After boiling the soup, pour it on the fish in another pot, cover it with a tight wooden pot lid, and specially let the small stones pick up a few stones and press them on it for pressure. Cook on low heat for about two quarters of an hour (half an hour), turn off the fire at the bottom of the pot, and open the lid to cool.
Bad fish tastes best when it is cold. Xiaocao picked out a few smaller ones, and let her parents, Xiaolian and Xiaoshitou taste them. The bad fish is salty and sweet, sweet and spicy, and full of oily aroma. After frying and stewing, the small spines in the fish have been so rotten that they melt in the mouth. Even the head of the fish can be chewed and swallowed. . A whole small fish, nothing wasted.
"Not bad! Delicious!! Go, send some to your Aunt Zhou..." Mrs. Liu tasted one and was reluctant to eat it. These ones are all copper coins!
Xiaocao took the plate and filled it up, there were more than 20 sticks, and asked Xiaoshi to send it over. The rest found a clay pot and put them all in. She was going to get to the docks and sell them all before the dockers went home for supper.
Seeing that she was busy selling and cooking vegetables all day long, Xiao Lian said, "Sister, should I go to the pier with Shitou?"
Xiaocao got up early in the morning and rushed to the pier. After selling the marinated vegetables, she went to the market to buy ingredients such as pig heads and some seasonings. It was made into bad fish again, and I was really tired.
Thinking about the road that will take another hour, I really don't know if I can make it through. In the past two days, Xiao Shitou has figured out the process of the sale, so there shouldn't be any problems, right? However, she still exhorted with some uneasiness:
"Big fish, sell two for one penny, and sell the big ones first. If there are some small fish that are not easy to sell, then sell three for one penny. Anyway... if you can sell more, sell more."
Xiao Shitou said confidently: "Don't worry! I promise to complete the task!!"
After watching Xiaolian and Shitou leave, Xiaocao was not idle. She wanted to marinate all the packed pig's head, pig's belly, and pig's intestines, and they would sell them tomorrow morning.
Seeing that the pig's head and marinade had been put down, and the rest was left to simmer slowly, Mrs. Liu drove her daughter to rest:
"I'll just watch the rest... From now on, you will only be responsible for preparing the marinade, and leave the rest to us! Don't take everything on yourself—your body is better, so don't get tired!"
Xiaocao nodded and said with a smile, "Okay, okay! I know how to control the heat, and my mother is better than me! Then I'll be the shopkeeper!"
When she got out of the kitchen, she saw her dad was making a new net bag, so she leaned over and said, "Father, it's still early, why don't we go to the pond and bring back some fish?"
Yu Hai was quite moved, but looked at her with concern, and said, "Aren't you tired? It's better to go back to the house and lie down for a while, and have a rest! If you want to catch fish, dad will try it in the daytime tomorrow..."
After observing these days, Xiaocao has long discovered that the family is a typical strict mother and loving father. Generally speaking, when reprimanding and criticizing, it is Liu who plays the black face. But Yu Hai dotes on the child to the limit, especially for Xiaocao, he almost responds to every request.
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Thank you Chu Chu 602681807 for the red envelope, thank you Hua Youyang Youyu, Drunk Lying Among the Clouds, Wu_Miao Daidaicheng, Yuexia Tingyin 231721516 for your concern, and the elegy for sympathy.