Dreaming of Lion Rock: Recipe in Hand

The next day, it started to drizzle. The mist was hazy and the Lion Mountain was surrounded by clouds and fog, as if countless gods were flying in the clouds. At the foot of Lion Mountain, countless villagers braved the rain and started this year's spring planting vigorously. The mountains and the mountains were full of busy spring scenery.

Chunni followed the village ladies to the paddy field.

The seedlings are now grown in well-maintained paddy fields, one by one, like sweet and delicious matcha chocolate.

Chunni walked into the field without wearing shoes, carrying a basket on her back, and started pulling out seedlings.

Dong Lin didn't go far, he just played with the village children beside the paddy field.

Some teenagers also went to the fields today. After all, pulling out rice seedlings doesn't require much skill, and it's also a day of playing and earning work points. Who doesn't want to earn work points?

Wen Hua, a little girl from the Wen family next door, was one of them. At this moment, she felt that the hard work that adults talked about was not that hard at all, but rather very interesting. Therefore, she chatted with Chun Ni while pulling the seedlings.

"Chun Ni, you know, our family spent a bag of sweet potatoes yesterday."

"Well, I heard that your eldest brother finally got married." Chunni had something on her mind and just replied perfunctorily.

"Yes, it's not easy! We have a big family and eat a lot, but we owe the production team a lot of grain. Finally, my eldest and second brothers can earn work points, and we have to find wives for our brothers, and have children and raise them in the future. When will this day end? You don't even know that our family spent a whole bag of grain to find a wife for my eldest brother! Oh! Life has returned to the days before liberation. We started eating two meals a day today, oh."

Wen Hua didn't mind Chun Ni's perfunctory attitude. She continued to talk to herself and sighed. It was unclear whether she was dissatisfied with her elder brother using sweet potatoes to marry his wife, or with her current poor life.

Yang Ersao, who was pulling up seedlings nearby, took over the conversation.

"I heard that the Wang family is so poor that they want to live with their daughter, so they let her go to your house. Otherwise, their family won't have enough food to last until the summer harvest."

The Wang family lived in the neighboring Taiping Town. Unlike Shizi Village, it had mountains and water, and the fields were relatively fertile, so no one starved to death.

Their town is located in the mountains, with little land and poor soil, and the land produces little. It is not easy to get enough food to keep the whole family alive.

"It's better to say that you are selling your daughter than marrying her off. She brought nothing with her except two sets of tattered clothes." Wen Hua's dissatisfaction was revealed in her few words.

Although Chunni likes to listen to gossip, she doesn't like to talk about other people's faults.

After hearing this, Chunni stopped talking.

"Don't say that. Although she looks skinny, she is very strong. Your family has added another person who earns six work points." After saying this, Yang Ersao glanced at Aunt Wang and her new daughter-in-law who were walking over, and immediately shut up.

It's really embarrassing to talk about other people's gossip and be caught by the person involved.

Aunt Wang glared at her daughter fiercely before leaving with the new bride. She was going to report to the production team leader that the new bride would earn work points today.

"Hmph." Wen Hua was a little unconvinced, but fortunately she stopped complaining.

Everyone in the field was busy with their work and no one spoke.

"Ahhhhhhh!" Suddenly, Wen Hua's voice broke the silence.

"Ah, leech, leech, it, I, there is a leech on my calf!" Wen Hua's voice was filled with a hint of crying and a little fear. She was really scared. This was her first time working in the fields and she encountered leeches.

The leech burrowed into Wen Hua's body through her pores. When Aunt Sun came over, half of the leech had already burrowed into Wen Hua's calf.

Without hesitation, Auntie Sun caught the leech with her rough hands and pulled it out. The leech seemed to sense the danger and, desperately, slithered out of Wen Hua's body like a moth to a flame.

Wen Hua was so frightened that her whole body was shaking.

Chunni tried hard to suppress her nausea and yelled: "Wenhua, don't move! Stand still! Don't make trouble. Let me pull the leech out!" Get the leech away quickly, it's so disgusting!

Wenhua had never seen Chunni lose her temper, and her eyes widened in shock.

It seemed that Auntie Sun and the leech were in a tug-of-war. The leech's body doubled in length from a few centimeters. Fortunately, Auntie Sun won the battle in the end.

"Huahua, you're lucky that the leech hasn't gotten into your pores yet, otherwise, humph." Aunt Sun is in her fifties and has seen a lot, so she doesn't want to scare the little girl.

But everyone understood the hidden meaning.

There are stories circulating in Lion Rock about leeches drilling into pores and sucking blood. It's even more disgusting, isn't it!

Aunt Sun took the leech to the edge of the field and smashed it to pieces to prevent the little creature from harming people again!

Wen Hua sobbed softly. After this experience, the little girl realized how difficult it was to go out to work!

This was the first time Wenhua encountered such a thing when working in the fields. I believe she has a psychological trauma after going to the fields again.

It was only until the team leader Yang Longchang came over to urge them that everyone got back to work.

This is the reality. No matter how hard life is, we have to go on, right?

At nightfall, Chunni rubbed her sore waist and took Donglin back home. She was surprised to see several thumb-sized eels in the basin in the yard.

Chunni was so happy that she asked Qiuguo who came out to greet her, "Where did the yellow eel come from?"

"My second brother caught this in the field. Sister, how are we going to eat it?" Qiu Guo was also very happy. It had been a long time since I had eaten meat.

Chunni thought about it, took out a bunch of red peppers from the corner of the kitchen, opened the jar of sauerkraut, and took out a handful of sauerkraut.

"Let's cook the eel with sauerkraut." Chunni couldn't help swallowing her saliva as she hadn't eaten meat for a long time.

Xia Zhi, who had changed his clothes, also came to the yard and looked at his elder sister with a smile.

Chunni looked at her brother who was seeking praise and nodded with amusement, "You've been fooling around all day long, but you caught the eels well."

Xia Zhi found a rusty nail from home and nailed it to a piece of rotten wood. Chunni watched him nail the eel's head to the nail expertly, cut it with a knife, pulled it, threw away the internal organs, and the eel was done.

"I didn't know you had this skill." Chunni praised.

Xia Zhi was silent for a while before replying, "I've seen my father do this before."

As soon as the words fell, the room was filled with silence.

Chunni thought of the original owner's parents who had passed away young, and could only sigh.

"Yes! Dad is so outstanding. I hope you can become a man like him in the future." Chunni forcedly changed the subject.

Summer raised a bright smile, as if the haze just now did not exist.

"Yes." He was sure!

Chunni didn't want to continue this topic, so she turned around and took out some sauerkraut from the jar, then chopped the sauerkraut, pickled peppers and ginger into pieces.

Qiuguo had already started the stove, and the fire was burning brightly, making her pale face look a little rosy. She put corn stalks into the stove in silence.

She doesn't say anything, maybe she's missing her parents!

Chunni thought to herself.

She scooped a small piece of lard from the small jar beside the stove and put it in the pot, then added some rapeseed oil, added bean paste and pickled cabbage, and then added the eel slices, stirring constantly. Then she added half a bowl of water and boiled it together, waiting for the eel to cook.

Chunni was thinking about the unfinished Mapo Tofu in the "Food Classic" and fell into deep thought.

This cookbook is quite smart. Most of the menus in it are simple home-cooked dishes, and the ingredients required are also simple ingredients that Chunni can get. Moreover, it seems to be more in line with local characteristics. For example, Mapo tofu and fish-flavored pork shreds that appear during the Chinese New Year are all Sichuan dishes. Maybe it’s because Shizishan Village is a remote mountain village in Sichuan.

I don't know if there will be recipes from other regions when she is able to leave the mountains, such as Shandong cuisine, Jiangsu cuisine, and Cantonese cuisine. Chunni is looking forward to it.

After a while, the eel was cooked. It was served with the standard sweet potato and rice. It was so delicious.

After this meal, Xia Zhi would bring back some eels from time to time. When there were fewer, he would roast them, and when there were more, he would braise them.

This is the only color during the busy farming season.

Time flies by in this busyness. Finally, the seedlings grow steadily in the field. As long as the seedlings grow roots and firmly grasp the soil in the field, even heavy rain cannot wash away these thriving seedlings. This spring planting is perfectly completed.