Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
The sausage required a little more effort. They washed the meat, cut it into small pieces, and marinated it with various seasonings. It was put into the casing at noon the next day. After that, it was also hung on the stove to be smoked naturally.
Ms. Fang made the sausage whilst Ms. Xu and Yang Xiaoni killed the ducks.
It wasn't very easy to remove the feathers from the 12 ducks, so Taotao and
Qiao Xuan helped as well.
The method of making smoked ducks was similar to that of smoked meat. They just needed to clean the whole duck and hang it up. The duck selected for wax duck needed to be fat, otherwise it would only have a skeleton without meat after drying, and it would not taste good.
They processed 12 ducks, and kept away quite many duck feet, duck liver, duck blood, duck intestines, and duck gizzards, which were all wonderful things.
The family decided to eat hot-pot that night. This was the pot that Qiao Xuan had asked a craftsman to make because she was greedy for it. They used the pork ribs bought the previous day to make the soup base. After boiling them, they simply stir-fried it to make a spicy pot bottom, just enough to make a double-tasting pot.
Apart from the intestines, they had a few more vegetables prepared, such as yam slices, wax gourd slices, shiitake mushrooms, taro slices, winter bamboo shoots, spinach, coriander. Some fish slices, and fried meat-filled egg dumplings were also made. This accounted for a lively meal.
Sure enough, they had never expected that when the intestines were put into the spicy pot, they could obtain such wonderful taste.
They really wished to kill 12 more ducks the next day!
The smoked meat and sausages were apparently not enough. Ms. Fang decided to buy some more meat to make another batch, so they could be hung on the stove and sundried for later use.
Qiao Xuan was greedy for sweet-tasting smoked sausages.
Ms. Fang was surprised. "Sweet-taste? With sugar?"
"Yeah!" Qiao Xuan smiled. "But salt and other seasonings should be used as well, not too much, but sugar has to be enough. It would be good, trust me!"
Ms. Fang smiled and agreed to her request readily. "I am just curious. I trust you! Let's make some soon, and we are all going to have a taste of such smoked sausages!'
So, it was decided that they were going to make 15 kgs of sweet-tasting smoked sausage.
When the smoked meat and sausage were settled, they were all motivated to make some smoked fish!
Qiao Xuan thought of the water pool she found when she entered the mountain before, so she said to Qi, "Why don't we go there? The fish in the deep pond are bigger, and it's the best for making smoked fish! Although there are big fish in the river, the number is relatively less. Also, the three-finger-wide small fish, or mandarin fish, or yellowhead catfish are not suitable for making smoked fish!"
But the pond was a little far from the village, and they needed to have water with them to keep the fish alive, otherwise carrying it around would be too troublesome.
Also, dead fish would not be good for making smoked fish.
So, they asked Shao Dalang and Ms. Xu to go together.
Qiao Xuan had been thinking about the fish in the pond for a long time, and the fishing net was very rewarding! When pulling it to the shore, they could see countless big fish jumping around alive and kicking, revealing their snow-white belly.
Large grass carp, Asian carps, and crucian carp that were more than a foot long were caught and put into buckets.
The smaller ones were all thrown back into the pond.
The harvest from two more nets was enough.
Shao Dalang, Ms. Xu, Shao Sanlang and Yang Xiaoni each had one bucket with them and they went back to the village together.
The fish was large in size, and just four of them filled up a bucket.
But there was enough to take back when they were all together.
There was no other problem except for the distance.
On the way back to the village, they ran into a few villagers who had gathered around to watch the show..