Return to 1980 and be a matchmaker

After entering November, the wedding date of his eldest son is getting closer and closer. At this time, Deng Shirong is free, because everything that needs to be done has been done.

Now everything is ready, just waiting for the bride Zhang Xiuping to come in.

With nothing to do, Deng Shirong simply took his eldest daughter to make the most distinctive local dish of porridge and pickles - sour star fruit.

In the ballads about fruits in Bobai County, there is a line saying that carambola is a good business all year round. From this line, we can understand that carambola is a fruit with a very long fruit period and can be eaten basically all year round.

However, many people have indeed eaten carambola, but it is estimated that not many people know that there are not only common sweet carambola, but also a less common sour carambola.

The sour carambola fruit is large and sour, commonly known as "Sanmin". It is basically only produced in Tiandong, Baise, Luchuan, Yongning, Bobai and other places in Guangxi, and is very rare in other places.

This stuff is really so sour. If you eat it raw, not many people can bear the sour taste. So the locals in Bobai developed a way to make pickles with sour carambola, which is to slice the sour carambola into slices. Squeeze out the acidic water inside, wash and crush the local mountain ginger, then mix it with an appropriate amount of raw salt, and you will have a very delicious pickle, perfect for serving porridge.

In later generations, some people used the sour carambola to make a drink called "carambola water". This drink was basically not drinkable by locals. The taste was not only sour but also salty, so salty that it made the scalp numb. That kind of salty.

But this extremely unpleasant drink has brought millions or even tens of millions of income to the family that made it famous, and branches have opened from Bobai County to YL City.

The reason why this happens is because the main function of this sour carambola water is to reduce fire!

As mentioned before, southerners are troubled by heat all year round, especially in Guangdong and Guangxi. Therefore, just selling herbal tea in Guangdong and Guangxi has produced many millionaires and even multi-millionaires.

There are quite a few sour carambola trees in Naye Village, and they have a lot of fruits. When there are many carambola trees, they can even bear hundreds of kilograms of fruit.

Therefore, people in the village are not short of sour carambolas to make pickles, but some people can't eat sour and don't like to eat this pickle, so they don't pick them to make pickles.

There is no technical content in making sour carambola, and the father and daughter did not spend much time on it.

After sealing the jar, Deng Shirong smiled and said to his eldest daughter: "Azhen, your birthday is coming soon. This is your 18th birthday. You have truly become an adult. It deserves a good celebration. Tell me what you want." If you want any gift, dad will give it to you."

The eldest daughter’s birthday is on the tenth day of the eleventh month of the lunar calendar. Rural people in this era celebrated their birthdays according to the lunar calendar, and basically did not celebrate their birthdays according to the Gregorian calendar.

Deng Yunzhen shook her head and said with a smile: "Dad, I don't want any gifts. I'll prepare two good dishes when the time comes, and I'll accompany you and have some drinks."

Deng Shirong laughed when he heard this and said: "It is necessary to prepare some good dishes to celebrate. If you can't think of a gift, then dad will give you a birthday red envelope. Buy whatever you want."

Deng Yunzhen smiled and said, "Thank you, Dad!"

……

In a blink of an eye, Deng Yunzhen's birthday is here.

Deng Shirong directly bought a sheep and slaughtered it. In this era, beef and mutton were cheaper than pork, and a sheep only cost more than ten yuan.

Because the day after tomorrow is the big day for his eldest son’s wedding, and relatives and friends will arrive tomorrow afternoon, so today is his eldest daughter’s birthday. Deng Shirong did not invite relatives and friends to dinner. He just had a meal behind closed doors as a family, which was considered a celebration. !

Deng Shirong made three ways to eat this sheep. The lamb chops were grilled, the lamb legs were made spicy, and the rest was stewed in soup.

Deng Shirong taught his eldest daughter how to make every dish.

When teaching how to stew mutton soup, Deng Shirong said: "The mutton smell of sheep is relatively strong, and most people are not used to the stewed mutton soup. Of course, some people just like it, but there are really not many people in our village who can drink it." Mutton soup has a strong smell of mutton. So if you want to stew delicious mutton soup, you must find a way to get rid of the strong smell of mutton in the soup."

Deng Yunzhen asked: "Dad, you taught me how to use ginger and wine to remove the smell. Is this the same way to remove the smell?"

Deng Shirong smiled and said: "Just using ginger and wine to remove the mutton is not enough. There is a best way to remove the mutton in the mutton soup, and that is to use sweet potatoes."

"Use sweet potatoes?" Deng Yunzhen's forehead was full of questions after hearing this, and she couldn't figure out what the relationship between removing mutton in mutton soup and sweet potatoes was.

Deng Shirong nodded and said: "Yes, use sweet potatoes. When stewing mutton soup, you only need to put two peeled sweet potatoes in the soup. The sweet potatoes will absorb all the smell in the soup and make it more delicious. The mutton soup doesn’t taste bad at all.”

Deng Yunzhen said in surprise: "So magical?"

Deng Shirong smiled and said: "It's so magical. I'll stew this mutton soup later, and you'll know after you taste it."

After saying that, Deng Shirong started to work. He first blanched the mutton, took it out and washed it, then added clean water, and then added an appropriate amount of astragalus, angelica, dangshen, red dates and the like. As for the wolfberry, he would add it later.

When the fire came to a boil and then turned to low and simmered, Deng Shirong said: "You don't need to put the sweet potatoes in at the beginning. It won't be too late to wait for the mutton soup to simmer for half an hour."

Deng Yunzhen kept these key steps in mind one by one. Since she started learning cooking from her father, as her cooking skills continued to grow, she gradually fell in love with this feeling, especially when the dishes she cooked were recognized and praised by others. When I do it, I feel even more accomplished.

……

Six pm.

After Deng Yuntai came back from working in the tile factory, the family started dinner on time.

Although the food at home has been very good in the past few months, this was the first time for them to eat mutton. Therefore, Deng Shirong's children were greatly appetized when they saw the roasted lamb chops and spicy lamb legs on the table.

Deng Shirong tore a lamb chop for each of his children and said, "Okay, stop looking at it. This grilled lamb chop must be eaten while it's hot."

When the children heard this, they were no longer polite and raised the mutton chops in their hands to gnaw on them.

There was no surprise at all. They were all amazed by the taste of the grilled lamb chops, which were charred on the outside and tender on the inside. Everyone ate them with praise.

Then the spicy lamb leg is also a must-have. The texture is not the kind that is difficult to bite, nor the kind that is stewed to death, but spicy and chewy. After one bite, you want to take a second bite, and you can't stop at all. .

As for the mutton stewed in soup, it tastes equally delicious after being dipped in Deng Shirong’s secret all-purpose dipping sauce.

And the most amazing thing is that mutton soup, there is really no smell at all. After one sip, I feel that this world is really beautiful!

"Azhen, happy birthday!" Deng Shirong said, picking up the wine bowl.

Deng Yunzhen picked up the wine bowl, touched it with her father, and said, "Thank you, Dad!"

"Azhen, happy birthday!"

"Happy birthday, eldest sister!"

Deng Yuntai and other younger brothers and sisters also sent birthday wishes to Deng Yunzhen.

After taking a sip of wine, Deng Shirong took out a red envelope that he had prepared for a long time. He smiled and handed it to his eldest daughter: "Azhen, from today on, you are an adult. This is what dad gave you." Your adult red envelope.”

Deng Yunzhen reached out to take the red envelope with a smile on her face and thanked her father again.