Reborn in 1977

Chapter 37: Flavorful and Delicious

Eating 'slaughtered pig feast' is all about the atmosphere. Regardless of how well it's made, as long as there are many people and it's lively, eating it is a joy.

The atmosphere now is very good. On the large rice threshing ground, there's a large pot of stew to the south, a cutting board to the west, a large wooden basin for cleaning pig offal next to it, and freshly cut meat spread out on the other side.

Although many villagers had already gone home early, there were still quite a few left here at this time.

Chen Fan stood in front of another cutting board, and a basin of pig's blood was brought over, along with a basin of bone broth.

This bone broth was used to mix with the pig's blood, so naturally it didn't need to be boiled for too long. It could be used once it had some color. The pig bones could also be put back into the pot to stew other dishes, at least to add some meat flavor.

Captain Yang, Master Zhu and his two apprentices, Liu Jujiang, four villagers helping out, as well as Aunt Yang and three women of similar age, plus Yang Ju and Jiang Lili, surrounded Chen Fan in a semi-circle.

More than a dozen children stood in the distance, also peering curiously.

Seeing this situation, Chen Fan simply smiled and said, "It's better to practice once than to study a hundred times. Would anyone like to try? Who's coming?"

Liu Jujiang stood out without saying a word. Yang Ju looked at her parents and also stood out.

Jiang Lili was tempted to move, but was afraid of being accused of showing off, so she restrained herself and stood still.

Two other women also stood out.

So there were four people.

Chen Fan asked them to divide the ingredients into four portions, and then began to direct, while also explaining the tricks.

"The best ratio of pig's blood to bone broth is 1 to 1.3, that is, 1 jin of pig's blood plus 1 jin and 3 liang of broth. If there's no broth, hot water will do. You can't add too much broth, and you can't add too little. Too much and it won't form, too little and it will be too old and not tender enough. Add the scallions, ginger, garlic, and salt to the bone broth first..."

Master Zhu stood on the periphery, couldn't help but nod slightly, and said to Captain Yang, "You've found a treasure."

Captain Yang grinned from ear to ear, turned to look at him, "Of course, yesterday he taught the whole village how to cook soft-shelled turtle, and today he's teaching how to make blood sausage. Regardless of whether it tastes good or not, this intention is very rare."

Master Zhu nodded first, then shook his head, "This intention is indeed impeccable, but in my opinion, the most rare thing is that he doesn't keep it secret. Do you know what people are most afraid of when learning a craft from a master?"

Captain Yang, "What?"

Master Zhu's expression was very complicated, "The most afraid of is not being allowed to try!"

After a pause, he continued, "Just now, this young comrade said something that penetrated the essence of learning a craft, which is 'It's better to practice once than to study a hundred times'. When I was learning to slaughter pigs from my master, my master made me do odd jobs for him for 2 years before he was willing to teach me how to scrape hair. After scraping hair for another year, he let me make the first cut, and then slowly, slowly taught me how to blow air, how to skin, how to cut meat more smoothly. I studied for 5 years before I was considered to have completed my apprenticeship.

In fact, what's so difficult about slaughtering a pig? As long as you're willing to try and practice more, and the master gives more guidance from the side, pointing out the mistakes, you can be very smooth in half a year at most.

So I said this young comrade is good, he teaches real skills right away, which is very rare."

In this era, having a skill can be passed down from generation to generation, and some can even rely on their skills to get a job and enter the city. As long as Chen Fan's cooking skills are half as good as his eloquence, being recruited to the commune's guest house as a second chef probably wouldn't be a problem.

To teach a family's skills as soon as you learn them, I'm afraid only labor models in newspapers can do it.

Hearing Master Zhu's words, Captain Yang also nodded secretly, looking at Chen Fan with his hands on his hips, showing the demeanor of a great general, his eyes thoughtful.

Behind Master Zhu, his two apprentices couldn't help but look at each other, and they all showed bitter smiles.

They followed Master Zhu, doing odd jobs for 2 years, scraping hair for 1 year, and then they really started learning to slaughter pigs. After that, the master stopped doing it, and all the pigs assigned to their group were slaughtered by the two apprentices, and the master just sat and watched, and pointed fingers from the side.

According to what the master said, calculating the time, it would take another 1 year to complete their apprenticeship?

On the other side.

Seeing that someone was doing the work for him, Chen Fan thoroughly enjoyed the addiction of being a commander. These people were all used to kitchen work, and their movements were quick. In a short while, they had filled four sections of blood sausage.

Each blood sausage was 80 centimeters long, tied with a rope, and thrown into a large pot to cook.

At this time, Liu Jujiang also began to prepare his 'slaughtered pig feast', Jiang Lili and Yang Ju were both helping out, busy and bustling.

Aunt Yang led several women to put all the cut meat strips into a large wooden basin, then sprinkled salt in it, grabbed the salt and rubbed the meat strips vigorously. Each time a meat strip was rubbed, it was handed over to another person.

That person first used a knife to cut a small opening in the skin of the meat, and then used an S-shaped iron hook to thread it, and hung it on a bamboo pole to dry.

This was making cured meat. In addition to cured meat, there were also cured ribs, cured pig legs, pig heads, pig buttocks... truly not wasting a bit. In addition, some meat was left for filling cured sausages.

I don't know how long it took, or what time it was, Chen Fan was already dizzy with hunger, and finally all the dishes were prepared, and it was time to eat.

Today, they still divided into two tables. The men sat in the main room, and a large square table was also set up in the inner room. The four women who helped and Jiang Lili went inside to eat.

There were also more than a dozen children without seats, ranging from two or three years old to twelve or thirteen years old, who could only stand in the room with bowls to eat. A few of the older ones took a bowl full of food and ran outside happily to eat.

At this time, Chen Fan realized that these four women were all the wives of the men who had just helped build the stove and catch the pig, and those four people were all Captain Yang's own brothers.

In addition to the three sisters who married into other villages, the five Yang brothers were all here.

However, these were only blood brothers. If you counted the cousins, there were a full 23 Yang family generals of this generation.

Chen Fan couldn't help but click his tongue secretly, no wonder he could be the captain, there was strength in numbers!

A hole was dug in the middle of the large square table, and there was an iron frame underneath, holding a small charcoal stove, which was the one used to stew soft-shelled turtle soup yesterday. Now it was taken over, and a small round iron pot was set up on it.

Various parts of the pig, such as pig heart, pig lung, large intestine, pig bones, and streaky pork, were all placed in the pot. The meat pressed on the cabbage, and the soup was gurgling under the heat of the charcoal fire, emitting a rich aroma.

This was the 'slaughtered pig feast' made by Liu Jujiang, one pot of food was enough for a table of people to eat.

The dishes contributed by Chen Fan were next to it.

In addition to a plate of blood sausage and a plate of stir-fried pig liver, he couldn't help but cut half a jin of the plump streaky pork, added carrot slices, potato slices, and garlic sprouts, and stir-fried two plates of twice-cooked pork.

It's a pity that this wasn't Chenghua pig. To eat twice-cooked pork, you still have to use Chenghua pig meat, the others are a bit inferior.

Finally, plus Aunt Yang's stir-fried radish with pork cracklings, stir-fried red cabbage moss with pork cracklings, and stir-fried lotus root slices, it could be described as extremely rich.

Chen Fan also swallowed his saliva and couldn't help but sigh.

The day before yesterday, he was still thinking about how to live in this era, and that he might not be able to eat a piece of meat for a long time. As a result, it's only been two or three days since he came, what has he been eating?

Except for the first meal, which was stir-fried cabbage and egg custard prepared by Jiang Lili, the second meal was steamed soft-shelled turtle he made himself, the third meal was braised soft-shelled turtle eaten at Captain Yang's house, and he also drank a lot of wine.

The fourth meal was reheating the soft-shelled turtle from the first day back at the educated youth point, and it wasn't bad either. Now it's the fifth meal.

Slaughtered pig feast!

This life is flavorful and delicious.