Farmer's eldest sister becomes rich

Chapter 296 Making Preserved Eggs

Use a shovel to shovel all the rice straw ash into a ceramic basin, and carry the basin into the kitchen.

The rice straw and lime are ready, and the next step is to make a fire and boil pine and cypress leaves, peppercorns and tea leaves.

An Yue cleaned the pot, put all the cleaned pine and cypress leaves and other ingredients into the pot, then poured in an appropriate amount of water, and started to light a fire to boil the water for the auxiliary ingredients.

——A quarter of an hour later.

The auxiliary water has been boiled.

An Yue carefully placed the lime into the ceramic basin, scooped up the freshly boiled auxiliary water from the pot, and poured it into the ceramic basin containing the lime, and the lime dissolved one by one.

After letting the lime cool down, An Yue took a hoe and a dustpan to the slope outside, dug up half a dustpan of fine yellow soil and brought it back.

When I got home, the melted lime had cooled down.

Then add a large amount of straw ash, a handful of salt, and an appropriate amount of fine yellow mud into the lime pottery plate, and stir all the materials in the pottery basin thoroughly.

Mix all ingredients until smooth and set aside.

An Yue went to get a basin of clean water and began to wash the duck eggs.

Clean the dirt off the duck eggs one by one, and then soak the duck eggs in a basin of salt water for a quarter of an hour.

I have been busy all the time and before I knew it, nearly two hours have passed.

After An Yue washed all the duck eggs in two basins, she placed them in a colander to drain the water.

At this time, Chunzhi and Meng Xiuer had already picked out the cocooned silkworms and walked into the kitchen to prepare lunch.

An Yue used a sieve to sift out some coarse rice bran from the rice bran she bought to feed the chickens and ducks and put it in a dustpan.

As soon as Meng Xiu'er and Chunzhi entered the kitchen, they saw the basins filled with sticky soil and black ash.

Meng Xiuer couldn't help but laugh and said, "What is Yueyue researching?"

An Yue, who was sifting bran, turned around and said, "Make preserved eggs."

Chunzhi squatted beside An Yue and asked curiously, "Miss, what is a preserved egg?"

An Yue had never done this before and didn't know how to explain it to them.

So, he smiled awkwardly and said, "Well, I'm afraid I can't explain it in a few words. Let's wait until it's done and everyone tries it together and then we'll know."

Soon, the rice bran was sifted.

Everything was ready, and An Yue began to wrap the duck eggs.

Chunzhi was squatting beside me, so I could ask Chunzhi to help wrap the bran. So I said, "Chunzhi, come and help me wrap the bran."

After saying that, An Yue gently rolled the duck egg in the sticky soil, then wrapped it with a layer of straw ash, and finally placed it in a dustpan filled with chaff.

An Yue taught Chunzhi how to wrap the chaff.

Soon, Chunzhi understood what An Yue meant.

The two of them cooperated very well. They put the duck eggs wrapped in bran into the large jar one by one.

At this time, Daniu and Ale came back carrying two baskets of locusts each.

An Yue looked at the locusts and asked with a smile, "Where did you two collect so many locusts?"

After putting down the basket, Daniu scratched his head and said with a chuckle, "We went...to the terraced fields in the west. There...there are the most locusts there."

An Yue nodded and praised: "Not bad, not bad, you have worked hard. These locusts are good things. Let's deal with them, put them in a large jar, seal them, and put them in the cellar to feed the chickens and ducks slowly."

After putting down his burden, Ale walked up to Anyue Chunzhi and asked in confusion, "Miss, why do you want to coat the duck eggs with mud and rice bran?"

Chunzhi smiled and said, "The young lady said that this is making preserved eggs."

Daniu and Ale repeated at the same time: "Preserved eggs?"

An Yue nodded while busying herself with the hair in her hands: "Preserved eggs can be preserved for a longer time, and they taste much better than boiled eggs. When they are cooked, I will make a cold preserved egg dish for you to try."

As he spoke, Ale swallowed his saliva and asked, "How long do we have to wait before we can eat?"

An Yue estimated and said, "It will take about a month. We have to wait until the duck eggs change color."

Chunzhi said excitedly: "Wow, hearing what the lady said, Chunzhi is actually looking forward to it!"

Everyone squatted down, gathered around the pottery basin, chatting and helping to make the work. After a while, they had wrapped the two basins of duck eggs in bran and put them into the jar.

An Yue looked at the full jar of preserved eggs and was very excited, but she didn't know if it would succeed.

She thought to herself that if she didn't have alkali powder, she could just wrap some straw ash on the duck eggs and leave them for a few more days and they should be able to succeed.

After the preserved eggs were cooked, everyone worked with An Yue to clean up the battlefield under the eaves.

"Let's prepare lunch!" Meng Xiuer shouted in the kitchen.

"Okay, sister-in-law." An Yue responded, then turned to Chunzhi and the others and said, "After lunch, let's boil all the locusts together, dry them in a winnowing basket, and then go back to the house for a nap."

"Okay, miss." The three of them replied while washing their hands.

……

After the family had lunch, everyone followed An Yue's arrangements. Meng Xiu'er handed over the firewood, Chunzhi washed the dishes, and Daniu Ale cooked the locusts.

An Yue was washing her cross-collared skirt that was stained with dog urine on the bluestone slab.

Three quarters of an hour later.

After everyone finished their work, they went back to the house to prepare for lunch break.

The sun was blazing brightly at noon, so hot that people would sweat even if they didn't move, lying in bed.

After much thought, An Yue decided that she had to deliver the herbs to the town tomorrow.

After the locust swarm attack, the number of patients in the pharmacy probably increased a lot.

After several days, I'm afraid the medicine in the pharmacy has run out.

An Yue rubbed his temples, planning to go to the west end of the village in the afternoon to talk to Li Wu about delivering the herbs tomorrow.

Before she knew it, An Yue felt sleepy and fell asleep.

……

When everyone woke up, it was already late afternoon.

When An Yue went to the back mountain to pick pine and cypress leaves, she took a quick look and found that the mugwort on the back slope was not eaten by locusts at all.

I think the mugwort on the back slope has already dried up, and insects are afraid of mugwort.

So, An Yue said to everyone, "Chunzhi, Daniu Ale, go and cut more mugwort. We will deliver the herbs to the pharmacy in town early tomorrow morning."

"Okay, miss." The three of them responded and turned around to get the backpack and sickle.

Because they went out to pick mulberry leaves before, An Yue taught Daniu, Ale, Chunzhi and others to recognize herbs. They already know more than ten kinds of herbs.

Now, if you tell them which herb you need, they can tell it apart.

They learned how to identify herbs, and An Yue felt that digging herbs now had less trouble.

After Da Niu and the other two went out with their backpacks, An Yue also prepared to go out with her backpack. She wanted to dig some other herbs.

I'll stop by Wang's house and ask them to bring all the dried herbs for weighing so that they can be sent to town tomorrow.

As An Yue put on the backpack, she heard someone outside beating a gong and shouting, "All villagers, gather at the west end of the village."

"All villagers..." he kept shouting.

An Yue opened the gate of the yard and saw that it was the village chief's son Li Jing who was beating the gong and shouting.