"Good girl! Then I'll leave my little sister to you!" Jiang Yu squatted down and gave her daughter a big kiss. She went back into the house to get her basket and, taking advantage of the fact that there was no dew in the afternoon, hurried up the mountain to pick tea leaves.
Jiang Xiaoman took a lollipop from her basket and gave it to Shan Guo. She then filled Shan Hua's water cup with warm water, set up her tripod and phone, and began preparing dinner.
Today he plans to host a special event featuring mountain delicacies for his fans.
Autumn is the season with the most delicious food in the mountains. However, the mountain people rely on this season to make money, so they usually pick out the best-looking mountain delicacies or wild fruits first and take them to the market to exchange for money. Only the rest can be eaten by their own family.
"Actually, real rural life isn't as glamorous as everyone imagines. People rely on this one month to earn money all year round. They don't have time to eat big meals every day, and they can't afford to eat those expensive delicacies. So the dishes I'm making for you today are all made from the scraps that people here usually eat. Please don't mind them."
Jiang Xiaoman doesn't really like post-production dubbing. He prefers to chat with his fans while making videos. He briefly introduced the dishes he was going to make that night to the camera, and then rolled up his sleeves and got to work.
On their way back, he and Jiang Yu casually picked two handfuls of water celery, a bag of bitter lettuce heads, and a small pocket of tender houttuynia cordata sprouts.
First, wash the houttuynia cordata clean, cut it into a few pieces, add salt, chicken essence, rice vinegar, sesame oil, light soy sauce, and the chili oil that was fried earlier, mix well, and pour it into a bowl. This way, it will be easier for it to absorb the flavors when marinated in advance, and it will taste better when eaten.
First, blanch the bitter lettuce head, then rinse it three times with clean water to remove the surface slime. Squeeze out the excess water and set aside. This wild vegetable is commonly eaten in the mountains. It is a perennial herbaceous plant, similar to chrysanthemum leaves. The more you pick it, the more it grows. It is found everywhere in fields and along roadsides. It is usually used to stir-fry with cured meat.
Wash the water celery and cut it into sections. Stir-fry it in a pan just before serving. It only takes two minutes to cook.
There are many young men coming to dinner tonight. As the people in the mountains say, boys this age can eat up their parents' entire savings for their funerals. They have huge appetites, so Jiang Xiaoman needs to prepare a few hearty meat dishes.
These past few days, Shan Yan has been buying wild mushrooms to resell. His house is piled high with wild mushrooms that he picked out because they weren't good-looking. Customers definitely wouldn't want these, so he usually keeps them for his own consumption.
Jiang Xiaoman carried two large plastic basins over, along with a tripod, and began selecting ingredients for tonight's meal in front of the camera, chatting with her fans as she did so.
"These are the wild red mushrooms that sold for 1,000 yuan per kilogram in the first batch before. Didn't you guys say they were too expensive to afford before? Haha, now you can buy them and eat them. I just asked, and today the price of wild ones has dropped to 500 yuan per kilogram."
"If you're just eating at home, you can go when the vendors are about to pack up. You can usually find some bargains there. When the market closes, you can still find people selling what others have left over, even if you bargain down to just over 100 yuan per kilogram."
"These are all the defective products that we picked out before selling them. We usually keep them for ourselves. If we can't finish them, we dry them and use them to make chicken soup in winter. They taste so delicious!"
After picking out a few wild red mushrooms that were of slightly better quality, Jiang Xiaoman then picked up some pine mushrooms from the side.
The pine mushrooms that are left over after picking are usually those whose caps are fully open or whose caps were broken during harvesting and transportation.
"Actually, the taste is no different when the umbrella is fully open; it's just that it doesn't look as nice. But you can't tell the difference when you cut it open and stir-fry it. If you're just eating it at home, I still recommend you buy this kind because it's cheap!"
“Those small mushrooms with unopened caps would cost at least eighty yuan a pound now, but in our rural markets, the ones that aren’t very appealing and are left over only cost twenty or thirty yuan a pound, and they taste just as good.”
After selecting the ingredients, Jiang Xiaoman took a vegetable basket and went to Jiang Yu's vegetable garden to pick a basket of vegetables.
Just as I was squatting by the door washing vegetables, Shan Yan's apprentices returned. Each of them was dressed the same way, carrying a large basket on their back, a small basket around their waist, and several plastic bags hanging on the sides of the large basket.
"Wow? You guys struck it rich today?" Jiang Xiaoman couldn't help but feel envious after seeing what the others had gained.
No way, this is all money!
He won't be picking tea leaves tomorrow either; after filming the video, he'll go mushroom picking! To make money!!
Chapter 121
"Brother Xiaoman, you're the chef today? That's great! Can I order something?" Qingshan was quite familiar with Xiaoman, so he put down his basket and came over to help him wash the vegetables, all the while asking for a kickback.
"Tell me what you want to eat first. Don't think about anything too complicated, I'm busy today."
"Hehe~ It's definitely not difficult! I picked two bags of white-headed mushrooms this afternoon. Can you ask Brother Xiaoyu to kill a chicken tonight? We can make chicken stew with white-headed mushrooms!"
"You, Qingshan! You don't dare to kill the chickens your master raises, but you're here trying to get me to stand up for you?" Jiang Xiaoman punched him.
"Brother Xiaoman, why don't you go ask him? Brother Xiaoyu definitely wants to eat it too! You don't believe me? Go ask him!"
"No need to ask, kill it! You've made so much money, and you can't even bear to eat a chicken. What's the point of all that hard work?" Jiang Yu returned carrying a basket of tea leaves.
"Hey! I'll go catch a chicken!" Qingshan rubbed his hands together and ran to the chicken coop to catch a chicken.
"It's so much better that you live in this old mountain valley. There are wild tea trees right outside your door. Unlike where we are, we have to travel all day to pick some wild tea!" Jiang Xiaoman was incredibly envious when she saw that Jiang Yu had returned so quickly.
Although Laoshan Aozi is a bit remote, it has a lot of good stuff!
Qingshan quickly grabbed the chicken. Although the boy was greedy, he still understood reason. He knew that his master's family had three children who needed to eat eggs every day, so he didn't dare to grab the hen that laid eggs. Instead, he grabbed a big rooster with bright feathers.
"Save the chicken blood for me. I'll stir-fry it with the chicken giblets and chili peppers for you guys later," Jiang Xiaoman instructed.
A rooster weighing a full six pounds was cut into pieces and filled a stainless steel basin!
It just so happened that Qingshan and the others had picked up a lot of white-headed mushrooms on their way back today, so Jiang Xiaoman asked them to help. They washed half a basin of white-headed mushrooms and cut each mushroom in half for later use.
Heat oil in a wok, add ginger slices and garlic and stir-fry until fragrant. Add chicken pieces and stir-fry until the surface of the chicken changes color. Add white mushrooms and continue to stir-fry. Season with salt and two dried chilies. Locals would like to add a handful of Sichuan peppercorns to this white mushroom and chicken dish for better flavor, but Jiang Xiaoman didn't add any because she had a child at home. She planned to serve a bowl to Shan Guo first and add Sichuan peppercorns to the rest after it was done.
He and Jiang Yu bought half a pig in town. First, they cut out the best ribs and chopped them into small pieces. They blanched the red mushrooms and drained them. Then they stewed a clear wild red mushroom and pork rib soup to nourish their friends.
After all, in order to make this quick money, these young men got up before dawn every day, carried a few roasted potatoes into the mountains, and ran all day long. When they came back in the evening, they checked their WeChat steps and found that each of them had more than 50,000 steps!
No matter how strong they are, after these few days of staying up late, everyone has dark circles under their eyes, and their muscles and bones ache from exhaustion at night. Some even need to drink some rice wine to fall asleep.
Wild red mushrooms are good for replenishing qi and blood, so stewing them at this time of year is the perfect way to eat them.
Jiang Xiaoman cut the remaining pork belly into palm-sized slices, skin and all, and made four bowls of steamed pork with rice flour.
I even specially reserved a piece of high-quality pork belly, sliced it, and stir-fried it with pine mushrooms and garlic slices. This dish is fragrant, not spicy, and suitable for children.
A large table was laden with dishes, and everyone ate without even looking up.
Shanyan and Ahu hadn't returned from selling mushrooms yet, so Jiang Xiaoman left them a little of each kind of vegetable. After finishing that, while the others were boiling water to take a bath, he quickly found a corner with a good signal, edited the video he had taken that afternoon, and uploaded it. Then he busied himself preparing to film the video of frying tea leaves.
At 7:30 p.m., most netizens had finished dinner and were comfortably playing on their phones on the sofa when a line of small text popped up at the top of the screen: "The rural Xiaoman brother you are following has updated."
Huh? This is an early update today?
Perfect timing! After a long day of work/study, watching Xiaoman's videos can help relieve stress.
When you open the video, you are greeted by lush green mountains, a vast bamboo forest in the distance, a blue sky, wild chrysanthemums with newly sprouted flower buds, and Xiaoman, who is picking wild vegetables while climbing the mountain. Yes, this is the slow-paced rural life they want!
Immediately afterwards, Jiang Yu, the handsome young man, went to pick tea leaves with a basket on his back. Jiang Xiaoman started cleaning the wild vegetables she picked along the way. Sigh, it's so good to live in the mountains. We eat all kinds of organic and pollution-free wild vegetables. Unlike them, they don't know how to cook when they buy vegetables. Ordering takeout is expensive, and they worry about eating gutter oil. It's too difficult!
Just as the fans were silently lamenting their stomachs, Shan Yan's apprentices appeared on camera.
Fans: "!!!"
Ahhhh! Isn't this the same handsome men who went honey gathering in the deep mountains last time?
Heavenly Bodhisattva! What kind of divine interaction is this?
More country-style delicacies!
Another handsome guy with abs!
With so many benefits, they didn't know which one to look at first.
Qingshan and his friends weren't the clean-cut boys that were popular these days. On the contrary, they had just come back from picking mushrooms in the mountains, and they were all dirty. Their heads and faces were covered with grass clippings, and their hands were stained with the mushrooms, making them look rather slovenly.
But, what was that saying again?
Good-looking people are handsome even if they're wearing a burlap sack.
A group of fifteen- or sixteen-year-old boys, in the prime of their youth, with handsome features and amber eyes staring curiously at the camera, caused the women on the other side of the camera to gasp, their hearts pounding with a thousand screams!
"Ahhhhh! This fairy's mortal heart has been moved!"
"Mom, I'm sorry! I suddenly want to be in a relationship again!"
"I need to tag the hottest matchmaker on the internet immediately! I need all of Qing Shan's information within one minute!"
"I like the guy with the big eyes behind Qingshan, he looks so handsome when he smiles!"
"Brother Xiaoman, forget about the tea leaves, hurry up! Hang these young men on the shared bike!"
...
The comment calling for the removal of Ofo bikes quickly rose to the top of the comment section with over 50,000 likes.
Jiang Yu came across this video while taking care of her child. She almost died laughing when she saw the comments section. She pointed it out to Shan Yan and said, "Brother Yan, look! There are so many netizens asking Xiao Man to hang me on a shared bike. There are over 10,000 likes!"
Shan Yan had just finished showering when he leaned over for a look and immediately frowned: "Buying and selling people is illegal."
"Pfft~ What? They were just joking. So many people want to buy me, which means I'm very charming!" Jiang Yu proudly gave the comment a thumbs up.
"Do you really want someone to buy you? What would you do with it?" Shan Yan sneered, took his phone, threw it on the bedside table, and pulled back the thin blanket.
Jiang Xiaoyu, you've really made something of yourself by having an emotional affair in front of your own man!
...
It's true that people have different fates!
While Jiang Xiaoyu and her partner were enjoying themselves in the master bedroom, Jiang Xiaoman, a typical office worker, was diligently kneading green leaves in the tool shed in the front yard.
The steps for making tea cakes are actually similar to those for frying tea. After picking the tea leaves, first pick out and discard the old leaves and stems, then kill the green leaves, which means putting the green leaves into a large pot and stirring them continuously to remove the moisture from the tea leaves.
This step requires a very high level of control over the heat. If the heat is too high, the situation mentioned by the fans will occur, where the edges of the tea leaves will become burnt, affecting the taste of the tea soup.
Because of this, Jiang Xiaoman even went to Jiang Baichuan to ask him for advice on tea-frying techniques.
Jiang Baichuan told him that if he didn't want the tea leaves to burn during the initial processing, the temperature of the iron wok must not exceed 80 degrees Celsius, and it was best to use charcoal fire to stir-fry them, because this would maintain a consistently low temperature. If he used firewood, once the flames got too high, some of the tea leaves in the pot would definitely burn.
After the tea leaves are processed, they must be placed in a large bamboo tray and vigorously rubbed while they are still softened by the hot iron wok. This process, known as "tea rubbing," removes the bitterness from the tea leaves.
After being kneaded, the tea leaves curled up slightly, already resembling dried tea leaves.
That's not all, we still have to dry the tea!
The kneaded tea leaves are spread out in the sun to dry. Before making tea cakes, the dried tea leaves are placed in a clean, odorless bamboo steamer, and then steamed with spring water, green bamboo leaves, and bamboo strips until soft.
Finally, pour the softened tea leaves into the mold, press them into shape, and then pour them out one by one. Wrap them in straw or dried bamboo leaves and store them in a cool, dry place.
The whole process takes 3 to 5 days, depending on whether the weather cooperates.
In general, tea-producing households also need to prepare a drying room. If it suddenly rains during the tea-drying process, the tea leaves must be placed in the drying room and dried little by little with firewood.
Of course, the large tea factories down the mountain use modern drying machines, which they can't compare to.
After a busy night, both of Jiang Xiaoman's phones were out of battery. One was for recording videos, and the other was for live streaming. He was really exhausted.
The fans were thoroughly enjoying the show. With the internet so readily available these days, you can find all sorts of documentaries. Some TV stations even have intangible cultural heritage inheritors specially invited to fry tea on-site for their programs. However, it's quite rare to see someone like Jiang Xiaoman frying tea in a storage room. I heard that he'll be live-streaming the making of tea cakes in a couple of days, and some newcomers who clicked in out of curiosity couldn't help but follow him.
After one live stream, Jiang Xiaoman gained tens of thousands more followers.
The next morning, after drying the tea leaves, Jiang Xiaoman also carried a basket on her back and joined the group to go into the mountains to pick mushrooms.
When we went there, we all agreed to pick mushrooms together, but I don't know what happened today. We went to two hills and didn't find many valuable red mushrooms.
Moreover, there are many broken branches in the woods, indicating that this area has probably already been harvested by someone else.
That's how wild mushrooms are; they sprout up in batches. Once this batch is harvested, you have to wait several more days for the next batch.