Chapter Sixty: Oil Swirl Dumplings

  The western wing was finished, and Lian'er was showing Zhang Shi the pork, meat, and big bones she had just bought. The whole family was discussing how to eat these things. Xiao Qi bounced in from outside.

  "...Just now, my grandfather called over Second Uncle's whole family and said that we're a family of honest people who have never dared to steal or be sneaky. He said that if anyone dares to ruin the family's reputation, he'll beat them to death with his pipe stem." Little Seven echoed everyone else, "Grandfather said that no one is allowed to enter the garden below our house, and no one is allowed to touch those wine jars."

  "Did your grandfather really say that?" Lian Shouxin asked with a smile.

  Xiao Qi nodded, "Yeah, Grandpa scolded with a straight face and waved his pipe, Fourth Brother was so scared that his face turned white."

  "What happened last night, I wanted to tell Father about it, but I don't know how to say it. The half-grown kid is mischievous and hard to discipline, and if I scold him too severely, it's not good either." Lian Shouxin said, suddenly remembering that Lian Lao's tobacco pouch was broken, "You saw Grandfather waving his tobacco pouch?"

  "Second sister went to town today and had Grandpa's tobacco pouch repaired." said Little Seven.

  "Is this true?" Lian Shouxin turned to Lian Man'er.

  "Yes, grandfather is used to smoking dry tobacco pouches. I've been wanting to weld the dry tobacco pouch for grandfather." said Lian Man Er.

  This is just one of the reasons why she chose this time to fix the water pipe, and naturally, Lian Meng had her own considerations.

  That old tobacco pouch was not only something Lian Lao Ye had used for many years, but also because Lian Lao Ye had used it to discipline Lian Shou Ren by breaking it. She repaired the tobacco pouch and gave it back to Lian Lao Ye, conveying a rich message that was more powerful than directly asking Lian Lao Ye to restrain the second wife. At the very least, she wanted Lian Lao Ye to be emotionally inclined towards her, while also reminding him to pay attention to the behavior of the Lian family members.

  Even Lao Yezi was able to rise from a primary school apprentice to become a great shopkeeper through self-study, he is naturally not a foolish person and should be able to receive the information she conveyed.

  This is the water pipe that Old Master Lian used to severely beat Xiucai Lian Shouren, now it's being used to discipline the people in the second house. It's naturally more effective.

  The two consequences of Lian Waner repairing the water pipe were that Old Master Lian continued to use it to smoke and never replaced it, and the people from the second house never touched those wine jars again. Of course, what was on Lian Shouran's mind when he saw the pipe was not something Lian Waner cared about.

  Of course, that's all after the fact. Now even Lian Piao has heard that Master Lian went to talk to the person who found Er Fang. She must have achieved her desired effect, and in the future, she shouldn't have to worry about Er Fang messing with those wine jars again.

  I'm delighted. Working becomes even more energetic.

  The lard has been bought back, and the weather is unbearable. The oil must be simmered immediately. Lian Man'er first washed the lard with water, then removed the water marks, and cut the lard into small pieces with a knife. These pieces cannot be cut too large, or the oil will not come out easily, nor can they be cut too fine, otherwise the oil will burn easily. After cutting the lard, pour it into a hot iron pot, because there is a lot of lard, so you need to pour it in several times to simmer. The fire for simmering oil also has its own rules, it cannot be too small, or the oil will come out slowly, but the fire cannot be too strong, otherwise the oil will burn and lose its fragrance.

  Wu Lang is in charge of burning fire, Lian Man Er and Lian Zhi Er are responsible for boiling oil.

  Lian Man'er had already prepared two clean ceramic jars, and used a spoon to scoop the rendered oil into the jars. At this point, the oil was clear and bright. Once the temperature of the oil dropped, it would solidify into white lard, which is what they called "hun you".

  Youzhaizi is the leftover meat residue after boiling down lard. It still contains a small amount of oil and is crispy and delicious. Lian Man'er told Xiao Qi to bring over a rice bowl, scoop out a bowl of youzhaizi, then take a spoonful of white sugar left from brewing wine today and mix it with the youzhaizi.

  "Second sister, can you eat oil dumplings like this?" Little Seven asked.

  "Delicious." Lian Man'er picked up a piece of fried dough coated with white sugar using chopsticks and put it in her mouth, "Very tasty."

  Lian Man herself ate a piece, then picked up another piece with more white sugar for Xiao Qi. Fried dough sticks and white sugar were rare delicacies in rural households, and eating the two things together was something Xiao Qi had never tried before, so she savored it slowly.

  "It's so delicious!" The double happiness of oil and white sugar made Xiao Qi's eyes narrow.

  Lian Zhi'er and Wu Lang both held out their hands, while Lian Man'er also fed them oil dumplings.

  "It's delicious." Gorō said.

  "This is really delicious, it's just too, too fortunate." said Lian Zhier.

  "Guò fú" is their local dialect, roughly translating to "too wasteful" or "too luxurious".

  "What's the point of having good fortune if you don't share it with others? Let everyone try some, just this bowl, and we'll save the rest to make dumplings." Lian Man'er then had Xiao Qi bring the bowl into the house for Lian Shouxin and Zhang Shi to try some as well.

  Lian Shouxin and Zhang also only ate one piece, then let Xiaogui take the bowl out again. The oil dumplings were meant to be eaten hot, so several children quickly finished a small bowl of oil dumplings with white sugar.

  "Let's save our stomachs for dumplings." said Lian Zhi'er.

  A piece of eleven jin of lard, the oil extracted filled two whole ceramic jars, estimated to be over nine jin, which should be enough for a while. Then it's preparing the filling for dumplings, today I plan to use zucchini as the filling.

  The calabaza is called in the north, and in the south it's called pumpkin. Lian Man picked two tender pumpkins from the vine, washed them clean with water, then cut them open with a knife, scooping out the pulp and seeds inside. The pulp can be fed to pigs, and the seeds are dried on the windowsill for later use as a stir-fry ingredient. Since they're young pumpkins and absolutely non-toxic organic food, there's no need to peel them - just chop into large pieces and grate with a grater.

  On the other side, Lianzhi cut the pound of meat into small pieces and poured it into the pot to extract the oil. Rural families are extremely frugal in their daily lives, so Lianzhi only scooped out half of it, added some chopped scallions and shredded ginger, mixed with zucchini noodles to make a filling. The other half was mixed with scallions, fermented bean paste, and fried into a meat sauce, which was then stored in a large bowl for the next meal.

  Lian Mian'er was in charge of mixing, and Lian Zhi'er went to knead the dough. Although there was white flour sent by Zhang's family, that was a precious thing, to be kept for slow eating. This time making dumplings, mainly used millet flour, only adding one part of white flour to two parts of millet flour, so that the mixed dough can be rolled out into relatively thin dumpling wrappers, and the taste is also quite good.

  In the afternoon, Lian's family was busy making dumplings. Lian Shouxin helped to roll out the dough. The dough was placed on the edge of the kang, Zhang sat on the kang, and Lian Shouxin stood on the ground to roll out the dough. Lian Man'er, Lian Zhi'er, and Zhang were responsible for wrapping the dumplings. Xiao Qi and Wu Lang were still outside burning firewood, and today they also bought a large piece of bone and cleaned it up. Then Xiao Qi was asked to go to the backyard garden to pull out two white radishes to stew with the bones. For dinner, they ate oil fried dumplings filled with squash filling and bone radish soup.

  Lian Wan'er was wrapping dumplings while watching Lian Shouxin rolling out dough.

  "What's wrong? Is Father's dumpling skin not good?" Lian Shouxin asked.

  "Not really," Lian Mian'er said. "I just wonder how Father can roll out the dumpling wrappers like that."

  "Your father can roll out noodles better than I can." said Zhang's wife.

  Lian's family was even stranger. Not only Lian's family, but all the men in their village seemed to believe that cooking was a woman's job and would never get involved. For example, when it was He Shi's turn to cook, the several half-grown sons of the second house could help with lighting the fire, but they always stayed far away, and He Shi wouldn't ask them for help either, as if doing this chore would undermine a man's dignity.

  However, Wulang would help Zhang's family with cooking, and even Shouxin could roll out dumpling wrappers.

  "Dad, how can you do these things?" Lian Manger still asked.

  Lian Shouxin lowered his head and rolled out the dumpling wrappers without responding.

  "Your father used to study." Zhang simply replied with a sentence and didn't continue speaking.

  Lian Man'er felt that Lian Shouxin and Zhang's attitude was a bit strange, so she didn't ask again.

  The whole family quickly wrapped up the dumplings and then steamed them in a pot.

  Lian Man'er took a bowl and came out of the west wing, hanging garlic braids outside the window, picking two heads of garlic to make garlic paste.

  "Man Er, have you wrapped the dumplings?" He Shi stood at the door of the east wing, cracking melon seeds as she loudly asked.

  "Hmm." Lian Man'er responded with a murmur and turned around to head back into the house.

  "Man Er, after this separation, you will have a good life from now on. There has been meat every day for the past two days." He Shi said with a drawn-out tone.

  Lian Man'er immediately turned around and faced He Shi.

  "Second Aunt, you said that when my grandparents came to visit my mother after we split up and started a new household, they gave us some cooking oil. This kind of thing can only happen once or twice a year, and it's a big deal. If other families have money, they would even host a banquet! Second Aunt knows that after we split up, we had to start our own fire, but all we had was rice and not even a drop of oil or salt. So, we could only buy some lard to make oil. Second Aunt says that our life is good, but when has she ever not eaten meat? Is she saying that the food arrangements made by my mother are not good enough?" Lian Man'er responded loudly.

  Zhou was standing outside the house watching Zhao cook, heard He and Lianmang talking, felt a little uncomfortable in her heart, so she walked to the door and stood still holding the door frame.

  He saw Zhou and deliberately said: "Buying butter also costs money, and no money was allocated to you, where did you get the money?"

  "Second Aunt, you never listen to others. My grandparents came to help us clean the pot and saw that we didn't have any oil, salt, soy sauce or vinegar. When they were about to leave, they left some money for us to buy things ourselves, otherwise what would we use to start a fire?" Lian Man'er said loudly.

  Lao Laoye had divided the family property at that time, saying that Zhou Shi would provide oil and salt for Lian Shouxin's preparation, but Zhou Shi didn't care about this matter. Lian Man'er didn't want to see Zhou Shi's face, so she bought everything herself. At this point, it was just right to clarify the situation.

  "You lazy wife, you have nothing better to do, but you don't come to help with the cooking. You're blind to everything. You see others living well and you want to live separately too. I'm just afraid that your family isn't as wealthy as mine!" Zhou Shi scolded He Shi, pointing at her.

  He thought the fourth room had secretly accumulated private money and wanted to ask Zhou Shi about the origin of the money, but ended up being disappointed again and turned around to enter the house through the curtain.

  The dumplings are done, Lian Man'er picked one up and dipped it in the garlic sauce she had prepared, took a bite, and found that the squash filling was juicy and slightly sweet, combined with the fragrance of oil and shallots, it tasted extremely delicious.

  "Quickly, go get a basin and scoop up all the dumplings in this steamer. Take them to the upper house." Zhang suddenly said.

  They packed two baskets of dumplings, intending to eat another meal tomorrow morning.

  Lian Zhi'er was somewhat unwilling and stood still, her eyes looking towards Lian Man'er.

  "Mother, we can't do this." Lian Man'er slowly spoke up.