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Chapter 43 Tasting
In the evening, at the entrance of the third team, Daxiu, Xiao Laodao, Han Hongbing, Chen Daxi and Ma Mengqi sat side by side on the steps, each holding two steamed buns in their hands, staring at the two large iron pots in front of them.

In one of the pots, there were ten pounds of first-class meat that had been cut into walnut pieces and a two-pound piece of raw Fangzi meat on top. It was shaking slightly with the boiling soup, and its color was bright red and the meaty aroma was fragrant.

Xie Hushan's grandmother stood in front of the big pot, dipped some of the broth in the pot with a spoon and touched her lips to it. After pursing her lips, she added salt again.

Another iron pot was already filled with cold water. Han Hongzhen and Aunt Wu put the pile of offal that they had finally cleaned up after more than three hours of washing into the pot, preparing to cook them until they were cooked through and foamy.

Compared with the meat pot, there is nothing valuable in this pot. The sets of pig intestines bought from the glass factory canteen look like a lot, but there is not a single piece of fat intestine. They are all small intestines, which are the most difficult to clean, have the strongest smell and are the thinnest.

The pig liver had not even had its bitter gallbladder removed, so Aunt Wu spent a long time scrubbing it carefully with alkaline noodles to remove the bitterness. The pig heart had not even been washed after the pig was slaughtered, and the pericardium was full of dirty blood bubbles. Not to mention the pig lungs, which were full of dirty gray blood foam.

It took me half a day just to clean all these wastes.

The three teams of men who had finished work gathered nearby, smoking and watching the fun. As for the women, they stayed at home to take care of their children, for fear that the children would come running and cry to their fathers asking for meat, which would embarrass the men outside.

Although rural people are poor, they also know that they need to educate their children with dignity. Even if other families stew dragon liver and phoenix marrow, they will not allow their children to look at their mouths. In the eyes of their parents, that is an extremely shameful behavior. It is okay to be poor, but you must have backbone.

After grandma had stewed ten pounds of meat, Ma Laowu personally carried the meat out with a basin and a strainer to make sure that nothing had slipped into the pot. Only then did Accountant Zhao ride his bicycle and carry him to the veterinary station.

The offal from which the meat was cooked through, minus the dirt and foam, was scooped out and put into the pot of fat soup that had just been used to cook ten pounds of first-class meat to continue stewing.

After the pig offal was put into the pot, grandma's task of stewing the meat and making the soup was completed. Xie Hushan personally sent grandma home. When he came back, Lao Meng was responsible for adding firewood to the stove according to Aunt Wu's instructions. Aunt Wu cleaned the other pot and started to mix the dough and bake the fire. Han Hongzhen went to the team's vegetable garden to pick coriander, wash it and chop it into small pieces.

Seeing Xie Hushan standing beside him with his hands behind his back, Han Hongzhen threw a bunch of garlic to him: "Didn't you say that we should add mashed garlic and minced garlic when eating this? Don't just sit there."

Xie Hushan picked up the garlic and turned to look at the steps in front of the Medicine King Temple. Daxiu, Xiao Laodao, Han Hongbing, Daxi, Ma San and several others were lined up in a row, moving in unison. In their left hands were bowls containing two mixed flour steamed buns they brought from home. They held chopsticks in their right hands and looked towards the pot.

It's not that they are shameless, the main thing is that these guys were promised by Xie Hushan himself to serve as tasters for the first pot of braised pork and steamed buns of the sideline group of the third production team. They are responsible for tasting whether this stuff is delicious and whether it can kill people.

"Do you want to eat?" Xie Hushan walked over with garlic and asked a few people.

"Yes! My dad told me to go back and not embarrass myself, but I didn't move even after he scolded me four times!" Da Xi sincerely expressed his determination to eat the delicious food.

Ma San beside him also nodded repeatedly, not wanting to be outdone: "My brother told me to go home for dinner, and he can wait here for me. After all, he is my brother, so I couldn't bear to hit him, so I asked Daxiu to beat him away for me."

"I feel relieved to see that you are so shameless in order to eat the braised pork. If you want to eat it, peel the garlic first. Each person should peel ten heads first. The little Taoist will be in charge of using the stone mortar to pound the garlic cloves into garlic paste." Xie Hushan threw a bunch of garlic in front of the people.

It was stewed until it was already dark. The fire-baked meat had been softened by the bubbling broth, and the offal could be easily poked with chopsticks. Aunt Wu then asked Daxiu to call Xie Hushan, who was taking a nap on the table in the team headquarters. After all, no one knew how to cut this thing, how much to cut, and how to put it in a bowl.

Xie Hushan rubbed his eyes and walked over. Standing in front of the chopping board, he picked up a piece of fire-baked bread from the pot and, following the general procedure he had seen in his previous life, cut the fire-baked bread into small pieces and put them into the large bowl, which took up most of the bowl. Then he cut some of the worthless pig lungs and heart and put them into the bowl, making the large bowl look like it was full. Lastly, he cut a little bit of the pig intestines and put them on the top.

Then a spoonful of soup was poured into the bowl and finally sprinkled with chopped coriander. It looked full, and everything you could see was pig offal. Not only was it full, but it was even slightly sticking out.

"Did you see it?" Xie Hushan looked up and asked Han Hongzhen and Aunt Wu beside him:
"Don't make it too full, add a little bit of empty stuff to make it look like there's more. The most important thing is to put the roasted buns at the bottom and the cooked food on top. This bowl of food should look like it's all meat. Come, try it." He then picked up two pairs of chopsticks and handed them to the two people.

Aunt Wu picked up a piece of small intestine with chopsticks. She had washed it and wanted to taste it to see if it was still bitter. Han Hongzhen picked up a piece of lung soaked in soup.

Xie Hushan also picked up the chopsticks and took a sip. Compared with what he had eaten in his previous life, the soup might still be a little thin, but as the soup sits for a long time, the taste will naturally become thicker. Apart from a slight taste of internal organs, the main flavor was the rich meaty aroma left by the ten pounds of first-rate meat. Without waiting for the evaluation of those greedy tasters, he knew that there would be many people who would eat this thing.

"It tastes delicious. The small intestines are not bitter, the lungs are not fishy, ​​and the steamed buns are softened. It's almost the same as a stewed pancake." Han Hongzhen nodded repeatedly after taking two bites.

Aunt Wu smacked her lips and said, "Your grandma has a good grasp of the heat when stewing the meat. She stewed out all the fat in the meat and dissolved it in the soup. Otherwise, why would your aunt ask you to get your grandma to help you stew the meat? The meat is stewed so well that the flavor permeates the offal."

Xie Hushan gave the bowl that the three people had tasted to Lao Meng next to him, and asked Aunt Wu and Han Hongzhen to practice cutting a few other bowls for the tasters who were already drooling with greed.

A few people, like the pigs in the production team's pig farm, sat on the steps, holding large bowls and eating hard, making a series of snoring noises.

And the way of eating is the same. First, eat up the steamed bread at the bottom of the bowl, then start to break the steamed bread into small pieces and soak them in the soup, and continue to eat the steamed bread. After the steamed bread is finished, start to eat the lungs and small intestines, and finally hold the bowl with both hands to drink all the soup into your stomach, and then wipe your mouth with satisfaction.

"Is it delicious?" Xie Hushan looked at the six people.

The six people nodded and said in unison: "Delicious!"

"Lao Meng, which one is better, the meat buns and meatball soup from last night or the bowl of braised steamed buns today?" Xie Hushan asked Lao Meng.

Lao Meng recalled carefully: "This one is delicious, it tastes like stewed meat."

After Ma Laowu and Accountant Zhao came back, Xie Hushan served them another bowl each. After they finished eating, they praised the soup highly. Ma Laowu drank the last mouthful of soup, then reluctantly put down the bowl and exhaled:

"It's delicious. We'll share the meat during the Chinese New Year. If I draw the worthless offal, I'll go find the family that got the top-quality meat and stew the meat with them. It will taste just like stewed meat and satisfy your craving!"

Accountant Zhao was more thoughtful than Ma Laowu. He wiped his mouth and said, "Hu San'er, how much would you sell this big bowl of meat and rice, which is like a stewed pancake?"

"35 cents a bowl."

Before Ma Laowu and Accountant Zhao could react, Han Hongzhen understood that Xie Hushan was not just talking when he said he wanted to squeeze the bun stall. A bun was 1.5 cents per bun, a bowl of meatball soup with six meatballs was 10 cents, and two buns and a bowl of soup was exactly 40 cents.

Ma Laowu nodded with satisfaction: "One episode every five days, and I can eat such a big bowl of pig offal to satisfy my craving for only 35 cents per episode. It's really not expensive!"

"Uncle Wu, I want to ask the team to help the sideline group do one more thing."

(End of this chapter)