Chapter 232: Seventies Treasure Appraisal System (6)

Xie Yang, the spendthrift wife, finished a full bowl of Rice with sweet and sour hairtail fish head and fish-flavored eggplant, ate until she hiccuped, washed the bowl, and stood on the balcony to digest for a while.

Until the water on the stove boiled, she filled the Thermos, left the remainder to cool in a ceramic kettle, then added two Coal Balls, set up the oil pan, and began to fry the hairtail fish.

In the early autumn of Yongcheng, the sky was completely dark by six or seven in the evening, and every household had finished dinner, but the fragrance was simply too enticing, and people sniffed the air, searching everywhere for the source:

"It's not a holiday or festival, whose house is frying fish? It's so tempting that my brat is rolling on the floor!"

"Smells like sea fish, salty and fragrant! If I'd known, I would have eaten dinner at this hour; with this scent, I could finish two coarse-grain buns."

"Why does it smell like it's drifting down from upstairs? But isn't that Qin Zheng's place upstairs? He hasn't returned from his long-haul trip yet, right? His wife doesn't cook, or did his mother from the countryside come to stay here?"

"Haven't heard! But even if his mother from the countryside came, it's not a holiday or festival, would she be willing to use oil to fry fish?"

"Could it be the He family? His wife is quite doting and very diligent."

"You mean Xiao Bai? She shouldn't be willing to use that much oil for frying."

"That's true..."

"You don't need to guess! It's Qin Zheng's wife frying hairtail fish on the balcony! I saw it!"

Chen Fei's wife went to the balcony to collect clothes, followed the scent, poked her head out to look downstairs, and saw Xie Yang sitting under the dim balcony light frying hairtail fish.

The neighbors: "..."

Building 2, Room 207, the He family.

He Ximing had run to two places today, hauling and delivering goods, and returned a bit late; by the time he went to his unit to turn in the vehicle and got home, it was already this late, and he had just sat down to eat.

He was accustomed to drinking a little liquor before dinner, and there he was, sipping white spirits with Peanuts, chatting with his wife from time to time about what he had seen today; the couple was chatting and laughing, so cozy, when suddenly an extremely alluring fragrance drifted in from the balcony.

He Ximing subconsciously swallowed a mouthful of saliva: "Whose house is frying fish at this hour?"

It actually made him hungry, and his little drink no longer tasted like anything.

"Wife, please serve me some rice."

"..."

Bai Xiuyuan had no choice but to put down her chopsticks and go serve rice for her husband.

Bai Xiuyuan vaguely guessed it was the neighbor frying hairtail fish.

She had heard a neighbor mention it while washing rice and vegetables at the water room in the evening, but she didn't believe Xie Yang would be so diligent, starting an oil pan to fry hairtail fish late at night.

Thus, after serving rice for her husband, she specifically went to the balcony to take a look.

At a glance, she saw Qin Zheng's wife, who lived right next door, sitting in front of the stove frying hairtail fish.

"..."

It really was her!

Bai Xiuyuan almost bit her own tongue.

She knew that she and Xie Yang were often compared to each other, and it had been like that since they were small.

Even now that they were married, the neighbors in the Family Building would constantly compare her to Xie Yang.

Wherever there is comparison, there will be winners and losers.

But because she was always the one being praised and Xie Yang was always the one she outshone, she used to be excited and proud when she was a child; as she grew older, she felt that surpassing Xie Yang was simply a matter of course.

If one day she were to be overtaken by Xie Yang—who was lazy, didn't care for her husband, and loved to spend money—that would be the abnormal thing.

She hadn't expected that today, a pot of fried hairtail fish would let Xie Yang win a round...

Listening to her husband mutter incessantly about the fragrance of the fried hairtail fish, even self-deprecatingly saying he could eat two more bowls of rice with this scent, Bai Xiuyuan felt a sour and complicated mood.

Xie Yang tasted a piece of the freshly fried hairtail fish tail; wild seafood without any pollution is just fresh!

However, to make it last longer and go well with rice, she had specifically salted it a bit more, so after tasting one crispy hairtail fish tail, she stopped tasting and focused on frying the hairtail segments, frying one pot after another...

In her spare time, she also used the heat of the oil pan to dry several Canned Food jars she had found and cleaned in the afternoon, placing the double-fried hairtail fish into the jars piece by piece, waiting for them to cool before screwing on the lids.

The salty and fragrant fried hairtail fish was crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, and it was very appetizing to eat on its own.

If one were to boil some sweet and sour sauce and drizzle it over the fried hairtail fish, it would be another kind of flavor.

After frying, the ten jin of hairtail fish filled six Canned Food jars—three large and three small—with one of the small jars filled entirely with hairtail fish tails.

One large and three small jars were for her own family to eat slowly; if Qin Zheng liked them, he could take a jar next time he went on a trip to eat with his dry rations on the road.

There were two large jars left, one for her husband's family and one for her own parents' home; Xie Yang had already arranged it all.

The oil used to fry the hairtail fish was not wasted either—

She filtered out the impurities, then added a few spoonfuls of starch paste to absorb the finer impurities.

Then she added ginger, green onions, scallions, star anise, Sichuan peppercorns, bay leaves, and other spices in turn, frying them slowly over a low heat.

Once the color of the green onions turned from green to yellow, it was done; she let it sit overnight, scooped out the spices, and filtered the oil into a glass bottle, resulting in a golden, fragrant seasoned oil.

Seasoned oil makes dishes more fragrant than ordinary oil, and it can also be used to boil Chili oil.

Using seasoned oil to boil Chili oil for mixing noodles or making toppings is simply superb.

Xie Yang placed the boiling hot oil pan on the cement slab to sit, then began to prepare the broth.

She filled the Soup Pot with water and added large marrow bones and two small sparrows that had been plucked and had little meat on them.

She had originally wanted to buy chicken frames to stew with the large marrow bones, but chickens in this day and age were usually sold whole, and the quantity was very small and in high demand; they had long since sold out by the time she went, and it was unknown when they would have more.

However, she was lucky; she traded a few milk candies for two small sparrows, and although there wasn't much meat, they were great for enhancing the freshness.

She also washed a few dried scallops and put them in.

She added ginger slices, green onion segments, and Yellow Wine, brought it to a boil, skimmed off the foam, closed the stove door, and switched to a low heat to continue simmering.

She simmered until the sparrow meat automatically fell off the bones and floated up, then added water to continue stewing.

She stewed until the sparrow meat turned into meat floss and floated up, used a fine-mesh sieve to scoop it out, and repeatedly added water, skimmed the foam, and scooped out the suspended matter...

Until the suspended foam was skimmed clean and the soup became transparent and clear, she let it simmer on the residual heat overnight, and it became a simple version of broth.

That night, the neighbors in the Family Building went to sleep hungry, with the fragrance lingering at the tips of their noses.

It smelled so damn good! It smelled so good that their dinners digested earlier than usual, and their stomachs were already rumbling and growling before they had even fallen asleep.

Is Qin Zheng's wife doing this on purpose? She's just too inhumane!

When Qin Zheng gets back, I must complain to him!

……

Xie Yang took a nap while guarding the stove, and when she woke up, the sky was already beginning to brighten.

She poured the seasoned oil, which had been left to sit overnight and had cooled, into glass bottles, then took her change of clothes, Towel, and Scented Soap, and headed to the factory bathhouse carrying a washbasin.

Although the bathhouse was open twenty-four hours a day, it was truly rare for anyone to come for a bath this early in the morning.

Even the Workshop Workers who had just finished the night shift and were covered in grease and grime only wanted to drink a bowl of piping hot porridge and eat a couple of steamed buns to appease their hunger, then go home and collapse into bed; they wouldn't dream of wasting time on a bath.

So, seeing Xie Yang, it would be a lie to say that Feng Dajie, who was in charge of collecting tickets, wasn't surprised.

But she wasn't a gossip, and besides, Qin Zheng's wife being fond of cleanliness was famous throughout the family residential area, so she just smiled and said, "Here so early today," collected five cents, tore off a bath ticket for Xie Yang, and let her in.