"Since you want to eat it, let's make spicy cabbage."

Spicy cabbage is a traditional Korean delicacy in Northeast China. It can be found in Northeastern restaurants and Korean restaurants. It is red in color, spicy and refreshing, and is both appetizing and delicious.

After Lin Xu finished speaking, he prepared to produce.

While the cabbage hasn't started to rot yet, pickle it quickly to avoid having to throw it away if it goes bad later.

Like dried radish, spicy cabbage also needs to be dehydrated with salt first, and then marinated with special chili sauce to allow the spicy taste to penetrate deep into the cabbage leaves.

After fermentation by lactic acid bacteria, these cabbage leaves will become spicy cabbage that many people can't stop eating.

Lin Xu is no stranger to this dish. When he ate Korean barbecue in the past, the waiter would bring a plate to him immediately.

Not to mention, the sour and spicy cabbage leaves with a crisp texture are indeed very satisfying, especially after eating the browned pork belly and the spicy cabbage, it is a real pleasure!

In addition to serving barbecue, spicy cabbage can also be seen in Korean cold noodles eaten in summer.

When I was in school, there was cold noodles served in the summer at the northeast window of the school. Those ice-crusted cold noodles were topped with a chopstick of spicy cabbage. They tasted sour and spicy. It’s so comforting to have a bowl in the summer.

In addition, some Northeastern restaurants also have dishes such as spicy cabbage stew, spicy cabbage stir-fried pork, spicy cabbage sausage, etc., which bring this delicacy to the extreme.

Lin Xu plucked the cabbage leaves from the outside, only the ones inside were good.

Then cut off the roots, and the wilted Chinese cabbage became white and clean again. This winter storage vegetable is very durable, and sometimes the leaves on the outside are wrinkled or even black and dry.

But after peeling it off, the leaves and vegetables inside were all fresh.

After cleaning up all the cabbage, Lin Xu used a kitchen knife to cut the cabbage in half from the middle.

Then grab the salt and apply it to the incision, using the water-killing property of the salt to kill the water in the cabbage.

Food emphasizes "Taste makes it come out, and tasteless food makes it come in." When applied to pickled dishes, it means "water makes it come out, and lack of water makes it come in."

You must first remove the moisture from the ingredients with salt or sugar, and then pickle them so that they can taste better.

Whether making pickled cucumbers, pickled radish, or pickles, we basically follow this principle.

Now I use the same method to make spicy cabbage.

First, remove the moisture from the cabbage, let the cabbage enter a dehydrated state, and then apply a special hot sauce to let the spicy flavor penetrate into the cabbage.

While the flavor is permeating, lactic acid bacteria will also ferment quickly.

When the spiciness penetrates, the sourness of natural fermentation will also form. This is the source of the hot and sour flavor of spicy cabbage. Not a drop of vinegar is added during the pickling process, but it can give the cabbage the most attractive sour aroma.

This is the charm of pickling.

Lin Xu placed the cabbage coated with salt in a basin with the cut side facing up, so that the salt water could penetrate into the cabbage layer by layer.

When it comes to killing water, the more thorough it is, the better.

"How long will it take, Xu Bao?"

Shen Jiayue held her cheek and watched quietly, wanting to help, but Lin Xu was worried that the salt would hurt her hands, so she refused.

Not only will he refuse now, but he will also refuse when the water is ready and the cabbage is smeared with chili pepper.

It’s okay to learn how to cook, but safety comes first and you can’t get hurt.

Lin Xu held a large pot lid to cover the basin and said to Shen Jiayue:

"About two hours or more, these cabbages have lost a lot of water during storage, so it doesn't take too long to kill the water."

Shi Wenming looked at the remaining sweet potatoes and pumpkins and asked:

"What about these two things, Xiaoxu? What are you going to do?"

The pumpkins are grown in the scenic area. They are big and sweet. When winter comes, Chen Meijuan specially picks hundreds of kilograms and puts them in the storage room for winter storage, so that Lin Xu can eat them when he returns home.

But she stored too much, so although she ate some in the past few days, it was still far behind what she had stored.

These old pumpkins are all sweet and noodle-like, with excellent texture and taste.

So Shi Wenming wanted to know how Lin Xu would deal with it.

Also waiting to be processed are the more than 100 kilograms of sweet potatoes. If it is winter, these sweet potatoes will be eaten by several families.

But now that the weather is getting warmer, water has already seeped out from the surface of the sweet potatoes. If this continues, it won't be long before the sweet potatoes begin to rot.

Lin Xu said:

"It's a pity to throw away the pumpkin and sweet potato. I'll make some dried pumpkin and sweet potato later, and boil the rest into pumpkin candy and sweet potato candy respectively."

Shi Wenming's eyes lit up and he thought this was a good idea.

Dried pumpkin was the main snack when I was a child. At that time, every autumn, every family would choose to go to the pumpkin patch on a sunny day to pick a few old pumpkins, remove the outer skin, cut them into rings and hang them in the sun.

Leave it in the sun for several days until the pumpkin shrinks significantly and becomes soft and dry. Steam it in a pot until it becomes soft, and then dry it in the sun again.

In this way, a dried pumpkin with a soft, chewy and sweet texture is completed.

It is said that the most delicious dried pumpkin needs to be steamed and sun-dried three times to fully bring out the sweetness of the pumpkin. It also makes the pumpkin taste better and even tastes silky.

But Shi Wenming has never eaten it, and his elders were not so busy when he was a child.

Everyone goes out early and comes back late every day to tend the crops, just to fill their stomachs.

Dried pumpkin is just a snack for the children, but you can’t delay the crops in the field just because of it.

Shen Jiayue said with a smile:

"I've eaten dried sweet potatoes, and there are a lot of them sold online, but I haven't eaten dried pumpkins yet."

Lin Xu placed the chopping board on the table in the yard, then put the washed old pumpkin on it, and started peeling the pumpkin with a kitchen knife.

Just when Shen Jiayue was about to try it with a skin scraper, she was stopped by Lin Xu:

"The skins of these old pumpkins are very hard. Don't touch them, or you may cut them... Turn on the all-in-one baking machine in the kitchen, and put the pumpkins directly in to dry them later."

Dried pumpkins can be dried in the sun in summer.

But in winter, the pumpkin will probably go bad if it’s not dried in the sun.

The current sunshine is fine for drying quilts and clothes, but drying pumpkins is somewhat difficult, so we use the power of technology to dry the pumpkins little by little using a roasting machine.

The principle is the same as exposure, but the difference is that exposure takes several days, but with a baking machine, it can be done in one or two hours, which is very trouble-free.

As soon as Shen Jiayue entered, Chen Meijuan, who had finished arranging work for the employees, came to the restaurant. Seeing Lin Xu busy, she came over with a kitchen knife to help.

My son will return to the capital tomorrow, so I can stay with him for as long as I can.

When I was a child, I always looked forward to my children growing up and starting their own careers.

Now that children have careers, they cannot stay with their parents.

Lin Xu noticed his mother's expression and said with a smile:

"Don't you want us to leave? We are young, and we can't just stay at home and eat and drink like this all day long. There are a lot of things waiting for us in the capital. Besides, aren't you and my dad going to the capital soon? Ginkgo Garden.

I’m waiting for you to organize it.”

These words made Chen Meijuan's mood relax a little.

Yes, there is also a ginkgo garden. It will open this spring. I will have to work with Lao Lin to introduce small animals and arrange for people to take good care of them.

My son is right, there are a lot of things.

Keep fighting. In two years' time, the family will have no foreign debt and have grandchildren. Then they will go to the capital to retire. The family will be lively and no longer endure the pain of separation.

After making up her mind, Chen Meijuan's mood calmed down.

Lin Xu scraped the skin of the pumpkin clean and dug out the flesh with a spoon.

These are old pumpkins, so the pumpkin seeds are very full. Lin Xu puts them aside and can wash them later and use table salt to make salt-baked pumpkin seeds. The taste should be very good.

"Wow, there are so many pumpkin seeds. Can these be eaten?"

Xiaolei and Chen Shaokang strolled over from the reservoir. Just now Shen Guofu helped Chen Meiliang collect the net, and these young people also followed.

But after waiting for a long time and no fish was served, several people lost patience and strolled back to the restaurant.

Well, no matter what kind of fish you catch, it will be cooked by your cousin in the end. In that case, you can just stay next to your cousin. It’s so simple.

Lin Xu said:

"You can't eat it yet, but if you have nothing to do, you can get some water and rub out all these pumpkin seeds. I will make a salt-baked pumpkin seeds for you later."

Haha, it is indeed right to come to my cousin.

Chen Shaokang took the basin and went to collect the water. Xiaoxun put all the dug pumpkin flesh into the basket. Xiaolei took Shi Moli and picked up the pumpkin seeds scattered on the chopping board.

After digging out the flesh of the pumpkin, Lin Xu cut the pumpkin into pieces.

Because it was placed in the baking machine, he did not cut the pumpkin into rings suitable for hanging to dry, but cut it into pumpkin pieces about three centimeters wide and ten centimeters long.

This makes it easier to place in the baking machine and easier to bake.

If it is too large, the difficulty of baking will increase exponentially. If it is too small, the whole pumpkin will shrink into a small piece after drying, making it inconvenient for steaming and secondary drying.

After cutting it, he put it into a basin, carried it to the kitchen, opened the oven, took out the grid baking tray inside, put the pumpkin in piece by piece, set the temperature and time, and started baking.

The baking temperature cannot be too high, and you have to do it slowly, otherwise you will not be able to roast the pumpkin thoroughly.

After adjusting the oven, it's time to make sweet potatoes.
To be continued...