diskusbooks Chapter 274 Making Tofu
Chapter 274 Making Tofu
If you leave it alone and wait for the soy milk to fall by itself, it will take a long time, and the lower layer will be dry and the upper layer will be wet, so usually at this time, you need to manually shake the two wooden sticks tied with gauze.
Doing so not only speeds up the flow rate of the soy milk, but also keeps the soy milk paste active, so that the soy dregs will not clog the holes in the gauze, preventing the upper layer of soy milk from falling.
After shaking for a while, the soy milk in the soy milk paste will be separated and fall into the wooden barrel prepared in advance, while the soy milk paste in the gauze will form a round bean dregs ball due to water loss. At this time, the falling speed of the soy milk will begin to slow down until the soy milk falls in the shape of water drops, which means that the water in the soy milk paste has been almost separated.
At this time, you can use a wooden basin instead of the wooden barrel filled with half a bucket of soy milk to continue to collect the limited soy milk. The next step is to pour the filtered soy milk into a clean iron pot, boil it over high heat until the bubbles of the soy milk on the pot burst, then turn to low heat and cook for five minutes. The soy milk is cooked.
Because tofu was going to be made today, Lin Chuyi specifically told Aunt Huang not to make rice porridge in the morning, but to have soy milk and fried dough sticks directly. Aunt Huang didn't know how to make fried dough sticks, so this morning's fried dough sticks were bought by Uncle Huang in a ox cart in the town early in the morning.
After wandering back, the fried dough sticks had long gone cold, but they were still crispy. It was so satisfying to eat a bite of fried dough sticks and pair it with a sip of hot soy milk.
The amount of soybeans they prepared was considered small in the village, but the amount of soy milk they cooked was also quite a lot, and they could not finish it if they just ate it for breakfast.
As a result, everyone scooped out a bowl of soy milk, and the soy milk in the pot only suffered some superficial damage. In order to prevent the bottom from getting stuck, Lin Chuyi directly scooped out the remaining soy milk in the pot with a clean wooden basin.
When she came over after breakfast, she saw that a layer of film had formed on the surface of the soy milk. Aunt Huang swiftly picked up two chopsticks and picked up the film on the pots of soy milk. Then she placed the ends of the chopsticks on two separate benches. When this layer of soy milk film was dried, it would become tofu skin that could be preserved for a long time. It could be used to stir-fry dishes or stew soup, and it would never be wasted.
After picking out the tofu skin, the next step is to make the soy milk. Use a spoon to insert into the soy milk and stir continuously. Slowly add brine until small tofu particles appear on the surface of the soy milk. Then you can stop.
Let the soy milk with salt brine sit for about a quarter of an hour, and tofu pudding will form.
At this time, you need to use the square wooden boards and square wooden grids prepared in advance. First, take a square wooden board as the base and place it on the wooden table in the yard. Place a square wooden grid on the board and lay a piece of gauze in the middle of the square wooden grid.
The next step is to pour the formed tofu into the gauze, making sure the amount of tofu is almost level with the height of the wooden grid. The next step is to wrap the gauze on the edge inward to form the tofu into a closed square. After the gauze is wrapped, remove the square wooden grid, and then press a square wooden board on top of the wrapped tofu, and continue to do the same.
After stacking the tofu that will be made into tofu layer by layer as described above, place a wooden board on the top layer of tofu.
After the wooden board is placed, a stone should be pressed on top. This will squeeze out the moisture in the tofu pudding and make the tofu take shape.
They don't make much tofu, only three layers of tofu, so the stone used to press it down weighs just over ten pounds, and it takes about a quarter of an hour for the tofu to be formed.
Lin Chuyi moved the topmost stone and took down the three plates of tofu one by one. He lifted the gauze and saw that the height of the tofu had obviously shrunk after being squeezed, and the height was only as long as two sections of his little finger.
Lin Chuyi reached out and poked the tofu gently. She was quite satisfied with its elasticity. She and Aunt Huang each took out a kitchen knife and began to cut the tofu into pieces.
In the end, the two cut the three plates of tofu into two shapes, one was a palm-sized square, and the other was a matchbox-sized thin triangle. The former could be broken apart for stewing soup, and the latter was used to make fried tofu.
After heating the pan, pour in a large amount of peanut oil. When the oil is hot, use chopsticks to put in the cut triangular tofu. The fried tofu will expand and float on the surface of the pan. At this time, you need to stir it a few times with chopsticks and turn the tofu over. When both sides of the fried tofu are golden yellow, you can take out the fried tofu and drain the oil and water inside.
The fried tofu just out of the pan is crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. It tastes delicious whether it is used for stir-frying, making soup, or even eaten directly with soy sauce.
Lin Chuyi felt it was a bit of a waste to just use all the oil for frying tofu since he had already poured so much oil, so he simply had a full fry feast.
Taking advantage of the high spirits, Lin Chuyi made a lot of fried foods in one go, including French fries, fried taro, fried crispy pork, fried peanuts, fried milk, and a fried chicken.
These are all high-calorie foods. I didn’t think there were too many when I was making them, but when I finished and looked at them, wow, I roughly estimate that the whole family can eat all of these until the New Year.
Apart from the three children in the family who were excited, the three adults were a little distressed and worried. They were distressed about the used oil, and worried about how to deal with these things.
This question naturally did not pose a problem for Lin Chuyi. She first asked everyone to taste everything, and then choose what they liked and take as much as they could eat.
Wrap the remaining parts together with some oil paper, and make a dozen oil paper packages in total.
Lin Chuyi left four oil-paper packages and gave the remaining ones to the three children, asking them to deliver them to the village head and some families who got along well with their family. She then took Madam Shen on a carriage and took the four remaining oil-paper packages to Piaomiao Pavilion in the county.
In this way, the problem is easily solved.
The twenty-sixth day is the day when meat is cut for the New Year. From this day on, every household will start preparing for the New Year.
People from all villages set out to the market to buy New Year's goods before dawn. The stalls selling tobacco, alcohol, fish, pork and firecrackers were the most popular and were surrounded by crowds of people. The business of other stall owners was also several times better than usual.
Those who set up stalls these days don’t have to worry about not being able to sell their goods, as long as the goods on the stalls are not too bad.
It was also from this day that Lin Chuyi felt the New Year atmosphere in the village.
This year, most people in the village made a lot of money from the chili and skewers business, so when buying New Year's goods, everyone was willing to spend money.
There are not many families in the village who own ox carts. In order to travel more conveniently, many people in the village have set their eyes on the Lin family's ox cart. Just last night, some villagers came to the door with things in their hands, wanting Uncle Huang to drive the ox cart to help transport the things.