OBS Chapter 113: Making dumplings with Kudzu root?
Chapter 113: Making dumplings with Kudzu root?
After the palm oil in the wooden basin or barrel cooled down and the oil in the barrel turned into solid, Shen Youyou called out to the sisters:
"Come on, two people, get me some bamboo charcoal powder, and grind it finer using a small stone mill."
Wang Taohua, Shen Erya, Shen Daya, and Shen Yaya, four people came out and worked in pairs with a small stone mill to make bamboo charcoal powder.
Shen Youyou really overlooked it before. In fact, the yellow water after refining palm oil contains aflatoxin. Aflatoxin is a toxic substance that is harmful to human health.
In fact, in the past, many instant noodles were fried in this way and were also called "junk food" by people.
This is why Shen Youyou chose to use the boiling method instead of directly crushing the steamed palm oil and then using a wooden oil press similar to the lever principle to squeeze the oil.
That kind of oil extraction method will add these toxic substances into the oil. The palm oil available on the market in later generations is extracted and then further processed before it can be put on the market.
Now we don't have the conditions that we have in later generations, so it's best to cook it, which can separate the oil from harmful substances as much as possible. Of course, Shen Youyou didn't plan to eat it directly, so she needed to use bamboo charcoal powder to further absorb impurities and decolorize it.
Kaolin can also be used for decolorization. The pure kaolin is white, fine, soft and has good physical and chemical properties such as plasticity and fire resistance.
In the past, kaolin was widely used, mainly in papermaking, ceramics and refractory materials, and secondly in coatings, rubber fillers, enamel glazes and white cement raw materials.
A small amount is used in plastics, paints, pigments, grinding wheels, pencils, daily cosmetics, soaps, pesticides, medicines, textiles, petroleum, chemicals, building materials, national defense and other industrial sectors.
It is a very useful non-metallic mineral.
In ancient times, it had a particularly resounding name, called Guanyin soil. However, they have never seen that thing here.
Along the way, when I passed by refugees, I saw them eating tree bark and grass roots.
Eating tree bark does not mean literally plucking the bark from the tree and stuffing it into your mouth.
They peel off the thinner bark, slowly tear off the "tender and softer" layer inside, then put it in their mouths and chew it, and they can taste its bitter juice.
But bark is bark after all. Chewing it like this will only give you a mouthful of plant fiber, which is not enough to fill your stomach.
In fact, there is a second way, a way to fill your stomach by eating tree bark. The old men and women in Shenjia Village all know it, and those people should also know it.
It is to peel off the bark, chop it into small pieces with an axe, and then expose the bark to the sun to dry it thoroughly.
Finally, put the dried bark into a millstone or mortar, crush it, and then sift it to make edible bark powder.
But her grandmother said: When eating, the better families mixed some grains into cakes, or cooked them into paste. If there was really no grain, they could only eat the bark powder with some grass roots and wild vegetables. But that was when they could find wild vegetables.
His grandfather was joking at the time, saying, "If you hadn't found grass seeds and eaten cicadas, you might have really tried the elm bark cake. After eating that, you wouldn't think the grass seed cake tasted bad."
Shen Youyou's little head immediately shook like a rattle, and she was also very glad that she didn't eat the bark cake.
My thoughts flew far away again. I was really grateful that my people had survived. At least they didn't have to eat grass roots, tree bark, and Guanyin soil, the three ancient sacred objects from famine.
Now they have a cave with a kang inside. They can sleep after two days of heating. On the shelves in the activity area, they have collected all kinds of food.
There are also white yam, kudzu root, sour bamboo shoots, dried bamboo shoots, wild boar meat hanging on high bamboo rafts, and dried bamboo rats smoked by my mother and her friends. It really makes me very happy.
Shen Youyou looked down at the oil, feeling very satisfied. Now that there was no shortage of oil, eating dumplings during the New Year was no longer a luxury. All she needed next was some melon seeds, peanuts, and candies.
Do they feel that these are just dreams for them now?
But Shen Youyou just wants to say: Dreams are good things. Only if you dare to dream can you have the opportunity to realize your dreams.
If you don’t have something, you can find other things to replace it, but that’s a story for later, let’s just keep busy first!
Looking at the bamboo charcoal ash that her sisters had ground, Shen Youyou asked Li Jingshu, "Mom, where did we put the water bags that we used to carry water in?"
The rubber water bag made by Shen Youyou does not need to be filled with water for the time being, so she decided to use it to hold oil first.
Strong and grease will not penetrate. Wooden barrels, on the other hand, will be slowly penetrated by grease.
"I've washed it and put it away. If you need it, I'll get it for you."
"Not now, but tomorrow or the day after tomorrow."
Because the newly melted oil is hot, it cannot be poured in directly, and bamboo charcoal powder must be added for further processing.
Shen Youyou instructed the women to pour the first batch of palm oil into several wooden barrels.
Then Shen Youyou asked the sisters to pour in the bamboo charcoal powder. As for the bamboo charcoal powder, they didn't need too much. She just put a bowl of it in each oil barrel.
The key is that she doesn't know the ratio, so she can only try one bowl first. If there is more, it will just waste some oil. If there is less, the bleaching and impurity absorption will not be good, which can also be seen. Then she can do a second bleaching.
Come on, experimenter, stir the bamboo charcoal powder evenly.
"Okay, put a lid on the palm oil and roast it over the fire in the cave. It needs to be kept warm to discolor and remove impurities. It can only be eaten after two days."
Li Jingshu then realized that palm oil was really troublesome and not easy to make!
Like in the previous life, when you went to a supermarket, there was all kinds of oil: melon seed oil, sesame oil, corn oil, peanut oil, olive oil, soybean oil, fish oil, and you could choose any kind of oil.
It’s not like now, when it takes so many people to make palm oil, and you have to wait two days to see what Lao Shen and his team brought back, a mountain of palm fruits.
The revolution has not yet succeeded, and people still need to work hard! Don't say anything, just work hard!
Shen Youyou had already moved to the third venue, watching her uncle and others making wooden mortars.
After counting, we found that several people made more than a dozen today, which is enough.
"Uncle, stop it. You guys take a rest and eat something. Then use this to smash the kudzu roots that my aunts have cleaned!"
Wang Fuxi wiped his sweat and nodded: "Okay, leave it to us."
Shen Youyou turned around and called her aunt, "Aunt, take a few people to clean the kudzu roots first. Wash the big one we brought back first. We'll do it first. If it's too big, you can cut it into sections and wash it."
During the Chinese New Year, we will use this "King of Kudzu Root" to make dumplings, haha!
Life was so extravagant that she even despised herself in her heart: Shen Youyou, how could you be so unsure of how to live that you had to use Pueraria lobata to make dumplings?