Preparations

To Xiaoguo’s surprise, everyone else in the village started lighting firecrackers too.

Qin Anming and Zhuang Zhuang had a lot of fun lighting up the firecrackers. When they returned to the house, the other families started lighting firecrackers as well.

The lively sounds lasted through the entire night.

Until the next morning, there were still some families joining in the festivities.

After making the bed, Xiaoguo went to the kitchen.

The first thing she did was turn on the stove and throw in a few pieces of charcoal.

Every day, after doing this, she will prepare to cook.

Xiaoguo woke up early today, so candlelight was needed to light up the house. Zhuang Zhuang and Qin Anming were still asleep. Xiaoguo picked up the pork shoulder, chicken, and a piece of square meat from the basin and placed them in the pot to cook.

After the meats were blanched, various condiments were added. Then, hot water was added to the pot until the meat was completely submerged. Firewood was added and the meat was left to simmer. Once the contents in the pot started boiling, the fire was reduced. The goal was to simmer the meat until noon.

After leaving the meat to stew, Xiaoguo began to make breakfast. She made a pot of corn porridge, pan-fried the leftover wontons and also made some eggs. She then took out some pickled vegetables that Mrs. Yang had given her. This was breakfast.

But there was no hurry. It was still early. She would cook the porridge and leave the rest for later.

Now, she had to prepare the other dishes. Other than the meat that was being cooked, there were a few other side dishes.

Xiaoguo took out the menu and stuck it on the wall so that she could refer to it when she looked up. It was more convenient this way.

After cleaning up the cutting table, she cleared out a large space. Then, she took out all the plates from the cabinet and scalded them with hot water. After wiping them clean, she arranged them neatly on the table. The cut vegetables would be placed on these plates later.

First, she started working on the groupers. This fish had a very strong fishy smell, so she coated them with a layer of salt. This made things easier for her to clean up the mucus on the fish. Moreover, the scales of groupers were very difficult to remove, so she took quite a while to remove all the scales.

Xiaoguo threw away the fish guts after processing the fish. She rinsed the fish with clean water and made a few cuts on them. After that, she laid the fish on a plate and placed ginger shreds evenly over them. These would be steamed in the pot at dinnertime.

She took out the pork ribs and chopped them into equal pieces with a machete. The sweet and sour pork ribs were easy to make. She could make them in the afternoon.

Xiaoguo took out the dried plum vegetables that Mrs. Yang had given her, and washed them. Then, she dried them and placed them on a plate. In the afternoon, she would use them to make braised pork belly with plum vegetables.

She turned around and brought the squid over. She carefully cut open its body with a knife and removed the ink bag inside before placing it in a bowl. The ink could be used for making dumplings.

After making criss cross cuts on the squid’s body, she cut it into smaller pieces and laid everything on a plate. She also cut up another two sprigs of green onions to go with the squid.

Xiaoguo took out a piece of pork tenderloin, which was perfect for making shredded pork with Beijing sauce. She had deliberately saved this portion of meat for this dish. She first cut the tenderloin into slightly thicker slices. Then, she cut the slices into shreds. As she had not bought any bean skin, she would replace it with dough. Before serving, she would cut some vegetables, and add shredded carrots and green onions to the dish.

There were still two handfuls of celery at home, and they were just right for the next dish. She sliced the celery into diagonal strips and divided them into two portions. One portion would be stir-fried with nuts, and the other portion would be mixed into the salad. She also had some carrot slices, peanuts and the fungus that she had soaked the night before. All these will be tossed into the salad.

Halfway through her cooking, she returned to the house and brought out a bowl of nuts that she had peeled last night. She then placed it beside the other portion of celery.

At this point, Xiaoguo halted her preparations. While getting the nuts, she heard some sounds coming from the back room, so she guessed that Qin Anming and Zhuang Zhuang must have woken up. The porridge was almost ready. She must start cooking the fried eggs and wontons.

First, she removed the porridge from the fire and opened the lid to let it cool down. Then, she set aside a frying pan. This pan was custom-made for frying. After the frying pan was heated up, she added lard. Once the lard had melted, she placed the small wontons neatly on top.

After putting the wontons on the pan, Xiaoguo turned around and filled a small plate with pickled vegetables, radish strips, and mustard greens. When she tasted them, Xiaoguo was sure that Mrs. Yang was not bragging. She claimed that she was the best at making pickled vegetables in Peach Blossom Village. It was absolutely true.

The pickled vegetables were salty, fragrant, crunchy and refreshing. She couldn’t get enough of them and could eat two full bowls of porridge with the pickled vegetables.

Xiaoguo put down the pickled vegetables and went to the pot. She rummaged through the contents with her chopsticks. Then, after thinking for a while, she mixed some starch water and sprinkled it evenly into the pot. It was enough to make some fried dumplings.

While the water was evaporating, Xiaoguo went to the egg basket and took out five duck eggs. Xiaoguo could only eat one egg, while Zhuang Zhuang and Qin Anming could have two each.

Recently, perhaps because of the cold weather, the chickens and ducks didn’t like to lay eggs anymore. They were clearly producing less eggs than when the weather was warm. However, there were only two people at home, so the supply was still sufficient for them.

Xiaoguo brought the duck eggs back to the pot. The water in the pot had completely evaporated, and there was a rustling sound. Xiaoguo quickly scooped the wontons out. The bottom of the wontons had been fried to a golden color. The color looked pretty good.

While the pot was still hot, she added a spoonful of lard and beat the duck eggs into it.

She used chopsticks to prevent them from sticking together. When they were cooked, she scooped them onto a new plate.

As soon as the food was served, Zhuang Zhuang ran over excitedly. “Mother!”

“Yes? What’s wrong?”

Xiaoguo was washing her hands when she heard his voice. She looked at him in confusion.

“What did you make? It smells so good!” Zhuang Zhuang followed the fragrance and ran to the stove. He looked at the steaming pot lid, his eyes filled with joy.

“There’s pork shoulder, chicken, and pork belly.”

As soon as Xiaoguo finished speaking, Zhuang Zhuang started exclaiming in excitement. He inhaled deeply to take in the fragrance.

Qin Anming arrived later. He had also come to check out the fragrance.

However, when he turned around, he saw a very eye-catching scene.

Qin Anming’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped. He couldn’t help but exclaim, “Wow!”

As he spoke, he moved closer to the table and looked closely at the dishes on the table. Zhuang Zhuang also leaned over. He did not notice the things on the table when he came in due to his height. Now that he was standing on a stool, he could see everything very clearly.

“Oh my! This must be the Manchu-Han Imperial Feast!”

Qin Anming had never eaten so many dishes at the same time in his life. When times were good, he mostly had only one dish. During the festive seasons, it was considered a luxury to have two dishes on the table. However, this had completely exceeded his expectations. Looking at the feast in front of him, he simply couldn’t get enough of it.

This was even more so for Zhuang Zhuang. Although his mother had always excelled in her cooking, today’s spread was truly exceptional. He simply could not wait for the night to arrive.

Xiaoguo snickered at their reactions. She couldn’t help but feel a little proud, but she tried to make it sound trivial. “This is nothing. There are more dishes coming up.”

When Qin Anming and Zhuang Zhuang heard her words, they immediately let out a long sigh. Xiaoguo felt like holding their chins for them. They must be tired from letting their mouths hang open for such a long time.

“Alright, alright. It’s time to eat.”

Xiaoguo sat in a chair and invited them to come to the table.

“Mother, you even made breakfast. When did you get up?”

Zhuang Zhuang jumped down from his seat and ran over to hug Xiaoguo.

“I could tell when I saw that the candle was lit up.”

Before Xiaoguo could speak, Qin Anming blew out the candle and felt bad for her. “It’s not that I want to nag you, but why did you get up so early? We can clean up together when the sun comes up.”

Xiaoguo scratched her head in embarrassment. “It’s nothing. I’m not tired. Really. I just wanted to prepare the stuff in advance. It will save me a lot of trouble later.”

After saying that, Xiaoguo smiled. To be honest, she was so excited that she couldn’t fall asleep. It was New Year’s Eve today. It would be the new year after midnight. This would be her first New Year’s Eve here. She couldn’t help but feel excited.

The more she thought about it last night, the more energetic she became. She felt like getting out of bed immediately to work on the preparations. After tossing and turning for a long time, at the stroke of dawn, she quickly got to work.