Chapter 84: The Old General and His Little Foot Soldier (2)
Even though Gu Ye was still very skinny right now, she wasn't freakishly scary like she used to be. In the past, she was just skin over bones and looked like someone who was end-stage anorexic. Anyone who ran into her at night would be frightened.
Now, on her small and pointy face was a pair of eyes that were full of spirit, her eyelashes were long and thick, like two brushes that flickers. Her normally dried and yellow skin had lightened up a lot and also has a healthy red glow to them. Whenever she smiled, her dimples were slightly visible, making her all the cuter.
Ninth Aunty couldn't help but pinched her little cheek and smiled, "Alright, Ninth Aunty will listen to little Ye-zi. We will pickle anything you want, any way you want." She figured as long as she added enough salt, pickled vegetables wouldn't go bad anyway. Even if it didn't taste good, they would still be edible.
Ge Ye frowned slightly and started reciting what she had memorized, "5 kg of radishes, 0.5 g of chili powder, 0.75 kg of vinegar, 125 g of sugar, 125 g salt, 3 g of pepper and aniseed, MSG... cough, cough, special spice, 2 kg of water...."
"Wait, wait! The rest are alright, but 0.75 kg of vinegar? Isn't that a bit much? And this sugar.... We are villagers, we can't afford that stuff. I know pepper, but what is aniseed?" Ninth Aunty was baffled and she also worried whether the pickled vegetable would be edible following this recipe.
"Ninth Aunty, I have already brought with me sugar, aniseed and M.... this kind of spice. If you don't like it too sour, we can reduce the amount of vinegar. Ninth Aunty, let's give it a try. My master won't lie to me, I am sure this pickled radish would be yummy!" And, again, Gu Ye used her master as her excuse.
Soon as Ninth Aunty heard it, she almost bought into it instantly. The Old Sacred Doctor was so worldly, an odd recipe like this from him would probably be okay. So, under Gu Ye's instructions, she retrieved several kg of sun-fried radishes from her storage.
Her heart ached when she was frying chili pepper in hot oil. Little Ye-zi brought the oil with her too. She was certain that Fifth Uncle Gu wasn't good with money, he must have bought these from town during his last trip. Aye, there was no woman in their house, who could help them with managing the household budget?
They mixed the fried chili oil in with the dried radishes before they mixed the salt, sugar, pepper, and aniseed into a pot of water and mixed them up and waited till the water started boiling. Then they added the MSG, and poured the entire content into the jar after the mixture had cooled.
(T/N: What happened to the vinegar???)
"All done! Now we just need to flip them once a day and they will be ready in 2 weeks or so!" Seeing that Ninth Aunty had completed the last step, Gu Ye clapped her hands together happily - Done!
Ninth Aunty prayed that this spicy picked radish would be successfully. She didn't want al those good spices going to waste. The sugar that little Ye-zi brought with her was white like snow and amazingly sweet. Sugar of that quality must cost at least 100 ren for 0.5 kg, that's half a month of groceries for a regular family. That Fifth Uncle Gu was so wasteful!
After they have completed the spicy pickled radish, even though the process of the spicy cabbage was more complicated, but they completed it much faster, while Ninth Aunty continued to grumbled to herself how wasteful that Fifth Uncle Gu was.
Altogether they have made 5 KG of spicy pickled radish and 2.5 KG of spicy cabbage. All they needed to do now was wait two weeks and check the outcome. Gu Li-er, who was helping out, mumbled, "With all these ingredients, it won't make sense if they don't taste good!"
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T/N: The title of this part should be "(pickled) food porn". =D