booktalesy Chapter 113 Lamb Offal Noodles
Chapter 113 Lamb Offal Noodles
Chapter 113 Lamb Offal Noodles
After blanching the lamb offal, start a new pot of water and simmer it slowly.
Actually, it's best to use mutton broth to cook mutton offal, but my grandmother's family had limited resources, so they temporarily used plain water to cook it.
The seasonings used for cooking mutton offal are similar to those used for cooking mutton, mainly to remove the gamey smell.
Don't add too many or too varied seasonings. Just a little seasoning is mainly to bring out the aroma of the lamb offal, and not to overpower it.
After the lamb offal soup had been cooking for a while, the lung noodles were ready first.
After Lu Yuan took the lung noodles out of the water, he placed them on the cutting board to let them cool naturally.
At this moment, another stove burner became available. Lu Yuan quickly cleaned up the pot used to cook the lung noodles and prepared to cook other dishes.
First up is stir-fried lamb. Although it's called stir-fried, the method is actually to stir-fry first and then stew, which takes a relatively long time.
After Lu Yuan had cooked the mutton for a while, he added an appropriate amount of water, covered the pot, and waited for the ingredients in both pots to cook.
Before long, the mutton offal soup was cooked. Lu Yuan took out the various parts of the mutton offal and placed them on the cutting board. He waited for them to cool slightly before cutting them.
At this moment, the fire for cooking the mutton offal still needed to be extinguished. Lu Yuan waved to his uncle and said, "Uncle, the he luo noodles I prepared for you this morning, hurry up and bring them over!"
After answering, the uncle said to his grandmother outside the door, "Mom, where's the he luo noodles I told you to make this morning?"
"It's in the basin on the cabinet!" Grandma pointed, but Lu Yuan still couldn't find it.
She simply went into the kitchen, walked to the corner cabinet, and took out a piece of dough that was a bit brown and black from a ceramic bowl.
There are two main dishes to accompany lamb offal soup. One is fennel flatbread, a local specialty of northern China. It is steaming hot when it comes out of the pan, with a strong fennel flavor. It is soft, chewy, and delicious.
Soaked in mutton offal soup, it absorbs all the broth and tastes absolutely delicious.
Another staple food is heluo noodles, a type of mixed grain noodle that is widely popular throughout northern China.
Heluo noodles are not a single type, but are made from a mixture of various grain flours such as elm bark flour, buckwheat flour, and sorghum flour.
Heluo noodles have a firm and hard texture, not soft, and are quite chewy, but they are very filling and can easily cause bloating if you eat too much.
Therefore, adding a spoonful of he luo noodles to mutton offal soup is a perfect combination. You can satisfy your cravings with the oily mutton offal soup and fill your stomach with the he luo noodles.
However, some people eat only lamb offal without any staple food, which is generally referred to as the "rich man's way of eating".
Fennel cakes are only available fresh in town, while he luo noodles are something almost every household has.
Therefore, Lu Yuan chose he luo noodles as his staple food today, paired with lamb offal soup.
After handing over the dough for the he luo noodles, Grandma took out a metal mold from the cupboard, walked to the stove, and said, "Xiao Yuan, are you going to make he luo noodles? Grandma will help you."
"Thank you so much, Grandma!"
"No need to thank me. It's so hot, I'm cooking for Grandma. Grandma should be thanking you." Then Grandma slapped my uncle, who was squatting by the stove, and said, "You're like a block of wood! Get up and press the noodles! What are you squatting there for!"
The old man threw down the fire tongs, looking aggrieved, but he dared not be angry or speak out. He could only obediently take the mold, open it, and place it on top of the pot.
The biggest difference between helu noodles, a type of coarse grain flour, and wheat flour is that the dough made from helu noodles has no gluten.
If the dough lacks gluten, it will break when stretched, so you can only press the dough directly into noodles before cooking.
However, this method of pressing the noodles is actually less strenuous.
Grandma put the dough into the mold, and Uncle closed the mold, pressing the dough into round, plump noodles using the lever principle.
Once the noodles had reached the desired length, Grandma used a chopstick to cut them in half, and the noodles fell into the pot, dancing in the boiling broth.
After repeating this process several times, the pot was filled with he luo noodles.
While the noodles were cooking, Lu Yuan cut the cooked lungs, lamb liver, lamb heart, lamb stomach, lamb intestines, and lamb head meat into long strips and arranged them on a plate.
Lu Yuan glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw the noodles begin to float on the water, then picked up a large bowl.
I picked up a clump of noodles with my chopsticks, shook off the excess water, and put it in a bowl.
Then he took some of each type of mutton offal from the plates and put them on top of the he luo noodles.
However, Lu Yuan didn't arrest too many people, because there was an unwritten rule in the northern frontier:
The more lung and noodle pieces in a bowl of mutton offal soup, the stingier the owner is.
Because lung meat is the least valuable part of mutton offal soup!
Then bring the bowl to the side of the mutton fat chili sauce, and scoop a large spoonful of mutton fat chili sauce over the mutton offal.
Finally, add a large handful of cilantro and chopped green onions, and pour a ladle of broth from the boiled lamb offal soup over it.
It instantly transformed a bowl of flavorful lamb offal noodles!
The mutton fat chili, which had already cooled down, was revitalized by the mutton offal soup, releasing a strong, oily aroma.
The irresistible aroma assaulted the crowd gathered at the entrance, causing a chorus of swallowing sounds to rise and fall, with no one bothering to laugh at each other.
Lu Yuan was very fast, and the second bowl of mutton offal soup was cooked in no time.
He picked up two bowls of mutton offal soup and handed them to his grandmother, saying, "Grandma, you and Grandpa eat first. I'll cook the rest of the noodles."
Grandma shook her head and called out, "Changming, you guys serve the noodles. The men eat first."
This is actually a very traditional rural way of life, and Lu Yuan felt that the idea of male superiority and female inferiority only had a small part in it.
More often than not, it's a mother-in-law's deliberate care for her sons-in-law, hoping to motivate them to treat their daughters better.
However, Lu Yuan felt that his grandmother's move was completely unnecessary, as the Wei family's daughter was never at a disadvantage wherever she went.
Even though her aunt's sharpness was overshadowed by her mother and second aunt, she was still ruthless when it came to dealing with her uncle.
So Lu Yuan gently pushed his grandmother out and said, "Grandma, you and Grandpa go eat quickly, I'll finish cooking here soon."
Grandma couldn't refuse, so she had to place two bowls of mutton offal soup in front of Grandpa's low table.
As they passed the doorway, the aroma assaulted everyone, instantly eliciting rumbling sounds from their stomachs.
Wei Yinghong was already used to this scene. Standing at the back of the crowd, she crossed her arms and listened with satisfaction to the chorus of cooing from her family members.
Before long, everyone except Miao Miao, who had a Wowo Jiajia milk candy in her hand, was holding a bowl of mutton offal soup.
With limited space at the low table, Grandpa, Grandma, Second Aunt, Little Aunt, and Zhuangzhuang and Longlong sat together.
Each bowl of mutton offal soup steamed with the aroma of oil, gathering into a rich fragrance on the low table.
The three sons-in-law simply squatted down to the side, slurping and enjoying the spicy and salty flavors in the sweltering heat.
Whew~ Slurp~ Slurp~
No one spoke at this moment, only the joyful slurping sounds could be heard.
Lu Yuan glanced into the kitchen and noticed that everyone's lips were stained with red grease.