Little Life on An American Ranch

Chapter 498: fried escargot

  Chapter 498 Fried snails

   While humming, he suddenly heard the voice of Mr. Yao behind him: "What are you doing, kid?"

Jian Heng turned his head and saw that Mr. Yao was riding his big white horse flirtatiously. Now he was standing behind him to a distance of five or six meters. It seemed that the old man wanted to come up, but the horse was a bit timid. Ken set foot on the pier that Jian Heng had just finished.

   "The wharf is being built, you didn't see it, I got the yacht out, how is it looking good?" Jian Heng pointed at the yacht parked in the lake as he spoke.

  Old Master Yao glanced at it, and praised him twice: "Not bad, very beautiful, you young people are really good at wasting money, spending so much money on such a thing."

   "What's your business?" Jian Heng didn't want to talk about this with the old man, so he asked the old man what he wanted.

  Old Master Yao said: "My two apprentices can start practicing now, do you think it's time for them to start working now?"

After hearing this, Jian Heng didn't agree, but instead asked: "Old man, the current guest, forget it, let me put it bluntly, the current guest is not a good subject to use for experiments, so let's do it, let you The two apprentices will press the hands of the people in the ranch first, let Toby, Zhang Jialiang, Huang Xiaodong, and Zhao Changshan try it out, and they feel that the effect is good, and the service is no problem before giving the press to the guests, okay?"

  Old Master Yao thought for a while and said, "That's fine, then I'll go back and inform them, but now you have to pay the salary of the intern, they are all bosses...".

Before the old man finished speaking, Jian Heng raised his hand to stop the old man from continuing to speak: "I see, I will notify the accountant about this later, and I will try it myself in a few days, if their standards are not good enough , I still have to follow the rules."

   "Of course" Mr. Yao nodded solemnly. He has confidence in the two apprentices.

   After finishing speaking, the master urged the horse and was about to leave. Jian Heng immediately stopped the old man when he saw it.

   "Old man, don't go, I'll go back to get snails later, and I'll try something new before leaving!"

  Mr. Yao heard about the snails, so he turned the rein and said, "You mean snails? At this time, the snails haven't really grown up yet, and they're still thin. It's not long since the beginning of spring."

   "The big snails are so big, I don't know if they are delicious, but they look good with their size and meat." Jian Heng stretched out his hand and gestured.

  Old man Yao got off his horse after hearing this, tied the side rein of his mount to a nearby tree, extended the rein by more than five meters, rolled up his sleeves and walked onto the pier.

When he lifted his foot onto the pier, he stomped on it vigorously. After trying it, he found that the wooden board under his feet did not move at all. He opened his mouth and praised Jian Heng: "You boy can do it, this small pier is well-made. !"

Walking to Jian Heng's side, he looked up and saw two large round wooden pillars in the water, stretched out his hand to pat it, then buckled the material with his fingers, then sighed, looked at Jian Heng and said, "Your boy, this is a luxury. I’m used to it, you use this kind of wood to make a pile? This one can buy a dozen cement piles.”

"The cement thing pollutes my place, this thing is so good that it's all natural and non-polluting." Jian Heng is sitting on the shelf now, with two iron nails in his mouth, he reaches out and picks up one, and presses it on the head of the wooden board , and then swung the hammer, only to hear a few bangs, and Jian Heng nailed the one-finger-long iron nail into the wooden board.

  Master Yao and Jian Heng sat down face to face, and asked with their mouths open, "Do you still have the hammer?"

  Jian Heng stretched out his hand and touched it from behind, took out a claw hammer, and threw it directly to Mr. Yao.

The old man took the hammer here, stretched out his hand and grabbed a few iron nails from the nail box, took one in his hand like Jian Heng, and held three in his mouth, and began to swing the hammer head to knock the other end of the wooden board. Nailed to a wooden shelf.

   The work will be much faster if two people are left and right.

  Master Yao worked for a while, and said to Jian Heng: "Little Jane, I want to go back to my hometown after a while."

   "Going back to my hometown? What is this?" Jian Heng was a little strange, thinking that the old man had other ideas and didn't want to do it here.

  Old Master Yao saw the expression on Jian Heng's face, and said with a smile: "I don't mean to never go back, I'm just a little homesick, the old man is just promising."

  Jian Heng understands the psychology of the old man, just like his own old man, he will miss his hometown wherever he lives, this kind of homesickness is obvious in the older generation, no matter how good the outside world is, it is not his hometown.

   "When are you going to leave?" Jian Heng asked.

  Old Master Yao said: "After a while, wait until the two apprentices can officially take over. By the way, I have one more thing to tell you about this. I am going to accept a female apprentice."

   Jian Heng listened and asked: "Female apprentice?"

  After thinking about it for a while, he nodded: "As long as you are optimistic about it, it happens that there are more female customers, and it doesn't look good just to have a male masseur."

   "Then I'll ask her to come and see you later," said Mr. Yao, with a playful smile on his face.

Jian Heng didn't notice it at this time, and now Jian Heng is concentrating on dealing with the last few boards on the pier, when he heard the old man say this, he hummed casually twice: "Okay, just let her come to me in a while ".

   "Okay, it's finally finished, old man, you wait here, I'll drive the boat over." Jian Heng put down the hammer, stretched, and ran towards the yacht.

Stepped on the water and got on the yacht, Jian Heng drove the boat to the pier, tied the cable to the pile head, sat on the pier, stretched his feet into his hands, and said to the old man while washing, "Would you like to try it? This thing is so fast."

  Master Yao waved his hand and said, "Forget it, I'm old here, how can I be as exciting as you young people, I still don't try."

  The good old man helped Jian Heng put away the tools and put them all in the toolbox.

After washing his feet, Jian Hengkong dried the water and put on his shoes and socks again, then took the toolbox in the hands of Mr. Yao and his son back to the house, put it in the toolbox, and found that Mr. Yao had already started to give The snails changed the water.

   "How is it? Is it still dirty? I've changed the water twice already." Jian Heng asked.

  Master Yao nodded and said: "There is nothing dirty, the basin of water just now is quite clean, there should be no sediment, you can knock your tail."

  Mr. Yao said that by knocking the tail, he was looking to get rid of the shell of the tail of the snail. This way, it is good for the taste, and it is also conducive to further washing the dirt in the shell of the snail.

As soon as Jian Heng heard that he could tap the tail, he immediately turned around and found a pair of pliers and the old man each, moved two small benches, sat down and began to clamp the snail tail shell with the pliers. When he exerted force with both hands, he only heard a click. With a sound, a small part of the shell behind the snail broke, exposing the snail meat and a section of snail sausage inside. After tugging and rinsing it in the water, the snail was thrown into another basin filled with clean water.

  Mr. Yao worked very fast, and he caught up with Jian Heng by one and a half. I saw that he was moving like flying. Jian Heng didn't clamp one yet, and the second one at the old man's place had already started.

   "Okay, old man, grow stronger and stronger!" Jian Heng praised him.

Mr. Yao said with a smile: "I used to eat this every year. I got used to it and it was quick. It's not the fastest time yet. I used to be the fastest small ginseng snail. I could get a big basket out of it by sitting here for fifteen minutes. It's a pity, now the lake in my hometown is seriously polluted, even if it is a small ditch, there are not so many fish, shrimps and snails in the stream!"

   "You are so good at it, then will I or you come to fry?" Jian Heng asked.

  Master Yao smiled and said, "Let me do it. I'm afraid that your fried rice won't taste good enough. The most important thing about this food is salty, fresh and spicy. If there are no these three things, fried rice snails won't taste good."

   "Success, since you are so skilled, let's do it," Jian Heng said with a smile.

   After the old man and the young man picked up all the snails in the basket, Jian Heng prepared a series of ingredients such as pepper, star anise, dried red pepper, scallion, etc. according to the old man's instructions, and put them all on the table for the old man.

   Not to mention, Master Yao’s posture here is really good, with a white towel hanging on his shoulder, a frying pan in one hand, and a large spoon in the other, he looks like a chef.

  The snails haven't been put into the pot yet, just the smell from the old man's ingredients makes Jian Heng gulp and spit.

  Waiting for the snails to come out of the pot, Jian Heng pinched one and put it in his mouth to **** the snail juice. Suddenly, he felt his mouth full of saliva, so he couldn't help giving the old man a thumbs up.

  (end of this chapter)