Chapter 45: Spicy Kimchi

The two of them, fully revived inside the space, slept in the next morning before getting up. By the time they came out, the people at the front yard were already at work.

It wasn’t just the two of them; the others in Aunt Huang’s team were happily watching everyone else head to work while they stayed at home, tidying up their vegetable gardens or preparing for this year’s winter storage.

In the morning, Ming Dai made medicine for Zhou Sinian in the space and also prepared some sandwiches. The two of them ate inside the space.

After finishing their meal, Zhou Sinian gave his feedback, mentioning that it wasn’t as delicious as a steamed bun with meat. Ming Dai agreed.

When they left the space, they immediately felt how much colder it was compared to yesterday. Ming Dai couldn’t help but feel some sympathy for the people who would have to go into the water to wash the radishes today.

The task for the day was to process the radishes and cabbages they had brought back.

Ming Dai decided that out of the 500 large cabbages, she would keep 200 for eating and store them in her space’s warehouse to keep them fresh. The rest would be pickled.

She planned to pickle half of them using the method from Hei Province to make sauerkraut, and the other half would be made into spicy kimchi.

After hearing Ming Dai describe the spicy kimchi, Zhou Sinian’s eyes lit up. After finishing his medicine, he began urging Ming Dai to get to work. Ming Dai sent him off to scrub the millstone so that she could enjoy a moment of peace.

Watching him work diligently made her quite pleased. She, on the other hand, took out the drying mats and sieves she had bought from Liu Dazheng’s house.

She found a wooden board, cleaned it, and placed it on the drying mat to air out, then started preparing the cabbage for pickling.

Every household around here was making sauerkraut, and their methods were similar to Aunt Huang’s in the drying area. Ming Dai consulted the encyclopedia in her mind and chose a different method.

While Zhou Sinian was scrubbing the millstone, she boiled a large pot of water and washed out the big sand jar she had prepared in advance.

She refilled it with water, added a piece of firewood to the stove, and began preparing the cabbage for processing.

She asked Zhou Sinian to start fetching water while she cleaned the roots of the cabbage, washing off the yellow leaves and dirt before placing them on the drying mat.

Zhou Sinian stood by with a kitchen knife, ready. She handed him a cabbage, and he quickly chopped it in half, setting the pieces aside to drain.

The two of them worked quickly, and before long, the 150 cabbages were ready.

They carried the cabbages to the kitchen, blanching each one in the boiling water for a minute before taking them out. Ming Dai handed them over to Zhou Sinian to cool them off in the well water. Then, they were placed on the drying mat to drain, ensuring all the water was removed. This step was a bit more complicated than Aunt Huang’s method, but it allowed the pickled cabbage to last longer and taste sweeter.

Once all the cabbages were done, Ming Dai sprinkled a layer of salt at the bottom of the jar, then placed a layer of cabbage on top. The cabbage was arranged in a crisscross pattern, one layer after another, until the jar was completely full.

Finally, she placed a large stone, which had already been cleaned, on top of the cabbage to weigh it down. She covered it with a clean basket cloth, tied it tightly with rope, and left it in the cool, shaded area of the kitchen to ferment.

Zhou Sinian had already pickled sauerkraut in the drying area before, and he had secretly tasted it in the middle of the process. It was incredibly salty, and he didn’t like it. He was much more curious about the spicy kimchi Ming Dai had described.

Following the recipe in her mind, Ming Dai took a bag of peeled garlic and a dozen pieces of old ginger from the warehouse. After chopping them up, she placed them on the millstone and taught Zhou Sinian how to grind them. She prepared the ingredients, while Zhou Sinian pushed the millstone. They quickly ground the garlic and ginger into a paste.

Ming Dai then took a large bowl and added three big bags of chili powder and four bags of fine salt. Considering Zhou Sinian’s taste, she also added two bags of white sugar, mixing everything together.

Zhou Sinian watched the vibrant red mixture, and when Ming Dai went to cook the glutinous rice flour, he secretly tried a bite. The spiciness immediately made him stick out his tongue in shock. He doubted whether the spicy kimchi Ming Dai described could actually taste good.

Ming Dai didn’t pay him much attention. She poured the cooked glutinous rice flour paste into the large bowl and mixed it with the ginger paste and garlic paste. Finally, she added thinly sliced pear, shredded white radish, chopped chives, and shrimp paste.

She also found the fish sauce, which she didn’t even remember buying, and poured it in, mixing everything well.

The sauce already smelled fragrant, and Zhou Sinian slowly crept closer, reaching for a handful. Ming Dai, however, swatted his hand away without mercy.

“Go cut the cabbage!”

Zhou Sinian, feeling wronged, glanced longingly at the bowl full of sauce, but reluctantly dragged himself away to do as she said.

Ming Dai then found another large bowl, filled it with half a bowl of clean water, and added two big bags of coarse salt, stirring until it dissolved. She then pressed the cabbage, which Zhou Sinian had already cut, into the brine to pickle for a while.

After finishing these tasks, Ming Dai glanced at the time—it was almost noon.

She called out to Zhou Sinian, who was munching on a cabbage leaf, “Come on, start the fire, let’s cook!”

Zhou Sinian immediately stood up and rushed into the kitchen.

Considering how well-behaved he had been the past couple of days, and how helpful he had been with the work, Ming Dai decided to make something tasty for him.

She took out the pig’s skin jelly she had made in the space and sliced it onto a plate. Then, she took some pork belly, boiled a few eggs, and simmered a pot of braised meat. The aroma filled the kitchen, and Zhou Sinian circled around the stove, unwilling to leave for even a moment.

At lunchtime, they ate the chilled pig’s skin jelly with the braised meat rice. Ming Dai had a whole bowl full, and she felt so full that she didn’t want to move for a long while.

Zhou Sinian ate even more—four bowls in total. If Ming Dai hadn’t stopped him, he might have gone for a fifth.

Ming Dai looked at his noticeably bulging stomach, worried that he might overeat and end up with a stomachache. She hurriedly stored the leftover braised meat in her space.

Zhou Sinian, still craving more, licked the bottom of his bowl and quickly went to wash the pot and dishes.

Ming Dai sat back in the warm kitchen, watching Zhou Sinian happily working. She felt content. This kind of life was much better than her lonely existence in her past life.

After the break, the cabbage had pickled enough. Ming Dai took the cabbage out, pressed out any remaining water, and placed it into the large bowl of prepared sauce, rubbing the sauce inside and out.

Zhou Sinian was very reluctant to watch her hands covered in sauce as she massaged the cabbage. Meanwhile, he happily ate the tender cabbage that Ming Dai had already coated with the sauce.

Once the cabbage was coated, it was placed back into the large jar, pressed with a stone, and left in the cool part of the kitchen. The pickling process was now complete.

With both tasks finished, Ming Dai checked the time and decided to start processing the radishes.

Ming Dai purposely kept the radishes unwashed, leaving the mud on them as it helped with preservation. However, they couldn’t be stored outside since radishes would easily spoil in the open air.

She marked off a piece of land near the corner of the front yard and had Zhou Sinian dig a half-meter-deep pit. They placed half of the radishes into the pit and covered them with soil. This way, even after the winter passed, the radishes would stay crisp and wouldn’t rot.

The remaining radishes were stored in her space’s warehouse, placed alongside the cabbage. She planned to take them out as needed.

After finishing the work, and noticing that they still had time, Ming Dai decided to go with Zhou Sinian to the mountain to see if they could find more food.

With a bag of hot sugar-roasted chestnuts in hand, the two locked the door and headed toward the direction of Wild Boar Ridge.