Chapter 41 : Sweet Potato Flour

Xiao Hechuan looked at his nephew and remembered that he was the elder, and as an elder, he should not fight with the younger for food.

Although he wanted to eat it, the few times he had eaten white rice were unforgettable. Compared to eating cornmeal porridge and two-grain steamed buns every day, eating white rice with every meal had become the highest ideal of many ordinary people in their lifetime.

“I don’t want to eat. I’m full. You can eat by yourself!” Xiao Hechuan turned his eyes away from the white rice and pretended to be serious like an adult.

Jiang Sui watched from the side, feeling very uncomfortable.

She thought, ‘that’s enough, Xiao Hechuan, I feel sorry for you.’

His current situation was no different from that of a child.

During this period, she had experienced the family love and warmth she had never known before, and for the first time, she felt like she was at home.

Putting aside her initial selfishness, she now genuinely hoped that the Xiao family could live a good and harmonious life.

If such a large family wanted to eat white rice at every meal, what kind of family background would they need?

She felt that she had to do something for them and make some contribution.

Goudan finally finished the bowl of almost cold white rice by himself, and he felt very satisfied just eating it.

Little did he know that Mr. Zeng, who had been outside the kitchen, had overheard and sighed helplessly. He thought to himself, ‘this is really a family of good people.’

People had provided them with money and delicious food, yet they still ate simple meals.

However, he didn’t tell Su Yanqing about this, fearing it might add unnecessary psychological burden to him.

This is the way the world works, too realistic, too many things that cannot be helped, and everyone’s life is not easy.

—

It was mid-May, and it hadn’t rained for a month. The people were eagerly waiting for rain because the crops in the fields needed water.

Su Yanqing had been staying at the Xiao family for about ten days.

Xiao Lanlan brought him meals every day. In the mornings, when she went to the vegetable garden, she saw many beautiful wildflowers growing along the roadside. She picked a bunch of them, tied them together with grass, and placed them on the table at the head of Su Yanqing’s kang.

When Su Yanqing woke up, he saw the bright flowers, and their vibrant colors lifted his mood for the whole day.

Mother Xiao went down to the cellar in the morning and took out several large bags of sweet potatoes. Some had sprouted, and others had pieces that had rotted.

Last month, the sweet potato seeds she had saved had sprouted, so she planted them all. Now, the remaining ones were for her own consumption.

However, she hadn’t paid attention to them during this period, and most had gone bad, which was a pity.

You could cut off the bad parts, but there were so many that it would be impossible to use them all at once, what a waste.

Adding up these bags, it would be at least over 100 kilograms, which made Mother Xiao feel troubled.

When Jiang Sui saw the sweet potatoes, she understood Mother Xiao’s concerns and came up with a good idea.

These sweet potatoes couldn’t be eaten all at once, but they could be turned into sweet potato flour.

Sweet potato noodles are chewy and bouncy, and when made into hot and sour noodles, they have a unique flavor that really whets the appetite. Jiang Sui herself was a loyal fan of hot and sour noodles.

So, she shared her idea with Mother Xiao.

When Mother Xiao heard this, she was surprised and wondered what sweet potato flour was. Why had she never heard of it?

“Suisui, can sweet potatoes be made into noodles? I’ve only heard of noodles and wonton wrappers, but I’ve never heard of sweet potato noodles.”

When Jiang Sui heard that sweet potato flour wasn’t known in this era, she instantly felt excited.

Wow, this was a business opportunity coming straight to her doorstep! If she could make it, she’d be the first.

“Mom, if you haven’t heard of it, I’ll make it for you. It’s delicious, and I’m sure it’s much better than regular noodles. It’d be such a waste if I didn’t process these sweet potatoes, so why not let me make them into noodles!”

Mother Xiao thought about it and decided that what Jiang Sui said made sense, so she agreed.

“Okay, just do it, and I’ll help you.”

And they got to work right away.

Making sweet potato flour is simple. First, wash the sweet potatoes and cut off all the bad parts. Those can be fed to chickens or used as fertilizer in the fields.

Peel the skins and cut them into dices. There was a small grinding wheel at home, which came in handy. The mother and daughter worked together to grind the sweet potatoes into pulp.

When Zhou and Xiao Lanlan heard they were making sweet potato noodles, they also came to help.

The four of them worked quickly, grinding out more than 100 kilograms of sweet potatoes in just one morning. After several rounds of filtering and washing, they let the pulp settle overnight in a large vat. The next day, when they poured out the water, the sweet potato starch had settled at the bottom.

Since they only had a bamboo colander at home and no modern iron colander, it was a bit troublesome to make the noodles. The starch couldn’t be easily shaped.

But Jiang Sui had a solution. She found a wooden basin, cleaned it inside and out, boiled a pot of water, then mixed some sweet potato starch with water. She poured a spoonful at a time into the bottom of the basin and spread it out. The idea was to use boiling water to scald it into sheets of sweet potato skin, which would then be cut into strips to make sweet potato vermicelli.

As for the remaining sweet potato starch, to preserve it for a long time, she put it out in the sun to dry, so it could be stored and rehydrated whenever they wanted to use it.

It was the first time Mother Xiao had seen such a fresh way of preparing food. She, along with Zhou and Xiao Lanlan, watched Jiang Sui curiously as she worked.

Jiang Sui spent a long time boiling the sweet potato sheets and stacking them neatly. The thick bottom of the wooden basin made it difficult to shape the potatoes, so it took longer than expected.

Once the sweet potato noodles were ready, Jiang Sui prepared the seasoning for the hot and sour noodles. She cut a small piece of pork belly into minced meat, chopped green onions and garlic, added chili powder, poured in soy sauce, and fried the meat sauce on the spot.

The aroma of the pepper mixed with the meat and sauce was irresistible.

Next, she fried some peanuts, chopped coriander and green onions, seasoned the chili powder, and made homemade chili oil by heating the oil.

There were still not enough seasonings. If she had peppercorns, cumin, sesame seeds, cinnamon, and star anise, she could make an even more fragrant chili oil.

But it was fine. In the end, she boiled the sweet potato noodles and served a bowl to everyone. She added salt, a little vinegar, and chili oil to each bowl, using bones from the soup she made for Su Yanqing to make a broth for the soup base. Finally, she added a spoonful of meat sauce and sprinkled coriander and chopped green onions. A bowl of slightly rustic hot and sour noodles was ready.

Though it wasn’t perfect, the noodles had good color, aroma, and taste. To everyone’s delight, the smell made their mouths water.

“Suisui, is this the hot and sour rice noodle you mentioned?”Mother Xiao couldn’t help but swallow.

Jiang Sui beamed a bright smile and said: “Yes, everyone, stop standing there and try some. I’ll serve a bowl to Mr. Zeng and Mr. Su as well.”