Chapter 63: Muddled Fried Fish

  After chatting with Wu Ming, Ju An closed the book and sent the notebook to the bedroom on the second floor. He took the opportunity to enter the space and saw a group of little cows gathered under the apple tree, eating the apple blossoms all over the ground. When he looked up at the fruit tree, it was still full of small white flowers, but not a single fruit could be seen. Ju An scratched his head, wondering why there were no results. After thinking for a while, he finally figured it out - there was nothing in the space to pollinate! Not even butterflies or bees, let alone a gentle breeze. How could it bear fruit? Fortunately, his middle school natural science class hadn't been wasted after all.

  The white flowers on the ground were cheap for a few small cows. Holding his chin, he thought for a while, wondering if he should go buy a box of bees to raise in the space. Forget it, wait until returning home to find the bees. At that time, plant a jujube tree, a big pear tree, and all the favorite fruits, one by one, so there will be fresh fruit to eat every season. He dug around in his brain for a while, thinking about the wonderful life of having fresh fruit in four seasons.

  After finishing, I still need to take care of today's lunch. Ju An walked to the edge of the pond, lifted the bamboo basket, and it was just right, tried the weight, not bad, full and heavy. Carrying the bamboo basket into the yard, opening the back cover of the basket, pouring the caught things into a plastic bucket, there were about six or seven catties of small fish in total. Looking at the small fish as long as a palm, Ju An patted his thigh, oh dear, I only remembered the duck eggs and forgot that when my mother was around, she helped to pickle the small salted fish, oh what a mistake!

  What to do, or else have a plate of crispy fried fish for lunch today, thinking about it makes my mouth water, it's really delicious and can't be thought about, just thinking about it makes me drool.

  With a few swishes of his hand in the bucket, he counted the small fish, totaling around ten or so. Suddenly, he discovered a small, black turtle, about the size of a palm, crawling around inside. He picked it up and said, "You little turtle egg, how did you get mixed in here? Where are your parents?" Looking at the turtle stretching its neck with four legs still swishing in mid-air, Jian An pinched the turtle and walked to the side of the pond. With a flick of his hand, he threw the turtle back into the pond. He thought for a moment that maybe it had been accidentally brought in when they were catching small fish and shrimp at their old home last time. Jian An had never eaten turtle from childhood to adulthood; this thing was too expensive, not something an ordinary citizen like him could afford. So, he wouldn't even think about cooking the turtle, let alone killing it.

  Remove the larger small fish, then throw the smaller ones back into the pond. This time it's clean, except for a small turtle that was unexpected, basically all small fish and shrimp, no spearfish or yellow croaker were seen.

  Carrying a plastic bucket, he came out of the space and walked to the kitchen downstairs. Hu Tou and Suan Tou, as well as Wu Song, immediately arrived. As soon as Ju An put down the small bucket, Wu Song stretched out his small black hand, grabbed a handful of small shrimp from the bucket, and put one in his mouth to chew. He immediately opened his hands and threw the remaining small shrimp back onto the ground. Hu Tou and Suan Tou rushed up and ate the delicious food on the ground. Ju An looked at this and thought, "This monkey is clever, knowing that the law can't control everyone, he even found two accomplices." Just as Wu Song was about to put his hand into the bucket again, Ju An grabbed him and tapped two steel rings on Wu Song's head. Wu Song covered his head and jumped back a few times, shouting at Ju An. Hu Tou and Suan Tou, those two guys, were sitting on the ground at this time, with a face of "none of my business" and sticking out their tongues.

  He put the plastic bucket on the table, covered it with a large stainless steel tray, and pressed a kitchen knife on top of it. Pointing at the bucket, he said to Wu Song: "Don't steal food, you know? If I come back and see any of you stealing food, I'll send you directly to the veterinarian to be neutered." Without caring whether the three understood or not, he drove them out of the door and closed it.

  Arrived at the warehouse, started a four-wheeled motorcycle and headed towards Nan Xi's grazing place. Hu Tou and Suan Tou, two guys, were still licking their faces wanting to follow, but were scolded by Ju An to go back and guard the door. Since they were going to make some hometown snacks for lunch, they informed this group of old Americans that they didn't need to cook themselves today, just come to Ju An's place at noon to eat. After telling everyone in the sheep and cattle groups, Ju An returned home.

  As soon as he reached the door, he saw Wu Song, who was playing happily under the eaves, flipping and turning over. Hu Tou and Suan Tou were lying on the ground, resting their heads on their front paws, dozing off. As soon as they saw Ju An, they wagged their tails and came to greet him.

  Push open the big gate and leave the three gluttons outside, not allowing them to enter the house. After settling down, I start preparing lunch.

  At noon, I didn't prepare to cook rice, and directly bought bread for a convenient meal. I just tore open the bag and could eat it. Then I took out a small bag of flour from the cabinet, poured some into a small bowl, and started dealing with the fish.

  About a dozen small fish, removed the internal organs, lightly salted them. The small fish from my hometown, I don't know what its scientific name is, but in my hometown it's called "small shovel fish". It doesn't have many scales to clean and won't grow too big, at most about 15 cm long, slender and thin. The head of the fish is also very small, with a lot of fine thorns, which makes it troublesome to eat when grilled. Generally, people from my hometown make "mashed fish" with them.

  Then I washed the shrimp, this time not planning to make white scalded shrimp, but still planning to coat it with flour and fry it in a pot. The Americans didn't like the white scalded shrimp I made last time, so I'll try a different style this time.

  A large bowl of shrimp was washed, then water and salt were added to the flour, a little sugar was put in, stirred into a paste, beaten with eggs, poured into oil, and the shrimp was put into the paste and stirred, so that the shrimp was coated with a layer of flour. Then it was put into the pot and fried until golden yellow, then taken out. Next, the small fish were also coated with the batter and continued to be fried. The color was slightly deeper than the shrimp, and the fragrant batter fish was done.

  Then he took out two large pieces of tofu from the refrigerator, cut them into cubes, and put them in the pot to pan-fry. He fried three pieces per person, using up the two blocks of tofu just right. The pan-fried tofu was placed separately in several plates, accompanied by some long beans that had been briefly sautéed as a vegetable, with a few stalks added to each plate to balance out the color.

  He put two pieces of fish in each dish, and also fried seven or eight small shrimp. A plate of Chinese-Western food was ready for lunch. Just as he finished the salad, Old Thomas and his party returned.

  Nancy helped Ju An lay out lunch on the table, and everyone gathered around the long table to start eating.

  Old Thomas, having eaten half a fish, said: "This tastes really good, the fish bones are crispy, and when you bite into them, there's a lot of juice. It's truly delicious! The cooking method is similar to KFC's fried chicken legs. But Ann, can this fish head really be eaten?"

  Knowing that Laomei usually doesn't eat fish heads, regardless of size, he said: "If you don't want to eat it, no problem, just throw it to Huto and Suantou."

  Watching the old Thomas eating the fish head with relish, he also tried one, carefully chewing and said: "There is no such delicious juice in the body, can't say what flavor it is". The other fish head refused to eat anymore.

  Wade is actually more interested in fried tofu, and he took a few more servings of pepper salt, saying: "This suits my taste, the home-cooked tofu I made last time was also good, tofu is always so delicious, my favorite".

  Nancy also nodded and said, "It's really delicious, much better than the goose last time. I think goose is still more delicious when roasted, it looks a bit strange when boiled and turns red."

  Jū ān was thoroughly defeated by Nancy's words, thinking that old Americans only knew a few ways to cook, either roasting or frying, and couldn't think of any other methods, so he let it go, figuring it was just different eating habits, just like Jū ān, if you made him eat salad for a few days, maybe his stomach would even spit it out.

  In short, the meal prepared by Ju An was fully recognized by everyone, except for the fish head, almost everything was swept away. After finishing dinner, Nancy stayed behind to help Ju An clean up a bit, and then everyone went back to their busy work. When leaving, they also brought some food for the dogs, including several large bones of beef stew, mixed with rice, as well as a few cans of dog food.

  Living a comfortable life, watching foreigners feed their dogs, feels luxurious. When I was young and raised a dog, whatever leftovers we had at home, the dog would eat them, and it would still be lively and energetic. It seems that our family's dog is more useful than some foreign dogs.

  After Nancy left, Ju An put the extra shrimp from lunch into the small bowls of Hu Tou and Suan Tou, poured some bone soup, and also threw in the fried fish head that the foreigners had left over. Before long, the two good comrades swept away the leftover dishes, even eating the bowls relatively clean.

  After dinner, I brewed a pot of tea and sat under the corridor to rest. The fishing activity that was done every afternoon before has been reduced from once a day to three times a week, and now it's basically once a week. On the other hand, practicing shooting is still maintained, and if there's time, I will go to the town's shooting range once a week. If something comes up, I will also practice at my own shooting range at home, firing dozens of rounds. No wonder they say that great marksmen are nurtured by bullets.

  Although it can't be said that he's a great shooter, Gu An is still quite skilled with guns. This was Old Thomas' evaluation of Gu An after watching him hit the target more than ten times at the shooting range. The Remington rifle was his favorite to play with, followed by the revolver. As for the M4, Gu An lost interest in it after a few tries, finding it too inaccurate and expensive. After replenishing bullets twice, he stopped buying them altogether. Last time, he heard from the gun store staff that AK bullets are relatively cheap, so he's considering whether to find time to get an AK to play with. Not for anything else, but just for the sake of its reputation as the best-selling firearm in the world, it would be nice to collect one.