Chapter 184: Assorted Meat Skewers
Su Ran wasn’t so afraid of the crabs whose legs had all fallen off.
When preparing to go back, Gray picked up all the crab legs scattered on the beach and placed them on top of the oysters in the backpack, then directly pressed the big crab’s body on top to cover them, so that Su Ran wouldn’t feel uncomfortable seeing them.
Back home, Su Ran had Gray drop her directly at the riverside.
She squatted down and unloaded the backpack from her back onto the ground.
The oysters and crabs in the backpack weighed at least sixty pounds. If it were a year ago, even if Gray carried her flying back, carrying something this heavy would definitely make Su Ran feel heartbroken for several days.
But now this weight was completely no problem for Su Ran. She could even carry these things herself and walk for half an hour!
Originally, after returning today, Gray was supposed to fly out again to hunt dinner.
But now there was no need.
Because under their rain shelter, someone had placed a white-headed sheep there.
Gray sniffed the white-headed sheep’s body, then straightened up and said to Su Ran: “Beastman, it’s from Jiao Jiao woo~”
Su Ran knew Jiao Jiao; it was a tall rhinoceros beastman with white wings.
A couple of days ago, when it was making roof beams for its own house, it had asked Su Ran to come help.
This should be his thank-you gift, or rather, payment.
“Then let’s eat roast meat today!”
Su Ran said, looking at the white-headed sheep that had been drained of blood before being brought over.
The weather was hot, and the number of times she and Gray ate big stews was decreasing.
“Good woo~”
Gray bent down, grabbed one leg of the white-headed sheep, and was about to walk to the riverside, but was called back by Su Ran.
She told Gray to go to the storage room and bring the stone pot that they had dug up at the very beginning to the riverside to wash it first.
In a bit, they would use this stone pot to simmer the oysters outside, and the white-headed sheep would also be prepared on the barbecue grill outside.
Now that the weather was hot, they couldn’t burn so much fire inside the room anymore; even for the uninhabited west bedroom, Su Ran didn’t want to light so much fire on that room’s stove.
Simmering oyster sauce takes too long and requires too fierce a fire; Su Ran was afraid that burning it like this often would prematurely damage the heated brick bed in the west bedroom.
The fire pit outside the room, which was used for lighting, had already been converted by Su Ran into a stove.
However, the pot on the stove was detachable; when not in use, the pot could be removed and stored, and without the pot, this stove could still be used as a fire pit for lighting.
While Gray went to wash the stone pot, Su Ran went to get some firewood.
After placing the firewood she brought back in front of the stove, she took a large wooden basin to the riverside and poured all the oysters from the backpack into the wooden basin, rinsing them twice with river water.
After washing the oysters, she and Gray, who had already finished washing the stone pot, returned together to the stove.
Su Ran poured all the oysters from the basin into the stone pot, then squatted down and stuffed firewood into the stove, and stuffed dry grass under the wood.
Then, she took off the flint from her hand and scraped it forcefully twice, producing several sparks.
Two seconds later, a puff of white smoke rose above the dry grass, slipped through the gaps between the wood, reached the stove mouth, and as it wavered, the dry grass suddenly ignited; then this puff of white smoke, as if sucked by a gust of wind, changed direction and all drilled under the stone pot.
A few seconds later, the white smoke emerged from the smoke channel behind the stove.
Su Ran stood up and covered the stone pot with a wooden pot lid.
There were a lot of oysters and water in the pot; they had to wait a while before proceeding to the next step. For now, they could make dinner.
After Gray processed the white-headed sheep clean at the riverside, he split it directly into two halves, skewered them on branches, brought them back, and roasted them.
The white-headed sheep’s internal organs were wrapped by Su Ran in sweet leaf vein tree leaves and placed on the corner of the barbecue grill to slowly roast until cooked.
Su Ran also cut some fatty and lean meat chunks from the white-headed sheep.
She skewered these meat chunks together with finger onions, red meat fruit, and small peach fruit to make assorted meat skewers; the assorted skewers with their red and pink colors looked very appetizing.
Tonight, Su Ran and Gray didn’t make any other food.
She didn’t bother to get out tables, chairs, or stools; instead, she and Gray each took a plate and a scallop knife, and stood by the four-eared ox that was already roasted golden brown, eating it while roasting.
This feeling reminded Su Ran of the past, when she went to the grassland and ate barbecue at a farmstay run by herders.
After the tender white-headed sheep’s skin was charred from roasting, it presented a golden yellow color.
And after putting it in the mouth and biting down, beneath the charred aroma, the meat chunks almost melted in the mouth; the moment the teeth bit down, they didn’t even need force before reaching the bottom!
This was a texture that Gray loved very much.
After Su Ran ate two large chunks of roasted white-headed sheep mutton, she needed a bite of leafy greens or finger onion to cut the richness.
In comparison, she preferred eating the roasted internal organs.
The assorted meat skewers were also good; after the small peach fruit was roasted, that special fruity aroma seemed even stronger.
While Su Ran and Gray ate the evening roast meat, they were also simmering oyster sauce.
The sky gradually darkened.
The light ring of Blue Star overhead was a bit brighter than it had been recently.
Gray stood in front of the stone pot, stirring the oyster juice whose moisture had reduced a lot with a shovel; Su Ran picked up a few dried blue worms from the long table used for drying things, ate two herself, and stuffed the rest into Gray’s mouth.
At the end of the long table behind, there was still a small piece of dried youyou fruit and dried red fruit drying.
These two fruits were basically out of season now; at the end of spring, Su Ran had already dried a lot of dried fruit from these two fruits for storage.
And what was on the table now was the last bit she had found to dry.
She walked over, picked up a piece of dried youyou fruit, and bit into it.
The dried fruit wasn’t completely dry inside, but still had a moist and thick feeling.
Especially the sugar in the fruit, which made the fruit flesh part feel like it had been candied in sugar water; after biting down, the texture was more like candied fruit.
It was tasty, just a bit too sweet.
After finishing a piece of dried youyou fruit, Su Ran walked to the side of the rain shelter and used the jar placed in the shed to pour herself a cup of water.
The water was infused with wild cabbage flower tea saved from last year.
This pot of oyster sauce simmered from five in the evening until eight at night.
After finishing, Su Ran took the cleaned jar used for holding oysters and carefully ladled the simmered oyster sauce bit by bit into the stone jar.
After filling it, she put the lid on the stone jar and had Gray take it to the small storage room in the back.
Then she used the shovel to scrape off the oyster sauce still remaining on the stone pot walls bit by bit and put it into a stone jar only one palm high.
This jar was the small jar usually used for holding oyster sauce when cooking; simmering oyster sauce was time-consuming and laborious, and she didn’t want to waste even this little bit left.
