Apocalyptic Hoarding Diary

Chapter 445 Dried Wood Ear Mushrooms

Xu Xiaoyan stood at the door of the wooden house, watching Lan Yue's figure walk further and further away, becoming smaller and smaller, along the path worn into the hillside.

She looked away, turned around and walked under the waterproof tarpaulin, squatted down and gathered the pile of wood ear mushrooms back together.

The wood ear mushrooms are still fresh and won't spoil if left untreated until tonight, but we can't wait any longer.

As she picked through the bits of bark from the wood ear mushrooms, she mentally planned out the steps to make dried goods.

If you're slowly baking it over a fire, you need to set up a rack, and the rack can't be too close to the fire, or it will burn; it also can't be too far away, or it won't dry properly.

More importantly, what should be used to build the frame? Wood? We have some, but we need to saw it, nail it, and make it into something that can be steadily placed over the fire.

Old Wang and the others had just finished working on the wooden house and had already gone their separate ways; it wasn't appropriate to call them back.

Do it yourself? It's not impossible, but it's too much work. By the time she sets up the frame, it will probably be dawn, and the wood ear mushrooms will still be piled there, still damp. Time waits for no one.

She stood up and circled the black iron pot twice.

The iron pot was still resting on the stone, with a thin layer of black ash remaining on the bottom, and traces of soup that had splashed onto the sides of the pot while cooking, now dried.

She looked down at the pot, and a thought suddenly flashed through her mind.

Tea leaves! I saw people frying tea on TV, and they used an iron wok.

Fresh tea leaves are picked and stir-fried in a pot with a fire burning underneath. Hands move the leaves around in the scalding hot pot, turning them from moist to dry.

At the time, I just thought the people who stir-fried tea had incredibly hot hands. Now that I think about it, wasn't that just a method of "drying with fire"?

She bent down, picked up the pot of remaining wood ear mushroom soup, and carefully poured it into Lan Yue's plastic bowl.

Then he scooped a few ladles of rainwater from the bucket and poured them into the pot, wiping the pot's sides and rims thoroughly.

She put the pot back on the stone, squatted down beside it, and started a fire.

The fire wasn't big; she only put in a few thin pieces of firewood, letting the flames stick to the bottom of the pot, burning gently and slowly.

Soon, the water stains at the bottom of the pot were evaporated little by little by the steam, and the surface of the pot began to heat up.

She held her palm a few inches above the pot's opening to test the temperature. It wasn't hot, but she could feel a dry, even steam rising from it.

That's it.

She moved the pile of wood ear mushrooms on the waterproof cloth, picking out the scattered, small, and irregularly shaped ones.

These shredded wood ear mushrooms don't look very appealing, so it's a good opportunity to test them out. If they turn out badly, it won't be a big deal; if they succeed, it'll be valuable experience.

She gathered two handfuls of shredded wood ear mushrooms and poured them into the pot, covering them with a thin layer of dark brown fragments.

From the moment the first piece of wood ear mushroom fell into the pot, her hands never stopped.

Grab a handful, loosen it, and use your fingers to flip the wood ear mushrooms from the bottom of the pot to the top, from left to right, so that each piece of wood ear mushroom is evenly exposed to the warm iron.

The pot was hot, and the wood ear mushrooms were wet. The heat and moisture met on the iron surface, producing a faint hissing sound, so faint that it was almost inaudible unless you listened carefully.

The unique mushroom aroma of the wood ear mushrooms rose with the heat, and she continued to stir them, as the wood ear mushrooms slowly changed shape in the pot.

When it first goes into the pot, it's dark brown, soft, and full of moisture, like something freshly picked from a tree.

After turning it dozens of times, the color lightened a bit, but it didn't fade; instead, it turned into a drier brown that was closer to the color of soil.

The edges began to curl slightly, transforming from a flat and smooth surface into irregular, shallow bowl shapes.

The original dampness brought by the tree bark and rainwater was gradually driven away by the heat, replaced by a dry, warm aroma that was somewhere between grass and grain.

After flipping it about a hundred times, the first crisp sound suddenly came from the pot, a very soft "crack".

Xu Xiaoyan paused for a moment, then continued flipping through the pages, but the corners of her mouth were already curved.

She knew what that voice meant: the wood ear mushrooms were turning from "fresh" to "dried goods".

This was much faster than she had expected. She thought it would take hundreds or thousands of flips to hear the sound, but she didn't expect that there would be changes in the pot in such a short time.

She increased the speed of her hands, but not the range of motion; she just increased the frequency.

The fire at the bottom of the pot was still burning, but she had reduced it to a very small flame, leaving only a few glowing red charcoal sticks radiating heat.

The wood ear mushrooms were repeatedly turned up and down in the pot.

She reached into the pot, picked up a small piece of wood ear fungus, and gently pinched it between her fingertips.

Broken.

As soon as the fingers closed, the piece of wood ear mushroom snapped into several pieces with a "crack," the cut clean and crisp, without a trace of moisture.

She pinched another piece, this one was a little bigger than the previous one, but just like the previous one, it crumbled at the slightest touch, as brittle as a piece of burnt rice crust.

Xu Xiaoyan placed the few pieces of wood ear fungus in her palm and looked at them for a long time.

They are no longer the same as fresh wood ear mushrooms; their color has changed from dark brown to grayish-brown, and their surface has changed from smooth and moist to slightly wrinkled.

She leaned closer and smelled it; the mushroom scent was still there, but much less pronounced than when it was fresh.

Done! She stood up, put the bowl of freshly stir-fried shredded wood ear mushrooms aside to cool, then squatted down again and scooped up a large handful of wood ear mushrooms from the waterproof cloth and poured them into the pot.

This time, she didn't deliberately pick out the broken pieces. She tore the whole piece of wood ear mushroom into small pieces and poured them all in at once, then started stirring them in the pot with both hands.

By the time Lan Yue came down the hillside carrying a large bundle of firewood, Xu Xiaoyan had already started cooking the fourth batch.

Lan Yue threw the bundle of firewood on the ground with a dull thud, and a few loose, withered branches slid out of the bundle and rolled to the side.

Forget about putting down the firewood, she rushed to the three piles of dried wood ear mushrooms, squatted down, and asked, "Is this dried wood ear mushrooms?"

Xu Xiaoyan didn't look up, nor did she stop what she was doing. She simply responded with a "hmm" amidst the smoke and heat.

Lan Yue stretched out her right hand and carefully picked up a piece from the bowl with her index finger and thumb.

The edges of the wood ear mushroom were slightly curled, and its shape was not very regular, but every line was clearly visible.

"It really is dry!" Lan Yue's voice suddenly rose eight octaves, and she went from squatting to half-kneeling.

"Xiaoyan, you're amazing! It's only been a short time since we last met, and you've already cooked so much! How did you even come up with that? I knew you were talented; you even have a better way of making dried goods than others!"

Xu Xiaoyan finally raised her head, her face red from the fire, and her bangs were soaked with sweat and stuck to her skin.

"You were just lucky. You must be tired. Sit down and rest for a while."

"I'm not tired!" Lan Yue replied. She stood up, walked to the bundle of firewood, squatted down, and began to untie the rattan.

The surface of the firewood was damp, but the core was dry; it could be burned once split open.

She neatly stacked the firewood at the base of the wooden house wall, and then began to chop it.