Chapter 29: Potato and Chestnut Braised Chicken
As long as money wasn’t brought up, the villagers of Lu’an Village were actually quite well-off. Living in the mountains, they also loved eating wild game.
Immediately, a group of people gathered around, lifting the pheasants by their legs to gauge their weight.
“Xiaxia, how do you want to trade these?”
Jian Xingxia smiled and said, “Aunties and sisters, just give me whatever you think is fair. I only have one condition: give me the standard going rate, and absolutely do not give me any extra favors on the sly.”
“After all, there’s plenty of wild game in the mountains, and I’ll probably have more from time to time in the future. You definitely won’t shortchange me, but if you keep overpaying, you’ll be the ones taking a loss in the long run!”
Jian Xingxia was young, sweet-tongued, and clearly appreciated their care. This group of older women adored her all the more because of it.
“You little rascal, you’ve completely cut off our arguments. What else is there for us to say?”
“She really is a university graduate—sensible, reasonable, and well-spoken. If those two monkeys at my house had even half of Xiaxia’s goodness, I’d wake up laughing from my dreams.”
“I’ll take one. My dad loves a bit of wild game when he has his liquor.”
“I’ll take one too. Pheasants taste much better than farmed chickens…”
“Hey, didn’t your family just stew a chicken two days ago? Let me have this one; my nephew came to stay in the village.”
“Aiya! Who says if you ate chicken the day before yesterday, you can’t eat it today? Fine, fine, your nephew is important, let’s prioritize your nephew!”
The remaining people who didn’t manage to get a pheasant set their sights on the eggs in the bamboo basket.
“These are pheasant eggs, right? Are you trading these too?”
“Yes, I am,” Jian Xingxia said. “I’d like to trade them for grain, or farmed eggs. Cured meat or smoked meat works too.”
Everyone instantly remembered that Jian Xingxia had mentioned the old house didn’t have a refrigerator, and they couldn’t help but feel another pang of sympathy.
“Your sister-in-law here will trade with you. I’ll give you cured meat and some bamboo shoot tips I dried myself. You can stir-fry the shoot tips with the cured meat later.”
“That would be wonderful!” Hearing this, Jian Xingxia’s mouth practically watered.
The cured meat dried by the villagers mostly came from their own home-raised pigs. The pigs ran around the mountains all day and ate wild forage, making their meat exceptionally firm, lean, and incredibly fragrant! The bamboo shoot tips were an even greater treasure of the mountains—the fresh ones had a tender charm, while the sun-dried ones offered an entirely different, rich depth of flavor.
Everyone scurried back home to fetch their goods.
Bartering in the village didn’t follow standard market prices; it relied on its own internal value system. In the end, the three pheasants were traded for three slabs of cured meat, twenty jin of sweet potatoes, half a sack of corn, and a collection of home-dried ginger, garlic, and dried chili peppers.
The bulk of the pheasant eggs were exchanged for the cured meat and dried bamboo shoot tips, while the loose remainder brought in some corn, pumpkin, taro, and potatoes. All of these items kept well.
Fearing that Jian Xingxia wouldn’t be able to carry it all back, everyone called Little Hu Liu over to help.
Little Hu Liu was young and no longer in school, but he couldn’t go out to the city to work either, so he helped out around the village. The villagers asking for his help was also their way of looking after him. Every time he made a delivery run, the neighboring aunties and older women would always give him some food or help out with his family’s farm work in return.
Little Hu Liu accompanied Jian Xingxia on the trip back, and right before leaving, he handed her a small bag.
“What’s this?”
“Tofu,” Little Hu Liu grinned. “My mom noticed you didn’t want soybeans when you were bartering earlier, and it’s hard to trade for tofu deep in the mountains. It just so happened I helped someone deliver goods outside today and brought some tofu back, so I’m sharing a block with you.”
Jian Xingxia recalled the figure who had been silently burying her head in work not far away during the bartering, and her heart was instantly flooded with warmth and gratitude.
Little Hu Liu set down the tofu and left immediately; the work in the fields couldn’t be delayed. The villagers looked after him by keeping him away from the heaviest labor, but he couldn’t use that as an excuse to slack off. He kept a fire burning in his heart, determined to be even more diligent and capable than the adults.
Jian Xingxia saw Little Hu Liu off, closed the courtyard gate, and headed to the back courtyard. There, she found that Da Hei had already finished dressing the two pheasants. Knowing that Jian Xingxia preferred cleanliness, Da Hei had plucked a few large leaves to wrap the chickens tightly, setting them in a shaded spot.
Jian Xingxia inspected the progress of the land reclamation and felt that the pace had accelerated significantly.
Da Hei said, “The soil on this side has been cultivated before. There are no large stones or tree roots, so it’s easy to dig.”
Jian Xingxia estimated that the wild plot closest to the back courtyard had likely been left untended intentionally by her grandmother to let the weeds grow high, thereby blocking the line of sight from the outside. Once they bypassed that specific plot and dug toward the mountain, the labor became much easier. Although land that had been farmed before compacted easily, it contained far less debris, making the digging swift.
Jian Xingxia was highly satisfied with the result. The seeds she had soaked in potassium permanganate and placed in the covered germination box had already begun to show tiny white tips.
Once Da Hei turned the soil two more times, buried the dead branches, decayed leaves, and fermented fruit inside, and scattered the wood ash left from the stove over the past few days, the land would be ready for planting.
Although Jian Xingxia desperately wanted to immediately fulfill the upgrade condition of 1000 square meters of cultivated land, she had no intention of treating the soil carelessly. The earth had existed for tens of millions of years; how you treated it was exactly how it would treat you.
Following Jian Xingxia’s instructions, Da Hei washed his hands, chopped the pheasants into pieces, and helped light the stove before returning to his labor in the field.
Jian Xingxia divided the chicken meat into two portions: one for braising and one for stewing, using chestnuts as the primary supplementary ingredient for both.
The chicken intended for braising didn’t need blanching. She poured a generous amount of oil into the massive iron wok, tossed the chicken pieces in, and seared them until they were golden brown and the skin was slightly charred. Then, she threw in the ginger, garlic, and small dried chilies given by Auntie Lu and the others, stir-frying them until the fragrance exploded before adding light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, and salt to continue tossing.
Once the chicken meat was seared dry and the chicken fat was fully rendered, she tossed in the peeled chestnut meat. After a brief stir-fry, she added water to let it simmer.
The heat of an earthen stove was difficult to control precisely, so Jian Xingxia didn’t bother fussing over high or low flames. She simply brought it to a roaring boil, covered it with the lid to let it smother, and would eventually uncover it to reduce the sauce.
While the chicken in the iron wok was simmering, Jian Xingxia placed the other portion of seasoned chicken into a clay pot. This one was much simpler: she added water, chestnut meat, salt, and ginger slices, covered it with the lid, and pushed it directly into the firebox.
Strictly speaking, this method was called “earthen pot simmering.” Simmered soups in clay pots were made exactly this way, except Jian Xingxia was using a massive clay pot rather than the tiny individual ones found in commercial soup shops. The clay pot chicken soup needed to simmer for a long time, so it was perfect to save for tomorrow’s meal.
Today, Jian Xingxia was relying entirely on this wok of chestnut braised chicken. The rich fragrance of the chicken juices soon wafted out. Jian Xingxia lifted the lid and took a small taste.
The chicken meat was incredibly firm—completely different from the chicken she usually ate at the university cafeteria or from food delivery apps. It was profoundly fragrant, lacking that bizarre, manufactured tenderness; it was chewy upon entering the mouth but not dry at all. It possessed the distinct, lean firmness of an animal that spent its days constantly running and exercising.
Jian Xingxia finally understood why free-range mountain chickens were so much more delicious than white-feathered, factory-cooped chickens. The flavor truly operated on a completely different level.
Jian Xingxia hadn’t eaten a proper lunch. The workers had refused her food arrangements, and she hadn’t felt right gorging herself in front of them either, so she had merely munched on an ear of corn to take the edge off. By now, she was both starving and craving meat intensely.
She looked at the chestnut braised chicken in the wok and instinctively felt it wouldn’t be enough to satisfy their appetites. After a moment’s thought, she decided to play the part of a black-hearted boss for once.
She ladled out a large bowl of pure chestnut braised chicken for herself. Then, she retrieved the potatoes she had just bartered for, washed two colossal ones, chopped them into chunks, and threw them into the remaining chicken in the wok.
This resulted in one premium bowl of pure chestnut braised chicken, and a massive wok of potato and chestnut braised chicken.
And truth be told, once the potatoes were simmered until they were perfectly soft and fluffy, they added a wonderful thickness to the braised chicken gravy. The chicken pieces were thoroughly coated in a rich layer of potato puree, looking arguably even more delicious than the pure chestnut version.
Jian Xingxia pondered for a moment.
Oh well. Since I’ve already played the black-hearted boss once, it won’t hurt to do it again.
She proceeded to ladle another massive bowl of the potato-infused chicken out for herself.
