After a sheep had been cleaned of all its innards, all the meat weighed less than forty jin.
Once divided among everyone, there really was not much meat. Fortunately, there were also the offal and such. Since it was only a tasting, most of the workers did not get much—just a few pieces of meat each.
Chen Mo took some of the mutton home for his parents to try. What he had left for himself was less than five jin of lamb ribs.
This kind of meat tasted best when simply stewed and eaten by hand! So once he got home, he put it straight into the pot.
To cook lamb, the first step was to skim off the blood foam. The lamb had to go into cold water, and just before it came to a boil, the foam floating on the water surface had to be skimmed away until the broth was nearly clear of it.
After skimming the foam, he added some scallion sections and ginger slices. He could not add salt first, or the stewed lamb would not become tender and would turn very dry! Then he simmered it over medium heat for forty minutes, adding salt only when the lamb was nearly ready to come out of the pot.
He drained all the lamb and broth, piled the meat onto a plate, and it was ready to eat! As for the broth, he added scallion flower and cilantro to a soup bowl, and it tasted excellent too!
Just as Chen Mo's lamb was nearly ready, Da Hai came in from outside. Chen Mo had called him over. Over the past few months, Da Hai had spent far more time working in the fields than Chen Mo himself, and often Da Hai handled everything.
So when Chen