Text/Figure Huang Fang
When I was a child, my grandmother's family had several chestnut trees, and every autumn when the chestnuts were ripe, my grandparents would always send a lot of fresh chestnuts to our family at the first time, saying that my mother would keep them for us to stew chicken to eat. My mother knew that we were very hungry, so early in the morning she went to the chicken in the corner of the stove house and grabbed an old black hen that she had fed, and asked my father to help slaughter the chicken. At that time, we knew that my mother was reluctant to kill the old hen that laid eggs, but in order to let the family eat a pot of fragrant and nourishing chestnut stewed chicken, my mother could only endure the pain of cutting love.
Before chopping the chicken, the mother will take out the golden color of the chicken fat and then chop the chicken into pieces for later. The fire is amplified inside the wood stove, first put the chopped chicken fat in the pot to refine the yellow chicken fat, and then put in the chopped chicken nuggets, fiercely heat the incense, at this time, the mother will quickly pour a few drops of grain wine on the edge of the steaming iron pot, the mother said, so that the chicken fried does not have the smell of fishy, and the chicken can be stewed more softly. After the stir-frying, the chicken is put in enough water at one time, cover the pot lid, this time it is still boiled with the whole pot of chicken soup on a high heat, and after about half an hour of boiling, the mother adds some thicker dry wood sticks to the fire and keeps the medium heat to continue simmering the soup. At this time, she took the time to cut the chestnuts that were soft with boiling water, peeled the shells, and removed the inner skin. In an hour or so, the chestnuts are almost peeled, and the chicken nuggets in the pot are also cooked to maturity, at this time, the mother will put the peeled and washed chestnuts into the pot, continue to cover the pot, and stew with the chicken.
The fire in the fire pit was not hurried, and the smell of chicken soup that hissed from the edge of the lid had already swallowed us who had been waiting for more than half a day. The taste of waiting for food, the length of time, it feels like waiting for half a century, huh. Only the mother, while adding firewood to the fire, can also cook rice, cutting vegetables without delay. Watching her mother cook, one board at a time, methodical, and the time is very accurate, she probably knows what kind of heat and time an old hen that has been fed for two or three years should use to cook, so that its nutrition can be perfectly released and presented. Her mother was obsessed with cooking her food, and she just wanted to share this delicious autumn feast with her family.
The original chicken soup with golden color and strong soup flavor, the rotten chicken with crispy bones, and the sweet and soft chestnuts in the powder, this autumn nourishing health feast ended perfectly in the busy morning of the mother. My grandparents and grandparents said that this chestnut stewed chicken meal is not something you want to eat anytime and anywhere, because chestnuts are only available in this season, and grandparents are not less than the prickly balls of chestnuts in order to get these chestnuts; as for the old hens that lay eggs, they are the mother's beloved heroes, it is providing nutritious eggs for our family all year round, like this diligent old hen, how can the mother bear to do it?
It is precisely because of the reverence and gratitude for the ingredients that the mother was able to cook the strong flavor of chestnut stewed chicken that people will never forget. At this moment, I no longer have to endure the smoke of the wood stove, and even the purple casserole specially used for soup, and I already have chestnuts that can be bought in the supermarket all year round, but the taste is no longer the original taste.