Little Miss Fortune: I Will Bring Prosperity to My Tang Family!-Chapter 55: I’ll Make Khao Maan Gai!

Chapter 54

I’ll Make Khao Maan Gai!

The plump child woke up early in the morning to check on the wheat seeds she had planted. They had begun to sprout little roots, so she carefully watered them and covered them back up with the moist cloth as before.

Sitting on the porch, her round body inspected the chicken coop, wondering if she had forgotten something, or perhaps many things.

"Xiaolin, I came to ask for three chickens," said Liu Hao, approaching the chubby niece early in the morning. The chicken coop was finished quickly with the help of Hui Song and Tianrong, thanks to their effort in building it. Early before dawn, he and Tianchen went into the forest to cut some bamboo to make a small coop at their home.

"Why so few? There’s so many left" Xiaolin blinked at him.

"I only live with grandma, just the two of us. Why would we need so many?" Liu Hao tousled the chubby cheeks before heading towards the newly built coop not far from the house.

"You should find a great-granddaughter-in-law for great-grandmother," she suggested.

"I’m not in a hurry,"

Liu Hao replied, picking three chickens and walking back home. Xiaolin watched him leave without saying anything more. She sat alone behind the house, waiting for breakfast, her gaze then caught the basket of ginger left outside.

"Khao Maan Gai!"

The chubby figure jumped down and ran to grab the basket, inspecting the abundance of ginger. Selecting some mature ginger, she planned to boil it for her mother to sip.

“But how do you make chicken blood?" the chubby-cheeked kid kept walking as she wondered.

After a while, the child carefully carried out a tray of hot ginger tea. Trying not to spill, she slowly made her way out because she didn’t want to drop any of the precious ginger tea.

"What have you got there?" Asked Hui Ning, returning to the hall in the morning after a light exercise in front of the house.

"Mommy, it’s ginger tea. It’s good for pregnant women, helps with nausea," Xiaolin explained, knowing her mother often felt nauseous in the morning. Seeing the ginger, she decided to boil it for her mother.

"Ginger? Isn’t that expensive?" Hui Ning took the tray from her daughter. Xiaolin sat eagerly waiting.

"Expensive?"

"Yes, dear. I heard it’s quite costly. Oh, didn’t you also use it for cooking yesterday?" Hui Ning recalled eating ginger in one of the dishes from the previous day.

"Yes, Mom," Xiaolin nodded vigorously.

Hui Ning sipped the tea, warming her stomach pleasantly, and thanked her daughter.

"Did you get a lot? Can you share some with your Aunt Mi Hua? She’s been having a tough time with her pregnancy."

"Really? Then I’ll give her lots of it. If we run out, I’ll dig up more. I plan to plant some too."

"Good girl," Hui Ning stroked her daughter’s round cheek.

Xiaolin noticed her mother’s dry face and hands, worsened by the winter’s harsh weather, and decided to make natural oil or lotion for her. She regretted not thinking of it sooner; her beautiful mother could have had flawless skin much earlier.

"Be patient, do one thing at a time, Xiaolin," the chubby kid reminded herself as she scurried outside.

Her little fingers filled her basket with mature ginger until it was brimming and shouted to her mother and grandmother that she was heading to the Ling’s house. Given that the Ling’s residence wasn’t far from the Liu’s, her mother and grandmother gave their permission.

"Brother Hai, open the door for me, please!" She called out as she arrived, also hearing someone vomiting at the back of the house.

"Xiaolin, are you here so early for something?" Ling Hai hurried out to open the door for his plump sister.

"I’ve brought some herbs for Auntie. Is she having morning sickness?"

"Yes, and she can hardly eat anything either."

Xiaolin looked up at her cousin’s face, which appeared quite worried, probably due to concern for his mother.

"It’s good then. The herbs I brought should help Auntie feel a bit better."

"What is it?" Ling Hai looked down at the basket his chubby sister was carrying. Seeing that it was almost overflowing, he took it from her, fearing it might be too heavy.

"It’s ginger. Can you take me to the kitchen, Brother Hai? I’ll make some ginger water for Auntie."

"Sure."

Leading the plump girl into the kitchen, Xiaolin instructed him to light the stove and boil some water. She crushed the ginger, all the while instructing how to boil it properly - for how long and that it had been cleaned already, requiring only to be smashed before being thrown into the pot.

"Have you all eaten yet?" Xiaolin asked, noticing no smell of cooking food since entering the kitchen.

"Not yet. Every morning, mom wakes up vomiting so severely. We’re too worried about her to even think about cooking." 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

"Is there anything you can cook?"

"Yes, I collected some shellfish from the beach this morning. Uncle Tien Yi shared some fish and squids with us, and I also gathered some clams."

"That’s great. I’ll tell you how to clean them, and I’ll help you cook, too."

Ling Hai looked appreciatively at his plump sister, nodding vigorously until Xiaolin laughed. Once the ginger water was ready, she strained it into a cup for her cousin to take to his mother, while she stayed in the kitchen to remove the ginger pieces from the pot, fearing they might make the water bitter if left too long.

Xiaolin boldly explored the backyard and discovered a stream, similar to one behind her house, with lemongrass and galangal growing around it. She gathered some, thinking of making a spicy fish soup, though she wasn’t sure if pregnant women could eat it.

"Whoa, look at these wax gourds! Perfect for the Khao Maan Gai soup. Khao Maan Gai, Khao Maan Gaiii~"

Jumping excitedly, she collected three large wax gourds, perfect for self-grown plants that hadn’t been tended to. Regrettably, one was still immature, so she left it to ripen for seed collection later.

Returning home with her finds, Ling Hai, who saw her come back, curiously inquired about the strange fruits she had collected. He recognized the lemongrass and galangal but was puzzled by the unusual fruit, which he had seen by the stream but never identified.

"What is this?" the boy pointed at a winter melon as big as an adult’s palm.

"It’s called a wax gourd. I’ll use it to make a delicious curry soup. Come to my house at noon, Brother Hai. I’ll make something delicious."

"Alright, I’ll come by then."

The cousins busied themselves with preparing breakfast, which included spicy mackerel soup and steamed squid with lime, requested by the chubby kid from Ling Hai, who ran to get limes from their home.

"Thank you so much, Xiaolin, for helping to cook for me. These past few days, I really couldn’t manage to cook at all," Mi Hua said from the back of the house with a pale face.

"It’s no problem at all, Auntie. Drinking ginger water in the morning can help. Oh, and you shouldn’t eat too much seafood; twice or three times a week is enough."

"Alright, dear." Mi Hua patted the chubby kid’s head, who sat with a big smile.

Xiaolin also mentioned that if Ling Heng was free, he should come to her house; she would take him to catch fat fish in the forest for his wife, as an alternative to seafood.

Xiaolin, returning with two wax gourds, initially, Ling Hai and Ling Han intended to accompany her, but she didn’t want to disturb their breakfast time, so she insisted on going back alone. Besides, she also managed to share some beans paste from the Lings, which was cheaper than soy sauce, planning to buy some for her family’s cooking.

Walking back home, she smelled delicious food wafting in the wind and hurried back. Once home, everyone was already waiting, so she quickly placed the wax gourd in the kitchen, washed her hands, and joined them for the meal.

"What were you doing at Ling’s house for so long, eh?" Zhang Rua spooned some spicy soup for her granddaughter.

"SURP! I helped Aunt Mi Hua cook. She’s been too sick to cook," the chubby kid slurped loudly, thankful that Zhang Ruo didn’t make the soup too spicy, or else she would have ended up with a burning throat and nose.

"That bad, huh?"

"Drinking hot ginger helps, I think. I haven’t felt nauseous anymore," Hui Ning added.

"That’s good then. Eat up, you chubby kid. You’re not planning to cook something again today, are you? You’ve brought so many things."

"Hehe, I’m going to make chicken rice. I couldn’t do it last time because I didn’t have all the ingredients, but now I can."

"I’ll wait to have Khao Maan Gai with you then," Hui Song decided to peel another shrimp into his mouth.

"You can come back and eat at noon,"

"If your Khao Maan Gai turns out to be good, we can make it more often, right Xiaolin?" Tianchen, who was a bit greedy, turned to his niece with sparkling eyes.

"Uncle, I’m raising those chickens," the chubby kid frowned. Would her chickens even survive long enough to lay eggs for her to eat?

"We can always catch more. There are plenty of chickens in the forest."

Hearing that, the chubby kid sighed resignedly. Tianrong, seeing his brother upsetting his daughter, gave him a knock on the head.

"Are you as diligent in your studies as you are with food?"

"Of course. I can even read now too," the teenage boy raised his eyebrows at his brother.

Eventually, the father and son-in-law decided not to go to the construction site, reasoning that it wasn’t necessary to check it every day. However, the chubby kid noticed that they were more interested in food. So, she let them catch the chickens themselves. They could catch as many as they wanted, and she would cook them. Meanwhile, she followed them with a small basket, accompanied by her young uncle as her personal guard.

Xiaolin and Tianchen stopped by the lotus pond because the chubby kid intended to collect lotus stamens for drying and making tea. Although she claimed to be collecting, it was actually Tianchen who went into the pond. The chubby kid sat on the shore eating baked goods.

"Can I have some as well? Tianchen, who had been in the pond for a while, brought back lotus flowers for his niece and opened his mouth to wait. Xiaolin fed him and then broke off a lotus leaf from the bank to hold the lotus stamens.

"How much would you like?"

"A lot, please, because there’s only a little bit of lotus stamens, and they shrink even more when dried," she said, picking beautiful pink lotus flowers and removing the petals.

"This yellow part?" Tianchen looked at the little hands picking out the yellow stamens onto the lotus leaf.

"Yes," she replied, and once done, she started on another flower.

Tianchen asked for more snacks from his niece, who fed him a few more pieces before he went back into the pond to collect more lotus flowers for her.

Now, they weren’t as interested in duck eggs since the villagers knew they were edible and began collecting them for their consumption. So, they stopped selling salted eggs. Whenever they wanted to eat eggs, they would just collect some to cook.

Two hours passed, and the father-in-law and son-in-law came back with ten chickens each. Xiaolin was astounded, wondering if they intended to eat all the forest’s chickens!

Seeing his daughter’s wide-eyed, gaping expression, Tianrong couldn’t help but laugh.

"I thought you wanted to raise chickens, so I caught a lot. Isn’t that good?"

"We still have six at home."

"We’ll raise about ten for eggs, and the rest for food. I also caught three big chickens so the eggs can hatch into chicks."

Xiaolin pouted but nodded in agreement. She wrapped the lotus leaf containing the stamens and put it in her small basket, not forgetting to take four or five lotus flowers for her beautiful mother. There were also three lotus roots in Tianchen’s basket for cooking.

The four of them walked back home. Tianchen didn’t forget to tell Liu Hua and the old lady to come for lunch. The chubby kid also said to invite the Ling and Shu families over. Today, she would make a big pot of chicken rice!

She asked the men to prepare five chickens, making sure to collect the blood. Although they were fat chickens, they were smaller than the domestic ones sold in the previous world. With more than ten people to feed, they needed more chickens. She planned to cook four of them for the chicken rice and grill the last one.

After organizing the tasks, the chubby kid poured the collected lotus stamens into a basket, spreading them out for quick drying.

"Grilled chicken is burneddd," the chubby kid thought of grilled chicken and started dancing on the platform to cheer on the men who were plucking chickens.

Tianchen laughed joyfully, even shaking his body along with his niece’s song, unlike Hui Song and Tianrong who were a bit hesitant.

"Xiaolin, you’re a girl; you shouldn’t be dancing and shaking your bottom like that."

"I don’t mind," the chubby kid kept shaking her bottom, causing her father to rub his temples.

The four chickens, along with their organs, were boiled with plenty of water because she liked to drink the soup and thought others would too. She added roasted coriander seeds, black pepper, and crushed garlic. Since her coriander wasn’t grown yet, she used its seeds instead, seasoning it with soy sauce, salt, and a bit of oyster sauce. She also added three pieces of dried shiitake mushrooms.

Another chicken was marinated with soy sauce and oyster sauce for 1 ke before being taken out for her father to grill over a low fire. The chicken blood was mixed with lemongrass to reduce the gamey smell and then steamed until it solidified into blocks.

"It’s a shame there are no fresh chilies."

The chubby kid made a face in the kitchen but had her grandmother chop dried chilies instead. Seeing that a small jar of soybean paste wasn’t enough, she waddled over to Ling’s house to ask for two more jars, inviting them over for lunch before running back home.

Once the curry began to boil and the chicken was tender, Xiaolin had Zhang Ruo remove the chicken and organs to rest, then added chopped winter melon into the curry. She liked her chicken tender, so she boiled it a bit longer. Then, she fried garlic in chicken skin oil, followed by rice that had been washed and cleaned. After a while, she scooped it into a pot, added the curry, closed the lid, and waited for the rice to cook.

"Keep chopping ginger and garlic, grandma. I’m going to make the sauce."

The chubby kid took a large bowl, poured in soybean paste, followed by sugar, lemon juice, soy sauce, and a little bit of curry to make the sauce less concentrated. Once she got the garlic and ginger, she mixed and tasted them.

"SAAP!"

"What’s saap, you little rascal?"

"Hehe."

"What else needs to be done?" Zhang Rua asked her niece, who was staring at the boiled chicken with sparkling eyes.

"Just wait for the rice to cook. As for the curry, just let it boil; the more the wax gourd disintegrates, the sweeter it will be," the chubby kid ran off to check on the grilled chicken. Seeing the juicy grilled chicken, she swallowed her saliva and clung to her father’s back.

"Is it almost ready, dad?"

"Just a little longer, and it will be ready," Tianrong laughed as he heard his daughter’s saliva-swallowing sound.

‘Khao Maan Gai’ (Chicken and rice)

‘SAAP’ (Delicious in Northeastern Thai, usually used for spicy food)

-----

Read ‘Little Miss Fortune: I Will Bring Prosperity to My Tang Family’ before anyone else with more Chapters at https://www.jinovel.com/en