Food starts with Mapo Tofu

Chapter 356 To be a human being, you have to be clear

This proposal was made suddenly by Mr. Qian. For a while, they really didn't expect anything, but Chen Nian at the side suddenly had a good idea. In order to let them have snacks, Chen Nian planned to give them a trick.

"Young masters, I have a proposal here, I wonder if you would like to listen to it?"

Hearing this, Hai Mingxian immediately became interested, and at the same time, he also made a plan in his heart. No matter what Chen Nian said later, he would flatter him, and he must persuade others to play according to what Chen Nian said.

"Please say."

Chen Nian nodded: "All the young masters here today are the future pillars of the Great Xia Dynasty. They must be full of literary talents and outstanding talents. Why don't you come to a hearty poetry meeting with local materials, and everyone chooses a theme to compose a poem respectively. , and then select the best ones from each theme, and choose four of these snacks to eat by yourself or share with others."

"Good idea!" Hai Mingxian sighed. Originally, he wanted to brag about it without thinking, but after listening to it, he felt that the idea was really good and interesting. Others eat, which avoids the situation that someone can't eat.

And everyone's eyes lit up after hearing it.

Especially the scholar surnamed Qian, after hearing Chen Nian's idea, he walked over and patted Chen Nian's shoulder appreciatively: "This idea is good, I never thought that you, a dim sum vendor, could come up with such an interesting idea."

Although it was a compliment, Chen Nian felt that the other party just wanted to show off, wanted to lead everyone's topic, and made himself the center of the topic.

I have seen too many people like this in college.

Hai Mingxian watched from the sidelines and sucked his teeth, thinking that this person's connections are no worse than yours, so he hurried over and quietly pushed the scholar surnamed Qian back to his seat.

Immediately afterwards, he acted as the host and planned to start the game quickly.

Soon, the game begins.

Chen Nian pretended to be curious and watched from the sidelines, and Hai Mingxian was naturally happy that Chen Nian was here, so that he could get some limelight, because he felt that he was better than other young masters. few.

As the game started, everyone composed a poem according to the theme, while Chen Nian was listening. Every time the scholar surnamed Qian finished speaking, Chen Nian couldn't help chuckling, and then quickly covered his mouth.

The sound happened to be the kind of sound that others could hear, but it was not particularly obvious.

They didn't realize it at first, but after a few rounds, the scholar surnamed Qian finally realized it, and turned his head to look at Chen Nian angrily.

Chen Nian did this on purpose, and he was not worried that the other party would dare to do anything, because according to listening to their chats, Chen Nian knew that this person surnamed Qian was a fifth-rank official in his family.

He knew that Hai Mingxian would save himself today.

What's more, if the other party said bad things about Fu Xin behind his back, it's fine if he didn't hear it. Since he heard it, he couldn't ignore it, at least he had to vent his anger for his friend.

Even if he was really targeted by this guy, as long as he let the words out, he would soon become the target of public criticism.

Although that kid Fu Xin is only a sixth-rank editor of the Imperial Academy now, but his teacher is the prime minister of the dynasty, and Fu Xin, the number one scholar, was personally selected by Emperor Daxia during the palace examination. You said behind his back that he is Luck or something, wouldn't that be a slap in the face of those big shots?
So Hai Mingxian will definitely save himself today, not only for his sister, but also for himself.

This is also the confidence of aging.

"What are you laughing at?" The scholar surnamed Qian said angrily.

"I just thought of some interesting things." Chen Nian shook his head innocently, "Caomin don't know how to recite poems to make mistakes, so naturally they start to get distracted after listening to boredom."

Of course, Chen Nian also felt from the bottom of his heart that the poems written by this guy surnamed Qian were not very good. If the poems written by Hai Mingxian are like those that are automatically generated on the Internet, then the poems written by the scholar Qian are like Beginners who have just learned mediocrity and mechanically apply it are average.

After Chen Nian finished speaking, the other party looked away and continued the game...

But just like that, every time he finished speaking, Chen Nian would laugh, which made him upset: "Brother Hai, I can't take it anymore, I have to teach him some lessons today!"

"Why?" Hai Mingxian asked pretending to be puzzled.

"Brother Hai, didn't you hear it? He kept laughing beside me, every time I finished a poem, he would laugh. Isn't this trying to disturb me?"

At this time, Hai Mingxian's face suddenly became serious. He was indeed invited by the surname Qian, but it was just to make up the number. In the end, this guy really regarded himself as a character.

It's been bouncing around since the beginning.

"Young Master Qian, have you ever thought that maybe your poems are really funny?"

The sudden turn of events caught everyone by surprise, but although most of the people present were young, how many idiots could there be if they were born in a family of officials?

After Hai Mingxian said this, they quickly chose the camp in their hearts. In comparison, Mr. Hai's father was from the second rank, and that guy's father was only a fifth rank.

At this moment, Mr. Qian turned his head and took a look, and found that the eyes of everyone looking at him became much colder, and there was a smile on the corner of his mouth, as if he was really laughing.

At this moment, he suddenly felt like a clown.

And the instigator of all this, Chen Nian, was watching the excitement with his arms folded.

"You untouchable!" As he said that, he wanted to go up and find trouble for Chen Nian, even if he did something here, he would not be afraid, because Chen Nian was just a commoner after all.

But at this moment, Hai Mingxian became anxious, and he shouted on the spot: "Stop him!"

As soon as the words fell, three or four strong servants rushed over in an instant, and grabbed that Young Master Qian!
"Dare to beat someone in my house, throw me out!"

In the end, the scholar surnamed Qian was directly thrown out like this, and he didn't even have a chance to resist, because this is the difference in class.

"Thank you Mr. Hai." Chen Nian said with a smile and cupped his hands.

"Where is it, brother Chen is not injured?"

"No, I'll go back after the snacks are delivered. If Mr. Hai likes it, you can order it again next time."

"Don't worry." Hai Mingxian nodded.

Then Chen Nian thanked him and left.

As Chen Nian left, Hai Mingxian turned around and looked at the astonished expressions on the faces of his other friends: "Didn't you figure out why I protect this dim sum so much? Are you willing to offend him for him?" The one named Qian?"

"In fact, even if I don't talk about some things now, you will know in the future. The little brother who brought us dim sum just now, don't look at him as a dim sum seller, and he has just come to the capital, but he is the number one scholar Fu Xin That's why he humiliated that Qian like that just now."

"Secondly, he is not as simple as it seems on the surface. I went to his shop this morning, and Prince Jing was there at the time, and Prince Jing was accompanied by only one entourage. Prince Jing said at the time In a word, can you guess what it is?"

"At that time, Prince Jing said that the man named Chen Nian just now was his friend."

……

When Chen Nian returned to the dim sum shop, the dim sum here was almost sold out. Seeing Chen Nian came back, Lu Ke took out some ingredients and began to tell Chen Nian the sour plum soup.

"Speaking of which, this sour plum soup is not actually made in our family, but I accidentally learned it from an old man when I first married in the capital. During that time, the old man pushed a cart to sell sour plum soup outside our house every day. I I also bought some back every day, and we got to know each other over time. Later, the uncle said that there was some business at home and he had to leave, but he was afraid that I would not find anyone when he left suddenly, so he waited an extra day to explain the situation to me. He asked me if I wanted the recipe for sour plum soup, and I agreed right away, and he told me everything." Lu Ke said.

"Later, I found that most of the materials he used were some relatively cheap materials, so I replaced some, and some were newly added by me through trying, and improved a dozen times on the basis of the old man, before I made it. Now the taste comes."

When Chen Nian heard that this ancient method was actually learned from the side of the road, he couldn't help but feel more hopeful. You must know that many dishes or snacks that have been handed down to later generations were first made by the people, and then they began to spread widely.

And Chen Nian also knows that many kinds of seasonings are needed to make sour plum soup. After all, every time I watched my cousin make it, my cousin would take out a large basket of prepared seasonings, and weigh them when mixing the seasonings.

"The first thing to prepare is black plum, black date, hawthorn, orange peel, licorice..."

Lu Ke introduced the seasonings used to make sour plum soup, but Chen Nian looked at the black plums beside him and his heart moved. He picked it up and smelled it, but he felt a strong smoky smell on it.

This ebony plum must have been bought from a pharmacy, so it has a strong smoky and medicinal taste. If this thing is not processed, the boiled sour plum soup may not be much better than Guangdong herbal tea.

Seeing that Chen Nian was playing with ebony plums, Lu Ke couldn't help saying: "The ebony plums need to be washed carefully first, and then steamed in a pot for a long time to get rid of the smoky smell on them, but even so, they will still smell when cooking. There is a little bit left, but the remaining smoky flavor will be very light, as I really like the smoky flavor in it." Lu Ke said.

Chen Nian nodded.

For the smoky taste in sour plum soup, it is the same as eating coriander. Some people like it, some people don’t like it, but overall it is still acceptable. After all, some beverage factories in later generations are directly making sour plum soup. Most of the time, there will be some smoky flavor in it.

Otherwise, it is not difficult to remove this smell with their technology.

What Lu Ke is taking out now is the unprocessed ebony plum. The main purpose is to let Chen Nian recognize it first. Then she takes out the processed ebony plum. Chen Nian picks it up and smells it. Sure enough, the smoky smell on it has faded. a lot of.

Then I saw Lu Ke began to wash the ingredients in the water, but the sweet-scented osmanthus was still standing aside.

After washing it, Lu Ke poured water into the pot, then weighed the various ingredients, put them into the pot according to a certain number of grams, and poured an appropriate amount of water.

Then the fire started.

"Xiao Nian, making sour plum soup is actually the same as boiling medicine. There are first decoction and second decoction. What we are going to do now is the first decoction. You can see that the water is boiling now, so we need to turn the heat to low and simmer for another three minutes. Around the clock."

Chen Nian silently wrote it down in his heart: "What about after three quarters of an hour?"

"After three quarters of an hour, put the prepared yellow rock sugar in it, then turn on the high heat and cook while stirring. When the fire boils, the rock sugar melts, then turn to medium heat and cook for a quarter of an hour. After it comes out, put Sprinkle dried osmanthus on top."

"Is the dried sweet-scented osmanthus last?"

"Yes, the smell of sweet-scented osmanthus is very easy to disperse. If you put it in in advance, it will lose the smell of sweet-scented osmanthus after cooking. If you put it in at the end, soak for a while and the smell of sweet-scented osmanthus will be very strong."

"I see."

After aging it, I tasted it and found that it tasted really good. .

Then he tried to identify the dish with the recipe, and found that the completion of the dish was only 91%, which means that there is still a lot of room for improvement on this basis.

This made Chen Nian feel at a loss for a while.

Can't learn perfection here?
Then you can only try it slowly later.

The long-lost feeling came to my heart. What Chen Nian likes most is the process of studying a dish...

How can it be perfect?What kind of seasoning should be added?What kind of heat can be used to make it more delicious than before?You may feel confused and crazy during the process, but the moment when a dish is 100% aged is joyful.

For some common Chinese medicines, Chen Nian also has a certain understanding. After all, Chen Nian had already learned a lot when he was making fresh fish and sheep. Although he did not memorize all the traditional Chinese medicines, the dozens of A kind of medicinal material that is used as seasoning in Chinese food is basically memorized, its taste, efficacy, medicinal properties and so on.

After the snacks were sold out in the afternoon, they had dinner, and Lu Ke was preparing the ingredients for the next day. Some of them needed to be soaked in advance, and some had to be prepared in advance, so as not to be useless the next day.

And Chen Nian is to get out some A4-sized paper, then fold it in half, and finally sew the edges with thread to make a book.

Then I went to the stove and made some sticks of charcoal with wooden branches to use as pens.

Although they also have writing brushes at home, Chen Nian still feels that the pens made of this kind of charcoal sticks are easier to carry and modify than convenience.

Lu Ke didn't know what her younger brother was going to do. After getting along with her during this period of time, she found that her younger brother had always been quite ghostly and eccentric, with a lot of ideas in his head, so she didn't bother about it.

As soon as Chen Nian finished the notebook and pen, he first wrote a few pages on it.

Naturally, there must be preliminary samples and variables to conduct experiments. The first sample is the method of Lu Ke. The variables include the amount of all materials to be used, the cooking time and heat of each step, and the ingredients. The order in which they were placed.

Aged in terms of time and heat, I feel that there is not much room for modification, so I didn’t care about those, but first added a few variables related to materials, added mint, replaced orange peel with tangerine peel, and this The tangerine peel used for the first experiment was aged for three years.

Then it wrote Luoshenhua.

It's just that there are not enough medicinal materials in the store now, and I plan to go to a nearby pharmacy to buy some when they are aged tomorrow.

After finishing writing, Chen Nian went to help Lu Ke prepare for today's preparations, and then went back to the room and fell asleep.

The chicken next door has already entered the stomach, so it will not crow anymore. Because of the boldness of the elder brother, Chen Nian directly took half a penny, which is [-] yuan, which is more than enough to buy a chicken, and Chen Nian looks at the elder brother It's pretty easy to talk about, and I guess I won't buy chickens to earn my own money in the future.

　Thanks to the Earl of Monte Cristo for the 1980 starting point reward in 500.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)