Border Cook

According to the weather at this time, we have to wait about a month.

Xia Mingyue estimated the time and stored all the jars in a cool and ventilated place.

After October, the northwest wind began to blow.

It was very cold in late autumn. Xia Mingyue had already put on a padded jacket and covered herself with a thicker quilt when she slept at night. She also made a thicker cotton-padded coat for Jiang Zhuguo, bought new cloth and cotton, and sewed a new quilt.

The Xia Ji food stall and the oden food truck are doing a brisk and stable business, and all work in the central kitchen is proceeding in an orderly manner.

Everything went smoothly everywhere.

Xia Mingyue was delighted, and when she had some free time, she counted the silver and money in her hand.

If you don't count it, you won't know. After counting, Xia Mingyue found that she now has seventy or eighty taels in her hand.

And at this rate of making money, by the end of the year, after deducting the daily extravagant expenses, I can easily save up one hundred taels!

By spring, we will be able to buy a smaller shop.

By next autumn, buying a bigger shop won’t be a problem!

The business is getting bigger and bigger, and the speed of making money is getting faster and faster, houses, money, cars...

Not a problem at all!

The future is expected!

Xia Mingyue happily imagined the future, but also began to think about how to expand the business and how to increase the speed of making money again.

However, judging from the current number of Xia Ji food stalls and oden snack carts in the entire Jinqiu County, the market has basically reached saturation, and it is not appropriate to develop new franchisees.

If you want to increase your profits, you need to increase the types of business.

Create a new food category and develop a group of franchisees!
So, the question is, what should we do with this new food category...

After thinking for half a day at home, Xia Mingyue decided to go for a walk on the street.

After all, compared to working behind closed doors, it is easier to gain insight into consumer needs by going out for market research.

This stroll took three or four days.

Xia Mingyue goes out early and comes back late every day. After returning, she looks uneasy and goes straight into the house, not coming out for a long time.

This made Jiang Zhuguo and Lu Shi a little worried. They were discussing whether one of them should follow Xia Mingyue the next day to understand the situation and give her some advice.

But just when the two of them had agreed that Lu would go out first with Xia Mingyue the next day, they discovered the next morning that Xia Mingyue had no intention of going out, but had started busying herself in the kitchen early in the morning.

Jiang Zhuguo and Lu wanted to go into the kitchen to help, but were politely declined by Xia Mingyue, so they could only busy themselves with work in the central kitchen in the stove shed outside.

From the kitchen, there was a sizzling sound, and from time to time, there was the sound of a large spoon stirring the bottom of the pot...

Along with the different sounds, there are different smells, but they are all fragrant.

"Looks like..." Mrs. Lu sniffed several times, "My sister-in-law is developing new food again."

"Eighty percent of it is." Jiang Zhuguo nodded, "I just don't know what it is..." Could it be food that dogs can eat as much as they want, without limit?

Wu Jin also became interested and no longer cared about the big bones that had not been eaten in the earthenware jar. Instead, he came to Lu and Jiang Zhuguo and, like them, poked his head to look inside.

The sight of the two men and the dog stretching their necks made Zhou and Song laugh secretly.

A moment later, Xia Mingyue came out of the kitchen and carried out several basins.

One of them is a bunch of thick strips as long as a short rolling pin, which look golden, crispy and greasy.

The second basin was filled with small steamed buns, but these were a little different from the ones we usually eat. They were fried on both sides, with golden brown crust on both the bottom, making them look more tempting.

The third pot was full of soup, which was reddish-brown in color and had a certain consistency. It contained thinly shredded bean curd, small pieces of gluten, chopped wood ear and day lily, sweet potato vermicelli, etc. There was a little sesame oil and aged vinegar floating on the top, and it looked like a salty soup.

"Fried dough sticks, fried dumplings, spicy soup."

Xia Mingyue briefly introduced the names of the three foods one by one, then went into the kitchen to get chopsticks, spoons and bowls, and called everyone, "Come and try them to see how they taste."

With Xia Mingyue's words, everyone immediately took action.

First of all, this fried dough stick.

As you can see from the outside, the skin is crispy but the inside is very soft and tender. Because it is fried, the dough sticks are crispy and taste very fragrant.

It doesn't have to be anything else, just the fried dough sticks, I feel like I have to eat two or three in a row to feel satisfied.

Then there are the pan-fried dumplings.

Because I had tasted Xia Mingyue's fried dumplings before, I was not particularly surprised by the pan-fried dumplings. I just felt that they were as delicious as before, and because they were crispy on both sides, they added a bit of flavor.

The last and most amazing one is the spicy and spicy soup.

It tastes hot and a little spicy when you put it in your mouth, but it's not abrupt. Instead, it feels very comfortable. After swallowing a mouthful of hot spicy soup, your whole mouth and throat become warm and soothing. The slightly spicy aftertaste is so satisfying and appetizing that you can't help but take a second sip.

After taking a few mouthfuls of the spicy soup, I felt warm all over. The rich aroma of the soup slowly spread in my stomach and mouth, making me feel very comfortable.

But this soup has a strong taste. After drinking half a bowl, you will inevitably feel that your taste buds are over-stimulated and become tired. At this time, the fragrant vinegar garnished in the soup has a refreshing and greasy feeling. The black fungus and day lily in the soup are also full of fragrance, which brings back the freshness of the Hu La Tang.

At this time, if it is paired with the crispy fried dough sticks that we ate at the beginning, the rich aroma will immediately reach a new level, opening up a new world of deliciousness...

Lu and others praised the spicy soup highly. They even ate the first half bowl and scooped another spoonful to enjoy it more.

After discovering the new way to eat fried dough sticks with spicy soup, everyone tore the fried dough sticks into small pieces, soaked them all in the spicy soup, and pressed the fried dough sticks down with a spoon so that the fried dough sticks could absorb the spicy soup...

Eating it this way makes you feel happy and satisfied!
Seeing that everyone was enjoying the food and praising it continuously, Xia Mingyue couldn't help but curl up the corners of her mouth.

Sure enough, no one can resist the deliciousness of a bowl of spicy soup.

Just like she once was as a celebrity chef.

For a while, she began to give up cooking with high-end ingredients and instead sought the everyday atmosphere of the streets and alleys.

Hu La Tang originated in the Northern Song Dynasty, from Xiaoyao Town, Xihua County, Zhoukou City. It is mainly made of wheat flour, beef and mutton, with nearly 30 kinds of seasonings and herbs such as Amomum villosum, Sichuan pepper, pepper, cinnamon, angelica, hawthorn, licorice, and costus root, boiled according to different proportions. (End of this chapter)