Chapter 7 Soy milk fritters
In the past few days, Xu has been going out early and returning late every day to find a job, but things are not going well. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 infoThe embroidery workshops in Qingzhou City are basically all over by her, but most of them mean that there is no shortage of embroiderers.
Later, Xu was not limited to finding embroidery work, but she also did not find a suitable job, although it is not uncommon for women to show up to make money in this era, but there are very few jobs suitable for women to do after all.
Xu's mood is a little lost!
In the past few days, Xu went out to find a job, Zhong Hao was not idle, he often took Xu Wan out shopping, trying to be familiar with the customs and folk customs of the Great Song Dynasty, and at the same time, he was also looking for a way to change his life.
After a few days of understanding, Zhong Hao generally had the idea of making money, and he felt that it should not be difficult to let the three of them live a life of abundant food and clothing.
However, Zhong Hao knew that the Xu family was a very strong woman, and if she was asked to sit at home and wait for her to make money and be filial, she would definitely not accept it with peace of mind.
Zhong Hao felt that it was more appropriate to help the Xu family find a way to make money first, but fortunately, after investigation, Zhong Hao quickly had an idea.
On this day, the three of them were eating breakfast at the stone table in the courtyard.
Breakfast is a soup cake made by Xu Shi in a hurry, which is the noodle soup of later generations. Xu's craftsmanship is really good, a bowl full of slippery noodles the size of a finger's belly, poured on the old soup, some chopped green onions, leek flowers, scooped a small spoonful of spicy oil made from dogwood leaves, and sprinkled with a little pepper noodles, Zhong Hao ate heartily.
"Auntie, I don't think you should look for a job, it's better to set up a snack stall at the intersection to make soup cakes, with your skills, aunt, I don't think there will be no customers!" Zhong Hao remembered his idea, so he took the opportunity to speak out to guide the Xu family.
Xu's eyes lit up when he heard this, but then he said with some apprehension: "There are already two food stalls making soup cakes at the crossroads, can we set up another one?" ”
"Well, if my aunt wants to be a food stall, she doesn't have to make soup cakes, but I will make a few kinds of food, which is sure to be delicious, and others can't do it, so I won't conflict with others!" After pondering for the past few days, Zhong Hao plans to let Xu's family open a snack stall selling soy milk fritters. It is said that the fritters were developed from the "fried juniper" in the Southern Song Dynasty. Since the soymilk fritters can take root in all parts of the country in future generations, it must have its strong vitality and adaptability, Zhong Hao believes that it will not be difficult for the people to accept this kind of food.
"Oh, Da Lang still has such a craft?!" Xu said suspiciously.
"If my aunt doesn't believe me, I'll make it later, you taste it first!"
After breakfast, Zhong Hao first went to Miliang Street to buy some flour, eggs, vegetable oil, soybeans and other things needed for fried fritters and grinding soy milk, and then went to Xieliu Street to order a bluestone grinding plate and asked the store guys to send it home.
When I returned home, I asked Xu to help make the noodles, beat eggs in the flour, put lard and salt, add noodles, knead into a large dough, and put it in a place where the sun shines to let the dough rise. Dough sticks should be made with dough, and there is naturally no yeast powder in this era, but noodles are used. The noodle primer used for fermentation is made by Xu himself from rice wine lees.
In fact, it is better to use high-gluten flour for frying fritters, but with the current conditions, I really can't pay attention to this, and it would be good to have white flour. In this era, wheat was much cheaper than rice, but fine white flour was much more expensive than rice. For the white flour is to be ground with a stone mill, and then sifted through a sieve again and again until all the yellow bran in it is sifted. The finer the sieve eye, the more times it is sifted, the finer and whiter the flour is, and naturally more expensive. White flour is mainly more expensive than rice in labor, after all, rice can be cooked directly in the pot.
Zhong Hao soaked a pot of soybeans again, ready to grind soy milk.
You can't eat fritters at noon, you have to wait until the afternoon noodles to be ready, and soybeans have to be soaked for at least three hours before they are suitable for grinding soy milk.
As the sun sets, smoke gradually rises from the neighborhood.
After the dough was fermented, Zhong Hao pulled off a piece of the dough, put it on a board smeared with lard, pressed it into long strips, smeared some lard on top, and cut the long strips of dough into small noodles with a knife.
Stack two small noodles on top of each other, flatten them into long strips, and then use chopsticks to press the groove in the middle, and the fritter blank is ready.
When Zhong Hao was making fritters, Xu had been watching carefully and studying meticulously.
The fritter blank is ready, and the rest is to fry it in the pan.
Xu Shi poured half a pot of vegetable oil into the iron pot with some heartache and began to heat the oil, while Wan'er pulled the bellows to blow the fire next to her, and a few black carbon marks were smeared on her little face after a while.
At this time, there was no bellows, and this bellows was specially built by Zhong Hao according to the appearance of later generations and asked carpenters. After installing the bellows, Xu liked it very much, with this bellows, it was much easier to live and cook, and he really praised Zhong Hao. In the past, I used to make a fire either by blowing with my mouth or with a fan, and I was often choked with a dirty face. With the bellows, when she lives and cooks, her face is much cleaner, although she has already given birth to children, but everyone has a love for beauty, and Xu is no exception, and naturally she doesn't want her face to be choked with firewood ash often.
When the oil pan was heated to seventy percent, Zhong Hao put the finished fritters into the pot one by one and began to fry the fritters. From time to time, use long bamboo chopsticks to turn over the fritters, and soon the golden fritters will come out of the pot.
Wan'er looked at the long fritters that had just come out of the pot and exuded an attractive golden luster, and she didn't care about pulling the bellows, so she picked up a fritter with her little black hands and began to eat it, with words like "um", "ah", and "delicious" from time to time in her mouth. Xu Shi saw that Wan'er had no ladylike image, and couldn't help laughing and disgusting: "You stinky girl, you don't know how to wash your hands, and you're not afraid of eating bad stomach!" ”
After frying half a bamboo basket of fritters, Zhong Hao made some burnt rings and oil fruits from the remaining dough and fried them together.
After the fritters, coke rings and oil fruits were fried, Zhong Hao went to grind soy milk again.
The grinding disc of the bluestone mill is very large, and Zhong Hao and Wan'er are still a little difficult to push together, but Wan'er is very happy to work with Zhong Hao, her little face is so tired that she is red, and her head is full of sweat, but she is still very interested and does not feel tired.
Xu scooped the soaked soybeans with a spoon and poured them into the grinding eye.
The white soybean milk flows out of the middle of the two stone mills, into the grinding tank, and then from the grinding groove to the next wooden barrel. Soon the soaked soybeans were finished, and there was half a bucket of soy milk in the wooden barrel.
Zhong Hao asked Xu Shi and Wan'er to pull a piece of gauze on the other wooden barrel, and Zhong Hao picked up the half bucket of soy milk and slowly poured it on the gauze.
Soon, the okara was left on the gauze, and the delicate soy milk without the okara flowed into the wooden barrel below.
If you don't prepare it today, if you have some cabbage leaves or radish tassels, chopped and boiled with bean dregs, it will be a delicious little tofu.
By the time the soy milk is cooked, it will be completely dark.
Lighting the candles, the three of them sat at the stone table drinking soy milk, eating fried dough sticks, coke rings, and oil fruits, and they were in a good mood.
The reason why Xu is happy is naturally that she feels that her future livelihood has been settled, and she thinks that this fried dough sticks with soy milk will definitely sell well.
And the reason why Wan'er is happy is that she thinks these things are delicious, especially the sweet oilfruits, she likes them even more. When I heard my mother and Brother Hao say that they would open a snack stall to sell this kind of food, they were even more happy, and they would be able to eat this delicious thing every day in the future.
……
With a good business project, Xu began to set up a snack stall.
Zhong Hao helped Xu design a small food cart with an iron wheel according to the appearance of later generations, so that when the stall was out and closed every day, as long as the small food cart was pulled back and forth, it saved a lot of trouble.
Today is the day when Xu Shi came out of the stall for the first time, Xu Shi Yin got up early at the second hour of the first day to light the candle flame and began to grind soy milk, boil soy milk, and make fried dough sticks. The soybeans were soaked last night, and the dough for making fritters and burnt rings was also kneaded and left to ferment last night.
At the beginning of Yinzheng, when Zhong Hao and Wan'er got up one after another, the Xu family had already prepared the things from the stall.
Xu poured the boiled soy milk into a wooden bucket wrapped in a quilt, and Zhong Hao carried it to the food cart with her. In this era, there was no such thing as an insulated barrel, so it could only be tightly wrapped in a wooden barrel with an old wadding quilt, which was used as a thermal insulation barrel.
By the time Zhong Hao and Wan'er helped Xu push the cart to the crossroads, the east side of the sky had already revealed the morning light, and the sky had gradually brightened. Although there is no curfew in the Great Song Dynasty, ordinary people usually have no nightlife at night, and still follow the tradition of working at sunrise and resting at sunset. If you go to bed early at night, you will naturally wake up early in the morning.
Zhong Hao helped Xu set up the stall, Xu lit a fire, let Wan'er take care of the stove, and began to fry fried fritters and coke rings, as well as oil fruits.
Zhong Hao also wanted to help fry the fritters, but the Xu family refused to let them live or die, saying that it was enough for their mother and daughter, and also said that the gentleman was far away from cooking, and Zhong Hao would not be allowed to do this kind of thing in the future. Originally, according to her intentions, she didn't even want Zhong Hao to follow her when she came out of the stall. She thought that if she made money in the future, she would let Zhong Hao study hard and become an official in the imperial examination in the future.
Zhong Hao had no choice but to help greet the guests.
Before it opened, a few "flower arms" came to collect five cents for setting up a stall. Although Zhong Hao was very reluctant, he had no choice, so he still took out five cents and gave them it, he couldn't afford to offend this kind of snake who sat on the ground and collected money.
Fortunately, Xu's fritter business opened soon, and the people of the Great Song Dynasty accepted new things very quickly, and after tasting the fritters, coke rings and avocals presented by Zhong Hao, they all sat down to eat.