The biography of Gu Qi, a poor girl

Wei Niangzi turned her back quietly, avoiding the crowd, suppressing the soreness in the corners of her eyes, and then turned her head, but she still talked with everyone around the pot of red spicy oil.

-

"Qiye, is this red chili oil of yours used as a topping?" Shunzi asked.

Gu Qi shook his head: "Have you peeled the bamboo sticks for the soup base?"

"It's all cut, is it enough?"

Shunzi handed Gu Qi a small handful of about twenty bamboo sticks, which were just right in thickness.

Gu Qi only took one of them, and then threaded the slices of bacon sliced ​​by Mrs. Lu in a flat way. A bamboo stick can be used for four slices, and the rest is used for the handle.

"Put all these bacon slices on."

"I can do this, I'll do it." Ah Da didn't know how he could help, so he hurriedly said.

Gu Qi raised his head and glanced at Ah Da: "Go and clean your hands first."

"Let me do it, I just cleaned my hands." Qing Yi said shyly.He was originally a helper in the kitchen, so he consciously took it for granted.

There were not many bamboo sticks, and Qingyi's hands and feet were also nimble. When Ah Dajing came back, Qingyi had already strung most of the sticks, and Mrs. Lu helped to string the rest.

-

"Is there a casserole?"

Gu Qi looked around in the back kitchen, but couldn't find a suitable pot body, so he turned to ask Mrs. Lu.

"Yes." Mrs. Lu nodded, and hurriedly found a brown-gray casserole from the corner of the shelf in the back kitchen.

The common casserole pots in Dakang are small in size, mostly a small pot, not much bigger than a soup pot in terms of width, but the depth is acceptable, and they are mostly used for stewing meat or porridge in small pots.

Gu Qi tried it, and put the whole skewer of meat in with bamboo sticks. The depth is really not a problem, but the volume is really small, and it won't be enough to fill it up.

A casserole of this size is fine for personal use, but if you want to put it on the storefront, you may have to start the pot again after selling a few skewers.

Gu Qi was not very satisfied: "Do we still have the square pots in our shop that are used to put cooked corn and cooked pumpkins?"

"Master Qi is talking about those custom-made square pots? The largest No. [-] pot is gone, but there is a smaller one, which was left by ordering the wrong size at the beginning. It's in the warehouse. I'll get it .”

Shunzi was responsible for all these matters, and knew far better than the two cooks in the kitchen.

-

Soon Shunzi found the discarded square pot.The size of the square pot is one foot long and wide, and the depth is about the same as the previous casserole, which is very suitable.

That's all, Gu Qi asked Mrs. Lu to start the fire again, pour a lot of water into it, bring it to a boil, and then add the freshly made red spicy oil from which the excess water has been removed.

Reduce the heat to a full boil, and soon the hot aroma will rise again with the billowing white smoke.

In fact, to make a tasty soup base, chili oil alone is not enough, and bone broth must be used as the soup base.

Soup bases vary from place to place. Some places like to use beef bones and mutton bones, while others like to use chicken bones, or simply chicken soup.Most places prefer to use pork bones, mainly because the price is cheap.

However, the situation in Lushan County was a bit special at this time. After three years of drought, it was already difficult to find live poultry in the county.

People from the Liuxing Street Pedestrian Gang can still get slaughtered live poultry, but most of them are no longer fresh, and because of the difficulty of transportation, the price is very expensive.

Even animal skeletons that are worthless in other places, such as pig bones and sheep bones, are ridiculously expensive here in Lushan County.

Of course, there is no deep-processed condiment such as monosodium glutamate and chicken essence in Dakang. This also makes the taste of many dishes will be greatly reduced if there is no big bone soup as the base material to enhance the flavor.

The situation Gu Qi encounters now is this kind of dilemma. In Lushan County, it is not difficult to get some dried condiments now, but it is more difficult to get fresh live ingredients.

The more the soup base in the square pot was boiled, the more fragrant it became. Obviously there were no ingredients in the soup pot, and Shunzi and the others began to swallow unconsciously.

Even Ah Da, whose mouth was numb from the red pepper, had long forgotten what he had suffered before, and just wanted to taste the taste of this soup as soon as possible.

While thinking about how to improve the taste of the soup base with limited materials, Gu Qi kept an eye on the heat. Seeing that the soup material had completely melted, he asked Mrs. Lu to throw the bacon skewers into the square pot.

Then he asked everyone: "Are there still people who make tofu in Lushan County?"

Shunzi and the others didn't know, so they could only shake their heads, but Mrs. Wei thought for a moment and said, "There used to be several tofu shops in the county, but they closed one after another two years ago.

The owners of the two tofu shops in the south of the city and the east of the city moved out early after closing their shops, but the others don’t know if they are still there now, and even if they were, they would never do it again. "

Food in Lushan County is the most expensive. Even soybeans, which were not very valuable in the past, have now become precious objects. .

After thinking about it, Mrs. Wei plucked up her courage and said, "Is the master planning to make tofu? In fact, my slave also knows some of this craft."

Gu Qi's eyes lit up: "Then you know how to make dried orchids?"

"What are dried orchids?" Mrs. Wei had a strange look on her face when she heard this.

Gu Qi scanned the crowd and saw that everyone looked similar to Mrs. Wei, so he knew that this thing was not available in Dakang, at least not in Yuzhou Prefecture, Yunzhou Prefecture, and the two prefectures.Or there are similar ones, but with different names.

Thinking about it, Gu Qi asked again: "Can Dabaigan make it? It's white tofu, tofu?"

"I will." Wei Niangzi nodded.

"It will do it."

Baigan is originally made from pressed tofu, and the production method is similar to that of old tofu. After being pressed, excess water is removed, and the taste is firmer than tofu, and the nutritional content is similar.

The most important thing is to make dried orchids, and the raw material is white dried.

"Shunzi, go get a mill tomorrow. How many soybeans are there in the warehouse?" Gu Qi asked.

"There are still more than 500 catties." Shunzi replied.

"Five hundred catties? That's enough."

A total of [-] catties of soybeans were delivered this time, and [-] to [-] catties were sold within two days of opening, and the rest was in the warehouse.

Usually, one catty of soybeans can be made into water tofu, which can make about four to five catties, and it can be made into old tofu to more than three catties.It is made into dried tofu, which is about one and a half to two catties.

No matter how you calculate it, more than 500 catties of soybeans are enough for one or two months.

The reason why Gu Qi wants to make dried orchids is because sliced ​​bacon is delicious when added to the soup base, but the meat can absorb only a limited amount of water, so changing to dried orchids is different.

After the orchid is dried into the soup pot, it will quickly absorb a large amount of soup, and it tastes very good. It is the best partner for skewers and Oden.

But it's still early, and we have to wait until tomorrow to buy a mill, and when Mrs. Wei makes tofu.

Seeing the meat skewers constantly tumbling in the soup pot, Gu Qi frowned, feeling that something was missing.