Although there was an incident, the Su family still had a very good holiday dinner.

During the meal, Shopkeeper Liang came upstairs and added four more dishes and gave him the menu. Su Guangfu initially declined, saying he couldn't eat for free, but Shopkeeper Liang repeatedly said that Miss Su had helped him many times and a meal was nothing to worry about.

Unable to refuse, the Su family happily had dinner and, just to join in the fun, each took a piece of the chocolate fruit.

However, perhaps because Su Qingluan had gotten the egg yolk chocolate fruit before, she had used up all her luck. Even though Manager Liang personally opened the back door today and let each of the five members of the Su family choose a chocolate fruit, when they opened them, they all found it was filled with red bean paste.

So I took two portions of snacks and three portions of paper-cuts home, just to suit the occasion.

Before leaving, Su Qingluan asked Manager Liang for another barrel of soybean oil.

Shopkeeper Liang was a little curious: "What are you going to do with this soybean oil, niece? If you want to light a lamp, why don't I get you some good candles? They're much more convenient to use than this soybean oil lamp!"

Su Qingluan smiled and said, "Uncle Liang, I told that young master from the Xie family that this soybean oil is edible. I wasn't lying to him."

Shopkeeper Liang recalled that he had seen the cold shell of the "fried ice cubes" left on the table just now. He even leaned over to smell it, and it still had that strong, pungent bean smell.

Recalling the taste, Shopkeeper Liang's kind, round face wrinkled into eighteen folds. "My dear niece, aren't you teasing the young master of the Xie family? If you're short on oil at home, I can ask the butcher to prepare some extra fat for you to make into oil. Why use soybean oil?"

In his opinion, Su Qingli must have deliberately used such smelly soybean oil instead of fragrant lard to make "fried ice cubes" for Xie Zian, in order to retaliate for the provocation.

Su Qingluan saw the expression on Shopkeeper Liang's face and knew what he was worried about. She just smiled and said, "Uncle Liang, although my family is not rich, the dividends from your menu and the income from my own stall are enough to make me unable to afford even some fat meat for making lard."

"That……"

"Soybean oil is actually easy to use and can be purchased directly. And there are ways to remove the beany smell."

After saying that, he turned around and went to the shelf where the prizes were displayed, asked the other people in the family to wait for a while, and then he went into the kitchen with Manager Liang.

"Since Manager Liang is worried that the soybean oil won't suit my taste, why don't you try it yourself?"

"Try what?" Shopkeeper Liang was a little stunned.

“The natural thing is to try something fried in soybean oil – but of course, this time it won’t taste like raw soybean oil.”

Shopkeeper Liang finally realized that the fried ice cubes had been so unpalatable on purpose. He pointed his index finger at the smirking little girl across from him, "You're not afraid of being blamed by Young Master Xie."

Su Qingluan blinked innocently. "Why did he blame me? I followed Young Master Xie's instructions and served the exact same 'fried ice cubes'. Even if anyone came, they wouldn't be able to find fault with it. As for the taste of the soybean oil, Young Master Xie didn't guarantee that the dish would be delicious, did he?"

Shopkeeper Liang was stunned by Su Qingluan's self-righteous attitude. Su Qingluan had already washed her hands. She crushed the green onion and ginger and soaked them in cold water. She then took some star anise and bay leaves, soaked them in water and rubbed them gently. She added a little salt and after a while put the bowl of seasoning water aside to let the flavor soak out.

I took a piece of pork hind leg, cut it neatly into small dice pieces, and added the previous seasoning water.

During this break, Su Qingluan asked if the kitchen had any mung bean starch. Of course, she didn't know what "starch" was called in that era, so she just described how starch was obtained and what it could be used for. Then everyone looked as if they had suddenly understood: "Oh, young lady, you mean 'corn starch'?"

"Yes, yes, yes!" Su Qingluan nodded repeatedly, and then happily took the mung bean starch - obviously, there was no corn and potatoes in this era, which was really a pity.

Su Qingluan, a potato fanatic, thought regretfully, but she deftly scooped out a little starch and put it into a bowl. While adding water to make it into water starch, she asked the kitchen helper beside her: "Excuse me, little chef, is this cornstarch made at home or bought outside?"

"You can make it yourself, but it's also sold in grain and oil shops outside." The young kitchen helper answered honestly.

Su Qingluan nodded and thought to herself: If that’s the case, then cornstarch can be bought directly.

Although it costs some money in the short term, if you make fried foods for a long time in the future, cornstarch will inevitably be the main raw material. Purchasing in bulk can reduce the purchase price and greatly save your time costs.

With this in mind, she added pepper, Sichuan pepper powder, and dogwood powder to the evenly mixed water starch for seasoning, and finally added a little salt - considering that a little salt had already been added to the seasoning water before, this time she reduced the salt by half compared to usual in order to prevent the fried meat from being too salty.

The water starch batter is ready here, and the pork is almost marinated over there.

Su Qingluan then added some scallions, ginger, star anise, and cinnamon to the half-oil pot, and asked Shopkeeper Liang and the chefs to come over and watch. Xu Yuanwei didn't move too close, just watching from a distance, but his gaze on the oil pot was very focused.

Su Qingluan pointed to the oil pan and said, "Actually, if you just heat the soybean oil, you can greatly reduce the 'beany smell'. And for double insurance, I added a lot of spices to neutralize the taste."

"But you've done this before, why is the beany smell so strong?"

Su Qingluan smiled and said, "The reason there's still a bean smell is that I put the food that needs to be fried in the soybean oil before it's fully preheated. The temperature isn't high enough, so the fried food naturally has a raw soybean oil smell."

"For example," she pointed to the slightly smoking surface of the wok, "this level means the oil temperature is about right. If the smoke makes it difficult to see, throw in some scallions or ginger and see."

She pointed at the spices swirling in the wok and scooped them up with a colander. "It's not okay if they just bubble on the surface. They need to be slightly burnt around the edges."

As she spoke, she slid the pork chunks, coated in starch, into the pot one by one, using a colander to gently push the sticky pieces apart. "You absolutely must stir and break them apart, otherwise the meat will just fry into a ball!"

Since some of the chefs at Hong Fook House had no experience with frying, they watched very carefully.

Su Qingluan didn't intend to hide it either - after all, as long as this cooking method was available on the market, an expert would be able to tell the general idea at a glance, not to mention that if more delicious restaurants emerged, she, a foodie, would be very happy.

After the first fry, when the meat pieces were slightly set, Su Qingluan fished out the slightly yellowed pieces, picked up a piece with chopsticks and handed it to Shopkeeper Liang: "Uncle Liang, please try it. Does it still have the bean smell?"