Chapter 204: Mixed-blood Northerner

"Tsk!" Chen Huiping wanted to curse, but she tried to keep a straight face and ended up laughing out loud.

"I'll make it tomorrow afternoon. I'll leave some dough and stuffing for you. Just call me ten minutes before your arrival so I can wrap and steam it right away. Otherwise, if you make it in advance and keep it in the refrigerator, it won't taste the same." Zhao Xiaojing said after calculating the time.

It takes eight and a half minutes to steam the soup dumplings. If you steam them too far in advance, the dumplings will lose some of their taste when they are warm and then cooled and then reheated. The best way is to keep the dough, roll out the dough and wrap the soup dumplings ten minutes in advance, and then steam them in the pot when the two arrive for the best taste.

"Why bother with so much trouble! Your Uncle Wang has nothing to do tomorrow afternoon, so he doesn't have to go out. Just call me when you're ready. We'll come over whenever you want to eat." Chen Huiping frowned, waved her hands, and rolled her eyes at Wang Jiandang.

"That's right! I'm lucky to have something to eat, how can I choose the time? Look at me, who do I think I am? I drink too much every day and just bother Xiao Zhao. Every day I have mixed cabbage and soup dumplings. I'm the only one in the world with a mouth!" Wang Jiandang received Chen Huiping's gaze, hurriedly swallowed the cabbage he was chewing, waved his chopsticks and deliberately made a sullen face to imitate Chen Huiping's speech, and started scolding himself first.

Chen Huiping was stunned for two seconds, her expression switching back and forth between anger and laughter, and finally she gave Wang Jiandang a loud but painless slap on the arm.

Zhao Xiaojing laughed like crazy.

"Hey, Xiao Zhao, although your steamed buns and soup dumplings are similar, there is still a big difference when they are actually made. How did you come up with this idea?" Wang Jiandang pretended to beg for mercy for a while, then picked up the topic again.

"There's a chef I know who owns a restaurant in Jiangliu District. I asked their pastry chef, and he told me some key points. I then tried it a few times according to his instructions."

"Oh, I see." Wang Jiandang nodded, having quickly finished most of his plate of cabbage. "About how big are the soup dumplings you made?"

"It's less than half the size of a fist, about the size of a xiaolongbao." Zhao Xiaojing stretched out her hand to compare.

"Oh, there are two kinds of soup dumplings in our hometown. The big one is as big as a fist!" Wang Jiandang also stretched out his fist.

Zhao Xiaojing was stunned and dumbfounded. She made the soup dumplings according to the size of the Jiangcheng soup dumplings ordered last time. She never expected that there would be a size issue when making soup dumplings. She wondered if the size would affect the progress of the task?

In order not to delay the mission, Zhao Xiaojing directly asked the target, "Uncle Wang, do you think water chestnut soup dumplings are better when they are made big or small?"

"Oh, it's all the same!" Wang Jiandang took two bites of the three fresh vegetables, put down his chopsticks, and began to wave his hands. "It doesn't matter if it's big or small, or whether it has 8 or 28 wrinkles. It all tastes the same!"

That's good. Zhao Xiaojing breathed a sigh of relief, silently cursing herself for being careless. She hadn't done any thorough research before making the soup dumplings, and had simply started working on them after Su Yuchen had mentioned water chestnut soup dumplings. If Uncle Wang had been particular about size, if he'd demanded 28 or 38 folds, then this mission would have been ruined.

"But there's one thing," Wang Jiandang continued waving his hands, and Zhao Xiaojing's eyes widened. "The soup dumplings we have there must have chewy skin.

It is different from Jinling soup dumplings. Jinling is located in the south, and southerners don't pursue chewy noodles at all. People in Jiangsu and Zhejiang prefer to eat very thin noodles and pay attention to a soft texture. Therefore, there is a saying about Jinling soup dumplings: "lift gently and move slowly." Because if it is not chewy, if you don't move it gently and slowly, the soup will leak out!

But we northerners like to eat noodles with a bit of chewiness, even the soup dumpling skin should be chewy and strong!"

Zhao Xiaojing nodded thoughtfully, feeling a little worried.

In order to roll out tender soup dumpling skins, she adjusted the ratio of boiling water, cold water and flour in the virtual space for about dozens of times before she made the last successful dough. The toughness was indeed enough and the finished product was thin enough, but she really didn't know if she could achieve the strength that Wang Jiandang was looking for.

"You're just talking nonsense all day long!" Chen Huiping saw Zhao Xiaojing's embarrassment and slapped Wang Jiandang's arm again. This time there was no sound, but Wang Jiandang cried out and almost dropped his chopsticks.

"Don't pay attention to him, Xiao Zhao. How dare you call yourself a northerner? How many authentic northerners eat sweet soup dumplings? He's only half-blood at best, and he's a mixed-race! Guess why that water chestnut soup dumpling shop he loved went bankrupt? Because besides him, a mixed-race northerner, native-born northerners don't eat them at all!"

"Ah? What's the reason?" Zhao Xiaojing didn't expect this to happen and asked curiously.

"Because the owner of that shop learned how to make soup dumplings from Jinling, the flavor is sweet. Northerners mostly prefer fresh and salty flavors, so that shop's water chestnut soup dumplings can't sell at all. Only mixed-blood northerners like you, Uncle Wang, who have different tastes from others, prefer that shop!

So after the store went bankrupt, the boss no longer opened a store there and just packed up and went back to his hometown. That’s why your uncle Wang will never be able to eat it again!

Otherwise, given his habit of knocking on the doors of Cantonese restaurants in the middle of the night, he would have already broken down the soup dumpling owner's door!" Chen Huiping folded her arms and glanced at Wang Jiandang, complaining.

"So that's how it is," Zhao Xiaojing nodded, but after thinking about it carefully, she felt something was wrong. "But didn't Uncle Wang say that the dough must be chewy to be delicious, and that Jinling soup dumplings are not chewy? Then why are the Jinling soup dumplings from that shop so good?"

"Because the boss of that shop is also a bit of a jerk. The filling is sweet from the south, and the wrapper is chewy and strong from the north. This is exactly what your half-hearted uncle Wang likes!"

"Then why is the boss half-hearted? That's because when the boss came to us, he naturally used flour from our Henan Province. The wheat in our Henan Province is good, and the flour produced is also good. As long as it is used correctly, the dough will be chewy." Wang Jiandang looked quite proud when he mentioned this.

Flour! Zhao Xiaojing suddenly realized that if she also used flour from Henan Province, wouldn’t that solve the skin problem?

"Uncle Wang, do we have Henan Province flour here? What kind would you like to buy?"

"Buy Chunyu's! It's available at the Yonghui Supermarket in front of us. I don't know why not many people buy it here, but the flour is really good! I carried a big bag home last time, and your aunt said I was wasting money. But the steamed buns made from it were full of wheat aroma, and each layer was so chewy. Our whole family loves them!" The two plates in front of Wang Jiandang were empty. Duntun took two sips of soda and sat there dancing while talking.

"That flour is indeed okay." Chen Huiping glared at Wang Jiandang speechlessly. "Xiao Zhao, if you want to try it yourself, you can buy some, but please don't let us spend your money. Your Uncle Wang always asks for a lot of things when he's drunk. Just ignore him. He'll be fine tomorrow when he sobers up."