Chapter 390: Dragon Boat Festival Welfare Zongzi

First, the men went to Jincheng to buy glutinous rice.

Jincheng has fertile land, where both wheat and rice are grown, including glutinous rice.

I bought glutinous rice, red beans and red dates, and at Shen Qing's instruction, I also bought candied dates!

These candied dates are first scored with circles and then made with a large amount of sugar. Their value has skyrocketed because of the sugar and they are very expensive.

Other families were reluctant to buy more because they were worried about their money. They only bought a dozen or so. They thought that there were wild dates on the mountain. When autumn came, they would go to pick dates and then buy malt sugar from the village sugar shop to make candied dates. Then they wouldn't have to buy them next year because they would have enough for themselves.

In addition to these, there is pork, including pork belly and pork leg.

The women who stayed in the village were picking leaves for rice dumplings.

The emerald green leaves of the rice dumplings were long and wide, and each one looked beautiful. Shen Qing felt extremely satisfied as he picked them.

After picking them, first scrub them clean on both sides with clean water, remove the broken and unqualified ones, put the rest into a large iron pot and boil them in boiling water for a quarter of an hour, simmer until cooled, then take them out and soak them in well water for later use.

Wait for the men to buy glutinous rice and soak it overnight.

After soaking overnight, the glutinous rice absorbed water and the rice grains swelled. Shen Qing gently pinched it with his index finger and thumb, and the rice grains broke at his fingertips. Then he nodded with satisfaction.

He announced to the women who had carefully calculated the plan: "It's done, we can make zongzi now."

The women's faces lit up with joy, and after washing their hands, they looked at the prepared ingredients with expressions of surprise.

The snow-white and plump glutinous rice was mixed with round and bright red beans, which looked very bright. They knew this because they also made red bean dumplings before fleeing the famine. But why was there a pile of candied dates in the basket next to it?

They are not red dates, but candied dates.

This kind of thing is really sweet, even better than sugar, and the price is not much cheaper than sugar.

There is also pure glutinous rice next to it, which is understandable. After all, candied dates are expensive. There is a kind of candied date with red beans. You can't always eat candied dates. It is already very good to eat rice dumplings with red beans.

But why is there pork marinated in soy sauce, ginger and garlic on the other side of the candied dates?

It is cut into strips, and if you look closely you can see the fat and lean parts, it is the best pork belly!

".....Master, how do we wrap this?" a woman asked bravely.

They can wrap red beans and candied dates, but why is there meat in it?

How can you put meat in zongzi? And it's soaked in soy sauce, so it's obviously salty. I really don't know how to cook it.

It's something I've never heard of or seen before!

Shen Qing actually also likes to eat plain rice dumplings, but she likes to eat them dipped in white sugar.

During this dynasty, brown sugar was more expensive than maltose, and white sugar was even more expensive than brown sugar! Using it with plain rice dumplings was too expensive and not cost-effective.

So I changed it to red bean dumplings and put candied dates in them. When the candied dates melt, the rice grains around them become sweet and soft, and taste better than those dipped in white sugar!

In addition, she loved the meat dumplings after eating them in the south, especially the fat layer, which was almost integrated with the glutinous rice after being cooked for a long time and was very fragrant.

"I'll teach you how to wrap the meat version. Not in a funnel shape, but in a cylindrical shape. Put a strip of pork belly inside. This is a new flavor for everyone to try. If you don't like it, I won't send out meat versions next year. I'll send out more red bean and candied date versions."

The chosen woman felt that what Shen Qing said contained too much information and she couldn't understand it for a while.

Later I realized that the master also had a share of the meat.

There are also red beans and candied dates. Isn’t it red beans and candied dates, but combined together?

They swallowed unconsciously, my God, how delicious must this be?

Yes, they have never eaten salty meat, but how can salty pork belly paired with soft and sticky rice not taste good?

That's not better than rice with lard!

After they started making the rice dumplings, their guess was confirmed.

Candied dates and red beans are paired together, and pork belly is another. This year's rice dumplings are really luxuriously stuffed!

Buckets of wrapped rice dumplings were put into a large iron pot and cooked over high heat. After they were cooked, they were not taken out, but left to simmer for one or two hours. Finally, they were taken out and placed in a bucket of water and boiled.

After two or three days of hard work, it was finally completed on the fifth day of May.

Early in the morning, Jiang Xiangxi, Jiang Xiangnan and Jiang Xiangbei transported buckets of rice dumplings to the workshop.

I am taking a break today and not working, but this year I misjudged the number of people and the time needed to make rice dumplings, so I didn't finish the whole number until the morning of the Dragon Boat Festival, so I could only distribute them this morning.

Fortunately, we are all from the same village, so it doesn’t take much time to go back and forth. Moreover, they are all made in the past two days and are fresh, just right for taking back and eating.

Among the three workshops, most of the brushes are produced by the upper-class people in the village, and the soaps are all selected from the lower-class people. The embroidery workshop has both. On weekdays, only the brush and soap workshops provide food, while the embroidery workshop does not.

Besides, the embroidery workshop can only generate income from Pinggu's embroidery, while the other apprentices cannot. In other words, the embroidery workshop has been losing money for nearly seven or eight months and has not seen any other income.

The people in the embroidery workshop didn’t expect that they not only had it, but also had exactly the same ones!

Three red beans, red dates and two meat dumplings for each person. Five solid dumplings are enough for even the guy with the biggest appetite!

And if there are two or three people working in the workshop at home, the whole family can eat;

It doesn’t matter if they can’t eat it. Each of their families has made some this year, but it’s not as substantial as what Shen Qing sent out.

This is also Shen Qing's little selfish desire. How much can he like something that others can afford to eat at home if it is used as a welfare benefit?

Since it is considered a welfare benefit, of course it has to be even better!

Everyone went home happily, carrying a bunch of rice dumplings.

The most excited people were the more than one hundred servants. At least two people from each family worked in the workshop, which meant that at least ten people were given the job.

The largest family has less than ten people, so if everyone shares the food, they can have a whole rice dumpling!

At this age, I never thought that there would be a time when I could eat a whole zongzi...

When the villagers heard that there were meat dumplings, they were all extremely curious.

The Feng family started discussing: "What does this taste like? It shouldn't be bad."

"But aren't zongzi always eaten sweet? I've never heard of them containing meat!"

"Shut up, Mengzi! Where are you listening? What knowledge do you have? But if I cook meat with rice, will it taste fishy?"

"This is pork, not mutton, how can it smell fishy? Leopard, shut up!"

Feng Meng and Feng Bao shut up at the same time, and the other members of the Feng family felt that they finally had some peace and quiet and could have a good discussion.

"Mom and Dad, Auntie said that the rice dumplings need to be heated first. Why don't we steam them and try them to see how they taste?

Even if it tastes bad, there are more than ten people in our family, and each person can finish it in two or three bites."

"Yes, yes, yes, good, good!"

Someone immediately went to the kitchen to add firewood to start a fire. As the water gurgled, white mist emerged from the edge of the wooden pot lid, and everyone couldn't help but sniff it.

Oh, it smells so good!