Although Liu Yunniang and Sun Guixiang were persuaded by Su Qingluan to go back one after another, they both left behind a lot of things - basically food such as eggs, meat and vegetables.
Liu Yunniang also brought over a small, wrinkled oil-paper package, the contents of which were hard to discern. Curious, Su Qingluan opened it and discovered a ginseng root about the thickness of a carrot.
Su Qingluan's understanding of this thing is at most that "ginseng can be sliced and stewed into soup as a condiment for medicinal food, and it has warming and nourishing properties."
This ginseng is quite large, and there is probably no mass cultivation technology now, so the price is probably outrageous - but Su Qingluan is more inclined to believe that this ginseng was dug in the mountains by Liu Sheng when he was still able-bodied, and it is unknown how long he has treasured it at home.
Even if she thought about it with her heels, Su Qingluan knew that this thing was very precious. Now she actually gave this thing to her family. Su Qingluan couldn't bear it no matter what.
Naturally, this precious thing cannot be moved. Su Qingluan plans to find an opportunity to return it to Liu Yunniang in a few days.
Thinking of this, Su Qingluan carefully wrapped the ginseng again and placed it on the upper shelf to prevent it from being accidentally knocked and broken, which would make it difficult to preserve.
The vegetables for tonight's blanching have been blanched and set aside to be sautéed with garlic later. Over there, Su Qingluan has already coated the pork tenderloin with cornstarch using light soy sauce, scallion and ginger water.
Su Qingluan originally wanted to use white pepper to remove the fishy smell, after all, white pepper can effectively remove the fishy smell of pork and also enhance the flavor. However, thinking of the red and swollen throats and coughs of the whole family, Su Qingluan gave up and used the milder scallion and ginger water instead - it just took a little longer to soak and a little more effort.
When the rice porridge began to bubble up with tiny bubbles, Su Qingluan slid the fried pork tenderloin slices into the pot, and then used the back of a long-handled cooking ladle to gently push away and loosen the meat slices that had been stuck together by the batter, to prevent the situation where the outside was cooked but the inside was still raw.
The meat slices in the porridge do not need to be boiled over high heat, but need to be placed in the porridge. It is better to say that they are "simmered" in the soft, glutinous and sticky rice porridge rather than "cooked", so the taste is very smooth and delicate, and not hard or woody.
When the porridge was almost cooked, Su Qingluan blanched the finely chopped vegetables and put them on top of the porridge as a garnish. Because the vegetables were blanched and cooled, they would not turn yellow or black even when cooked in the porridge.
As long as the pot lid is closed tightly, even though the stove below is turned off, the air inside the stove will still be quite high for a period of time, so the food in the pot on the stove will not cool down.
What's more, the pot contains thick and dense white porridge, which has much better heat preservation performance than some clear soups.
So when Su Qingluan was making yam puree or blanching vegetables, she didn't have to worry about the porridge getting cold.
However, compared to the cold dish of mashed yam, blanched vegetables are hot food after all, so Su Qingluan decided to blanch them last. She let the water in the steamer boil for a while, reduced the flame in the furnace to the minimum, and pulled out a few large firewoods that were basically not burning.
This way, there won’t be too much waste of firewood.
As a chef who once worked independently in a large restaurant, Su Qingluan has some requirements for "plating" - the food must not only taste good, but also look good.
Although she doesn't need to make an exaggerated shape like the "squirrel fish" every time, she still feels that at least the basic presentation is necessary.
So Su Qingluan was troubled for a long time about how to arrange a simple dish of jam and yam puree.
Suddenly she thought of a way. She crushed the yam repeatedly with the back of a spoon into fine yam paste, then rolled it into a pointed cone shape with oil paper used to wrap some braised food, and sealed the opening with a little bit of soft porridge instead of paste.
Then fill the finely crushed yam paste into the loose opening on the top, close the loose opening on the top, and finally use scissors to cut an slanted notch at the pointed end of the oil paper, and then put the yam paste into the "piping bag" made of oil paper like cream.
Of course, this makeshift piping bag couldn't compare to the ones she'd used in her previous life, either in terms of quality or effectiveness. Furthermore, the yam paste wasn't as light and rich as whipped cream. So Su Qingluan couldn't just gently twist the chopsticks in mid-air, squeezing out individual "petals" like she would with cream piping.
She had to stand the chopsticks, which were originally the "stamen" of the flower, on the plate so that the yam paste, which was much denser than cream, would not fall and turn into a messy pile of mud.
Although this posture is a bit awkward, I finally managed to make the "yam mud flowers". Each pure white flower "bloomed" on the dark coarse porcelain plate, which had a unique sense of simplicity and elegance.
At this time, after sufficient standing and mixing, the syrup and jam that were originally stirred together have almost blended together.
Su Qingluan stirred the jam mixed with white sugar and honey syrup again. Because of the light golden color of the honey and the crystal clear visual effect of the syrup made from white sugar, the fully mixed jam now felt softer than the jelly at the beginning.
Su Qingluan poured the small bowl of jam onto the plate of white "flowers". In an instant, the originally pure white was dyed with a layer of crystal clear orange-red, and it also emitted a crystal-clear and attractive luster. Not only did it look better, but the lustrous color and the sweet and sour smell made people salivate unconsciously.
After pouring all this, because the jam mixed with syrup is very thick, a thick layer is left at the bottom of the bowl.
Su Qingluan dipped her finger in a little and tasted it: "Hmm! It's sour and sweet and delicious. It's such a waste to throw it away!"
As she was thinking, she opened the wax paper she had used as a "piping bag" and found that there was indeed a lot of yam paste left stuck on it!
These two were leftover scraps, so naturally they couldn't be put on a plate. However, throwing them away would be a waste and a pity, so Su Qingluan simply used a spoon to scrape the yam paste off the wax paper, and then smeared it on the edge of the bowl of jam, so that the yam paste slowly slid into the bowl.
Su Qingluan mixed the two "leftovers" together, scooped a piece with a spoon and put it in her mouth - well, the yam was soft and delicate, and the jam was sweet and sour. In addition, because the weather was getting colder, things exposed to the air would quickly lose heat, so Su Qingluan felt that what she was eating in her mouth was like a bite of sweet and sour ice cream.
She narrowed her eyes slightly: It seems that my younger brothers and sisters will like it - I guess my parents will eat a few more bites!
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