That day, when Dongdong came home from school, Yan Qiushu heard him proudly tell her that he had made the second grandson Zhou Zhaoqin cry because of the roasted chicken.
The little boy raised his chubby face high, looking somewhat proud, but also a little uneasy: "Did I go too far?"
Yan Qiushu was gnawing on the roasted chicken leg, feeling a little uneasy.
If it were modern times, she would definitely like to let the children solve the problem, but in ancient times, royal children were more reserved than other children because they held power. They would not bring trouble to the Xiao family because of her, right?
However, in response to Dong Dong's question, she still pinched her chubby little face and said, "It's okay. You didn't do anything."
Isn't it just eating something delicious in front of him? !
Although she said this, Yan Qiushu actually still felt a little guilty in her heart.
After all, according to the original novel and the memories she got from the original owner, the old emperor was not a good person. How many emperors began to act recklessly when they knew that their lives were coming to an end. In the end, it was not him who cleaned up the mess when he died. The emperor had become more and more willful in recent years, and the fate of the deposed prince was a warning.
Yan Qiushu was thinking about what she would face. Dongdong sighed and said reluctantly, "Sister Shu, ask Aunt Xu to make me some food tomorrow. I'll bring it to them, okay?"
"What happened?" Yan Qiushu was surprised.
Dongdong pursed his face, his eyes flickering and he dared not look at her: "They look so pitiful, they don't have a sister like Sister Shu who can cook. Besides, I was deliberately trying to anger the Second Emperor's grandson. Who made him always dislike me? But I didn't expect him to cry like this..."
Under normal circumstances he would have ignored it, but Zhou Zhaoqin's eyes were red and swollen from crying.
He said, twiddling his chubby fingers.
Yan Qiushu smiled and said softly, "Okay, Sister Shu will make it herself and give a portion to all the children in your class!"
Dong Dong was pleasantly surprised: "Really?"
Seeing her nod affirmatively, he immediately jumped three feet high, hugged her and kissed her warmly, then left happily: "Thank you, Sister Shu!"
Yan Qiushu's smile unconsciously grew wider.
Because of Xiao Waiting's relationship, the Xiao family, including Dong Dong who often ate with them, did not treat her as their servant, but as a close guest, so they had such an attitude.
Yan Qiushu felt that she was really lucky in finding a backer. While she was sighing, two groups of people came to the courtyard, one was Xie Qingyun's personal nanny, and the other was from Xiao Waiting's side. They both came to tell her that the matter with Taixue was just a small matter and there was no need to worry.
Is this because he is afraid that she will feel guilty because of feeding Dongdong and causing something to happen?
Yan Qiushu was extremely grateful and thought of another thing.
Because today, she also did something very important to her.
Before, she had been thinking about how to help the Xiao family.
Food and fodder require silver to buy. If the court does not provide them, how can the Xiao family earn them on their own?
Once this idea came out of the oven, it started to stick with me.
If you were to ask which store was easy to make money in your life?
Aren’t they just fast food restaurants and various milk tea shops?
She wondered if she was suited to business, but with her skills and the Xiao family's strength, it was not impossible for her to open fast food restaurants across the country.
There are still two years left before the incident. It is impossible to prepare all the food and fodder, but if we can delay it for a few days, perhaps Xiao Wai-ting's chances of survival will be greatly increased!
After all, in the plot, Xiao Wai-ting is still extremely powerful. If there were no problems on his side, it would be hard to say who would win against the enemy.
She did what she thought of, put forward her own plan, and also provided different sales goods for different groups. For example, the price of roasted chicken was a bit expensive for ordinary people, but there were also roasted chicken legs, roasted chicken wings, roasted chicken feet, and even roasted chicken skin, chicken buttocks, etc.
Chicken, every part of your body is a treasure!
Anyway, once the oven is made, the steps are basically assembly line production.
So that afternoon, Yan Qiushu wrote a "proposal" and gave it to Xie Qingyun. Of course, she specifically emphasized that she would only be a technical consultant. She wanted to do this mainly to repay the Xiao family for taking her in.
The things have been delivered, but there has been no response yet. She is now waiting for the final answer, and she always feels nervous that the success or failure of the Xiao family depends on this.
So a few days after her last insomnia, Yan Qiushu suffered from insomnia again.
And somewhere in Kyoto, someone was also suffering from insomnia.
The dilapidated palace looked as if no one had lived in it for hundreds of years, yet there were still special guards guarding such a place, working in three shifts to prevent people in the palace from escaping.
The person living here is the prince who was deposed five years ago.
However, unlike the graceful prince in the memory of the Kyoto ministers, the deposed prince had become a decrepit man after five years of confinement, with an untidy beard and even a lame leg, and walked with a limp.
The Crown Princess was also dressed worse than an ordinary woman. Her clothes were patched, and her beautiful hands, which should have been as white as jade, had become rough. There was only a wooden hairpin on her head to hold it in place.
As usual, people in the palace sent over food, which were steamed buns and vegetables that ordinary palace people usually ate.
If you want to eat something greasy on weekdays, you either have to pay for it or wait for some kind-hearted people to secretly send it to you. However, the security here is strict, so you rarely get to eat it.
It was raining tonight, so the family of three entered the temple early.
Although there were some leaks inside the hall, the place where they slept was not leaky.
The clothes that had been changed could only be left for tomorrow's washing. The Crown Princess urged, "Ah Heng, go to bed early."
The well-behaved boy did not respond. Instead, he seemed to remember something and quickly ran to the corner where he put his schoolbag. He took out something wrapped in oil paper from inside and brought it to his parents. He said shyly, "Mom and Dad, this was given to me by my friend. It's delicious. You can try it."
The Crown Princess was stunned. In the dim light, she saw that it looked like a chicken wing?
It smells nice, but it's cold.
After confirming, the Crown Princess felt a soreness in her eyes and a lump in her throat, as if something was blocking it. She was in so much discomfort that it was difficult for her to breathe.
When my son was sent to the cold palace, he was less than two years old. Now he is only seven years old. Because he was still young at that time, he had never eaten anything good. Now he treasures a piece of chicken wing so much.
She took two deep breaths to calm herself down. Her son was sensitive and she didn't want him to worry about her. She tried to say, "Mom doesn't like this. You eat it."
Zhou Zhaoheng blinked, a little confused, but still believed it, so he handed the thing in his hand to his father.
The deposed prince was much calmer, he didn't care about anything and naturally wouldn't resist anything. He would just eat whatever his son put in front of his mouth. When he opened his mouth, the food was cold and the taste was definitely much worse than when it was hot, and there was also a faint smell of meat.
But the flaws do not outweigh the merits, especially the chicken wing. The chicken skin is still flavorful, and the meat inside is tender. It tastes salty and sweet in the mouth, spicy but not greasy, and the meat is so good that it falls off the bone with just a little effort.
This quality actually made his eyes brighten slightly.
Better than the kitchen in my memory.
Seeing him eat, Zhou Zhaoheng smiled contentedly, threw himself into his father's arms, and said happily: "This is delicious, the most delicious meat I have ever eaten. It was made by Sister Shu from Dongdong's family. He also invited me to his house to play, and I could eat the roasted oranges made by Sister Shu. He didn't cough after eating it!"
"Mom and Dad, can I go?"
The Crown Princess at the side covered her mouth and sobbed.
Before her son had no friends, she cried out of pity for him. Now that he has friends, she still feels so sad that her heart feels tight and she has difficulty breathing.
How could he know that unless they both died or the new emperor was kind and showed mercy, he would never be able to visit his friend's house again in this life.
The man holding his son felt as if his heart, which had been calm for many years, was cut off from the air source at this moment. He felt so blocked that his heart beat faster and faster. In the end, a thin layer of sweat appeared on his forehead.
After a long while, he covered his son's head, held him in his arms, and said in a hoarse voice, "Go to sleep."
Zhou Zhaoheng didn't understand why and tried to raise his head, but his father was pressing down on his head. He tried hard several times but couldn't raise it very high. Finally, he just lay obediently on his father's chest and closed his eyes.
The child had no worries and fell asleep quickly, but the man never fell asleep and stayed awake until dawn.
The next morning
Yan Qiushu had a little insomnia, but not as severe as last time, so she got up early.
When she got up, the sun wasn't even fully out outside.
If this kind of routine were to happen in modern times, a lot of night owls would envy it to death.
She sighed, wiped her face, and asked, "What did you do this morning?"
"Dumpling soup. This morning the kitchen sent some fresh spinach and made green dumpling soup. When it was delivered to Young Master Dongdong and Miss Wan'er, they were very happy." Shui Yu said.
"It sounds delicious." Yan Qiushu said with a smile.
There are many varieties of breakfast, but she doesn't have an idea for one every day, so every time she makes one, she will ask Aunt Xu and Shui Yan to learn how to make it, so that if she gets up a little later, they can make it for her themselves.
As for Mrs. Xiao, the chef in the mansion also learned how to cook specifically for her.
However, Mrs. Xiao still didn't like to eat much, but she ate much more than usual when Yan Qiushu cooked. So most of the time, Yan Qiushu would have someone deliver the food to her.
She didn't like visiting other people's homes, especially since this was not her own home. The yard given to her by the Xiao family was big enough and had a lot of room for activities. Sometimes she thought about opening a vegetable garden and growing some crops, but she had trouble watering and fertilizing the garden, so she gave up.
Yan Qiushu wiped her face and applied an ancient version of facial cream. She came to the restaurant, where Nanny Xu had just brought over some dumpling soup and some pickled vegetables made by the mansion itself. They were quite delicious, salty and sour with a slight spicy taste, and went perfectly with rice.
It's just too salty, but if it weren't, it wouldn't last that long.
Yan Qiushu somewhat missed the modern pickled radishes, which were sour, spicy, crisp and refreshing. Unfortunately, there was no white vinegar and Yunnan chili peppers at the moment. She wondered where Yunnan was in this time and space, and whether there were any merchants there bringing goods over to sell?
I'll have to draw people's attention to this someday. In ancient times, transportation was not well developed, and the flow of goods from place to place relied on these traveling merchants.
Yan Qiushu took the dumpling soup and drank a mouthful of the soup which was full of the fragrance of noodles, while her thoughts continued to wander.
She likes to eat delicious food, which is a kind of enjoyment that makes her relax, and sweets can make people feel happy.
etc!
Sweets?
Yan Qiushu's eyes lit up, and she immediately said to Shui Yu, "Help me get some fresh milk, it has to be fresh."
"Okay." Shui Yan went there immediately.
She has followed Yan Qiushu for some time and has heard many requests. Anyway, every time, they would eventually become delicious food that would make her stamp her feet, so she was particularly positive.
Some wealthy families still have milk. At that time, some people already know that drinking milk is good for the body. Some families love their children, and their seven or eight-year-old children are still drinking breast milk. But that is not good to say out loud, so cow's milk and goat's milk have become substitutes.
In less than two quarters of an hour, Yan Qiushu took a short walk after finishing her meal, and the milk arrived. She looked at the still warm milk and smiled very happily: "If possible, send half a pound every day in the future. I can make a lot of delicious things with the milk!"
As she said this, she went into the kitchen.
It’s time to start cooking!
If we talk about what is the easiest thing to make in ancient times, it is none other than double skin milk. It does not require butter, cream, etc. It only needs egg white and milk.
At most, you can add some embellishments to enhance the taste, such as red bean paste.
The first step is to boil the red beans with water until soft.
During the cooking time, boil the milk in another pot, stirring constantly. Then put them into porcelain bowls one by one to cool. At this time, a thin milk skin will condense on the surface of the white milk.
This is the first layer of milk skin.
In your spare time, beat the eggs, separate the egg yolk and egg white, and add a little ginger juice to remove the fishy smell. Lemon should have been added here, but lemon was not available at that time, so ginger juice was used instead.
Then pour the milk into the egg white in turn. When pouring, the milk skin will stick to the edge of the porcelain bowl and will not fall off. Instead, it will fall to the bottom of the bowl. The bowl does not need to be washed and can be used next time.
After mixing the egg white and milk, add a little white sugar, stir evenly and pour it back into the bowl. Finally, cover each bowl with a lid and put it in the steamer for a quarter of an hour.
During this time, the red beans are cooked. At this time, add appropriate amount of sugar and continue to cook. When the sugar and red beans are integrated, the double skin milk is completely steamed.
Because of the egg white, the double skin milk becomes solid and does not wobble at all when bowls are served.
The moment the lid was opened, the rich aroma of milk seemed to be eager to burst out.
Shui Yan and Aunt Xu, who were gathered in the kitchen, took a deep breath at the same time and exclaimed, "What a nice smell!"
“It doesn’t smell fishy at all, it smells so good!”
Madam Xu craned her neck to look at it, very curious, and suddenly found that this thing was not liquid. She was even more surprised: "Miss, why is this milk solidified?"
"This is double-skin milk. It uses egg white and can solidify, similar to steamed eggs." Yan Qiushu replied with a smile and followed suit to sniff.
This time he performed exceptionally well again.
It smells fragrant and sweet!
But it's not quite done yet.
Yan Qiushu took a spoon and added a spoonful of sweet red beans to each bowl. The white and tender double skin milk was embellished with a touch of red bean color, making it... more appetizing!