Chapter 214 Mysterious Guest?
"Haha, grandma, is she from the countryside? How come her habit of yelling is just like my mom's?" Su Yuchen also laughed. "Then did you ask what kind of fertilizer they use?"
"Yes, it's in the countryside, in Xin County, below Jiangcheng. I asked, and grandma said it was farm manure, but only a small part."
"What do you mean by only a small part?" Su Yuchen asked as he blew on the porridge and carefully tested the temperature.
"She said that although their area is rural, the city has been expanding closer and closer to the village in the past two years, and pig farming is no longer allowed. Without a pig manure pit, the manure is not enough. She is old and lacks energy, so she only raises a dozen chickens. Plus, there are only the two of them at home, so the compost produced is only enough for her small plot of land. She also uses chemical fertilizers on the rest of the land.
She also said that the ten pounds of radishes I bought the second time were grown on her manure-fertilized land. She originally brought two sacks, only one of which was intended for sale, and the other was specially brought for her grandson to use as fertilizer. In the end, they disliked it and didn't want to eat it, so she sold it in anger.
No wonder she was so angry at the time.”
Zhao Xiaojing devoured a soup dumpling in a few bites. After a night of freezing, the texture wasn't as exquisite as it had been the night before. The pork wasn't as tender and juicy as before, and the water chestnuts were a little dry. But the soup was still quite fragrant. The two of them quickly devoured all eight dumplings while the broth was still steaming.
"What about the guy next door who grows radishes?"
"It was the same thing. From what she said, she must be in her seventies or eighties. I raised the price to two dollars and fifty cents, and she finally agreed to sell it to me after she spoke up for me. I said I'd go get it, but she said it wasn't necessary. They can take the bus for free with their senior citizen cards, and just transfer twice. She's quite a nice person."
By the way, I also bought sesame oil. I asked my grandma about it. She said there was a family growing sesame seeds and they had just harvested it in September this year.
Originally, I wanted to buy sesame seeds and then find an oil mill to press them myself. However, when my grandmother asked, she found out that the sesame seeds had already been sold and they only kept a small portion for themselves, which had all been pressed into sesame oil.
I thought that would be more convenient, so I bought some sesame oil. It's not expensive, it's made from black sesame seeds, and they say it has a better flavor. It's 30 yuan a bottle, about a pound. Tomorrow, the grandmother next door will bring some radishes over too."
"Not bad, not bad. The raw materials are all solved at once."
As they were talking, the duck egg was no longer so hot. Zhao Xiaojing cracked the shell and broke it in half, observing the yolk.
The color of a duck egg yolk is a gradient, gradually getting darker from the center to the outside. The outermost layer is almost orange, with a slightly sandy texture, but not yet a completely bright orange. The center is the lightest, only a few shades darker than a normal egg yolk.
"Not bad! Delicious." Across from them, Su Yuchen and Zhao Xiaojing were using the same technique, picking out the salted egg yolks with chopsticks and stuffing them into their mouths. "It tastes okay, but it needs more marinating to fully release the sand. By then, it'll probably be quite salty."
Zhao Xiaojing tasted it too. The outermost yolk was crunchy and lightly salty, which was indeed quite good, but the inside wasn't fully marinated, so both the texture and flavor were a little lacking.
The egg white is saltier than the egg yolk. It tastes just right now, not too salty or too bland. But once it is fully marinated, it will probably be too salty to eat.
The trouble with pickling salted duck eggs is that it takes time and needs to be dried in the sun, and you can't taste it immediately. Therefore, you can't conduct repeated experiments and adjust the taste in the virtual space. You can only pickle them in reality and rely on practical experience to make adjustments.
"Indeed, it will taste better if it is marinated for a while longer, but the taste will become choking again. Let's eat it slowly starting from today. In the first part, we will enjoy the taste, and in the second part, we will enjoy the texture. If it is too salty in the end, we will mix it with porridge." Zhao Xiaojing said as she picked out all the egg yolks and ate them. She scooped out the remaining egg whites with chopsticks and poured them into the porridge.
Su Yuchen on the opposite side had also started mixing it, but she mixed the egg yolks together. At this moment, she was crushing the salted duck eggs in the bowl with chopsticks and stirring them together with the porridge.
Salted duck eggs and white porridge are both simple foods, but they are a perfect match when put together. The fragrance of the white porridge is matched with the salty fragrance of the duck eggs. It is soft and smooth in the mouth while having the unique sandy taste of the salted duck eggs. The white porridge dilutes the saltiness of the egg white, and the egg white reduces the blandness of the white porridge. Take a sip and your stomach will immediately warm up.
"It smells so good! But the duck eggs are still bland now. They will taste better when mixed with porridge after being marinated for a while and the oil comes out!" Su Yuchen gave a satisfied comment, and buried his head in the food, enjoying a mouthful of porridge and a mouthful of pickles.
The busy day began with a leisurely breakfast. After the two of them finished their meal leisurely, they immediately switched gears and plunged into the busy preparation of food.
It was almost eleven o'clock, and Zhao Xiaojing had just finished preparing the food when her hand holding the kitchen knife suddenly stopped, because the system assigned her an incomprehensible task.
【Ding~ Random tasks are assigned.】
[Random Task: Reserve four of the store's best-selling dishes, as well as one of each of the braised hot pot side dishes. Cook these dishes yourself, and ensure the mystery guest's clean plate rate reaches 65%]
???
Zhao Xiaojing was very confused.
A secret guest who's supposed to cook the meal? Some hidden boss? And the clean-sheet rate requirement is only 65%?
You should know that since the launch of the "Clean Plate" campaign, the average clean plate rate in the store has reached 97.3%, and this 97.3% includes takeout with side dishes delivered directly as part of a gentleman's agreement.
Zhao Xiaojing accepted the task in confusion and began to look around at the prepared dishes on the workbench.
The best-selling dish is of course the pork trotter rice. Now we can sell three to four hundred servings of pork trotter rice in one meal. The amount of braised pork trotters prepared every day is based on 650 servings of pork trotter rice. Every night, many customers who come late cannot buy it.
However, there is no way around this, because the pig's feet themselves have to be soaked overnight after braising. They will taste just right the next day, but if you can't finish them and soak them until the third day, not only will the salty and fragrant taste be too strong, but the long soaking will cause them to absorb too much brine and produce a bitter taste.
The same applies to braised side dishes. Side dishes braised early in the morning have reached their best taste after soaking for a few hours, especially vegetarian dishes. A moderate amount of marinade will stimulate the unique flavor of braised vegetables, but soaking for too long will destroy the fragrance of the ingredients themselves.
Therefore, in order to maintain the best taste, the pig's feet can only be braised on the first day and sold out on the second day, and the braised side dishes can only be sold out on the same day they are braised. Therefore, the amount of prepared dishes will be less than the average sales quantity, resulting in daily supply and demand imbalance.
But it’s noon now, and there’s plenty of pork trotters and side dishes, so there’s no need to reserve them.
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