7 Sweet Potato Mashed Pizza
◎Villagers Fall in Love with Pizza◎
According to the old man, the store has been receiving a steady stream of customers who want to try the mushrooms recently. Selling mushrooms down the mountain for several days has also generated good publicity, attracting many people who come specifically to try them. Yan Yunzhao's culinary skills have received unanimous praise.
"Boss Yan, a bowl of noodles, please!"
Before long, Yan Yunzhao brought a steaming bowl of scallion noodles to the table.
These noodles are of uniform thickness, but thinner than ordinary noodles, allowing the broth at the bottom of the bowl to fully infuse. The broth is also extraordinary; Yan Yunzhao specially uses mushrooms grown under the shade of trees on the mountainside, sprinkled with goji berries and red dates to make a rich and fragrant soup. A handful of noodles is added, then sprinkled with chopped green onions, chicken bouillon, and salt, making all the diners in the restaurant salivate.
If you think that Cui Liang Wild Game only excels in its noodles, then you are mistaken.
While picking mushrooms, Lou Su also caught countless fish and shrimp by the stream next to the shop. Yan Yunzhao picked a big, meaty shrimp, removed its vein, used a fine knife to cut off its head and open its back, and fried ginger and garlic slices in the oil over low heat until they were golden brown and dripping with oil. He then simmered it with sauce, covered the pot, sprinkled on some chopped green onions, and let it simmer for a while. The result was a perfectly braised shrimp dish with the sauce reduced to a perfect consistency.
When the braised prawns were served, the diners greedily inhaled the aroma of the oil and began to devour them, ignoring the scalding heat.
The prawns were drizzled with a bright red sauce, and it would seem like a waste not to suck it up quickly. So the diners peeled the prawns and hurriedly put them into their mouths, trying not to let the sauce drip onto the plate, and ate until they were sweating profusely.
The shop may be small, but it's clean and tidy. Customers come and go, and the menus made of stiff oiled paper are worn and frayed from being turned over so often.
Surprisingly, the shop was more popular than expected. The whole basket of mushrooms that Lou Su picked from the mountain early in the morning was already gone before noon; wave after wave of plump carp and shrimp were caught in the stream, but it still couldn't keep up with the speed at which customers were ordering.
To prevent the store's only employee from collapsing from exhaustion, Yan Yunzhao came up with a solution: limit customers to fifty per day.
The small shop currently only serves mushrooms, fish, and shrimp. Yan Yunzhao felt pleased to see everyone enjoying their meal and promptly collected customer reviews. Although the responses were overwhelmingly positive, she felt the recipes needed continuous updates. For example, next time she made meat dishes, she could marinate the meat pieces in different ways beforehand.
Noodles with broth sauce, noodles with oil splash, braised pork ribs, corn and pork rib soup, spicy blood curd, dry pot cauliflower, teppanyaki, stir-fried fish... Yan Yunzhao quickly imitated the seasonings such as cooking wine, light soy sauce and soy sauce, so that each home-style dish was transformed into a unique and delicious dish in her hands.
She even put up a sign next to the shop that read: Wild ingredients, secret recipe.
Each diner enters with a disdainful air and leaves with sparkling eyes, making even the desolate and simple little shop seem quite rustic and elegant.
In just a few days, the news that "there is an incredibly delicious restaurant in Cuiliang Mountain, and an incredibly handsome owner and waiter" spread like wildfire throughout Lixi Town, and a road was even built from Lixi Town to the small shop on this barren mountain.
Half of the diners wanted to see how delicious this small, run-down shop in the desolate mountains could be, while the other half were blushing as they came to see the "extremely handsome owner and waiter."
Although Yan Yunzhao was a proper chef in his previous life, he was still quite impressed by the strong success of his small shop in Cuiliang Mountain.
In a moment of reflection, the company launched a variety of pastries and drinks, which can be enjoyed in the restaurant or packaged as souvenirs. They are delicious and presentable gifts.
Although business was good, earning over a hundred coins a day, there were also quite a few troublesome diners.
"If you ask me, this kind of restaurant should be run by cultured people! What good dishes can a country bumpkin who doesn't know anything make?" A diner who called himself Xu Wenren made a big fuss as soon as he entered the door.
Yan Yunzhao was not annoyed. She still had a faint smile on her face and said gracefully, "This gentleman said that restaurants should be run by cultured people. I find it strange. Does that mean that the food cooked by a top scholar is more delicious than that of an ordinary person?"
Xu Wenren snorted disdainfully: "Anyway, this isn't something a village woman like you who can't read a single word should do. Showing your face in public all day doing business, what kind of talk is that? Be careful you won't be able to get married."
"Who says women can't be merchants? There's no need for a cooking contest; I'm afraid you'll dirty my kitchen. Since you call yourself a scholar and say I'm illiterate, let's have a contest. You give the first two lines, and I'll give the last two, how about that?" Yan Yunzhao chuckled.
She's lived for three hundred years, so there's no need to take such an arrogant and ignorant person seriously.
"Boss Yan, this man is being disrespectful and provocative. We should teach him a lesson!" The diners cheered and voiced their support for Yan Yunzhao.
“Listen carefully: The water is clear and the reeds stretch to the horizon, I will row my small boat through here.” Xu Wenren raised his head, unfolded his feather fan, as if he were already strolling along the edge of the reeds.
That's it? She felt she had even overestimated her opponent's strength.
Yan Yunzhao pondered for a moment and said: "A single oar stroke echoes across the vast river and sky, and the ancient and boundless expanse is entered into the boat song."
"Excellent! What a wonderful poem! Absolutely brilliant!"
"The rhythm is quite harmonious, preserving the artistic conception of the previous two lines while being infinitely more powerful. Boss Yan, you have truly impressed me." A young man dressed as a scholar in blue robes stood up and bowed to Yan Yunzhao.
Upon hearing this, many diners who were initially confused understood the brilliance of these two sentences and echoed their praise.
Seeing that things weren't going as he expected, Xu Wenren flew into a rage and cursed, "You bunch of ignorant fools! You don't know anything about good poetry. What kind of rubbish is that? I advise you, you wretched woman, to quit your shop..."
Xu Wenren's voice suddenly stopped, replaced by a loud "bang".
Confused, everyone looked closely in the direction of the voice and saw that it was the handsome waiter who was usually so frail and weak.
Looking again, Xu Wenren had already been slammed against the wall by him and was now getting up in a sorry state, groaning.
A moment of silence fell over the surroundings. Everyone patted their wildly beating hearts. Lou Su, with a gentle smile, brushed off his sleeves and said, "Sorry, I lost control a bit."
Yan Yunzhao stood there, stunned: physically weak and gentle in nature?
Lou Su smiled faintly, raised his hand in a gesture of respect, displaying a gentle and humble demeanor, as if he were not the one who had just been fighting.
After that, Yan Yunzhao entrusted Lou Su with the task of disciplining the troublesome diners, as he always handled it well, allowing Yan Yunzhao to focus on preparing food in the kitchen.
However, Lou Su's approach was quite simple and brutal. He said: "Don't bother with these troublemakers, just drive them away."
From then on, another rumor about Cui Liang Wild Game was added: the shop's incredibly handsome owner and waiter were not to be trifled with, one being scholarly and the other martial.
However, Yan Yunzhao also "knew a little" about martial arts, and she only used it on those who took advantage of her being a novice young woman to steal and commit other immoral acts in the shop. She gave them a good beating, and they dared not do it again. The shop was peaceful for a while.
...
The small shop had made some money in the past few days, and it was time to start making pizzas. In her spare time, Yan Yunzhao went to the market to buy ingredients and select flour. She didn't like the vegetables sold by the neighbors, feeling that they were not as good as those grown by herself. Unfortunately, Yan Yunzhao's magical power was currently weak, and it was inconvenient for Lou Su to see her use magic, so she had to buy vegetables from other places.
With the grass demon's robust body, kneading dough was a piece of cake, making the small shop's noodles exceptionally delicious. After wasting half a bag of flour and constantly experimenting with different proportions, Yan Yunzhao finally managed to recreate the pizza dough almost perfectly.
With a flick of the fingertips, the perfect temperature cooks the meat chunks thoroughly inside and out, sizzling and dripping with oil. A hodgepodge of various vegetables is then placed on the dough, topped with sweet potato puree, and covered with crispy cheese. Finally, it's carefully baked inside and out with a flame-summoning technique, and a crispy and delicious pizza is successfully ready.
Initially, the residents of Lixi Town were not willing to try this strange-looking thing.
"Boss Yan, you can't expect us to be fooled with this kind of shredded food just to attract attention!"
Uncle Xu was a regular customer of Cui Liang Wild Game. Yan Yunzhao had meant well by offering it to him for free, but it unexpectedly caused a misunderstanding.
"Uncle, please calm down. This food is called pizza, and it's a very popular dish in my hometown! It costs five hundred coins a serving there. I went through a lot of trouble to recreate it, so please have a taste."
Uncle Xu snorted coldly, and for some reason, he swallowed hard as he looked at the golden-brown, steaming pizza.
He frowned, picked up a piece, sniffed it carefully, and then nervously put it into his mouth.
"..."
"this……"
Looking at the hesitant old man, Yan Yunzhao, who had been confident, began to doubt his cooking skills. Countless possibilities flashed through his mind: Was the meat too burnt? Was the flatbread too dry? Was the milk tortilla too sweet? Were the sweet potato rolls too greasy? Were the vegetables not marinated enough? Perhaps... it was because he forgot to add a sausage!
But where did this grilled sausage come from...?
Yan Yunzhao was somewhat annoyed.
"This tastes absolutely wonderful!" Uncle Xu exclaimed, tears welling in his eyes. "When my mother was still alive, our family was poor. We would often knead a little flour into a lump and add some leftover vegetable scraps from the leftover rice. It was hardly a delicacy; it was just enough to fill our stomachs..."
"You've made this kind of food so delicious! I'm not good with words, I can't find the right words to describe it, but this pizza is absolutely delicious!"
Upon hearing this, Yan Yunzhao finally felt relieved. She didn't know the tastes of the people in Lixi Town and was worried that they wouldn't like it.
"Sir, I'm glad you like it. Please come again anytime!"
Watching the old man reluctantly leave the store after finishing his pizza, Yan Yunzhao greeted him warmly.
"Boss Yan, one shrimp and corn pizza with sauce, please! Extra sauce, please!"
"Okay."
Yan Yunzhao's vegetable pizzas were more popular than her meat pizzas because she knew how to mask the strange, neither-raw-nor-bitter taste of the vegetables. Her secret lay in the oil. When stir-frying vegetables, Yan Yunzhao didn't like to use rapeseed oil, but only the meat-flavored oil rendered from lard. This oil was rich in aroma, which perfectly neutralized the bitterness of the wild vegetables when used for stir-frying.
For example, mushrooms, small potatoes, carrots, and broccoli used in pizzas can be chopped into small pieces, sprinkled with chicken bouillon, shredded chicken, and beef brisket, and simmered in a small pot to create a slightly curry-like flavor. Pour these over the pizza for a richer taste.
Pour the vegetable sauce over the tortilla, and drizzle with a little bit of the secret mushroom sauce or tomato sauce—not too much. Roll it up with finely chopped lettuce to cut through the richness. The sweetness of the broth, sauce, and vegetables blends together without being overpowering. One bite is a burst of flavor that's irresistible.
"Boss Yan, you can make the dishes taste like this. Even I, who don't usually like vegetables, crave this vegetable pizza every day."
The rough-looking man tearing into pizza at the table is a well-known craftsman in town. When he comes to Cuiliang Wild Game, he always orders meat dishes. He doesn't even glance at vegetables or flour. He only eats braised pork knuckle, salted duck, sizzling tofu with fish, and stewed chicken with mushrooms in a big pot.
Yan Yunzhao placed a plate of cold cucumber salad on his table with a smile. "I'm glad you like it, Master Liao. Eat slowly, Madam Liao, try this cucumber salad to cleanse your palate."
"Mr. Yan is so considerate." Mrs. Liao smiled and nodded.
Ever since he was enthusiastically persuaded by Yan Yunzhao to try her vegetable and fruit sauce pizza, Chef Liao has gradually accepted food other than meat and has even started to enjoy vegetables. Last time, Mrs. Liao even brought some small gifts to thank Yan Yunzhao.
"Mr. Yan, thank you so much. My son Erlang only ever eats meat; look at how oily his face is! The doctor has advised him so many times to have a more balanced diet, but he just won't listen..."
Upon hearing this, Yan Yunzhao simply chuckled and said, "That would be wonderful."
This incident actually boosted the sales of the small shop's vegetables, as many adults and children who didn't like eating green vegetables were persuaded to come and try them.
In short, the shop caters to a wide range of customers, from fragrant rice porridge suitable for the elderly and children, to braised pig's trotters that rugged hunters love, to elegant tea snacks that literary young women enjoy.
People in Lixi Town say that if you don't know what to eat, you can't go wrong with Cuiliang Wild Game.
For the next few days, the shop was indeed filled with more customers. Yan Yunzhao and Lou Su were busy from morning till night. Seeing that the number of customers was increasing, they both felt that the shop needed to hire more staff.
After much trouble and inquiries, the two finally found the market known as West Alley.
Many people here sit on the ground with their families, just looking for a job. Perhaps they are slaves to officials, or perhaps they are farmers and cattle herders for local gentry.
Yan Yunzhao looked around: This is just a human resources market!
She took a liking to a pretty girl who looked efficient and asked, "Do you know how to do chores like cleaning or chopping vegetables?"
To everyone's surprise, the girl rolled her eyes and said, "Who doesn't know how to do that?"
It seems this person has a bad character. When she's looking for someone, the top requirement is that they have decent character; otherwise, hiring someone with malicious intentions would be like a rat poison spoiling the whole pot of porridge.
She shook her head helplessly and got up to leave when a young man called out to her.
"Boss, how am I? I can do any job, and I'm especially good at chopping vegetables and sweeping the floor."
Seeing that he was strong and clever, Yan Yunzhao asked, "How much are you making a month?"
"Including my younger sister and brother, there are seven people in total. Twenty strings of cash a month will suffice!"
Twenty strings of cash! Upon hearing this number, Yan Yunzhao gasped. She and Lou Su had been selling mushrooms down the mountain and running a small shop up the mountain every day, but they had never earned twenty strings of cash.
She shook her head again. Next, she and Lou Su asked around the entire alley, only to be shocked by the prices offered to hire them, and finally returned empty-handed.
The small shop has become unexpectedly popular even though it has just started. If she launches new dishes later... Yan Yunzhao didn't dare to think about it. She urgently needed an HR person.
The small eatery couldn't afford to hire waiters, so where could she find them? Yan Yunzhao pondered for several days, and finally, her troubles took a turn for the better—Cuiliang Hillside.
On an ordinary, uneventful day, Yan Yunzhao was carrying a sack of potatoes to the field to plant them.
Cuiliang Mountain is rainy, with continuous drizzle day and night. After waiting for several days, the weather is finally dry and suitable for planting. She quickly closed her shop, picked up the potato chunks she had bought that had sprouted several days ago, and went to the field.
As a seasoned potato lover, she knows how delicious potatoes are. French fries, potato pancakes, hot and sour mashed potatoes with noodles, braised pork ribs with tomatoes and potatoes, braised chicken with potatoes... In short, she can't live without potatoes.
The black soil of Cuiliang Mountain is abundant. A single hoe stroke unearths many earthworms. The soil is moist and well-aerated. After only half a month of clearing and cultivating the soil, it is almost ready for planting.
Yan Yunzhao herded the two plump pheasants aside and directed Lou Su to plow the land into rows of high and low ridges, burying potato sprouts shallowly in the higher ridges and leaving the lower ridges uncultivated for drainage.
Cuiliang Mountain has a humid climate, but the temperature is not high. The potatoes available in the market are small and hard, which she was never satisfied with, so she decided to try to cultivate large, delicious potatoes herself.
After all the potatoes were planted on the hill behind the shop, it was nearly dusk. Yan Yunzhao and Lou Su sat resting by the farmland, watching the sunset slowly drift to the horizon.
A gust of wind howled past, and Yan Yunzhao felt a momentary white flash before his eyes. Then, several people appeared in front of the two of them through a teleportation array.
Ye Qin, who was at the head of the group, waved to her with a smile. Behind him were several people dressed similarly, who seemed to be the fellow disciples she had mentioned. When she noticed Lou Su beside her, her expression paused, and she looked somewhat strange.
Yan Yunzhao looked at Ye Qin with confusion, then at Lou Su, who looked shocked, wondering what the problem was.
"This is Lou Su, Young Master Lou, who helps out at the shop. What, you two know each other?" Seeing that Ye Qin showed no sign of hostility, Yan Yunzhao explained.
The next moment, Ye Qin pulled her behind him and several fellow disciples, glaring menacingly at Lou Su across the way.
Lou Su snapped out of his shock at seeing the group of people suddenly appear out of nowhere, and blinked innocently at the current situation.
“Miss Yun Zhao, this… I don’t know them, nor do I remember making any mistakes.”
"Of course I believe you. Let's talk this out, let's talk this out." Yan Yunzhao gently pressed down Ye Qin's hand, which was about to draw the long whip, and reassured him.
"Don't send just anyone to your side, or you might end up with a wolf in sheep's clothing." Ye Qin angrily retracted his whip. Seeing that Yan Yunzhao trusted him completely, he said no more and turned to storm back to the hut.
Yan Yunzhao caught up and whispered, "What happened? Is there something wrong with him?"
These days, Lou Su has been a hard worker, diligently helping her with everything. She also feels that he is a kind-hearted person and not someone with shady backgrounds.
"Nothing's right! Tell me, how old is he, and where does he live?" Ye Qin asked, somewhat agitated.
Following the principle of "a hero's origins are not important," Yan Yunzhao did not inquire too much about his past. He only knew that his home seemed to be in a remote and poor place, and that he claimed to be a scholar.
Seeing that she remained silent, Ye Qin continued, "He is no ordinary person. You have just refined into human form and your magic power is weak, so naturally you cannot see it. His body is filled with spiritual energy, which is also mixed with unfamiliar evil energy. He is a great demon or a monster. But I cannot sense even a trace of magic power in his body. Either he has some kind of artifact that conceals his magic power, or his magic power is above mine."
Upon hearing this, Yan Yunzhao felt a chill run down his spine for no apparent reason.
"If he's so capable, why did he approach me? What could he possibly want from me?"
Yan Yunzhao was completely confused. Her sheep was neither plump nor did she have any grassy hills for others to occupy. If what Ye Qin said was true, why would a powerful demon like him need to come to this desolate mountain to help her start a business?
“I have a plan to test him.” Ye Qin smiled slyly and whispered closer to her, “Do you know of a spiritual spring called the Manifestation Spring?”
"This Huaxian Spring is said to be a spring of living water introduced by the Celestial Lord of the Celestial Realm to nourish an ancient artifact beneath it—the Spirit-Suppressing Mirror. Later, the aura of the Dragon God was introduced, and it gradually developed the effect of suppressing evil spirits. Naturally, any demon will reveal its true form in front of this sacred spring, and its true nature can be known at a glance."
As soon as he finished speaking, Ye Qin had already directed several of his fellow disciples to draw up a teleportation array in a grand manner, leaving Yan Yunzhao to stand there pondering with his face propped up on his hand.
Is Lou Su really plotting something else?
In a daze, she recalled the day they first met, when Lou Su's gaze had lingered on her wrist, seemingly unnoticed. Could it be Xiao Fu?
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