Ordinary vinegar actually existed as early as the Zhou Dynasty, and the person who invented it was the very familiar Du Kang.
Yes, he accidentally made vinegar while brewing wine. It's basically the same as Liu Tan's current practice of producing some by-products in everything he does.
Having the most primitive vinegar means having vinegar primer, which laid a foundation for Liu Tan. Otherwise, Liu Tan would have to make ordinary vinegar first.
But even if you have vinegar, making transparent vinegar is a technical job.
It is known that no matter how the aged vinegar is processed, it cannot be made transparent, so what should he do?
Liu Tan squatted in front of the desk and recalled for a long time, but he couldn't remember how he had ever made white vinegar, nor could he remember what the chemical reaction of white vinegar was.
After feeling that he had wasted half a day, Liu Tan felt that he seemed to have gone astray.
As someone who studied ancient Chinese and had some knowledge of history, shouldn't he have relied on his professional knowledge to conquer everyone and leave his name in history after traveling through time?
Why is he sitting here studying how to make white vinegar? This doesn't fit his major!
However, he thought about it seriously. If he wanted to kill everyone, he had to kill Liu Fuling first, then kill Liu Ju, and then he had to be able to fool Liu Che. The difficulty of these three things increased exponentially.
Forget it, let’s just study how to make white vinegar.
He had a lot of wild thoughts in his mind, and finally he suddenly had an idea. Anyway, vinegar was originally made by fermenting the lees left over from winemaking. As for white vinegar... could he try using vinegar and white wine?
At this point, Liu Tan has basically started messing around, but strictly speaking, there is indeed some scientific basis for it.
Finally, he got a jar of boiling water, poured in white wine and vinegar, and after thinking about it, he added a little sugar.
After finishing, he calculated according to the time it takes to brew the aged vinegar, and found that even if he succeeded, it would not be enough to make salad for Liu Che.
After all, the brewing of vinegar requires a long process, and it has to be fermented little by little. When the temperature is higher, the time will be shorter. However, the current temperature is only about ten degrees, so the conversion time will be longer.
But Liu Che will be arriving in two days, how can he make it in time?
Just when Liu Tan was worried about his bald head and was about to give up on this dish, a major event happened in Chang'an City - a fire broke out in Bailiang Terrace.
Bailiang Terrace is not a particularly important building. It was just used by Emperor Wu of Han to have fun with his ministers. Well, generally this kind of fun was very serious. They would place wine on the terrace and ask people to write poems. Only those who wrote well could go up and drink.
If it happened in later generations, people would definitely look for the cause of the fire, such as whether it was due to dry weather or someone using fire improperly.
However, in this era, the first thing everyone thinks of is a warning from God.
So the Taibu Department, which has always been relatively quiet, began to get busy, and Liu Che naturally had no intention of traveling.
While Liu Tan was worried that Chen Ajiao would take the opportunity to persuade Liu Che not to marry Danyang, he began to observe white vinegar and study recipes every day.
Fortunately, as the temperature rose, the white vinegar finally came out of the jar when Liu Che wanted to build a new palace!
It took more than twenty days in total. During these twenty days, Chen Ajiao did not take the opportunity to stop Princess Danyang from marrying far away as Liu Tan worried, but instead, she offered sacrifices to the sky together with Liu Che.
As time went by, no one knew why the Bailiang Terrace caught fire. All we knew was that Emperor Liu Che finally ordered the construction of a new palace, and it had to be bigger than the original one in order to surpass the Bailiang Terrace. It is said that this was a suggestion given by people from Nanyue, and it should also be the custom there.
Liu Tan was not interested in the customs of Nanyue. The only thing he was interested in was probably the Jianzhang Palace, which was very famous in history. He was finally coming.
Yes, Liu Che named the palace that was to be rebuilt Jianzhang.
Because Jianzhang Palace was larger than Bailiangtai, Emperor Liu Che even ordered the construction of a flying pavilion chariot road across the city to facilitate travel.
While Liu Tan was wondering when he could see the full view of Jianzhang Palace, he began to immerse himself in the pleasure of directing people to cook.
He actually didn’t like cooking in the past, but as a single guy, it would always save money if he cooked for himself if he lived alone.
Now he finds that when the person cooking is someone else, the process is still quite enjoyable.
But after the dish came out of the pot, he was not so happy anymore.
Because there is no specific recipe, you have to try it out, and in this era, only Liu Tan knows what these dishes should taste like.
Boiled vegetables are fine, it mainly depends on the taste of the soup. As long as it is not too salty, the taste will be fine. The final plating can also be left to professionals.
Not to mention fruit salad, as long as the salad dressing is good, the taste won’t be too bad.
What made Liu Tan want to die was the sweet and sour pork ribs, or more precisely, the sweet and sour lamb chops.
In order to prevent the mutton smell from being too obvious, he chose lamb chops, and then worried about how to fry them.
Fried spareribs are either coated in flour or a mixture of starch and flour. In short, there must be flour, but neither starch nor flour exists these days.
The only thing that existed was probably yellow rice flour. Liu Tan had never seen this kind of rice in later generations, and he didn't know whether it evolved into other kinds of rice over a long period of time or was abandoned and then became extinct after the appearance of rice and flour.
Anyway, now he can only try to have someone grind the yellow rice into powder, wrap it with lamb chops and fry it.
Not to mention, because yellow rice itself has color, when it is fried until it is almost cooked and taken out of the pan, its appearance is pure golden yellow, which is much yellower than flour. Coupled with the reflection of oil, it looks as if it has been coated with a layer of gold powder.
As for the taste, hey, why do you have such high requirements after traveling through time?
Anyway, it is crispy, but it has the unique taste of yellow rice. The taste is not bad, so Liu Tan has passed this step.
After the lamb chops came the sweet and sour sauce. Everything had gone smoothly before, giving Liu Tan the illusion that he could also make sweet and sour sauce.
But in reality... he couldn't.
Ever since he started asking the kitchen staff to prepare sweet and sour sauce, the lambs on the farm have been in trouble.
We never wasted so many lamb chops when frying them before, but this time we wasted too much.
But he had to waste it. Every time he made the sweet and sour sauce, he thought it was okay when he tasted it alone, but after wrapping it with lamb chops, he always had an indescribable strange feeling.
Probably because the lamb chops are marinated, in the end they need to form a balance between salt and sweet and sour sauce, not too salty, too sour or too sweet.
This balance was not achieved until Liu Tan's face turned pale when he heard the words "sweet and sour".
The finished sweet and sour lamb chops do look very appetizing. The lamb chops coated with sweet and sour sauce are bright red in color and exude the unique aroma of fried food, but this aroma is neutralized by the refreshing sweet and sour sauce, making it less greasy.
Forget it, don’t eat it, he’s tired of it.
Liu Tan guessed that after inviting Liu Che to dinner, he might not want to hear anything related to sweet and sour food for a long time.
After finishing the most difficult part of making sweet and sour pork ribs, it meant that Liu Tan was ready to receive Liu Che. Liu Tan was still hesitant about whether to go and meet Liu Che.
After all, Liu Che had said before that he wanted to see his new invention, but it has been such a long time, so Liu Che might not be in the mood anymore, right?
However, Liu Tan did go to the Weiyang Palace after all. When he got there, before he could say anything, he saw that Liu Che had already changed into casual clothes.
As he walked out, he looked at Liu Tan with a subtle expression and said, "I thought you wouldn't come to see me if I hadn't given the order."
Liu Tan said politely, "There is a court meeting today, and I dare not disturb you while you are handling state affairs."
Liu Che flicked his forehead and said, "Playing nice and clever, go."
Liu Tan followed him and asked cautiously, "Father, can you please ask Mother to come along? I haven't shown it to Her Majesty yet."
After hearing this, Liu Che paused, turned his head and looked at him, and his gaze made Liu Tan want to shrink back.
In fact, he also shrank back. Finally, Liu Che couldn't stand it anymore and directly grabbed his collar and pulled him back. He shook him and said, "Why are you hiding? Do you think I can eat you?"
He was puzzled. With so many sons, whether in the palace or in the fiefdom, none of them were afraid of him, so why did this one want to hide when he saw him?
Liu Tan was startled. "No, no, it's just that Father's aura is too strong, and I feel ashamed of myself."
Liu Che barely understood what Liu Tan meant by aura. He snorted coldly and turned to Bu Fan and said, "Go tell the Queen and ask her if she wants to leave."
Liu Tan was really relieved. Since Liu Che was still willing to travel with Chen Ajiao, did it mean that he had not yet made up his mind to depose the queen?
Of course, he did not expect that Liu Che would not have the idea of deposing the queen. This was unrealistic.
Of course Chen Ajiao agreed. Not only did she come, but she also came dressed up.
Liu Tan looked at Liu Che and then at Chen Ajiao, and found that although these two were dressed in ordinary clothes, it was obvious at a glance that they were different from ordinary people. Not to mention such mysterious things as temperament, the accessories they wore could tell it at a glance.
Since Liu Che wanted to travel in casual clothes, he naturally didn't want to set up a real battle formation, so he simply brought a team of guards.
As soon as Liu Tan saw it, he wanted to let Chen Ajiao and Liu Che ride in one car, and he would ride in another.
It’s not that he wanted to bring the two together, but he felt that probably only Chen Ajiao could be on par with Liu Che.
Liu Che is arrogant and Chen Ajiao is a great Yin-Yang master. That’s good, just don’t harm an honest man like him.
However, neither Liu Che nor Chen Ajiao seemed to want to be alone with each other, and they forced Liu Tan to stay.
For a moment, the car looked like a normal outing for a family of three.
It was thanks to the spaciousness of Liu Che's carriage that Liu Tan always wanted to run away.
It was really too difficult. Liu Che asked him how the grapes were doing. Chen Ajiao asked Liu Tan to get two more boxes of hot pot. Chen Ajiao asked him to make some more sugar. Liu Che complained that he didn't have enough wine.
In fact, there was no shortage of things for these two people. For example, Chen Ajiao didn't like self-heating hot pot at all. Although Liu Che loved to drink, Liu Tan had sent him a truck before, and he had sent him a truck every half a month. How could there be a shortage?
I don't know why these two are competing with each other!
Liu Tan once again realized that Chen Ajiao and Liu Che might really not be able to become a couple that can coexist peacefully, because they are too similar. This similarity refers to their temper. Just imagine, who would like to be with someone who has the same temper as themselves?
When Liu Tan finally heard Miao Rui say that they were almost at the entrance of the village, he was so moved that he almost cried. Before today, he had never felt that this road was so long and difficult.
He did not drive directly into the manor, but turned to the pair and said, "Before entering the manor, please get out of the car and take a look."
Chen Ajiao glanced through the car window and found nothing. She couldn't help but feel a little strange: "What on earth is it? Why are you so mysterious?"
Liu Tan said with a smile: "You can't see it from here. You can only see it when you get off the bus."
Compared to Chen Ajiao, Liu Che was much more straightforward and just got up and got out of the car.
To be honest, sitting in a car for such a long time is a bit unbearable, no matter how spacious and comfortable Liu Che's car is.
After getting off the car, Liu Che saw a patch of white ground at the entrance of the manor and couldn't help asking, "What's going on up ahead?"
The author has something to say: Liu Tan: Experience tells us that you shouldn’t mess around with recipes if you don’t have anything to do!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
