Su Wan wanted to return the red envelope of New Year's money to Xie Pei, but she didn't see him for several days.
The news was all over the palace.
Anyway, the inner palace has been uneasy during the New Year holidays, mainly because of the fight between Imperial Concubine Jiang and Concubine Chu.
Imperial Concubine Jiang seized the power of the inner palace by taking advantage of the Second Prince's drunken incident at Chengtian Gate.
The Second Prince and Concubine Chu knelt in the snow at the entrance of the Qinzheng Palace and begged for forgiveness from the Saint.
Among them, the eldest prince was chatting with the saint inside the door. There were few government affairs during the New Year period, so they mostly talked about poetry and articles. Unexpectedly, the eldest prince was quite good at this and won the saint's favor.
As for the Third Prince Xie Pei?
He did not attend the family banquet in the inner palace, nor did he rush to deal with the case of the fake monk during the New Year holidays.
In fact, the case of the fake monk had been settled, except for the final work. The officials were afraid that he would ask everyone to rush the work during the New Year holidays.
Unexpectedly, when the Spring Festival holiday began, the Third Prince did not ask a single question about official business, asking everyone to celebrate the New Year with peace of mind and talk about it after the New Year.
A boss who doesn’t ask you to do official work during your rest time is a good boss!
For a time, these officials also sent some New Year gifts to the West Courtyard where the Third Prince lived during the New Year.
Apart from anything else, the West Courtyard is too far away from the imperial palace.
It was the late queen who wanted to live here, so she brought the Third Prince here as well. Isn’t it a bit inappropriate now?
The Third Prince suppressed this remark and decided to celebrate the New Year first and spend time with his family during the holidays.
When he said this, the Third Prince had already written most of the Filial Piety Sutra in his hand, and he said that he would burn it for his grandfather, grandfather-in-law, mother, and uncle.
Xie Pei’s grandfather was naturally the late emperor, who worked hard to govern the country and created a prosperous era.
My maternal grandfather is the late General Ding, who was also a meritorious official in quelling the war at that time.
There is no need to talk about her mother. She is the late queen. Before her death, she left Xie Pei with only one legitimate son and signed a contract that forbade the current emperor to appoint another queen. Although she is not smart enough, she has done everything she can.
My uncle was also a general and died on the battlefield.
It is absolutely right to burn the Book of Filial Piety for them.
This is the person closest to Xie Pei.
This news also came from rumors. Compared with Xie Pei's side, the fight over there naturally seemed ugly.
I originally thought that Xie Pei was going to make a big fuss about it, but who knew that he would stop at just a few words and not say much more.
Some people act pitifully, and even though you know they do it on purpose, you still find it comforting to watch.
After Su Wan thought about this, she immediately reflected on herself and wondered if she had any weird filter towards Xie Pei?
How else can you say that?
But the facts were before him, and seemed irrefutable. After all, everyone around him had a good impression of the Third Prince and was a little afraid of him.
The good things naturally come from these things, but the fear is that he acts decisively. He chops those monks when he says to chop them off, and arrests those corrupt officials when he says to arrest them, and even sends them to their deaths before the New Year.
How could I not be afraid when I meet such a person?
Seeing Xie Pei doing so many things, Su Wan also understood why he hadn't shown up recently.
She also carefully put away the gold and silver in the red envelope and counted her belongings at the same time.
In addition to these things, she has received quite a few red envelopes recently. In fact, there is not much money in them, just for the sake of celebration. However, scattered around, plus the previous rewards, the silver she has in her hands has reached 270 taels!
You know, her monthly salary had just been increased not long ago, and she was still giving subsidies to her aunt from time to time.
It is already quite good to have this amount of savings, of course, there is also money for Gan Xing to buy the recipe for the tea bottle.
No matter what, it's her money!
After she was transferred to the Shangshenjian, her monthly salary increased from two taels to ten taels, and now it is fifteen taels. Is that a qualitative leap?
Su Wan put the money away and tidied the house. The New Year was indeed much more relaxing, with basically nothing to do.
But this is also the last day of the holiday. Tomorrow the palace will return to normal and the superiors will also be back.
However, in the past few days, she has had a good relationship with several officials from the Guanglu Temple next door. They come over every day to eat, and no matter what food Su Wan cooks, they praise it highly, which makes Su Wan a little embarrassed.
This is the last meal tonight, and Su Wan has already thought about what to make.
That is to stew the lamb's trotters and then make lamb pilaf.
It’s the last meal of the Chinese New Year, so you must have a good meal while you still have some free time.
Su Wan also likes to cook pig's trotters on weekdays. She made pig's trotter and soybean rice during disaster relief. Compared with sheep's trotters, sheep's trotters are smaller and have less meat, but they are easier to taste. Although it is troublesome to prepare, it is nothing if it tastes good.
As for the mutton pilaf, it goes without saying that it is sweet and sour and delicious. Adding raisins to the pilaf makes it both exotic and has the delicious taste of mutton.
Su Wan did what she said. When the officials from Guanglu Temple heard that Su Wan wanted to cook mutton, they naturally refused to let her pay for the sheep. They took the initiative to collect money just to have a good taste.
Being on duty during the New Year is miserable enough, and can’t I even have a good meal?
This is mutton!
Many people know that fish, mutton and mutton together mean fresh.
But mutton is special and different. In the ancient times of Su Wan, emperors of some dynasties felt that eating pork was not decent and eating beef was a waste of money and labor, so they loved mutton.
Cooking mutton and drinking fine wine has almost become a fashion among the aristocrats.
Sometimes when the sheep grazing land is taken away, mutton becomes very expensive, but the more expensive it is, the more people like to eat it.
Fortunately, Xie Pei's grandfather was still in Tianxiang State, and the prairie suitable for sheep grazing was still in the hands of Tianxiang State, so even though the price of mutton here increased a little during the New Year, the officials could still afford it.
Not to mention that what Su Wan wanted was sheep's trotters which had little meat.
Sometimes the price of things is closely related to many factors, and the price is not constant. It not only depends on the years of disasters and harvests, but also on the disasters that are not only natural disasters, but also man-made disasters.
Anyway, in today's Tianxiang Kingdom, the literati can still afford it.
Counting the number of people eating, there were four people in the Guanglu Temple, and with Su Wan bringing her, there were only three people eating, so they bought a total of five kilograms of lamb trotters, which was more than enough.
After all, there are still five or six pounds of mutton to make mutton pilaf, which is definitely enough.
Su Wan decided to make braised lamb trotters and lamb pilaf in the afternoon. While she was still preparing the ingredients, two officials on duty from the Guanglu Temple arrived. This was the third wave of officials on duty who came to eat for free.
But looking at the tasteless sheep's trotters, I don't know how they can be made into something delicious in Su Wan's hands.
None of them doubted Su Wan's cooking skills.
If you have eaten so many meals but still cannot appreciate other people's cooking skills, then you'd better stop being an official and go home to sell sweet potatoes.
Now, seeing Su Wan and others dealing with the sheep's hooves, he couldn't help but want to take action.
However, Su Wan looked at their wide robes and sleeves and said with a smile, "Forget it. It would be bad if the official uniforms get dirty."
It’s okay if it’s ordinary clothes, but if official uniforms are stained, it can be a big deal.
The officials on duty naturally thought it was right and asked their subordinates to help. The sooner they helped, the sooner they could eat! They were very smart.
When braising pig's trotters before, Su Wan was very careful in handling it.
This is especially true for sheep's trotters. Although they are small, there is a lot of stuff on the skin. You can only eat them after scraping and burning the hair clean.
After repeated scraping and burning, all the sheep's hooves were finally cleaned.
Even if you are cooking a meal, you have to put your heart into it to make it well.
After scraping it clean, it needs to be soaked in vinegar for an hour. When cooking, cooking wine should also be added to remove the fishy smell. The purpose is naturally to remove the mutton smell.
The next step is similar to making pig's trotters, which is to blanch the sheep's trotters, but the method is different. For example, more spices are added than pig's trotters, but the blanching time is shorter.
After all, as mentioned above, sheep's trotters are smaller than pig's trotters and have less meat. If they are overcooked, the only meat left will be inedible.
Water must be added here to cook it. After blanching, continue to cook it thoroughly, which takes about two quarters to thirty minutes.
After all these are done, you can start frying the ingredients. First, fry the sugar color to make the sheep's trotters become somewhat sauce-colored, then add various seasonings and peppers, among which soybean paste is a must, and green onions and ginger are indispensable. After frying these, filter the soup used to cook the sheep's trotters, remove the residue and pour it into the pot.
The original soup covers the sheep's trotters and keeps simmering until the flavor is absorbed.
Never open the lid of the pot during the cooking process. If you open the lid once, the meat will not be as soft and tender, and the cooking time will be increased.
As the saying goes, open the pot and light three fires, which is what this means.
When the lamb's trotters start to stew, the pilaf on the other side should also be prepared.
Why do we say to do it one after another? Of course, when processing the sheep's trotters, we are also processing the mutton for pilaf. If we do them one by one, there will definitely not be enough time.
It is said to be processing, but in fact it is just soaking the mutton cut into small pieces in clean water.
The mutton pieces cannot be cut too small, otherwise after blanching, you will not be able to taste the fibrous texture of the mutton and the meat flavor will be gone.
Now take the mutton out of the clean water. After soaking it for so long and changing the water several times, the fishy smell in it is almost gone. It doesn’t matter if there is still some. Just blanch it in water again and it will be completely cooked.
The blanching steps are similar to those for lamb's trotters, and the seasonings are also similar, but the amounts are smaller. Lamb is still not as fishy as lamb's trotters.
After blanching, you need to start stir-frying the mutton. Chili peppers and onions are also essential. Not only the commonly used onions, but also another kind of shallot.
That is onion.
Due to their strong smell, onions were not often used in palace meals. People also thought onions were not very cheap, so they did not eat them in large quantities.
It was not until Su Wan went out of the palace to have dinner with Xie Pei that she learned that there were onions in Kyoto.
Calculating the time, onions, which are now called shallots, did appear quite early. In Su Wan’s time and space, they were brought back by the famous Zhang Qian, so it was not surprising that there were onions in Tianxiang State.
When stir-frying, not only shallots are used, but also carrots and peppers.
Just look at the word "Hu" and you will know where this dish originated from.
The taste of Su Wan’s food is not so sweet, which is more in line with the eating habits in the Central Plains. It can be regarded as a small improvement based on local conditions.
But the aroma and glutinous taste of mutton pilaf will not change. Isn’t this the taste of pilaf?
After stir-frying the mutton, it is seasoned and directly placed on the washed rice. Once steamed, the mutton fat will wrap around the rice grains, making each grain distinct. With the aroma of carrots and onions, who can say this rice is not delicious?
After everything is in place, sprinkle some raisins on top.
These raisins were also brought from the West, so this meal has all the flavors of the Western Regions.
Thinking about it, there are more than just one or two delicacies there. How about making naan pit meat tomorrow?
As soon as this was said, the official on duty at the Guanglu Temple immediately said, "Okay, okay, let's buy a few more pounds of fresh mutton tomorrow. We must eat this naan pit meat you mentioned."
Although we haven’t eaten today’s meal yet, but looking at the cooking steps and Su Wan’s extremely meticulous processing of the ingredients, how can it not be delicious?
Several people are discussing tomorrow's meal and today's meal.
I heard a few coughs behind me.
When Su Wan and the others turned around, they saw the Minister of Guanglu Temple, the Junior Minister, and the Chief of Shangshisi right behind them.
Why are the adults here?!
Su Wan was fine. After all, she was cooking a delicious meal in her own office and it didn't interfere with her other duties, so there was no problem.
But the two officials on duty at the Guanglu Temple were in a miserable situation. They had to look at the meals with their eyes wide open, which was really hilarious.
Neither of the two adults had expected that they would have to attend a morning court session the next day, the sixth day, so they came over on the afternoon of the fifth day to check on the situation, and that’s when they encountered this incident.
And it looks like the food is already simmering on the stove, so we can probably start eating in less than half an hour.
Are they on duty or visiting a restaurant?
The Minister of the Imperial Household said unhappily, "Come back soon."
This, this meal hasn’t been eaten yet!
The two men hesitated for a while and decided to go back with the temple minister, but they kept looking back, obviously wanting to live in the Shangshenjian. If that wasn't possible, they could be transferred there?
Since they are all from the Ministry of Rites, no one will suffer any loss.
After the people from the Guanglu Temple left, the officer asked a few questions with a smile. Seeing that things were almost done, she asked Su Wan to change her clothes. She wanted to ask about the official business for the next few days.
It is not usually this formal. Since the commander said so, there must be some consideration in his remarks.
Su Wan nodded, told the time to the palace maids who were taking care of the stove, and immediately went to wash up and change clothes.
By the time Su Wan arrived at the office, her superior had already reviewed most of the official business of the past few days. Su Wan only had to wait for a while while her superior started asking questions.
I asked questions for about a quarter of an hour, all of which were tricky and easy to make mistakes.
Su Wan's answer was good, but it lacked some polite words based on classics. It might be possible to chat among family members, but it was still a little lacking in the literary atmosphere of Tianxiang Kingdom.
So Su Wan never thought that she would have to start memorizing the Four Books and Five Classics.
"Which official in the court is not well-read? Even the soldiers have to study the Art of War, which is also reading." The superior said, "If you don't have good writing skills, good calligraphy, and a lot of knowledge, how can you argue in the court?"
Okay, sir, you won’t hide it anymore!
He actually clicked on her directly.
The officer said, "Your handwriting is somewhat improved, but you still need to read this book."
Isn’t this the ancient version of encouraging learning?
However, Su Wan understood the purpose of doing this. Besides, it was just reading a book, so she would not refuse.
Seeing Su Wan nod, the officer smiled more gently: "Don't complain about the hardship. You are only a few years old this year. If you can read all of this and understand it, it will be of great benefit."
Being a female official requires more than just good skills. Su Wan is aware of her superior's talents and knowledge.
If we were to talk about the person I admire most in ancient times, the Director of the Shangshi Department would definitely be one of them.
With her advice, how could Su Wan let her down?
After the female official had prepared the list of books, she continued, "The books are quite expensive, so you don't need to buy them all. Go back and ask the Shangshen Zhonglang Cuizhu for the order to open the book shop and borrow them from the Ministry of Rites. Then copy them down, which will help you practice calligraphy and learn at the same time."
Ancient books are not cheap, and neither are pens and ink. The latter is easy to deal with, but the former is most appropriate to borrow.
They were in charge of the large library of the Ministry of Rites, so borrowing books was a piece of cake for them.
Su Wan looked at the long list of books. It was true that she had to learn whatever was required for the imperial examinations. That must not be easy, right?
She knew it! She would be busy after the Chinese New Year!
But I didn't expect to be busy with such things.
Seeing her expression, the officer consoled her, "You are still young, so take your time to study. If you don't understand something, you can ask me, or ask the Guanglu Temple and other officials in the Ministry of Rites. They all passed the orthodox imperial examinations and are familiar with these things."
After saying all these things, Su Wan had already put away all the book lists. Just read them. She has already practiced writing, so why should she be afraid of this?
The two of them were still talking when they heard another stranger coming in. It was the two officials on duty at the Guanglu Temple. Seeing Su Wan, they said shyly, "Um, braised lamb trotters and lamb pilaf, are they ready?"
!!!
She almost forgot! It must be fine!
The delicious lamb's trotters are still waiting for her!
The officer said with a smile: "Go ahead, and remember to send a portion to the Minister of Imperial Households and the Junior Minister, so that they can taste the cooking skills of our little maid from the Imperial Kitchen."
That’s no problem, of course. We’ve done enough!
Su Wan thought it was okay, but the other two officers on duty were quite resentful. They could already smell the aroma of lamb trotters and mutton pilaf!
Give these things to the superiors who don’t like to eat?
Don’t?
They can't bear to!
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