To make the dish of ants climbing a tree, you can use mung bean flour or sweet potato flour.
Su Wan chose sweet potato flour here, which is durable and not easy to overcook, making it very suitable for cooking.
The main reason is that sweet potato flour is cheaper than mung bean flour, so she would definitely choose the cheaper stuff.
It is now the third day of May and there are still more than ten days before we can get the food, so we have to save on everything.
After the sweet potato flour becomes soft after soaking, put it directly into boiling water to cook, then quickly take it out and put it into cold water.
The purpose of doing this is to make the sweet potato noodles more elastic and smooth. Basically, many noodles and vermicelli can be made this way.
After the sweet potato flour is processed, cut the pork into small pieces and put it into the pot and stir-fry it with onion, ginger and bean paste.
The best order is to stir-fry the ingredients first, then the pork cubes, then add an appropriate amount of warm water, then put the cooked vermicelli in, cook on medium heat until the sauce is reduced, and sprinkle with chopped green onions when serving.
This dish is bright red in color, with sticky vermicelli with pieces of pork on them, like little ants, so this dish is called Ants Climbing a Tree.
The name sounds scary, but it smells tempting. However, collecting the juice is a technical job. If you are not careful, you will collect too much juice and the bottom will be burnt. If you collect too little juice, it will be soupy and not so sticky.
But the dish made by Su Wan was just right, and when placed on the table, it was a solid dish to go with rice.
If the ants climbing trees surprised everyone, then the Maoxuewang attracted even more attention.
The duck blood used in Maoxuewang is either stir-fried, but even so, it is easy to have a fishy smell. However, if it is made into a spicy flavor, it will definitely be spicy and fragrant.
However, if we continue to do this, some people will definitely think that Sichuan cuisine is all about spicy flavors. In fact, this is not the case. There are many mild dishes in Sichuan cuisine, which I will slowly explore later.
Duck blood has a delicate and smooth texture and is very easy to break, but its taste has less peculiar smell among blood foods, so it tastes very good.
A lot of remaining ingredients are also needed, including pig intestines, eels, some tripe and bean sprouts, which can all be used as base ingredients.
In fact, according to Su Wan, you can just add whatever you want to eat, as long as it tastes good.
However, this statement should be said with caution. Only people who are good at cooking can do this with ease.
First, cut the duck blood into thick slices. The pig intestines should also be cooked in advance and then cut into sections. The eel is processed in the same way.
It’s just that there are not enough eels here, but the tripe is okay. Tripe is considered a cheap food in the palace nowadays.
The main reason is that the noble ladies and palace maids in other kitchens in the palace don’t eat this kind of food.
The western-style kitchen is also cheaper.
But cleaning the tripe took a lot of effort, and even salt was used to clean it. Fortunately, this was the imperial palace, and there would be no shortage of salt.
Su Wan also discovered that the prices of items in the palace were different from those outside and could not be compared horizontally.
Cut the cleaned tripe into finger-width strips and use bean sprouts as the base.
These ingredients need to be boiled in advance, but they need to be cooked separately. Each ingredient requires a different amount of boiling time, so they are divided into several large pots.
This also makes it convenient to process various ingredients at the same time, so that meals for the canteen can be prepared quickly.
While the ingredients were cooking, Su Wan had already started frying the seasonings. First she added the base oil, then the peppercorns, chili peppers, onions, ginger, garlic, and then the bean paste. In this way, the color of the pot looked very beautiful and it was full of spicy flavor.
After the flavor comes out, you can pour in clean water and use a small colander to scoop out all the messy ingredients inside. Otherwise, it will be troublesome to eat later and it will not look good.
After this step is completed, you can add the cooked ingredients.
The key to making this dish is to make the spicy soup delicious enough and the ingredients fresh enough. In this way, this dish will be delicious no matter how it is made.
And you can also replace the water with fresh soup, which will make the taste even better.
However, cooking fresh soup is still a bit of a luxury for the western kitchen, so today we just use plain water as the base, and it actually tastes pretty good.
You can tell by looking at everyone’s expressions.
The order in which the ingredients are placed is also important, with bean sprouts at the bottom, followed by eel tripe and pork intestines, and finally duck blood slices.
At this time, you can add an appropriate amount of salt, sugar, and soy sauce, and finally add starch to make the soup thicker, and it is ready to be served.
Yu Shu was very familiar with the last step.
When Su Wan made pickled fish, she had done this step, which was to heat oil in a small pot and add Sichuan peppercorns and red chili peppers.
At this time, put white sesame seeds and chopped green onions into the bowl of Maoxuewang, and pour the hot oil with Sichuan pepper and red pepper directly on it.
In an instant, the fragrance comes out immediately.
The spicy, fresh and delicious Maoxuewang is successfully made.
Every step of this dish challenges people's taste buds. Even though Su Wan has made the dish as spicy and fragrant as possible in order to cater to the tastes of most people, it is actually not too spicy.
But once I smell the scent, my saliva starts to flow unconsciously and I can't control it at all.
If the fragrance on the palace road near the west kitchen a few days ago made people look sideways, then this time it was so fragrant that it was so fragrant that it was enough to make people drool!
Just imagine, who wouldn’t subconsciously swallow their saliva when smelling Maoxuewang when hungry?
Everyone can do that!
Let’s eat quickly!
Why isn't it time yet?
Nowadays, the thing that the palace servants in the Imperial Household Department and the Imperial Treasure Department look forward to most every day is dinner.
If possible, everyone would like to live directly in the west kitchen!
This is not an exaggeration, but the true thoughts of the palace people.
Fortunately, it’s almost time for dinner!
They can wait!
But when everyone was smelling the food in the palace corridor, the four chief stewards of the Imperial Household Department and the Imperial Treasure Department, as well as Wei Jun and Zhuo Hui had already entered the door of the west kitchen.
When the door was opened, the palace servants in the west kitchen were also helpless.
There is no way. The general managers of various departments should be treated preferentially when they come. It’s okay to come early. The food is basically ready anyway.
But it can't be that early.
I haven’t seen people so enthusiastic about eating before.
As for the eunuchs and guards following behind them, everyone could only turn a blind eye, because they were brought by the butler!
The four stewards were fine, but Wei Jun and Zhuo Hui were greeted with jealous looks.
OK, you two!
He actually came so close!
It's really hateful!
But is this jealousy? This is naked envy!
Who doesn’t want to eat first?
They all thought so.
When the four stewards entered the west kitchen, the peanut and pig's trotter soup that had been cooked in advance was just ready, so the whole table could be brought directly to the private room in the big kitchen.
There are four dishes, one soup, and two staple dishes of your choice, and the portions are large enough for six people.
Because they had eaten the pickled fish made by Su Wan before, the Deputy Chief of the Imperial Household Department and Wei Jun accepted this dish very well, and even felt that it was a little not spicy enough.
The others were not willing to be outdone and almost grabbed the food to eat.
In addition to the specialness of the private room, Yan Pei's small kitchen is also quite special.
After delivering the food to both sides, Yu Shu suggested: "Wan Wan, should we send it to the Old Registry and the Treasury? The buns we sent this morning seem useless."
Su Wan smiled and shook her head: "No, it would be too attentive to send me again."
It would be fine if they sent it once, but they sent it twice in a row. The Western Kitchen also wants to save face.
Especially at the old warehouse, don't be too attentive.
Among the government offices in the West Outer Palace, the Imperial Household Department was responsible for the furnishings and decorations throughout the palace.
Shangbao supervises the tokens in various places. If he needs anything, he has to go to them for allocation. He has no real power.
The Baochaosi was in charge of producing toilet paper for the imperial palace and the royal family.
The old treasury is somewhat similar to the Shangbao treasury.
They were all respectable before, but now they are in decline.
In the past, when the western palaces were still bustling, the Old Treasury was in charge of the salaries and expenses of various places, and all the traffic to these western palaces had to pass through here.
But now there is an additional word "old", which is naturally not good.
Not to mention that few people came to the western palace anymore, and the power in their hands had been divided up.
Now, there is only one item that goes through them, and that is the payment of monthly salaries to the palace servants in the various departments of the West Outer Palace.
To say that their job of distributing money was respectable was a matter of respect, but in reality, the money never passed through their hands. On the tenth day of every month, the palace maidens in charge of the noble ladies in the inner palace would come with the account books and silver and grain.
The fifty people from the old prison were just helping out.
But after all, it is the department that pays money, so it’s not good to get too close to them, lest people think that they are trying to do something.
Su Wan listened to these miscellaneous news and subconsciously asked, "Why are all the western departments prosperous in the past but declining now?"
It would be fine if it were just a Shangbaojian.
Why is there still an old prison?
In fact, the western kitchen is also considered one, right?
How could it be such a coincidence that all the western departments declined at the same time?
The only remaining Baochaosi is related to the powerful nobles.
When Su Wan asked this question, the senior palace maid beside her whispered, "It's related to the late queen."
As soon as she finished speaking, she saw the Right Hand Man walking past the door. She wondered if he had heard their private discussion.
When talking about the nobles in private, they would inevitably criticize them.
But the Right Hand just walked over. Originally thought that she didn't hear, but unexpectedly he called Su Wan to the side hall, asked a few questions about today's meal, and finally looked at Su Wan and said: "Do you know the late queen?"
You clearly heard this?
Su Wan shook her head: "I don't know, and I don't want to know now."
Unexpectedly, the Right Hand Man smiled and said, "It's okay. It's not a secret."
"The palace is divided into two parts, east and west."
"With our palace road as the boundary, to the east is what we call the Imperial Palace, or the Imperial Palace, and to the west is the Western Palace. Beyond the Taiye Pond in the west is the palace where the late queen often lived."
"When the late queen was alive, our western departments were naturally prosperous. But after the late queen passed away, they gradually declined."
There was no need to make this clear, Su Wan already understood.
Ultimately it's a matter of fighting for power.
However, shouldn't the former queen live in the inner city of the imperial palace? The scenery on the west side is better. In previous dynasties, the empress dowagers occasionally lived in the Wanshou Palace or Shouming Hall next to the Taiye Lake for the sake of quietness.
But it is really strange that the late queen did not live in the palace but chose to live in such a remote place.
But in the palace, even the strangest things can happen.
It was nothing more than the discord between the emperor and the empress, and the emperor's favoritism towards other concubines, and so on, which were not uncommon.
Moreover, it is normal for the various departments in the imperial palace to rise and fall. No one can guarantee that the place where they are will always be prosperous. This is impossible. It still depends on the will of the higher-ups.
It is normal that those in power now want to take back power bit by bit.
No one wants to have the former queen's people still staying in the place they are in charge of.
The Right Hand looked at Su Wan's expression and continued, "I've told you now, don't ask again."
"Don't mention the late queen anywhere, and don't discuss it in private."
"There are many people in the palace who are gossipy and it's easy for people to criticize them."
Without mentioning anything else, the last sentence is indeed true.
Deputy Prime Minister Xi just said one extra word, and now he is still being lectured every day.
She was just a little palace maid, so it was even harder to say anything more.
But Su Wan always felt that the Right Hand Officer just wanted to tell her the whole story and there was hardly any warning in it.
Without waiting for her to say anything else, the Right Hand Officer asked her to go out first. It was time for lunch and both of them had a lot of things to do.
Su Wan sorted out the information and roughly understood what it meant.
The new forces want to regain the old forces, but the old forces do not want to surrender. However, the former queen is gone, so what is the point of them not surrendering?
Unless the old forces, that is, the late queen, left something behind.
For example, the prince.
Under this circumstance, only this reason can explain why the Old Palace Storehouse, Western Kitchen, Shangbao Palace, and even the Imperial Household Department are in a state where I want to put them in place but not put them in place.
They were just waiting for the day when the prince left behind by the late queen could return to the game.
Then, it will be their time to turn things around.
What a complicated matter.
I really shouldn't have asked such a question.
But if you understand these things, you will know one thing, that is, there will not be any real conflicts for a while, after all, these power struggles cannot be accomplished in a short time.
It is possible to lie dormant for five to ten years.
Maintaining a stable and peaceful situation of power struggle is what the Shangshi Bureau and the powerful people are happy to see.
After all, if the noise is too big, it will alarm the saint.
After all, it's just a matter in the harem. As long as it doesn't affect the government and doesn't cause a big mess, the saint won't care even if he knows about it.
So both sides agreed to take it slow and not go through the saints.
But after learning about this incident today, Su Wan has a better understanding of the complexity of the harem.
But what does this have to do with her, a little palace maid? The highest-ranking official she knew was the head of the Imperial Food Department. She usually interacted with little palace maids and eunuchs, and at most a guard or a steward.
No matter how powerful the noble person is, she doesn't know him.
What late queen? The prince left behind by the late queen has nothing to do with her!
Su Wan returned to the big kitchen and felt extremely satisfied when she saw the cafeteria filled with people from various departments and palaces.
Enjoy your meal everyone!
He is happy!
But why haven’t the stewards in the box left yet? I feel like they eat too much!
But as she looked, Su Wan suddenly saw some unfamiliar faces.
Moreover, they ate in a very secretive manner, as if they were afraid of being discovered. Even their identity cards were carefully hidden.
He didn't look like a spy. He looked so enjoying the meal and looked amazed, and his fingers showed satisfaction.
The spy should have expected the food in the western kitchen to be bad, instead of enjoying the meal like this.
Su Wan's eyes lit up, and she walked into the box and whispered to Wei Jun and Zhuo Hui, who were walking around more often, and said, "Look, are those people from the Baochaosi Palace?"
Most of the palace servants from the West Kitchen were active here, and most of them did not know anyone from the Treasury Department.
At this time, Su Wan was just guessing.
If people from the old prison came to eat, there would be no need to be so secretive.
The person who came to have dinner with a concealed identity was not a spy, so he was most likely someone from the Baochaosi Palace. She felt that her guess was not wrong.
Su Wan asked, causing the four stewards to stop picking up food and look over.
Zhuo Hui, as a guard, moved more frequently. He took a closer look and said, "It's the eunuchs guarding the gate of the Baochao Department. They've come here too."
She said, the food here is delicious and free, who would want to spend more money to buy food outside?
If you can’t come openly, can’t you come secretly?
Isn't this just secretly coming here to eat?
But they ate so quickly and so completely, it seemed like they didn't leave out even a grain of rice?
Su Wan smiled as she watched their expressions while eating, and then said to the stewards and Wei Jun Zhuohui, "Please don't tell anyone about this. Just pretend you don't know, okay?"
She must help the people from Baochaosi keep it a secret, otherwise how would they come over!
After instructing the people in the box, Su Wan went to the meal record book and tried to cover up for the people from the Baochao Division.
rest assured!
We will definitely not let your steward know that you are eating here!
The safer it looks in the early stages, the more people from the Baochaosi Palace will come to the West Kitchen to eat.
Once the number reaches a certain point, it is no longer up to the steward to decide whether they come to the west kitchen or not.
Su Wan smiled with satisfaction, she was a little curious.
With these palace servants from the Baochaosi coming to eat, when will the rest of the palace servants from the Baochaosi know that the food in the western kitchen has changed?
When will the chief treasurer of the Treasury Department get furious?
Actually, it’s quite interesting to observe secretly?
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