Chapter 51 Taro Ball Ice Jelly

"He's ruined your habits." Wang Ting complained, frowning, "Denglong fruit? You mean sour papaya? Is there such a thing in the capital?"

Si Li blinked, not expecting that he actually knew. She was talking about Pseudo-sour-grass, which is also called oxalic acid papaya in the southwest. The production process provided by the system uses two plants, Ficus pumila and Pseudo-sour-grass, and the finished products look similar, but Ficus pumila is a southern plant and is not found near the capital. It happened that Si Li had seen a plant that looked like Pseudo-sour-grass in the sparsely wooded area when she was out, and she didn't know that Daning called it differently, so she vaguely described it and asked Wang Ting to find it.

Now that we know what it is, it will be much easier to find it. Si Li nodded, "Yes, that's it. It's in season now. We should be able to find it if we go look for it now."

"Who eats it now? The leaves are sweet and delicious, growing all over the mountains. I took Xiaochong to pick them last year. The leaves are old now, and the fruit is sour and astringent. No one wants it. Only the herbal medicine shop will take some." Wang Ting pouted as he spoke. It was obvious that Dang Si Li was looking for an excuse to help Wang Xiaochong out. He turned around and glared at his nephew, "Jump a few more times today. Uncle is watching you jump!"

Wang Xiaochong pouted and hugged Si Li tightly. Si Li patted him and said, "I want this fruit. Since no one wants it, just pick more." She paused and thought of the children in South City. "If there is nowhere to pick them, go to South City with Tao Tao to find those children. I will give them money for the seeds, so they can have a better winter."

"You don't make much money, but you spend a lot." Wang Ting grabbed his nephew's hair and walked away unhappily.

Seeing that the black-faced man had left, Si Li pushed Wang Xiaochong up and put on a new black-faced mantle, "Come, I'll count for you. If you jump a hundred times, you can go to bed fifteen minutes earlier tonight."

"real?"

Wang Xiaochong was no longer sleepy. He started jumping up and down, counting loudly as he jumped.

The two people playing chess in the yard stopped at some point. Jiang Rufei stared at them in a daze, not saying a word.

---

Wang Ting was gone for a long time. He came back and asked Meng Taotao to go out. Meng Taotao came back before the afternoon business. Wang Ting did not enter the city gate until it was dark. The hem of his clothes was full of grass leaves and dead branches, as if he had rolled in a pile of straw. Si Li called him to stop before he stepped into the kitchen and raised her chin to the cloth bag in Wang Ting's hand, "Did you bring it back?"

"It's fifteen cents in total." Wang Ting pinched the face of Wang Xiaochong who came up to him. The child jumped a hundred times because he was stared at before eating. His face was flushed and puffy. He didn't mind Wang Ting being dirty. He looked up and shouted for uncle to carry him up.

Si Li still had the last portion of candied sweet potato unfinished. Hearing this, she just nodded and said, "Leave it there. I'll replenish it for you later. If the jelly sells well tomorrow, I'll ask them to buy some more."

Wang Ting took his nephew away. Just after he finished frying the last portion of sweet potato shreds and sat down, Si Li heard a new reminder from the system.

[System: Detected that the host has successfully gained the recognition of 100 people. After unremitting efforts, congratulations to the host for upgrading his cooking skills to Lv.1 (a novice who has just touched the stove). On the road to becoming a chef god, diners and cooking skills complement each other. Please continue to work hard. ]

Si Li was stunned for a while before she realized what the system was saying. She opened the system panel and found that her basic information had changed.

[The only host: Si Li

Achievement Points: 249

Money: 13 taels and 7 qian of silver

All restaurants: Wanglaiju (three employees)

Mission: Mandatory mission "Ali's Wish" (69 days remaining); "Unique Taste" (50% completion progress)

Cooking Level: Lv.1 (cooking temperature: Lv.1, knife skills: Lv.2, seasoning: Lv.1)]

"Unique Taste" was a task that was refreshed yesterday. The requirement is to have two dishes that can show the style of Wanglaiju. At the beginning of the refresh, it has 50% completion, and the reward is still 1000 achievement points. Style and expensive are often put together. Si Li estimates that the dish that meets the conditions should be the current candied sweet potato. There is no time limit for the task. Once the ice jelly is made, it should be possible to judge whether her guess is correct.

She had completed the task of gaining recognition from 100 people a long time ago, but her level had only just been raised. The sudden increase in the three culinary skill scores combined with the last upgrade showed that the system had a hidden attribute of proficiency. If she needed to gain recognition from 100 people at the first level of culinary skills, would the next level increase be ten times or double?

It doesn’t matter which one it is. Si Li didn’t care about her aching feet anymore and stood up and touched a sweet potato.

The world of first-level cooking is vastly different from the experience of zero-level cooking. If Si Li had just mechanically repeated and relied on muscle memory to imitate the teacher's actions in the video before, now with one cut, a vague sense of mysterious enlightenment floated in her heart. The difference between complete ignorance and stepping into the door of another world is so obvious that Si Li began to feel the mistakes and dullness of her own actions, and the various flaws of Meng Taotao's craftsmanship that seemed very exquisite before.

She recalled a saying she had heard before: "The most pitiful thing is not that you can never open the door to the palace, but that when you stand in front of the open door, you clearly know that you can't take another step forward."

Meng Taotao's system annotation is an ordinary chef. Li Xiuhe, the only second-level chef Si Li has met so far, also rated her as an ordinary chef. Does this limit Meng Taotao's future? The more you try to find a direction to move forward, the longer you feel the road ahead is, and the more you feel the cruelty of human nature.

Fortunately, Meng Taotao is not obsessed with cooking, but just makes a living from it. If the system is right, her real talent should be in the classics. The women's special examination will be held soon. Si Li sincerely hopes that Meng Taotao can be like the name of her family recipe, and be the top scorer in the imperial examination.

From frying the sweet potato cubes to making the candied sugar, Si Li's hands were very steady. She had fried the sweet potato cubes many times in the past few days without any problems. She also finished the candied sugar cubes perfectly, which had been difficult to make. The sweet potato cubes cut into rolling pieces were picked up to make a forearm-long candied sugar thread, which floated in the air and touched Si Li's lips, which was very sweet.

[System: A mediocre sweet potato shreds are complete, achievement points +4.]

"Why haven't you rested yet... Lili!" Meng Taotao widened her eyes, looking at the candy thread stretched under the light, witnessing Si Li's culinary skills making another leap forward, "You succeeded!"

Si Li smiled and stuffed the sweet potato cubes into her mouth. "I think it's pretty good. I've learned it. It will be convenient for me to train apprentices in the future."

"Apprentice? Isn't it a bit early?" Meng Taotao was a little hesitant.

Si Li had thought about recruiting people many times. Meng Taotao would definitely leave after the exam, and she couldn't keep making French fries with large quantities but few orders. Xiao Que had no talent for cooking, and there were only so many people in the store, which was actually not conducive to the development of the store. It was better to make plans early.

"Let's look for it first. Otherwise, if something happens to me like this time, the whole business will be affected."

The recruitment left some impression on Meng Taotao's mind. Si Li sat down and opened the cloth bag. The light brown lanterns rolled out. After breaking them open, the seeds, like pebbles, scattered in the palm of her hand, round and flat.

"There are only seeds left, can we eat it?" Meng Taotao and Xiao Que said almost in unison.

Si Li smiled and put the dark brown seeds into the bag without saying anything, rubbing them in water. After a while, the water turned light yellow and looked dirty. The gypsum water for making tofu in the shop was always available. Si Li took the upper clear liquid and poured it into the yellow water, stirring it. Then he separated the two basins and let Xiao Que pick them up and tip them over. Under the gaze of the three people, the yellow water gradually became lighter in color and became sticky, hanging on the basin. When it fell, it was no longer a gurgling sound, but a dull thumping sound of a heavy object falling.

When the viscous fluid was filled with bubbles and turned into a transparent color with a hint of white, Si Li stopped and shook the wooden basin. A large piece of jelly-like ice powder in the basin exuded a faint herbal fragrance, which was completely different from the suspicious yellow water before.

“Can I eat now?”

Si Li stopped Xiao Que who was about to get the spoon and said, "Put it in the well overnight and see how it goes. I'll give it to you first tomorrow."

There is no ice cellar in Wanglaiju, but fortunately the weather is cold and they can rely on natural ice storage for refrigeration. After Si Li finished preparing the ice jelly, she turned around and pulled Meng Taotao to make taro balls.

Cassava was one of the crops that the queen had sent people out to look for. However, because it tasted bad and was poisonous when fresh, very few people planted it. The cassava in the shop was the dried lumps collected from the medicine shop. Si Li was still worried, so she boiled and soaked it for a day, and dared to take it out at night.

With cassava, there are pearls and taro balls. Si Li rolled the small ball and sighed, "It just lacks a straw." Seeing Xiao Que's confused look, Si Li explained, "It's a tube with a hollow middle that can be blown."

Xiao Que was surprised and asked, "Aren't they everywhere?"

Si Li was stunned for a moment, then Xiao Que ran away, touched the mat under the bed, and pulled out a wheat straw, "This one is empty?"

The thin wheat straw is tough but resilient. It is not impossible to use it as a straw, but the pearls need to be rubbed very thin to pass through, which may be more difficult to suck...

Many thoughts flashed through Si Li's mind in an instant. She grabbed Xiao Que's hand and said, "You are really my lucky star!"

Xiao Que was happy, "Then I want to be the first to eat ice jelly tomorrow!"

As Xiao Que wished, the next morning, when it was still dark, the only breakfast restaurant in East City, Wanglaiju, opened its doors. In addition to the usual French fries and potatoes, everyone saw the porcelain bowl in front of the round-faced girl. The long table in Wanglaiju was not big, and usually it was filled with French fry bowls, popcorn bowls, and potato chip racks, and even the money basket had to be placed in the arms, but today a seat was reserved for Xiao Que.

Standing in front of the table, you can see her scooping up a piece of shiny crystal covered with reddish-brown sugar syrup. When she separates it from the larger crystals in the bowl, it is still trembling and looks like it could be broken with a blow.

A little bit of morning light passed through the crystals and cast a mottled glow on the round-faced girl's face. The illuminated crystals were dreamy, crystal clear and lovely, like the finest porcelain, which made people stare in a daze.

The small dumplings swimming on both sides of the crystal look extremely cute, like the Yuanxiao dumplings commonly eaten during festivals, but extremely small. The yellow, purple and green colors are immersed in the sugar juice and float up and down. Although the colors are chaotic, they appear very harmonious.

As Xiao Que stuffed them all into his mouth, the diners lined up in the front row sighed with regret.

"What is this...what is this?"

The jelly with pear and two portions of brown sugar water was so sweet that it touched her heart. Xiao Que squinted her eyes in satisfaction. "New taro ball jelly! Five cents a plate, half an ounce of silver a bowl!"

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The author has something to say:

ps1: Regarding the words that Lili remembered about standing in front of the gate, I can’t remember where it came from. The original words may not be this, and it is not my original idea.

ps2: After checking the information, Liangfen originated in the Song Dynasty. It is available everywhere. It is opaque and can be made directly from starch (cassava or beans), or with ice powder seeds. Agar powder/ice powder originated in the Ming and Qing Dynasties and belongs to the Sichuan cuisine system. The historical setting here is that before, it was all starch Liangfen or ficus pumila Liangfen, and the production of ice powder seeds had not yet appeared.

Ice jelly made from fake sour pulp is transparent even without adding other starches, and looks good when dyed. The ice jelly seeds and ice jelly powder sold on the market now come from fake sour pulp. Ficus pear fruit is mainly distributed in the south. It does not need to add lime water to make ice jelly. It tastes sweet, has a cold and blood-activating effect, and is rarely planted. In addition, pears are located in the north, so it is not used as a material. Fake sour pulp can be found in both the north and the south. The leaves are flat and slightly sweet, and the fruit is sour and astringent. Some say it is poisonous, but the specific source of toxicity has not been found, so it is temporarily considered non-toxic. Because cold powder and ice jelly are confused in many places, some say that ice jelly is made from ficus pear fruit, and some say it is fake sour pulp seeds/stone flower seeds. The one here is fake sour pulp.