Chapter 127 Chapter 127 Update.
That night, Ji Yuan told Du Xian about this matter. Du Xian said, "This isn't a difficult task. I just need you to pretend and choose a day to have a competition with the three rival families."
Jiaodaoting Market is located at the east end of the convenient bridge in the south of the city. It is also one of the nine markets in Chang'an. This market is mainly for merchants and butchers selling live poultry and raw meat. There is an endless stream of livestock and wild birds transported here from various farms and gardens, including live chickens, ducks, geese, pigs, sheep, rabbits, turtledoves, partridges, wild geese... The sounds of animals are heard one after another.
Not only did the wine shops and restaurants in the East and West Markets come here to buy raw meat, but even the government offices in the Sanfu area would look for this place to supply live poultry.
Therefore, the air was filled with a fishy smell, which came from the boiling water poured on the fur of livestock when they were slaughtered.
Large cauldrons boiling water can be seen everywhere on the ground, the ground is covered with duck and chicken feathers, and the foot of the butcher's table is wet. This is why Ji Xu did not set up a stall to sell cooked food when he came here.
"What are you doing here? Just to buy some meat. We have it at the supermarket. Why did you come all the way here?"
Tian thought she bought the meat for her own consumption.
Ji Xu said, "I heard from Aunt Cao that this place has more variety and is cheaper, so I came here."
"Old man, you have such skillful knife skills. I wonder where all these ducks are sent after you kill them?"
In front of a butcher's table, there was a cook wearing a round-necked shirt and a green cap. His beard was gray, but he had strong hands. He gutted the plucked ducks and put the internal organs in one basin, the duck feet in another basin, and the duck heads in another basin.
The meaty duck bodies were all packed into a large bronze gui and loaded onto the cart.
"I'm old now, and my back and waist ache from sitting for a long time. It's no use anymore," said the old man.
According to the old chef, these duck bodies are supplied to a famous restaurant in the East Market of the city.
Ji Xu had seen a shop that sold a kind of cooked duck meat.
Pao is also a cooking method nowadays. It involves wrapping meat in mud and roasting it in the fire. When it is taken out, it is round and covered with a circle of dried mud, a bit like the appearance of beggar's chicken in later generations.
When they cracked it open, inside was a whole golden and shiny duck. The family named it "Zhao's Roasted Duck".
When it comes to roasted duck, everyone says that Zhao’s roasted duck tastes the best, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, a unique dish in Beijing.
Ji Xu guessed that the duck feet and duck head were thin in fat and had little meat, and would easily burn black when cooked in the fire, affecting the appearance, so they were chopped and put separately.
"This slaughtered duck is seventy coins each. If you want to buy some, go find that young dealer. If you buy more, he'll give you a better price."
The old man refers to a merchant who specializes in selling livestock, and the old cook is the one he hired to kill chickens and ducks.
Feng, Zhu and Xiaoyao were weeding and watering the cilantro and green onions in the yard. It was a two-foot wide and two-zhang long piece of land at the foot of the courtyard wall. When they first settled down, Tian had loosened the soil with a small hoe and planted these two vegetables. With diligent watering and fertilizing, they have grown well. They can be picked whenever they want to eat, which is better than those bought outside, which cannot stand the test of time in hot weather.
Coriander isn't delicate; once established, it thrives. It's lush and green here, thriving beautifully. Ji Feng had picked the coriander here to make her cicada jerky.
"Erfeng! The store is open! The Qian family's aunt and daughter-in-law opened a store in that empty space." The big yak next door shouted from outside.
Ji Feng hurriedly pushed open the gate and came out, asking, "What does she sell? How is business?"
It was about a vacant meat stall in the city center of Jiaomen City. Besides his own family, the Qian and Zheng families also took a fancy to it.
The city official said that the three families would each choose a day to sell their own cooked food at this stall, and the one that earned the most money would rent the spot.
For government-owned shops, they naturally prefer to rent to small vendors with good business. The more they sell, the higher the monthly city tax they can collect. Therefore, when there is competition among multiple vendors, they come up with this method.
The Zheng family had been selling roasted meat all day yesterday. All the children went to see it. Maybe the Zheng family was new and their business was not as good as those who had been doing it for a long time.
Ji Feng naturally hoped that other people's homes would be deserted while his own would be bustling, so that he could rent such a good location.
Today it’s the Qian family’s turn.
He hurried to the store with Dayao and the others and saw many people stopped in front of the stall.
"Meat sauce! Aunt Qian's meat sauce!"
This aunt-in-law and daughter-in-law previously sold their meat in the West Market. Because the rent there was high, they wanted to move here and open a store. Therefore, this meat sauce has a good reputation, and people will come to buy it just by shouting a few words.
The aunt and daughter-in-law were busy inside, and the guests who came here to support them included many of their relatives and friends in Chang'an.
When Ji Feng saw how much the Qian family was selling, he became a little worried about his own business tomorrow.
"It will be your family's turn tomorrow. What are you going to sell?" Daya asked her when they returned.
Ji Feng said, "I only realized it when my sister came back. No matter what we sell, you have to come and support us tomorrow. Even if the children don't have much money, it's good to show your support. Next time, I will give you all the cicadas I eat."
"I'll call Pi'er, Wang'er and others from Qianmen, and we'll go to the city to play together tomorrow!" said Daya.
Feng, Zhu and Xiaoyao said goodbye to their brothers and sisters and went in. They saw their own ox cart in the yard. Both wheels were covered with mud. They didn't know what it had carried back. There was blood on the cart floor.
"What a big bag, what's inside?"
Ji Feng saw a bulging sack in the kitchen. When she opened it, she was first hit by a strong fishy smell. Then she looked carefully and saw that it was full of duck feet, duck brains, and pig livers.
After Tian cleaned a large earthenware basin and poured out the whole bag, there were still some pig's trotters and pig's ears underneath.
"Is this what we are going to sell tomorrow?"
Seeing such a large amount, Ji Feng asked,
"Is this pork liver going to be cut into pieces and sold? But what are these duck heads and duck feet going to do? Even if they're boiled until they're rotten, there's not much meat left. What a waste of firewood."
Tian sorted the odds and ends she had bought at Jiaodaoting Market into different basins and said:
"Your sister has a new way of eating it, called braised, which you can't find anywhere else."
"halogen?"
Feng and Zhu said in unison, and Xiaoyao also opened his eyes wide in surprise.
"Yes, the bone broth in the pot is for making the marinade."
Ji Xu came out from the inner room, pulling open the curtain, and said that she had thought about it and decided that this place could only sell meat, so she would make some braised food.
Huai City is full of students from the Imperial College. They are afraid that their foul breath in the hall will offend the professor, so they don't like to eat such heavy food.
Most of the people who hang out in Jiaomen Market are entertainers and young people from the market. I think this salty, fragrant and sweet braised food is the best to go with wine.
She held a small sieve in her hand, which contained fennel, cinnamon, peppercorns, bay leaves and other spices that Ji Feng couldn't name.
These were wrapped in a brand new towel, boiled in boiling water, and tied into a knot.
Of course, the onions, ginger, oil, salt, sauce and sugar in the marinade are added separately. Nowadays, there are many kinds of sauces, mainly bean paste, but none of them are as rich in color as the soy sauce of later generations.
Because Ji Xu was going to make red brine, the most obvious difference between it and white brine is the color. Red brine is suitable for braising offal, duck, and beef. The resulting brine is bright brown-red, and soy sauce is a very important ingredient to set the color.
However, today's sauces cannot meet the standards of later generations, so Ji Xu fried the sugar color himself, added a little red yeast rice powder used in winemaking, and simmered it in the marinade.
Here Ji Xu was preparing the ingredients and making the marinade, while Tian led the children in cleaning the offal, which was a tedious job.
According to Ji Xu, the pig's trotters should be burned to remove the hair and the black skin between the toes should be scraped off.
When cleaning pig liver, be careful to remove the gallbladder and avoid breaking it, as this will make the liver bitter. When cleaning pig ears, open the folds and scrape off the hair roots.
As for the duck heads, the mucus in the nostrils must be washed clean, especially the fine hair on them, which must be scraped carefully with a sharp knife. If that doesn't work, burn them over the fire, split them in half, and soak them to remove the blood. As for the duck feet, trimming the calluses and nails one by one is also a piece of cake.
Because the family sells cooked food, they use a lot of water and have five large water jars to store water. They usually use an ox cart to carry water. Today, they used up all the water to wash these miscellaneous items, so Tian had to drive the ox cart to fetch more water.
Seeing this, Aunt Liu asked, "What good things are you going to make?"
Tian smiled and said, "I'll send the braised food to you when it's ready. You must go to the store tomorrow to show your support."
Soon, everyone in Sangshu Lane knew that the Ji family was going to make a dish called "lu".
"Braised? Where did this way of eating come from?" Jin came back from doing business and heard it at the alley entrance.
"I heard that Miss Xu came up with it on her own and put a lot of effort into renting a vacant seat in the store." said a woman.
Jin didn't take it seriously and still looked confident.
After Ji Feng and the others washed up all these scraps, they felt dizzy, their eyes were blurry, and their fingers were white and wrinkled from being soaked.
"Oh my god, my waist is about to break."
Ji Feng poured out the last basin of blood and groaned like an old lady, leaning against the door.
Tian came back from fetching water and said, "The little girl is still not grown up, how can she have a waist?"
"My back is so sore, what else should I call it if not waist?" Ji Feng said.
"Second sister said it all, call me back."
Jizhu laughed and said that she and Xiaoyao were not in much better condition. They couldn't even stand up and felt like ants were crawling in their legs.
When they washed up and went to bed, there was still a lingering fishy smell on their hands. They sniffed each other, rolled around on the kang and laughed, and were full of anticipation when they thought about taking these things to the store to sell them tomorrow.
Ji Feng asked, "What does the stew you mentioned taste like?"
"I wonder if it will sell well tomorrow." Ji Zhu said worriedly.
Because the weather is hot now, these offal are bought fresh in the afternoon, cleaned and placed in cold water. Ji Xu gets up at the crowing of the rooster to braise them.
She rushed to the morning market to sell them from morning till night so that the smell would not be released. She poured out the blood water for the last time, and gradually blanched the offal and put them into the pot to marinate.
I specially changed to a thick ceramic pot to use as a braising pot. Because it dissipates heat slowly, the braising liquid is not easy to evaporate after braising for an hour.
In order to make the food more flavorful and prevent it from sticking to the bottom, it needs to be stirred from time to time. Fengzhu and the others woke up by smelling the fragrance.
The braised offal had no fishy smell at all and was bright red in color. Ji Feng bit into a duck paw and felt the flavor penetrate deep into the bones.
"So this is the stew! It smells so good!"
Tian also thought it was excellent. "Nowadays, people in Beijing love roasted duck. These duck heads and feet are useless. There are plenty of them east of the bridge, and they're cheap. Even pig offal is cheaper than pork! My daughter is really smart. She knows how to make money by braising these offal!"
The duck feet are only two cents each, and the duck head is four cents. Even though there are many cut livers sold on the market, the price of raw pork liver is not expensive. A piece of pork liver weighing seven or eight pounds is only twenty cents. Among them, pig's trotters are the most expensive and are purchased in small quantities, with a total of six.
In fact, Ji Xu wanted to braise some beef and sell it, but the price of beef is extremely high now. Even in a wealthy place like Chang'an, ordinary people can't afford it. It is not suitable for street food, so he bought these offal at the east end of the convenient bridge. At first, Tian Shi found the offal fishy, but after braising it and eating it, she bit the bones and said that her daughter's idea was very good.
"If we could rent a shop in Jiaomen Market to sell this good stuff, wouldn't we make a lot of money?"
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