Chapter 200 Chapter 200 Update.
The next morning, Ji Xu took the food box and took the official carriage to deliver breakfast to the barbarian's residence. Little Hulu also followed and looked out the window curiously.
As the New Year approaches, many houses on Gao Street have painted gods in front of their doors, and some hang beards and shooting arrows to ward off evil spirits.
Some children were playing with silk banners. The oldest child in the lead was riding a bamboo horse, waving a piece of cloth as a banner. Behind him, a group of children followed him, shouting.
There are also many acrobatic troupes on the street, performing stacking tables, jumping balls, spinning discs, spinning balls, breathing fire, dancing with swords, and walking on tightrope...
There were even magicians who could conjure up a living person from an empty cloth bag. The onlookers cheered, and the small gourd on the car couldn't help but clap its hands.
"This street is really busy."
Not only is Gao Street bustling with activity, but the residences of the barbarians are also bustling. The current layout has been described as early as the Spring and Autumn Period. Huaxia is in the center, with the Yi to the east, the Rong to the west, the Man to the south, and the Di to the north.
The Barbarian Residence was set up here to receive foreign guests. It was a government-run establishment and was larger than an ordinary post station. It had guesthouses, stables, kitchens, and everything else.
Due to the tributes from various countries, the popularity of this barbarian residence is greater than before. Foreign faces are everywhere coming in and out, and they speak languages that they cannot understand.
Xiao Hulu was a government slave. Even though the Shaofu was only one street away from the Barbarian Residence, she seldom went out. She had only heard of foreign guests living in the Barbarian Residence before, and this was the first time she had seen it in person.
Walking here, it seemed that those people were particularly tall. She looked up at this one, then that one, and listened to their chattering. She saw Ji Shanren waving at her from the stairs, so she hurriedly squeezed past those people and followed closely.
As soon as I reached the entrance to the second floor, I heard a commotion in the corridor.
"Breakfast! Where's my breakfast?"
A fat foreign guest with a high nose, deep eyes, a golden beard and a large figure was yelling at the clerk in the barbarian's residence, asking for breakfast in broken Chinese and mumbling some ancient Greek. It must not be a good thing.
The clerk said:
"It's not time yet, Your Excellency, please wait a little longer."
“I’m so hungry!”
The envoy waved his arms.
The envoys who came to pay tribute from various countries were rewarded by the Food Official and the Soup Official. The three meals a day for their followers were bought at the Barbarian Palace. The Barbarian Palace would also receive some foreign caravans and provide them with food and accommodation for money.
Ji Xu was following the signs on the doors, passing by Fuyu, Sushen, Hanhui...
"This is Dayuan."
They found the room with the wooden sign "Dayuan" hanging on the door. The one who was angry at the clerk was the Dayuan envoy, Badan.
Seeing her coming, the clerk asked her if she was the food person in charge of Dayuan in the Food Bureau of the Ministry of Food. As if he had found a savior, he pointed at the food box in her hand and said:
"Look, here's your breakfast."
Badan stared at the oriental woman, snatched the food box, pointed at her and said:
"It's too late, you're too late!"
"It's not too late. It's just morning."
Ji Xu pointed to the copper clepsydra in the corner for calculating the time and said, "Dayuan is in the Western Regions, the sunrise is later, and the breakfast time will be even later."
Moreover, she knew that the Dayuan envoys were difficult to deal with, so she arrived early, even earlier than the 2:15 pm originally scheduled by Tang Guanling.
The envoys from Sushen and Buyeo next door had not received their breakfast yet. When they heard Badan's noise, they just stood quietly at the door and looked over here, appearing much more polite.
The envoy from Sushen, wearing a felt hat and wrapped in animal skins, said:
"Could it be that the sunrise in Dayuan is earlier than ours?"
The envoys who understood laughed. Badan snorted roughly and pushed the door open, his movements were quite gentle.
Before the door closed, Ji Xu vaguely saw Badan bowing and heard vaguely that when he spoke ancient Greek, his tone was low and slow, unlike the rapid-fire and chaotic gestures as before.
Ji Xu had some doubts in his mind, so he went downstairs with the unfortunate clerk, Xiao Hulu and the other two.
The petty officials kept talking about how annoying the Dayuan envoy was.
"From the moment we settled in, we first asked for a separate stable for their horses. They said that the horses from Dayuan would not eat the grass in Chang'an, so we had to feed them the best alfalfa and water them with mountain spring water.
When we got upstairs, he complained that the room was too close to the stairs and asked us and Buyeo to exchange the innermost room for him. He also insisted that the bedding he used be silk and that the room be fumigated with osmanthus incense... It was really a hassle."
"Was it like this last year?" Ji Xu said.
"It was better last year. Even so, Wang Huzi got so angry that he fought with him. This year, it's even worse. Fortunately, your temper is much better than Wang Huzi's."
The clerk sighed.
"I just hope they'll leave as soon as the New Year is over, and then I'll be free."
"stop!"
Just as Ji Xu was leaving the barbarian's house, he was stopped. Badan, with the stairs shaking, came up to him with big strides, threw the food box hard onto the lacquer table beside him, and said:
"You are such a careless person! There are sand and stones in the cakes you made!"
This is impossible. If sand, stones or hair appear on the food that is usually supplied to the imperial family, both the soup officials and the food guide officials will be implicated.
The flour used to make the cakes today was all sifted through fine silk, and the fillings inside were also carefully checked by her after they were taken out.
"Which steamed bun has sand in it?"
As Ji Xu spoke, he took the food box to check and found that only one steamed bun with chicken sauce filling had been moved, and the hole did not look like it had been bitten, but rather like it had been broken open.
Perhaps this Dayuan envoy had never eaten a single bite. It seemed that even after all this trouble, he was still not hungry.
Badan insisted that he had eaten sand and asked her to redo it.
"It's this pancake, and I tasted sand! The chef of the Han Empire's imperial family is so clumsy."
His words made the foreign tourists passing by stop and look at this place. Ji Xu couldn't let him slander him like this.
"Then, envoy, tell me, is this cake with sand in it sweet or spicy?"
“Sweet!”
"That's not right. It's clearly salty. The envoy didn't even eat the cake, so how could he find sand in it? Maybe something wasn't to his liking, but you can't accuse me of being unhygienic. This is the most basic requirement for being an official chef." "That's right!"
The little gourd responded.
This exposed Badan's unreasonable behavior in public, and he changed his words and said:
"I hate eating this, make it again!"
Fortunately, the issue of hygiene became a matter of personal preference, and Ji Xu agreed. However, when she asked Badan about his food preferences, he said cunningly:
"No sweet, no salty, no sour, and no spicy."
"In that case, why doesn't he just drink the well water? That would suit him best."
When returning to the office, Little Gourd said angrily because of Badan's unreasonable demands,
"Or I could make him a bowl of coptis chinensis gall soup. It's not sweet, salty, sour, or spicy, but it's enough to make him bitter."
After returning, she saw Ji Xu kneading dough. She still used fine flour, but this time she added a teaspoon of yellow gluten flour to the flour.
Gluten flour, this was the name Ji Xu had "given" in front of Xiaohulu and Tong'er.
The guide didn't have this gluten powder, so she washed the dough herself, so that the starch inside was dissolved in the water, and then poured it out, leaving only the insoluble part, which is commonly known as gluten.
When she was in school, there was a shop selling grilled gluten behind the school. The owner rubbed the gluten on bamboo sticks by hand in this way.
This gluten is also the protein part of wheat. She roasted it at that time and sprinkled it with spices and green onions. It smelled so good that everyone in the soup hall was asking what it was. After asking, they found out that it was a new pastry from the pastry room.
In addition to baking it on the spot, she also dries and grinds the wet gluten into gluten flour for future use.
"Do you remember the function of adding gluten flour to flour?"
I had taught the two little ones how to grind gluten flour before, so they both remembered it. Little Gourd said:
"Increasing the gluten of the dough makes it easier to pull and stretch."
"That's it."
Tong'er also said that the two of them were very proud. They had studied hard. Ji Shanren said that he would slowly train them to become official chefs, so they wouldn't have to suffer as kitchen maids.
"That's right."
Ji Xu praised.
The flour at this time is all-purpose flour, which is more suitable for making Chinese pastries, such as steamed buns, dumplings, and noodles.
If you want to make bread, puffs and other pastries, high-gluten flour is more suitable.
The difference between high-gluten flour and all-purpose flour lies in the protein content. The protein content of high-gluten flour is higher, about 14 grams per 100 grams; the protein content of all-purpose flour is 9 grams.
Therefore, Ji Xu wanted to get high-gluten flour, so he added gluten flour in proportion to increase the protein content.
At the moment, almonds, chopped walnuts, eggs, yeast and cooking oil are added to the flour. After it expands due to the yeast, it is repeatedly stretched and folded to bring out its gluten properties.
The stronger the gluten, the thinner the membrane that can be pulled out of the dough, and the less likely it is to break. It is like silk, able to wrap the gas produced during fermentation, and the finished product will have a softer taste.
However, what Ji Xu wanted to make this time was chewy bread, so it didn't need to form a strong gluten texture. Without adding too much water or kneading, Little Gourd said:
“It’s different from making steamed buns.”
"We won't be steaming this time. Let's use the oven to bake it."
Nowadays, Hu cakes and Sui cakes are baked, so there is also a baking oven in the baking room. It is cylindrical with thick walls and is loaded from the center.
Ji Xu formed the dough into an oval shape, cut a few slanting cuts on it, sprinkled dry powder on it with a winnowing basket made of fine silk, and baked it until the room was filled with the aroma of wheat, then took it out.
After baking, the dough has a clear opening and is golden in color. When a knife is lightly scratched on the dough, you can tell from the sound that the outside is crispy.
"No wonder it's called toast. The name is really apt. It doesn't look like a big bag!" Tong'er said.
“It smells so good!”
Little Gourd couldn't help but say greedily.
Ji Xu cut it open with a knife and found holes inside, steam coming out of them.
"Try it."
She sliced off some of the leftovers and gave them to the two younger ones to eat. They were allowed to taste the food, but in the old bakery, it was never the turn of the kitchen maids to taste it.
Now I picked up the two treasured ones and ate them. They were neither sweet nor salty nor sour nor spicy. They had a rich aroma of wheat and almonds, and the chewiness was combined with the crispness of walnuts.
Ji Xu also boiled a cup of goat's milk without adding any sugar or honey, and put it in a food box with freshly baked bread, and brought it back to the barbarian's residence.
Zhou Ping from next door had finished her work long ago. The Sushen envoy her aunt was in charge of was very easy to get along with and even gave her a thick felt hat with a pair of deer antlers.
She walked around the yard wearing it, fiddling with the antlers and looking at herself in the water tank, enjoying it very much.
Seeing Ji Xu still preparing breakfast for the Dayuan envoys, he went out and said to them:
"Some people have terrible luck. They work so hard but get nothing. They can only suffer for those barbarians in vain. But my aunt had the best luck and drew Sushen."
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