Chapter 195 Chapter 195 Update.
"Have you heard? Chef Ji discovered a method for making steamed buns that are bigger than a washbasin and smoother than lard. Official Tang appointed her as chef, and she got a promotion!"
"Bread leaven?"
"Oh, it's something similar to sorghum koji and koji."
The day after returning from the Ganquan Palace sacrifice, the news spread throughout the residence.
The two things that the chef mentioned, the former is liang qu, which is made from sorghum, similar to wine koji, and has a fermentation function. It is generally used to make sauces, such as meat sauce. If you add this liang qu, seal it in a jar and wait for a hundred days before opening it, it will have a better flavor.
People at that time liked to eat all kinds of sauces, such as beef sauce, pork sauce, fish sauce, ant sauce, snail sauce... If you want the sauce to be stored for a long time and have flavor, you can't do without liangqu.
The latter, qujue, is the yeast for making wine, which is made from sprouted or moldy grains. For example, qujue are indispensable for winemakers when making wine. It has existed as early as the Zhou Dynasty. The saying "If you want to make wine, you only need qujue" refers to the qujue used for making wine.
However, sorghum koji and fermented rice are only used to make sauce and wine, and it has never been said that they are used to make pasta.
Now there's bread yeast. Can it be used to make bread? I wonder what it would taste like.
Their house is full of chatter,
"Putting koji and yeast in the cakes? What a weird taste that would make! I'm afraid it won't work. Chef Ji is deliberately tinkering with weird things just to stand out!"
"You didn't understand. I said it was bread yeast. Although its uses are similar to the sorghum koji used in making sauce and the koji used in making wine, it is ultimately different from these two.
Hey, Zhou Ping, I heard that you went to help Chef Ji make steamed buns the other day. Can you tell me what the bun yeast looks like and what it's made of?"
Zhou Ping was feeling depressed about this. His roommate, Chef Ji, had been promoted and was able to move to a separate room in the next courtyard, but she was still a kitchen maid and could not become an official chef. So he said:
"How would I know? She's on guard against me!"
"It's not surprising if she's on guard against you."
All of these officials have their own special skills, so how can they tell outsiders before they succeed?
"It can be seen that this bread fermentation method is really quite unique."
Just then, Ji Xu came in from outside. She had returned to Chang'an Shaofu from Ganquan Palace, and she was officially promoted to the position of chef. This time she went to receive the official uniform and yellow ribbon sent by the third-level official.
This yellow ribbon means that she is a food official with a salary of 200 dan.
I also have my own official seal. Although it is a copper seal, not as good as the silver or gold seals of those high-ranking officials, but slowly, it is also a symbol of promotion.
In the past, her rank was lower than that of 200 shi, and she still used the common official seal, and she didn't even have her own official seal.
In the future, for example, when she went to the crumb room to collect the raw materials for making cakes and prepared the day's meals and sent them away, she would stamp this seal on them, which meant that they were things she had handled, so she had to keep them well and not lose this seal that symbolized her identity.
"Pao Ren Ji is back, Pao Ren Ji is back!"
Those girls were chattering away,
"Oh, now I shouldn't call you 'Ji Pao Ren', I should call you 'Ji Shan Ren'. Ji Shan Ren, congratulations!"
"Are you moving next door?"
The cooks didn't have to squeeze in here and could live in a separate room next door. An empty room there was also cleared out for Ji Xu, waiting for her to move in.
After hearing Ji Xu's yes, he continued:
"We'll help you move!"
"Thank you very much, thank you very much. I only have one bed and one bundle, I can move them myself, so you don't need to help. I have a jar of wine for you to share."
Having said that, the group of cooks and nuns still followed her in eagerly, holding her hands and touching her bed, just to share in the good news. They didn't know when it would be their turn to be promoted.
When she was packing up her bedding, Xiao Hulu and Tong'er, two maids, pulled her aside to talk to her. Ji Xu left a can of uneaten meat sauce for the two little ones. Xiao Hulu said happily:
"The government office serves this dish every day. We eat it with our meals, one spoonful per person per day!"
Zhou Ping was combing his hair vigorously, not looking at her directly, but just spat at the mirror:
"A bunch of servile old women and girls."
"Who are you calling a lackey? You live in the same room with me, yet you're giving me the cold shoulder. You're really narrow-minded."
"Who are you calling petty? I just can't stand you fawning lackeys!"
Zhou Ping stood up and pointed at the old and young women with the comb, then sat back down to comb their hair again, saying,
"She gets promoted, it's none of my business. Humph, I can act however I want."
"We are lackeys, but unfortunately we don't have an aunt who cooks for us. Even if we mistakenly receive the wrong Yingfen, we can still follow her to Ganquan Palace."
There were bound to be a few quarrels here, and they dispersed after Ji Xu moved out. She also knew why Zhou Ping was angry, but she didn't try to comfort him. It was because her heart was twisted. If she tried to strike up a conversation, she would definitely be rejected.
Fortunately, we don’t need to share a room, which would make it awkward to go in and out.
So I cleaned up the new residence. The layout here was the same as the one in the courtyard next door. It faced south and had one bedroom. There was an earthen kang and a stove next to the kang. I could heat the kang at night and also make some hot water for washing in the morning.
There was no place to take a bath in the official residence, otherwise officials would not be given one day off every five days to go back and wash their hair and take a bath.
Secondly, the weather was too cold, and the hot water from the stove beside the kang was not enough for washing. When I lived next door to Zhou Ping, Wang Hulu, and Huang Tong, we would share the hot water to simply wash our faces, hands, and buttocks.
Xiao Hulu and Tong'er were probably still young, so when it got dark, they would wash directly under the eaves. Even some old maids did not avoid people and would lift their clothes and wash their buttocks directly under the eaves every now and then.
Ji Xu and Zhou Ping were shy girls, and they were washing in the house, so they asked people to turn their heads away and not to look.
There was a separate room here, which was more convenient for simple washing and brushing teeth every day. She spread out her bedding and went out.
Since tomorrow is her day off, she can leave the office and go back after taking care of her own business today.
However, she did not go home directly. She first went to the East Market to buy a few pounds of good meat and a pair of warm mink leggings. Then she went to the Yunting and told Yi Gu and Wang Huzi that she was a cook.
This is because Wang Huzi taught her a lot of skills, so she can do it smoothly. Wang Huzi just looked through the things she brought with her and found that there was no wine, so he said with a frown:
"You don't even know how to make wine, so I taught you for nothing."
"Don't pay attention to him. He can finish all the wine in one day. If he makes mistakes and the cattle starve to death or freeze to death, he won't even be able to be a cattle official."
Yi Gu said that she thought she did a good job, and even she didn't give much food to the Wine King Hu Zi recently.
After leaving the Ye Ting, she hired a carriage on Gao Street to take her out of the city and home.
"Who's back?"
"Oh my, is it the food official from the Shaofu who has returned?"
The neighbors in Mulberry Alley recognized the person in the car and said one after another that they no longer jokingly called her by the name of Yi Jin Nu Niang when she was a city cook. They all called her Food Official or Ji Paoren.
"The food official is back, Chef Ji is back!"
The children at the alley entrance followed the carriage and shouted, and the monkey ran to knock on the door and said:
"Auntie Tian, your official is back!"
"Which official has returned?"
Tian came to open the door with a smile on her face. She had already predicted that her daughter would come home today. How could she not know that if any naughty monkey dared to bang on the door normally, she would roll up her sleeves and scold them until they tucked their tails between their legs. But today was different.
"Oh, it's my official who's back!"
Ji Xu's status as an official was different from that of a city chef, so Tian was not proud of it. That was because his monthly salary was a little less, but her daughter was ambitious and wanted to move up.
Besides, they meet less often, so the whole family is looking forward to her taking a day off.
At this moment, Feng and Zhu also came out. Their hands were still covered with flour, just like Tian's. I don't know what delicious food they were making. The greedy children were drooling and saying:
"Auntie Tian, what are you cooking? It's even more delicious than the oil residue my mother makes. Give us some!"
The kids around here are all familiar with it. As long as Aunt Tian's daughter comes back, the place smells especially good. I don't know what they are frying, pan-frying, or stewing...
They escorted Ji Xu in, but they didn't want to ask for any delicious food. Every time Tian came to welcome her daughter, she was in a good mood and let them in and gave them some delicious fruits to eat.
This time, he brought out some freshly fried meatballs from the kitchen and said:
"You are all benefiting from my daughter's kindness. Each of you can grab some and eat them."
These were all children from the neighborhood, so she naturally felt more kindly. Among them were Liu Laogu's granddaughter Hua'er and Qiugu's son Wang'er. Tian pointed at the youngest and said,
"You're so obsessed with eating that you don't even bother wiping your nose. Oh, you sloppy little brat."
As she said this, she picked up the bib she was wearing and wiped it clean, patted the empty bamboo basket, and sent the group of children out. These people got the freshly fried meatballs in their hands and ran home happily.
Old Aunt Liu sat on the doorstep, picking weeds facing the skylight, with a delicious meatball stuffed in her mouth.
Huaer was covering her mouth and laughing, and there was one in her mouth. The grandfather and grandson ate it with a slurry, and it was so delicious that they almost swallowed their tongues.
Wu Dou, like an old cat sniffing for something, came out from inside and said:
"Strange, where does the smell of meat come from?"
Aunt Liu said:
"Where could it come from? Aunt Tian's daughter is back, and her meat smells delicious. If you stop wasting money, we can eat meat all the time in winter."
Wu Dou was disappointed, sniffed deeply in the direction of the Tian family, and said:
"This Aunt Tian, she didn't even bring some good food to eat."
He also wanted to go out and hang around other people's doors to see if they would invite him in for a meal. But Aunt Liu was so angry that she said he was shameless, stopped him, and sent him to cook rice.
Mrs. Tian had already boiled hot water for her daughter to take a bath, and had even put some ginger slices in it to dispel the cold.
She knew that it was inconvenient for her daughter to wash her hair and take a bath in the office, so she would not go to the cold bathroom in the backyard. Instead, she would sleep in the east wing, which had a bathtub and a heated kang next to it, making it warm.
After washing, Ji Xu sat there twisting his hair. Tian called the two older maids, Yindou and Tiandou, to carry the bucket out. The two of them were now doing very well in Ping'an Restaurant, and their cooking skills were improving.
Tian was packing her change of clothes. She found a heavy bag in her handbag. She pulled out a copper seal from the yellow ribbon. There was a word engraved on the bottom of the seal, but she didn't recognize it.
"Daughter, what is this? I've never seen you have it before."
"It's a seal and a ribbon. My daughter got this when she got promoted."
"Promoted?"
But Tian was so excited that she asked him a lot of questions.
"My dear daughter, you're so patient! You've only just come in and said this now! Quick, Jindou, Jindou, before the crowd disperses, go get two liters of horse-brewing wine! No, I want white wine! We have a big happy event coming up!"
As he was talking, he went to the kitchen and told the maids,
"Your young lady is now a cook with a salary of 200 dan, and she also has a yellow ribbon and a bronze seal!"
Not only that, even the monthly salary has increased from 30 hu to 40 hu. Now the monthly salary of officials is half grain and half cash.
These forty hu were only the grain. There was also silver worth forty hu of grain, totaling one thousand six hundred coins, which was a considerable amount of money.
Jindou agreed happily, and Tiandou said:
"We're out of fermented black beans at home. I'm going out to buy some!"
Tian Shi knew that she was proud and wanted to show off, so she gave her some money and told her to buy some fermented black beans. She then instructed her:
"I want the fermented black beans from Shandong. The fermented black beans there are really delicious."
"Why!"
Tian Dou agreed, and he and Jin Dou went out with happy faces. When people asked, they all knew that Tian's daughter had been promoted!
At night, Tian was still cutting cloth by the lamp to make a pouch for Ji Xu.
She also learned that the yellow ribbon was tied to the copper seal, and the bag that held the two items was called a sling. The sling was worn at the waist, and the color of the ribbon that showed through represented the official's rank. She wanted to embroider some unique patterns on her daughter's sling.
"How about embroidering a tiger head? It's both majestic and festive. Orchids are also good, beautiful and unique. When you wear it around your waist, it will be different from others."
I thought of many different ways to make them for my daughter.
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