I took the bus back to my apartment building around 9 PM.
Su Yan first went to the market and bought an old-fashioned grinder, two catties of taro, and two catties of purple sweet potato.
She originally wanted to pack five fast food meals, but after thinking about it, she realized that Bai Meng and the others had been exhausted these past two days, so she decided to cook lunch to treat them. It was also because she hadn't cooked in a long time.
I bought two pounds of shrimp, a whole old hen, a sea bass, shredded pork with garlic sauce, and a pound of bok choy, which cost me a total of five yuan and sixty-eight cents.
When they returned to the apartment, Wen Liangce's door was open.
Su Yan stood at the door and called out, "Assistant Wen, do you have a gas stove here?"
"have!"
As Wen Liangce spoke, he walked out of her room, holding a raisin-flavored egg tart in his hand.
Seeing the groceries she was carrying, he quickly took them and said, "You're making lunch today, right? Leave it to me."
After saying that, he picked up the vegetables and went into his house.
Su Yan paused for a few seconds, then realized what she meant and said with a wry smile, "No, I'm cooking lunch today. Can you help me prepare the ingredients? There's still some time before lunch, so I'll make a new flavor of egg tarts."
Wen Liangce stopped and said confidently, "No need, you go ahead with your work, I'll handle this little thing!"
It's just cooking a meal, such a simple thing, there's no need to trouble Su Yan.
He was so enthusiastic that Su Yan felt a little embarrassed to refuse. "Alright, then I'll trouble you."
Just then, footsteps came from the stairs.
"Please come out and sign for the oven purchased by the resident of apartment 306!"
Wen Liangce said, "I called a friend yesterday and asked him to send an oven over today. Go pick it up while I go to the kitchen to prepare the ingredients."
Su Yan responded, and at that moment the deliveryman came up.
After verifying the information, the deliveryman handed her the oven and asked, "Do you know how to use it? Do you want me to teach you?"
"No need, I already have one at home, thank you."
The deliveryman said "Okay" and left.
Bai Meng came out of the house at this moment, took the oven from her hand, and said, "Didn't you go shopping? How come you only have this little bit of stuff?"
Su Yan said, "I bought quite a lot. The factory and the dessert ingredient store deliver to my door. They deliver it at one o'clock in the afternoon."
It's just past one o'clock, time to prepare the egg tarts.
Bai Meng suddenly realized, and then placed the new oven on the table.
Wen Liangce bought the same model; he just baked it to remove the odor and let it sit for an hour before using it.
"How's business today?" Su Yan asked.
"It's better than yesterday. Chen Ting's business is selling faster. She said that yesterday's customers bought more than five yuan worth of goods today, and they were buying them for their colleagues. Business at the school gate is about the same as yesterday."
Su Yan thought it was normal.
Egg tarts are gone in two bites, they don't last long, and they're not particularly cheap.
Students' spending power is not as high as that of working people. It's fine to buy something occasionally to try, but not everyone can afford to eat it every day, especially since the current economy is not as developed as it will be in the future.
"I'll go about my business. I'll make a new flavor."
She picked up a taro and peeled it, and Bai Meng immediately came over to help. "Now we just need to bake the egg tarts, there's not much to do. What new flavor are you planning to make? Taro?"
"Four flavors: taro paste, brown sugar pearls, matcha, and cheese."
Bai Meng was stunned. She had never heard of these flavors before, and they weren't sold in any Western restaurants.
Seeing her confused look, Su Yan smiled and said, "These are flavors I created myself. They're not sold anywhere else. They're unique in the whole country. Do you understand now?"
The flavors she created all came from later generations; they didn't exist in this era.
Bai Meng nodded as if she understood, and began to look forward to the new flavor.
"Making taro paste is very simple. The ingredients you need are taro, purple sweet potato, milk, and sugar. Actually, adding some light cream would be even better, but unfortunately, you can't find it outside, and it's too much trouble to make it yourself," Su Yan said. "Slice the taro and purple sweet potato, steam them until cooked, add the other ingredients, mash them into a paste, and then put it in the refrigerator to chill."
Bai Meng studied very diligently and learned it after watching it only once.
Next, we'll make matcha powder.
Su Yan remembered that there were green tea leaves in the apartment, so she didn't buy any.
Pour the tea leaves into a grinder and crush them, adding sugar or condensed milk along the way. Then sift the mixture; what comes out is matcha powder.
Because dried green tea has a bitter taste, you need to add something sweet to neutralize the flavor.
The ingredients needed to make cheese are milk, lemon juice, salt, and honey. Put the milk in a pot and heat it until it starts to bubble, then turn off the heat. Add lemon juice and stir well. Once there are some flocculent substances, let it stand for one minute, then pour it through cheesecloth to filter and refrigerate.
"After the cheese is refrigerated, salt and honey need to be added, and the whey needs to be beaten until smooth before it can be used. This is quite troublesome and time-consuming, so we have to make more. It's a limited-edition flavor. Once the three of you have all learned how to make it, the cheese filling will be sold normally, just like the other flavors."
Otherwise, it would be exhausting for her to make cheese all by herself.
"I'll take care of teaching you. Ziyi and Chen Ting are in your hands now. Are you confident?" Su Yan asked Bai Meng with a smile.
Bai Meng was taking notes in her notebook when she heard this, and immediately nodded, saying earnestly, "No problem!"
Su Yan glanced at her notes; the steps were all correct, and she remembered them in great detail.
It seems her intuition was correct; Bai Meng is indeed very talented at making desserts.
That's good, at least someone can share the burden with her.
The ingredients for brown sugar pearls won't arrive until this afternoon, so we won't be making them for now.
It took me an hour and a half to make three kinds of fillings.
Chen Ting and Deng Ziyi returned three times during the trip. The third trip was completed around 11:30 a.m., which was also the last trip of the morning. Sales started again at 2:30 p.m.
Su Yan glanced at the time and was about to go next door to check when a loud "sizzle" sound came from next door.
"Ahhh, help me!"
"The pot is going to explode!"
Wearing an apron and holding a spatula, Wen Liangce came running over from next door, looking panicked, and said to Su Yan, "Go check quickly, the pot is about to explode!"
Su Yan and Bai Meng stood frozen in place for two seconds.
Su Yan realized what was happening and immediately ran to the kitchen next door, with Bai Meng following closely behind.
The two of them were completely stunned when they saw the state of the kitchen!
There were bok choy hearts in the pot, not yet halved, and the pot was smoking all around, the shadows of the bok choy hearts gradually being shrouded in the smoke.
Upon closer inspection, their eyes appeared even darker!
Wen Liangce actually used almost half a pot of oil to stir-fry the vegetables!
At this moment, the hot, smoky fumes were flying everywhere!
Su Yan quickly stepped forward to turn off the stove, then left the kitchen and closed the door, her eyes searching for the culprit!
The culprit was standing at the door, tapping on a spatula, looking guilty and avoiding her gaze.
Su Yan took a deep breath and said with a smile, "Assistant Wen, don't you know how to cook?"
Wen Liangce looked completely innocent and sincere. "This is my first time cooking. I thought it looked so easy for others to cook, so I figured it wouldn't be difficult for me. Who knew cooking would be so scary? I should have known better than to take on this task. It scared me to death!"
Su Yanbai Meng: "..."
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