Chapter 31: Trying to make fried dumplings with a large shrimp...
Chapter 31
Lin Mujin rode her bicycle to the newspaper office with a manuscript worth more than 20,000 yuan.
Editor-in-Chief Wang readily accepted the manuscript and settled the bill.
Adding the money on hand, it’s over a thousand.
You can also buy some small items.
But now I still have to go buy ingredients for sour plum soup, fried dumplings and tea eggs.
In fact, she should have bought it yesterday, but she delayed it because she was busy finishing her manuscript.
She really went crazy yesterday, writing more than 15,000 words in one day, and her hands were almost broken.
Fortunately, I asked Editor-in-Chief Wang for two days off, so my hand can recover.
These two days will also be used to complete all the preliminary preparations for setting up the stall.
She went to a larger Chinese medicine shop.
"Please give me five grams of Roselle, three grams of Licorice, five grams of Tangerine Peel, twenty grams of Black Plum, eight grams of Smoked Black Plum, ten grams of Hawthorn, twenty grams of Black Dates, and 0.2 grams of Osmanthus."
The pharmacist smiled and said, "I'm going to make sour plum soup at home. Your recipe is quite interesting, using two kinds of black plums. How does it taste?"
This sour plum soup is a ready-made recipe, not a secret one, and can be found in any large Chinese medicine shop.
But the recipes are different.
In her previous life, she had made her own sour plum soup, which tasted very good, but she didn't remember the specific proportions.
After all, you have a mobile phone and can check it at any time.
She is now very knowledgeable and it is all thanks to Lin Muli.
He asked the old lady who worked part-time at the pharmacy and she added or subtracted some ingredients from the prescription based on her past life experience.
Lin Mujin replied, "I don't know yet. A friend told me the recipe, and he said it tastes good."
It's not a lie, I haven't tried it yet so it's hard to comment.
Lin Mujin walked out of the pharmacy with a large oil-paper bag, spending a total of sixteen yuan.
These ingredients can be brewed twice, which will yield about thirty cups.
If one dollar per cup, that's thirty dollars, which seems very profitable, but the cost of rock sugar still needs to be deducted.
Black plums are very sour, so a lot of sugar needs to be added to balance it out.
The cost of disposable cups also needs to be deducted.
All in all, the net income from all the sales is probably between 6 and 8 dollars.
Fortunately, we don’t make money from it, we just want to enrich our products and increase customer satisfaction.
"Next, let's buy pork, corn, and shrimp."
Then of course I have to go to the vegetable market.
I bought pork from Houqiu, which was relatively cheaper, at 15 yuan per pound. I bought 1.2 pound.
Mince the meat into filling, 70% lean and 30% fat is just right.
The corn is not well-rubbed, so you can only buy a whole ear and thresh it manually at home.
She didn't ask for the best prawns, but they were still fresh, just a little smaller. They were also 15 dollars per pound, so she bought 1.5 pounds.
There are about thirty-six or thirty-seven pieces in one jin, and fifty-four or fifty-five pieces in one and a half jin.
If you put one whole shrimp in one fried dumpling, that's fifty-four or fifty-five fried dumplings, which is barely enough for a family of five.
"I still have to buy some tea."
Tea leaves are essential for making tea eggs.
"Boss, do you have any cheap black tea?"
The boss was a little reluctant to hear this, "My family's tea is all good."
Lin Mujin didn't get angry and asked again, "I want to make tea bags. There's no need to buy good tea. Do you have any aged black tea?"
The boss hummed, then replied with a "yes," "How much do you want?"
Lin Mujin asked, "How much is it?"
The boss thought for a moment and said, "Ten dollars a pound, that's the lowest."
Lin Mujin thought the price was a bit high, "Do you have any broken tea leaves?"
In that era, domestic supplies were scarce, and broken tea leaves had a special term, called "gaosui".
The boss asked, "Do you really want it? It doesn't taste good."
Lin Mujin smiled and asked, "How much are the broken black tea leaves?"
The boss thought for a moment and said, "It should be about five or six pounds. If you want it all, I'll give you twenty dollars."
Lin Mujin said directly, "Fifteen dollars, I'll take them all."
The boss was a little impatient, probably because he was annoyed by Lin Mujin's bargaining. After all, it was just a small amount of money. In the end, he didn't know what he was thinking, but he agreed, "Okay, okay, I'll sell it to you."
Lin Mujin took a large bag of tea leaves out of the tea shop and tied it tightly on the back seat of the car. She also bought two kilograms of sugar. After shopping, she could go home.
——————
Lin Mujin took some effort to peel off all the corn kernels.
She knew there were special threshing tools, but unfortunately they weren't available yet, so she had to do it manually.
Fortunately, she was quick-witted and used scissors to assist.
Just cut the whole corn in half horizontally, then insert a pair of scissors into the corn cob and turn it twice. The cob of fresh corn can be easily split. In this way, the half of the corn is divided into two halves again, but this time it is divided vertically.
The last step is rubbing it with your hands. You can rub it down line by line at a decent speed.
Cousin Lin was chopping the meat filling on the side, and the sound of the chopping was very rhythmic.
"That blender is too limited. It would be great if it could blend minced meat."
Lin Mujin shook her head, saying that today's machines are still too backward.
"It also saves my sister from having to go through so much trouble."
Fried dumplings are different from steamed buns. The meat filling cannot be too granular, which means it needs to be chopped into smaller pieces, which is very laborious.
Cousin Lin thought it was okay. "It will be done soon. I'll buy a kitchen knife later. Using two knives together will definitely make it faster."
Lin Mujin peeled another scallion. Cousin Lin finished mincing the meat and put down the knife. "Let me go see how the dough is rising."
Lin Mujin knew that her cousin was worried because she used a new method when kneading the dough, using half boiling water and half cold water, and adding some salt and oil.
"Sister, there's definitely no problem!"
She began to prepare the filling. First, she beat the onion and ginger water into the meat filling in batches, then poured in the corn kernels and chopped green onions, and began to add seasonings, salt and white pepper, and finally added some sesame oil.
This filling emphasizes the original flavor, don’t add too many varieties.
Start stirring…
"Sister, the dough has risen nicely. Shall we wrap it now?"
Lin Mujin said, "Okay, sister, you roll out the dough, and I'll marinate the shrimp."
Just add some cooking wine, salt and white pepper.
Note that they are all in small amounts because salt is also added to the meat filling.
Lin Mujin took a dumpling wrapper, added meat filling first to make it fuller, then placed a shrimp with its tail horizontally on the filling, and finally pinched the top of the dumpling wrapper to finish it.
Frying dumplings is much easier than wrapping them.
"Sister, we don't have a frying pan at home. Should we use a casserole?"
Lin Mujin was scratching her head. Why did something go wrong at the last step?
Cousin Lin shook her head. "If a clay pot doesn't work, use an iron pot."
Lin Mujin saw her cousin spray oil on the casserole, then slightly tilt the iron pan to place the fried dumplings, then slowly add the flour and water and cover the pot.
Lin Mujin understood that this way she could fry half of the dumplings in half. It was a bit slow because the tools were not good enough, but it did not affect the deliciousness of the dumplings at all.
Looking forward to...
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