Jiang Zhiwei tightened her grip on her side, gave a stiff reply with a forced smile, and without even glancing at Yu Yao, hurriedly followed Factory Director Wang away.
As soon as everyone left, Zhao Shengli immediately gave Yu Yao a thumbs up: "Squad Leader Yu, I was worried that you would be implicated this time, but it seems I was just worrying for nothing."
Yu Yao smiled and said, "Thanks to Brother Zhao for helping to call the factory manager, I had a chance to make arrangements first. I'll treat you to some new food later!"
Upon hearing about the new food, Zhao Shengli immediately changed his mind, saying, "Since it's a new dish, I'll gladly accept. Your sister-in-law ate your sponge cake before, and she still talks about it to me every day."
...
Yu Yao didn't know what Director Wang had said to Jiang Zhiwei that day, but she felt that Jiang Zhiwei had been much more well-behaved since then.
Even the workload assigned to her has returned to normal.
Yu Yao was happy to have some peace and quiet and focused all her attention on preparing for the Canton Fair.
The Canton Fair materials have begun printing, and other materials are ready. The most important thing left is to train the workers who will participate in the Canton Fair.
Haixing Food Factory has a total of 30 slots to go to the site this time, with different numbers of slots allocated to different workshops.
According to the size of the workshop, the new workshop should only have one or two slots, but because the new production line is related to the factory's upgrade, the factory has specially added three slots.
The new workshop was allocated a total of five positions.
Besides her and Liu Chaoying, Yu Yao also plans to choose three other people to go.
Tao Xueying was chosen as one of the two positions, and for the remaining two, she selected two female workers from the cutting workshop and the seasoning workshop. Both were experienced veterans who were among the best in terms of product and machine operation.
The Spring Canton Fair will begin on April 15th.
In order to enable the other four people to cope with the complex situation of the Canton Fair, Yu Yao personally took charge of the training and provided them with full-time training.
In addition to being thoroughly familiar with all kinds of canned goods under the Yelin brand, one also needs to understand the products from other workshops that participated in the Canton Fair.
Yu Yao personally wrote all the introductory text and answers to potential questions for all dozens of products.
Busy as ever, it's the weekend again.
On Saturday night, Yu Yao called Su Meihua over. "Sister-in-law Meihua, we have a big mission tomorrow and will be eating on the mountain. Let's make some rice balls to take with us."
Su Meihua had no objection. "Yu Yao, whatever you say, I'll do."
"I'll tell you how to do it in a bit. Let's steam the rice first."
The rice balls were made for everyone to eat together, with each family contributing half of the ingredients.
There were six people this time, and they prepared three kilograms of rice.
This rice was obtained by Yu Yao from farmers using industrial coupons. She then took it to the rice mill of the production team to be milled into fresh rice, cooked it half-cooked with spring water, drained it, and steamed it in a bamboo steamer.
Rice steamed this way is fragrant, flavorful, and chewy – it's delicious!
Once the rice was ready, Yu Yao used her secret-recipe rice vinegar with a little wild lychee honey to season the rice balls.
Because they had to walk along mountain paths, Yu Yao was afraid the rice balls would fall apart if she put them in the basket, so she dipped them in a little salt water.
This makes the rice balls stickier, easier to form into a ball, and less likely to be broken by external forces.
Next, Yu Yao prepared the other ingredients, while Su Meihua went to start the fire.
Yu Yao started making seaweed in another pot.
She likes rice balls with seaweed flakes; rice balls without seaweed flakes aren't as springy.
Making seaweed is not difficult, and the ingredients are readily available on the island.
Since she didn't have an oven, Yu Yao used a frying pan instead.
Yu Yao cleaned the seaweed that Su Meihua had brought, drained it, poured a little sesame oil into the pot, heated it over low heat, and added the seaweed after the oil temperature rose.
As soon as the drained seaweed is put into sesame oil, it makes a sizzling sound, and the seafood aroma of the seaweed mixed with the aroma of sesame oil wafts out.
When cooking seaweed in a pan, you can't use high heat; you have to use low heat to fry it slowly. You have to keep turning it over while frying to prevent the seaweed from heating unevenly and burning or turning black.
Once the seaweed is crispy on both sides, sprinkle it evenly with a little salt, and the seaweed is ready.
The seaweed made in a frying pan wasn't as smooth and even as the seaweed bought in supermarkets in later generations; the surface was a bit bumpy, but it was crispy and much more fragrant than the seaweed from the supermarket.
After preparing the seaweed, Yu Yao began preparing other ingredients.
Once the rice is cooked, the other ingredients are almost ready.
For this rice ball, Yu Yao prepared a total of six ingredients: pork floss made by Wu Wanying, roasted sesame seeds, diced ham, fresh cucumber strips, pickled bamboo shoots, and freshly broken seaweed flakes.
After the rice was steamed and let it sit for a while until it wasn't so hot, Yu Yao and Su Meihua started making rice balls.
"Sister-in-law Meihua, let me make one for you to see first."
Su Meihua nodded and looked at it carefully.
Cooking is her specialty, and since Yu Yao is willing to teach her, she's determined to learn it well.
Yu Yao took a portion of rice and placed it in her palm, then spread it out evenly with her hand.
After flattening the rice ball, Yu Yao placed two cucumber strips, five diced bamboo shoots, and some shredded pork floss and seaweed into a small bowl. Finally, she used a spoon to scoop a spoonful of her secret-recipe sauce instead of salad dressing.
After placing the ingredients, Yu Yao used the secret recipe to wrap the filling, gradually shaping it into a round shape. Only after ensuring that the filling was completely covered by rice did she begin to roll it into a ball with both hands.
In no time, a round, fist-sized rice ball was ready.
"If you want the rice balls to look nicer, you can use seaweed flakes to dot eyes and mouths on them, which will make them look even better."
Su Meihua looked at the rice ball with a nose and eyes, her eyes full of wonder. "Yu Yao, where did you get these clever ideas? It's really interesting to make rice balls like this. Kids will definitely like them."
Yu Yao said, "If you don't mind the trouble, you can decorate with carrots, just like building a snowman. You can make it into any shape you want."
Making rice balls isn't difficult; Su Meihua learned it after watching it once.
The two were busy in the kitchen, and by the time Lu Ze came home from get off work, they had made enough rice balls for six people to eat the next day.
Su Meihua went back first, and Yu Yao started making dinner.
Yu Yao saved enough rice for dinner, and since there was still some left over from steaming, she used it to make rice crust.
The crispy fried dough was served as an appetizer to Cui Zhizhou, while the rest was cut into small pieces, sprinkled with sesame seeds, chili powder, and Sichuan peppercorns to make snacks, and then stored in a glass jar.
I'll give it to her and Lu Ze as a snack later.
During the meal, Lu Ze talked about tomorrow's plans: "The brick and tile factory and the stone factory called me today and will deliver the materials tomorrow. Once the materials arrive, we can start renovating the yard."
Yu Yao didn't expect it to be so soon. "Why don't Mom and Brother go over tomorrow, and I'll stay and help you?"
Lu Ze shook his head, "No need, tomorrow is just for collecting materials, I can handle it by myself. You go with Mom and the others."
The next day, just as dawn was breaking, Yu Yao got up, changed into her workout clothes, and went for a run with Lu Ze.
The two ran along the small beach, exercising and getting familiar with their surroundings.
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