Chu Shubao was slightly startled when she saw the cart full of chickens. She turned her head and asked Jiang Yanyi, "Is the store planning to prepare a whole chicken banquet?"
Jiang Yanyi was also confused. She went into the store and asked Yang Xiu, "What's going on with that cart of chickens outside?"
Yang Xiu said, "Just now the driver from the palace next door drove the ox cart over here and said it was for us."
Jiang Yanyi was in a weird mood. Were these chickens sent to her by Feng Shuo
His style of gift-giving is really varied and unexpected.
There are many diners in the restaurant now, and to take the chickens to the backyard, one has to pass through the store for fear of bumping into the diners, so the dozen or so chickens can only be temporarily placed in the ox cart outside.
Jiang Yanyi brought Chu Shubao into the store and greeted the familiar customers with a smile. When the other party knew that Jiang Yanyi had opened a new noodle shop, they couldn't help but congratulate him.
It was Chu Shubao's first time to come to Jiang Yanyi's antique soup shop. She found that except for the small size, the layout and display were no worse than those famous big restaurants. Everywhere was clean and not dirty at all.
A half-person-high bamboo screen separates each table, so even if the tables are very close to each other, it will not feel crowded. In fact, because there is a screen, there is more privacy, and diners can feel more comfortable when eating.
On each table there is a thin-necked white porcelain vase with a half-opened red plum blossom stuck in the mouth of the vase. Combined with the various exquisite plates and dishes placed on the table, it is a pleasing sight no matter how you look at it.
Before Chu Shubao could praise the furnishings of Jiang Yanyi's restaurant, she heard a table of diners shouting, "Waiter, prepare paper and ink!"
Chu Shubao looked in the direction of the voice and discovered that the diners at the table who were shouting were all young gentlemen. After a few glasses of wine, they looked a little tipsy. Perhaps they noticed that there were young girls looking at them, their faces turned even redder. In order to show off their literary talent, they started drinking games, reciting poems louder and louder. The diners at the next table were either watching the show with a smile, or commenting on the talent of this group of young people with their friends.
Jiang Yanyi seemed to be accustomed to such situations. She took out the pen, ink, paper and inkstone from under the counter and handed them to Yang Xiu, who then took them to that table. When the young masters wrote poems, the diners eating the hotpot around them would stand up and watch the fun.
Those who are good at writing poems and calligraphy will naturally win a lot of praise. If they meet someone who is pretentious, they will also be ridiculed. This was the beginning of the popularity of Jiang Yanyi's store after Feng Shuo wrote that antique soup poem for her. She herself did not expect that it would develop into such a trend in the end.
Her antique soup shop seems to have become an ancient internet-famous hotpot check-in spot.
Other restaurants want to copy this gimmick, but unfortunately they can't do it because they don't have that much fame.
Chu Shubao didn't know about this and found it quite novel. She leaned over the counter and whispered to Jiang Yanyi, "Do people often come to your shop to write poems? Wouldn't that mean you have to spend a lot on pens, ink, paper and inkstone?"
Jiang Yanyi smiled and explained to her in a low voice: "Only when you become famous can you earn more."
She pointed to several hand-bound poetry collections on the wall. "These are the poems I wrote when I came to the store to eat hotpot. The bookstore owner discussed with me and said that he wanted to print these poems into books to sell, but there are a few diners who wrote poems and I have never met them again. I have no way to get their consent, so I put the matter on hold."
This is equivalent to the only copy left in her store. Many readers who come to the store will borrow those poetry collections to read.
Chu Shubao was in high spirits after hearing what Jiang Yanyi said. She also picked up a collection of poems and looked through it. She found that under some of the poems, someone had written a reply in small characters. When the owner of the poem found out, she couldn't help but write one in return. The exchange of poems seemed to be a kind of friendship through literature.
She said with emotion: "Ayi, you are really smart. If I leave a poem in a poetry collection, I will also check every now and then to see if anyone has replied to my poem."
Jiang Yanyi was recording accounts in the account book. Upon hearing this, he held the brush and said, "If a talented man and a beautiful woman become married because of poetry, I'm afraid there will be more customers coming to the store to leave poems."
This era was strict with women. Xizhou was outside the Great Wall, and there were fewer rules to restrict women. In the southern capital, the more well-off the ladies were, the less freedom they had, and they were all required to stay within the main gate and not go out of the back door.
From childhood to adulthood, a girl has basically met very few men other than her relatives. Even if there are male guests at home, she has to avoid seeing them.
In terms of marriage, most people just follow the "parents' orders and matchmaker's words", and some even don't know what the person they marry looks like until the wedding night. How many of them are a good match? Most of the time, the woman just swallows her anger and creates an illusion of harmony and happiness.
Therefore, in the storybooks, those tragic love stories that break through the secular ethics are always particularly popular.
Chu Shubao asked: "Ayi, isn't your shop selling antique soup? How did you come up with so many things?"
Jiang Yanyi said: "If you just want to do a small business, just consider the profit. But if you want to do it on a larger scale, you have to create your own core products, so that others can only learn from you and end up with something worse than what you have."
"There are many reasons why customers choose a restaurant. The most obvious reason is that the food is delicious. No matter how delicious the food is, you will get tired of it after eating it for a long time. There must be other factors to guide diners to make choices, such as the dining environment and the fun they can find while eating."
In addition to the old scholar's storytelling and poetry writing, Jiang Yanyi also organized a pot-tossing activity in her restaurant. If you hit all the numbers, you can get a plate of chef Yao's specialty for free. With the prize, more and more diners come here to participate in the pot-tossing game.
Chu Shubao was a person who could understand everything, and she asked almost immediately, "Then, besides being easy to use and being bought by female customers, what else can I do to make them like my rouge?"
Jiang Yanyi thought for a moment and said, "The celebrity effect might be useful."
Seeing that Chu Shubao didn't seem to understand, Jiang Yanyi explained, "You are from the capital. If you put on a nice makeup one day and say that a princess or county lady in the capital wears this makeup, can others still say it doesn't look good? If they ask you how you put on this makeup, and you tell them what kind of rouge you used, how you put it on, and sincerely praise how good this rouge is, won't it be sold?"
Chu Shubao nodded frantically, her face full of admiration. She said with emotion: "Fortunately, Yi, you don't sell rouge, otherwise I would have to buy it and bankrupt myself."
Jiang Yanyi was both amused and confused.
After dealing with the accounts, she pulled Chu Shubao into the backyard to discuss the layout of the rouge counter and how to market it to female customers.
By the time all the problems were sorted out, it was almost dark and all the diners in the restaurant had left. Yang Xiu carried the cart full of chickens into the backyard and waited for Jiang Yanyi to deal with them.
Chu Shubao continued to write her store opening plan in the room, while Jiang Yanyi went to the kitchen to help.
Although he had been craving for boneless chicken feet for a long time, Jiang Yanyi was not so crazy as to kill more than a dozen chickens at once.
It would be great to keep a few old hens for making soup. Anyway, she has a big yard now and can fence off a place to let them live a little longer.
Jiang Yanyi picked a big rooster and asked Yang Xiu to kill and pluck its feathers.
When Chef Yao saw the slaughtered rooster, he couldn't help but praise it: "This chicken is well-raised. Drinking soup with it can replenish blood and qi. It's the best warming nourishment."
Jiang Yanyi said: "I plan to fry it and eat it."
Chef Yao thought she wanted to make dry-pot chicken nuggets, so he shook his head and said, "That would be a waste of such a good chicken."
Jiang Yanyi said, "The name of this dish is Chicken Pot, and it tastes good only when it is cooked with rooster meat."
There is a story behind this dish. A chef named the dish "xx Chicken Pot" after his own name. Because his name is the same as the name of a mountain city, outsiders thought that Chicken Pot is a famous dish of the mountain city.
In Jiang Yanyi’s previous life, his college roommate once asked him a soul-searching question. The roommate said, “As a person from a mountain city, you can make hotpot, so why can’t you make chicken pot?”
Jiang Yanyi didn't know at the time that "xx Chicken Pot" was not a local dish. When he heard that it was impossible, he quickly taught himself how to make Chicken Pot. Looking back on it now, it's funny but also seems like a lifetime ago.
The two most important steps in making chicken pot are boiling the old oil and making the sauce.
The old oil is very fragrant. It is made from four kinds of oil and more than a dozen spices. These four kinds of oil are vegetable sesame oil, soybean oil, beef tallow and chicken oil.
The other three types of oil are easy to find, only butter is not easy to buy. Occasionally, there are people selling butter and beef on the market, which are all old cows that have been slaughtered. It is also because he often buys meat from Ma the butcher, and they are familiar with each other. Ma the butcher has a source of goods, so he will reserve a portion for Jiang Yanyi in advance.
When boiling old oil, put four kinds of oil in the pot. Beef tallow is the last one to be added. Heat it to 30% hot, then add ginger, onion and garlic cloves to stir-fry until fragrant. Then add green peppercorns and dogwood to bring out the spicy taste. Finally, add various spices and simmer for half an hour over low heat without letting the oil temperature rise above 50% hot. This will allow the aroma of the spices to be boiled into the oil, making it several times more fragrant than ordinary stir-frying.
The sauce is made by sautéing more than ten kinds of spices in 60% hot sesame oil. After simmering on low heat for half an hour, add rock sugar to enhance the flavor and drizzle a spoonful of rice wine to enhance the aroma.
Wash the chopped chicken to remove the blood, marinate it with cooking wine and ginger to remove the fishy smell, and then marinate it with the boiled sauce for 15 minutes. This step is to make the chicken flavorful.
After the chicken is marinated, heat the old oil in a pan over high heat, add the chicken pieces and stir-fry until cooked, then add the dogwood, pepper, ginger and garlic and stir-fry until fragrant. Then add the lotus root, potato, tofu skin, winter bamboo shoots, black fungus, and soaked instant noodles, sprinkle with salt and cooking wine and stir-fry until fragrant. Finally, pour a spoonful of broth and simmer for half an incense stick of time. The chicken pot is ready when you lift the lid and it smells so good that you'll drool.
Jiang Yanyi found a small casserole, filled it up and put some coriander in it, then asked Yang Xiu to take the casserole of chicken to Feng Shuo.
Considering that these chickens were sent by the neighboring palace, Yang Xiu ran errands without any complaints.
Perhaps it was because the old oil was so fragrant that Jiang Yanyi didn't even need to call for dinner, as everyone in the restaurant gathered at the kitchen door waiting to eat.
When Chu Shubao saw that there were instant noodles in the chicken pot, her eyes lit up instantly. When the meal started, everyone else picked up the meat to eat, but she was the only one who picked up the instant noodles with every chopstick with incredible precision.
If Chu Yangui stayed in the Chu family for too long, it would make Old Madam Chu suspicious. Jiang Yanyi asked Chu Zhong to bring Chu Yangui back a few days ago, and would only make some delicious food and send it to the Chu family from time to time.
Jiang Yanyi picked up a piece of chicken for Chu Yangui. Seeing that Chu Shubao was eating instant noodles crazily, he picked up a piece for her as well: "Eat more meat."
Chu Shubao slurped the instant noodles and shook her head: "I think the best thing in this pot is the instant noodles!"
Different from the instant noodles cooked in maocai at noon, this time the instant noodles are directly fried dry, with thick oil and red sauce, which is very easy to absorb the flavor. The aroma of the old oil and various ingredients is almost all integrated into the instant noodles, which is simply the essence of the whole pot of chicken pot.
Jiang Yanyi thought it was funny, and since Chu Shubao liked it, she just let her do what she wanted.
While eating, he couldn't help asking about Chu Yangui's homework. Now that the news of Feng Shuo's rebellion had spread everywhere, Chi Qing, as Feng Shuo's military advisor, was extremely busy every day and naturally didn't have much time to guide Chu Yangui.
Chu Yangui was stubborn, but Chi Qing was really poisonous. Chi Qing had worn away his inexplicable madness and he had become much more restrained.
When Jiang Yanyi asked, he answered truthfully, "I have finished studying The Analects. My senior brother said he would come and test me when Master is free. I don't know when Master will be free. Now I am reading The Doctrine of the Mean."
The old scholar also slurped up the instant noodles. Chu Yangui grew up under his watch, so he was quite proud of himself. He said to Jiang Yanyi, "Young Master is very talented. It's rare that he can finish learning the Analects so quickly."
Chu Yangui was praised, and Jiang Yanyi was happy. He said proudly: "Study hard, and I will stew an old hen for you tomorrow to nourish your body!"
Jiang Yanyi was thinking about how to eat the remaining chickens in the temporary chicken coop outside, from their feet to the tips of their wings.
***
Fengfu.
Although Duke Chen no longer wanted to be involved in worldly affairs, he would still give some advice if Feng Shuo rebelled.
His whereabouts have always been kept secret from the outside world. After all, he used two death row prisoners to exchange for the Mu brothers. If he had not retired early, he would have been impeached and imprisoned by his political enemies.
He wanted to find out the truth about the death of Marquis Mu Wu. Those who wanted to cover up the truth would definitely not let him succeed, and might even send someone to assassinate him after learning his whereabouts.
The fewer people who know his true identity, the better.
Therefore, when he appeared in Feng Shuo's study, there was no one else in the room except Feng Shuo and Chi Qing.
"… The emperor sent a message that Xipin could only be exchanged for one person from the Chu family." Chi Qing said with a headache: "Chu Changping is a man of justice, so he would not be willing to exchange only his son's life. Chu Chengmao is also a man of courage, shouting in front of the two armies, asking Chu Changping to exchange his cousin's newborn son."
After Lu Linyuan was saved, Jiang Yanxi put down the heavy stone in her heart and focused on returning to the capital to rescue Shangshu Jiang. When she learned that she would be sent to the emperor as a hostage, she seemed to know that there was no hope of escape and was very cooperative.
Feng Shuo looked at the defense map without raising his head, his eyes and eyebrows were all cold: "Didn't the emperor send a spy to rescue us? Cut off the spy's finger and send it back to him, saying that it was Concubine Xi's. Let's see if he will let it go."
This method is not really to hide the truth from the new emperor, but to deter him and let him know that the people he sent have been caught. The next thing to be chopped off may be Jiang Yanxi's fingers.
Chi Qing sighed: "I thought you were sinister enough, but I didn't expect you to be even more sinister than me."
Feng Shuo gave him a look, and he shut up instantly. After a while, he said to Duke Chen who was leisurely drinking tea beside him, "Old man, please say something."
Duke Chen lifted his eyelids and glanced at Chi Qing: "Aren't you talking very well? What do you want me, an old man, to say?"
Chi Qing was so angry at him that he lost his temper.
Duke Chen glanced at Feng Shuo's map and said, "Taking Yuzhou is not a long-term solution to protect the grain route. It is not difficult to intercept the grain and grass along the water route to Yuzhou."
Feng Shuo said: "West Province is bitterly cold and not a grain-producing area, and the surrounding counties are not wealthy. If we forcibly collect grain, the people will complain at best, and starve to death at worst. For now, we can only do our best to protect the grain route."
Of course, there is a safer way. He can move his army back to Yuzhou. Yuzhou is adjacent to Hengzhou. He has the strongest army and the most abundant supplies. No one can shake him. But in this way, Xizhou will lose its garrison, and almost the entire northern gate will be handed over to others.
Once Xizhou is lost, no army in the three states and twenty-seven cities to the south will be able to resist the attack of the Turks. By then, the entire northern border will be littered with corpses and blood.
He now seems to be the most powerful among the rebel kings, but once his food supply is robbed, it will be like having his throat strangled.
This is an unsolvable dead end, unless he is willing to bear the infamy for thousands of years and abandon the entire North.
Just when the atmosphere was becoming tense, Xing Yao pushed the door open and said that Jiang's restaurant next door had sent some food over.
Even though the casserole was covered with a lid, the fragrance still wafted out.
Feng Shuo was tired from reading official documents, so he asked Xing Yao to set the table.
Duke Chen was the first to pick up a piece of meat. He quickly put it into his mouth. The marinated and stir-fried chicken was fragrant, tender and rich in flavor. He praised: "This chicken is so delicious!"
Feng Shuo looked at the master and disciple who were eating voraciously, resisted the urge to throw them out, and started eating without changing his expression.
The study is far away from Jiang Yanyi's yard, and his taste buds are not very sensitive, which makes Feng Shuo feel bad at all.
Chi Qing noticed that Feng Shuo had a dark face the whole time, so he very tactfully gave up the meat and picked out the vegetarian dishes that Feng Shuo didn't like. However, Feng Shuo's expression didn't improve. He couldn't help but suspect that Feng Shuo didn't want others to eat the dishes cooked by Jiang Yanyi
Although his mind told him that he should not pick up the chopsticks again, he still couldn't control his hands.
Duke Chen ate the chicken happily, and finally thought of the dozen chickens he raised in his thatched cottage: "Have you sent someone to catch my chickens for me? I will live here and teach my little apprentices from now on, so I won't have the time to go back and take care of them. I raised each of them from chicks, and I have deep feelings for them."
Feng Shuo said: "I have sent it to Jiangji."
Chi Qing, who was enjoying his meal, suddenly realized something. He looked at the chicken in the casserole, then looked at Duke Chen, and seemed to be hesitant to speak.
Duke Chen glared at Chi Qing and asked, "Why are you looking at your master?"
Chi Qing pointed to the piece of chicken in his bowl and said, "This might be the chicken you raised."
Duke Chen was stunned for a moment, then ate the piece of meat without hesitation.
Chi Qing: "Aren't the feelings deep?"
Duke Chen smacked his lips with a satisfied look on his face, "Yes, tomorrow I'll have to ask that girl to kill two more chickens to accompany it."
The author has something to say: Ji Zai: I was wrong after all!
The second one is still being written~
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