He was betrayed at the beginning, from a cake seller to a wealthy person

The grain tax has been collected, and it's the Lu family's turn to hold a banquet.

Lu Yan asked Mrs. Xu: "How can we hold a banquet here?"

"They are divided into large banquets and small banquets. The large banquet usually has ten dishes, including six meat and four vegetarian dishes. The small banquet also has ten dishes, but it is a lot easier. It usually consists of dumplings, a big pot of dishes and eight large bowls." Xu said: " Usually when a wife is getting married, there is a big banquet, and everything else is small banquets, I guess our small banquet will be enough."

Lu Yan was stunned when she heard this. She once again suspected that this place was probably in the same area as her hometown before she passed away. You know, the county where her grandma lives is most famous for its Eight Bowls, which were even registered as intangible cultural heritage. Usually, a banquet is served with dumplings, a big pot of vegetables and eight large bowls. She has eaten this countless times since she was a child.

"Let's make a small table. Lu Sheng will have to take the exam in the future. If he passes the examination, he will probably have to set it up again. It won't be so big this time." Lu Yan agreed: "I know the eight bowls well, leave it to me."

The eight bowls are divided into four meat dishes and four vegetable dishes. The four meat dishes are steamed meat dishes such as elbow, pork belly, cubed pork, meatballs, cabbage meat rolls, rice noodles and meat. The four vegetables are mostly radish, kelp, Vermicelli, tofu, glutinous rice balls and other vegetarian dishes are four of them. In short, as long as you gather enough meat and vegetables, you're done.

Jiangmi is too expensive, so first exclude Jiangmi meatballs.

At first, Lu Yan thought it might be difficult to find kelp here, but later she discovered that there are seafood shops in the town, and there are counties in Hengzhou that are close to the sea. Seafood is not uncommon at all, and it is quite easy to eat it in other counties in Hengzhou.

There are no vermicelli here either. Lu Yan made the starch herself, so she had no hope of buying vermicelli. So I asked Mrs. Xu what the eight bowls here generally contain. Sure enough, most of the menu was the same as Lu Yan's, but instead of vermicelli, there was cabbage.

Making cabbage is not impossible, but Lu Yan wants to try homemade vermicelli. Vermicelli is not difficult to make as long as you have sweet potato starch.

Lu Yan went back to get another hundred kilograms of sweet potatoes. One hundred pounds of sweet potatoes were crushed to make starch, and about ten pounds of sweet potato starch was produced. Add water to sweet potato starch to make a starch paste.

Lu Yan asked Boss Lu to quickly make a wooden mold, which was square in shape, about one foot wide and one inch thick. Brush the mold with oil, pour about half a centimeter of starch liquid, and steam it in a pot. Wait until it solidifies, pour another layer of starch liquid, and steam it in a pot. Repeat this until the entire mold is filled and steamed thoroughly. Unmold the steamed starch, pour it out, and cut it into strips. The vermicelli is ready.

Finally, we settled on pork elbow, pork belly, cabbage meat rolls, couscous balls, vermicelli, tofu, radish, and kelp.

eight bowls

It was very troublesome to make eight large bowls of meat dishes. Lu Yan watched the chef make them at her grandma's house before. They boiled them first and then steamed them. Some of them had to be steamed twice, and some had to be simmered overnight, which took a long time. Fortunately, the official opening ceremony was in the evening, so Lu Yan had a long time to prepare.

The elbow must be prepared the night before. Put the big elbow into the pot under cold water, blanch it for half a quarter of an hour and take it out. Add oil to the pan and fry the sugar until it turns brown, then add the prepared spices. Stir-fry until the ingredients are fragrant, add water to the pot, simmer for a quarter of an hour, beat out all the spices, wrap it with gauze and tie it tightly. Add salt and soy sauce to the soup in the pot, add the elbows, add the ingredients bag, simmer for three quarters of an hour, and then simmer overnight.

After noon the next day, Mrs. Xu asked several ladies with whom she was close to come to the courtyard to make dumplings. Several temporary stoves had been set up in the courtyard, waiting to be used later. Lu Yan also entered the kitchen.

Except for the elbows, everything can be prepared on the same day. However, the processing methods of various ingredients are still different.

For example, when it comes to braised pork, Lu Yan had seen the chef's method of steaming it twice. Stew large pieces of pork belly in cold water for two quarters of an hour, then remove and leave two pieces for later use in the big pot. Spread a layer of soy sauce on the surface to marinate the rest, then fry in oil until small bubbles form on the surface. Take it out and cut it into thick slices. Put nothing in the pot and steam it for a quarter of an hour to steam out the oil. Pour this oil into another bowl and save it for later use. Steam the oily meat slices, mix them with soy sauce, salt, sugar, green onion and ginger, and put them evenly into a bowl. Boil water in a pot, add soy sauce, onion, ginger and prepared spices, boil for a quarter of an hour, take out the things, and pour the sauce into the bowl with the meat.

Meats and vegetables also include steamed balls. Unlike other steamed balls that are boiled first and then steamed, steamed balls need to be fried first. Add salt, sugar and soy sauce to the meat filling, form into small balls, and deep-fry until dark brown. Put the meatballs into a bowl and pour in the sauce you poured in when steaming the meat.

The meat dish also comes with a cabbage meat roll. Cabbage rolls are much easier to prepare, just blanch the cabbage leaves. Let it soften. Then spread the prepared meat filling in the middle, roll up the meat filling with cabbage, still put it into the bowl, and pour the sauce.

I took out the elbow that had been soaked in the soup yesterday, removed the bones, cut it into thick slices with a knife, and put it in a bowl. A big elbow can produce three bowls. Add some soy sauce to the original soup of the elbow stew in the pot, and pour it into the bowl with the elbow meat.

All four meat dishes were ready. Lu Yan put them one by one into the large steamer and took them to the courtyard to steam them. They need to be steamed for half an hour before they are ready.

In comparison, vegetarian dishes are much easier, and the only thing that needs to be processed in advance is tofu. Cut the tofu into thick triangular slices and fry in a pan until golden brown on both sides. Blanch and shred the kelp, soak the vermicelli until soft, and blanch and cut the radish into cubes. Set aside some of these items for later use in the big pot, and put the rest into a bowl. Vegetarian dishes also need to make a sauce. Use the soup used to cook the meat and stew the elbows, add salt, sugar, and soy sauce to taste, and pour it into the bowl with the vegetarian dishes.

Lu Yan put bowls of vegetarian dishes into another large steamer and took them to the courtyard to steam them. The steaming time of vegetarian vegetables is short, two quarters of an hour is enough.

All the eight large bowls are steamed, and the next step is to make a big pot of food. In fact, when I was making eight large bowls, I had almost prepared all the ingredients for the big pot. Just need to cut another Chinese cabbage.

Cut the pork belly into thick slices, put oil in the pot, add the pork belly and stir-fry until fragrant, add green onions and ginger slices, and then add soy sauce. Add cabbage, fried tofu, shredded kelp and vermicelli, season with salt and pepper, cover and simmer for a quarter of an hour.

Cauldron

The several pots here are all busy working, and Xu's dumplings over there are almost ready, with leeks and eggs, pork and green onions, pork and cabbage. Several people sit in the big pots to boil water, and the dumplings are boiling over the fire. After a while, the water gurgled. Mrs. Xu put the fat and white dumplings into the pot. After a while, the dumplings started to float up. Boil the water three times and the dumplings can be taken out.

Hahaha, I brought along a piece of dumplings that I made myself as a personal item.

The sky was getting dark, and the large tables set up by the Lu family outside the courtyard were already full. The neighbors were chatting with each other, waiting for the banquet to begin.