Crispy little husband

It will be the fifteenth day of August, the annual Mid-Autumn Festival. On this day, people eat moon cakes, enjoy the moon, and reunite.

Su Xin decided that Xiaolu would make mooncakes at home, and let her uncle believe that he really knew how to make pastries.

As soon as she entered the kitchen, Su Xin was stopped by Aunt Chun: "Second Young Master, why are you in the kitchen? Are you hungry? What do you want to eat, I'll make it for you right away."

Aunt Chun and her husband Yuan San fled to Chong'an County a few years ago. Their son fell ill on the way, and spent all their savings to treat his son's illness. They decided to sell themselves, and happened to meet Tang Dong.

Tang Dong did not buy them, but hired them to do things, and gave them both a year's wages in advance. One was in charge of cooking, and the other was in charge of guarding the door and running errands.

With the money to treat the disease, Aunt Chun and Yuan San's son still couldn't be cured, and finally died of illness in Aunt Chun's arms.Aunt Chun and Yuan San were heartbroken when their son was gone. At that time, they wanted to die together with their son.

But in order to find a doctor and buy medicine for their son, Aunt Chun and Yuan San owed Tang Dong nearly 40 taels of silver. According to their wages, they would have to work in the Tang family for a year to pay off.

Tang Dong was kind to them, how could they seek death before paying back the money, the two settled down in Tang's house, and wholeheartedly helped Tang Dong take care of Tang's house.

A year later, the money owed was paid off, and Tang Dong persuaded the two of them to stay.

Aunt Chun's cooking skills are not bad, not as good as those cooks in Su's family who specialize in cooking, but the food has her own taste in it, and Su Xin likes it very much.

After Tang Xi and the others returned to the Tang family, Aunt Chun and Yuan San respected their family of four and treated Tang Xi and others as serious masters of the Tang family.

Perhaps because Aunt Chun and Yuan San were not real servants, they treat people with sincerity and enthusiasm, and will not make people feel flattering and false.

Su Xin felt that his little uncle was very good at picking people, and the people around him, no matter whether they were vicious or kind, simple or cunning at a glance, as long as Su Xin had been in contact with them, he felt that they were all good in nature, not ungrateful, obedient and vicious. people.

Seeing Aunt Chun looking at her nervously, Su Xin smiled gently at her: "Aunt Chun, don't be busy, I just want to see what's in the kitchen, and I want to make something by myself."

"You want to make things by yourself?" Aunt Chun looked at Su Xin nervously, "The work on the stove is rough, you don't have to do it, I'll do it."

Ever since Tang Xi and the others came back from Su's house, Su Yu and Su Xin had been recuperating in their room. Don't take the work on the stove seriously, but it was tiring. Aunt Chun was worried that Su Xin's body would not be able to bear it.

Another point is that Aunt Chun came from hard times. Although she didn't have to worry about food and clothing after coming to Tang's house, she still cherished food. She was a little worried that Tang Xi would waste food by tossing around in the kitchen.

Aunt Chun's thoughts can be seen at a glance. Su Xin, who doesn't look like a cook, suddenly entered the kitchen. As a cook, it is normal for Aunt Chun to be worried.

Su Xin believes that when he really does it, Aunt Chun will believe that he can cook: "Aunt Chun, I don't cook, I just make some pastries, don't worry."

"Oh, let's make pastries." Aunt Chun nodded. She knew that the Tang family used to make pastries and was quite famous in Chong'an County. Unfortunately, after the death of the Tang family's father, the owner, Tang Dong, couldn't make pastries.

After thinking about it, Aunt Chun asked cautiously, "Is there anything I need to prepare in advance? I'll go out after I finish it for you."

I don't know what kind of cake Su Xin is going to make, but no matter what it is, it is something from the Tang family or the Su family, and Aunt Chun dare not stay and learn it secretly.

Not understanding what Aunt Chun meant, Su Xin asked her a little strangely: "Aunt Chun, do you have other things to do?"

"No, I..." Aunt Chun didn't know how to explain, she was worried about being misunderstood.

Fortunately, Su Xin figured it out soon, he smiled and said, "It's okay, you can stay here, I'm just making some small things, don't worry about it."

In the future era of information explosion, any technology related to making moon cakes can be obtained from the Internet, which is not a secret.

"Okay." Aunt Chun nodded nervously, and she agreed to stay mainly because she thought that if the second son couldn't cook, she could pack up the used food later and feed it to her and Yuan San.

Having finally obtained the right to be active in the kitchen, Su Xin looked at the situation in the kitchen.

The kitchen of the Tang family was used to make pastries, so it was built very large, square and bright, with a spacious chopping board, which is very convenient for kneading and kneading dough.

Aunt Chun is diligent and loves cleaning. She cleans it almost every day, so there is no oil and dust in the kitchen. Su Xin is very satisfied with this. He casually asked, "Aunt Chun, do you have lemons at home?"

"Second Young Master, what are you talking about?" Aunt Chun frowned. Did she hear wrong or Second Young Master didn't make it clear?

Realizing that she made a mistake, Su Xin quickly changed her words: "Sorry, I didn't make it clear, Suan Guo, do you have Suan Guo at home?"

There are no lemons in Nanjing. There is a fruit called sour fruit, which is similar to lemons in both taste and shape. Because the taste is too sour, no one eats it as a fruit, but it is used for seasoning.

Aunt Chun occasionally used sour fruit in cooking, and she took out a fist-sized sour fruit from a basket hanging beside her: "Yes, there are, Second Young Master."

"Thank you, Aunt Chun." Su Xin expertly cut open the sour fruit, the pungent sour taste made his mouth salivate instantly, this feeling made him miss it a little.

Squeezing the juice of the sour fruit into a small bowl for later use, Su Xin said again: "Aunt Chun, please help me get some more alkaline noodles and a catty of dried red beans."

"Hey, okay." Aunt Chun couldn't understand what Su Xin was going to do. Alkaline noodles were used when making dough, and it had nothing to do with red beans.

The mooncake that Su Xin plans to make is Qiong-style red bean paste mooncake, a kind of mooncake between Suzhou-style and Cantonese-style mooncakes. The cake skin is composed of sugar skin and pastry. Not crisp, wide audience.

Considering that it is too hasty to make finished mooncakes in one afternoon, he plans to make two things first today: invert syrup and red bean filling for the sugar skin.

Making invert syrup is very simple. Pour water, sour juice, and granulated sugar into a clean pot and wait for the sugar to invert by itself.

Aunt Chun watched Su Xin pour half of the sugar into the pot with the sugar pot, she felt her heart stopped beating: "Second Young Master, this is..."

"Aunt Chun, the thing I'm going to make is called invert syrup. Remember, if the sugar hasn't melted, you can use a spoon or chopsticks to stir it a little bit. The movement must be gentle, and the sugar particles should not stick to the side of the pot, otherwise the sugar will melt again. Crystallization." Su Xin explained with a serious expression, turning a blind eye to Aunt Chun's surprised and pained expression.

Listening to Su Xin's immature voice telling her what was in the pot, Aunt Chun's heart gradually relaxed. Maybe Su Xin's expression was too stable, which made her want to trust him involuntarily. .

After a while, all the sugar melted in the water, and the water began to boil. Su Xin asked Aunt Chun to help turn down the heat and let the sugar boil slowly.

Then, Su Xin started to process the red beans.

At this time, the dried red beans had been stuffy in another pot for more than ten minutes. Su Xin scooped up the red beans with a colander and rinsed them in cold water.

Aunt Chun felt sorry for Su Xin washing the beans with those white and tender hands, and after asking Su Xin if she had no requirements for washing the beans, she took the initiative to take over the job of washing the beans.

Sitting on the side with a ponytail and watching Aunt Chun washing the beans deftly, Su Xin chatted with her: "Aunt Chun, do you know why you have to wash the beans after cooking?"

"Why?" Aunt Chun was not a professional cook, and she didn't know the purpose of processing ingredients like this.

Su Xin explained: "Because beans have a beany smell and taste a little astringent, whether you are cooking soup or doing something else, it will be much better if you boil it for a while and wash it before cooking the soup."

Su Xin is very familiar with how to deal with the ingredients that are often used in making Dou Zi's pastries, but he is not so clear about the others.

Aunt Chun suddenly realized: "It turns out that's the case. No wonder the pumpkin and mung bean soup I made before said the taste was a bit astringent."

After hearing what Su Xin said, Aunt Chun's eyes on Su Xin changed. She was worried that Su Xin wasted food before, but now she is not worried at all. She believes that Su Xin can make delicious pastries!

Because the mooncakes made this time were to be taken out to convince my uncle, Su Xin asked Aunt Chun to cook and wash the red beans again before officially cooking the red beans.

During the washing of beans, another pot of invert syrup was almost boiled. Su Xin picked it up with chopsticks to check it a little bit. The color was light amber and a little sticky. The invert syrup in this state could be used to make mooncakes.

Temporarily remove the firewood under the sugar pot, Su Xin pours the alkaline water mixed with water into the syrup, and stirs a few times with chopsticks.

The moment the lye was poured down, the syrup began to bubble densely.

Aunt Chun's confidence in Su Xin just now collapsed at this moment. She looked at the syrup in the pot, her eyes were full of heartache, what a good thing, wasted...

Su Xin's approach seemed nonsense to those who didn't understand the principle, so he explained patiently: "Aunt Chun, there is sour juice in the inversion syrup just now, which is acidic and tastes sour, and alkaline water is alkaline. Neutralize the acid and alkali, the taste of invert syrup will be better, and it will taste sweeter than granulated sugar."

Aunt Chun, who was still heartbroken, didn't understand Su Xin's explanation. In fact, even if she listened carefully, she probably couldn't understand Su Xin's words.

After waiting for a while, the syrup stopped bubbling densely. Su Xin poured the syrup into a wide-mouthed white porcelain pot beside her, let the syrup cool by itself, and then added water to the sugar pot to continue boiling.

Su Xin saw that Aunt Chun was still distressed and couldn't say anything, so she smiled and said to her: "Aunt Chun, I'm fine here for the time being, if you have other things, go and do it first, I see You can cook the beans without boiling them dry."

Aunt Chun, who was worried about Su Xin, insisted on staying, and the two of them were speechless, so Su Xin picked a random topic of cooking to chat with her.

One person sees a lot and eats a lot, while the other has a lot of practice. When talking about what to eat, there are still some common topics.