[Red Mansion] A little chef came to the Grand View Garden

For a moment, Baochai reminded Liu Mei that she was startled, and hurriedly carried the food box in her hand into the hall, pretending to be okay, and asked: "Grandma, third girl, this 'autumn wind rises', it's better to put it here Is it?"

All the "poets" in Qiushuangzhai have just put down their pens and commented on their poems.When they heard Liu Mei say that the dishes are available, they were very curious, and with a "hula", they all rushed outside.

Earlier, the small kitchen delivered everyone's meals, and now they are placed in the main hall of Qiushuangzhai.But everyone is more concerned about the food box in Liu Mei's hand.

Liu Mei opened the food box and took out the contents of the first layer.

I saw a pair of silk-wrapped white agate dishes, which contained two kinds of fruits: red water chestnut and chicken head rice respectively. They were only boiled in clean water, and they didn't even need seasoning. It looks very bright.

Everyone said "Oh", only Baoyu gave a loud praise "Okay!"

All the girls in Qiushuangzhai looked at Baoyu, and Baoyu lowered her volume, "The colors match beautifully..."

Liu Mei said with a smile: "Second Master Bao, these are just a few snacks that are served, and it's not yet the dish that the third girl ordered!"

Baoyu didn't feel embarrassed at all, just smiled at Liu Mei, clapped his hands and said, "It's really fragrant, Meier, don't make us wait!"

Yingchun, who was sitting next to him and kept silent, also said, "It's really fragrant!"

She sat very close to where the food box was.

Tanchun laughed after hearing this: "It seems that I have to hurry up and order someone to pack the bounty purse. But, little girl, you have to ask questions about this dish of yours. If it's just two random autumn ingredients, I don't like it." I admit it."

Liu Mei smiled: "Third Miss, just watch!"

As she spoke, she lowered her head, opened the second layer of the food box, and took out a white porcelain bowl painted with green lotuses.

Inside is a fish soup, the fish soup is light milky white, the fish is sliced ​​into pieces, sinking and floating in the fish soup.The most surprising thing is that there is a layer of golden petals floating on the fish soup - it is the petals of chrysanthemums in full bloom in autumn.On the light white soup, there are golden petals floating, bright and eye-catching, really beautiful.

Liu Mei went to get the soup bowl, Li Wan hurriedly stood up and helped the people present serve the dishes.

"Is this perch?" Tanchun took the soup bowl in his hand, poked it out with a spoon, smelled the aroma, and suddenly came to his senses, enlightened.

Liu Mei smiled and said: "Yes!"

She immediately opened her mouth and briefly described the method of this dish: "This is to debon the sea bass first, put the fish bones and ginger slices in a pan, add oil, add cold water, boil the broth, and then filter out all impurities. Wait for the soup to boil Open it, take the fish fillet, boil it, season it with seasoning, then add the blanched golden chrysanthemum petals, and you're done."

"The banana guest has nothing to say, so he can only pack a big purse quickly, right?" Baochai next to him took a sip of the soup and joked with Tanchun with a smile.

Liu Mei quietly raised her eyes and looked at Daiyu.

Daiyu was also holding a small porcelain bowl, sipping a sip of soup, pursing her lips and smiling at Liu Mei.

Only Daiyu and Liu Mei know about this matter.

That day in the other courtyard of Beijing, Daiyu told the story of "Thoughts of water shield perch" in front of Liu Mei in the dowager concubine of Beijing Jing. Township" story.Liu Mei made water shield soup that day, but unfortunately there was no sea bass, so he had to use fresh fish from the local pond to make fish balls to match.

Now that the autumn wind is blowing, it is the time when the perch is plump.And Liu Mei's soup, also because of the allusion of "Thoughts of water shield perch", closely fits Tanchun's proposition of "autumn wind rises"-it's a pity that she can't get water shield at this time.

Earlier, Daiyu winked at Liu Mei to remind her of this allusion.

As for Liu Mei, there is no reason why she can't remember.

Xichun next to him looked at the petals in the bowl, hesitated for a moment, took a sip, and asked, "What is this allusion?"

Sitting next to Xichun, Daiyu chuckled, and said, "Mr. Ouxie has forgotten that it is written in "Li Sao", 'drinking magnolias in the morning, and eating autumn chrysanthemums in the evening', now Isn't it at night? Wouldn't it be wonderful and elegant for us poets to gather together and imitate Qu Zi's eating chrysanthemums?"

After hearing this, everyone felt that it made sense, and they all praised Daiyu for how wonderfully she explained this dish for Liu Mei.

But Liu Mei knew that adding these chrysanthemum petals to the soup would give the fish soup a fresh floral scent in just a moment.It's just that the amount of petals should not be too many, too many will lead to too cold, which is not good.

For a while, everyone tasted the soup, and most of them ate the green rice and other side dishes that were sent earlier, and finished their dinner.

Daiyu saw that the red water chestnut and chicken head rice contained in the silk-wrapped white agate dish were bright in color and extremely cute. She couldn't help reaching out and wanted to take one to peel.

Seeing this, Liu Mei hurriedly said: "Miss Lin, please let me do the stripping."

She was only afraid of the cold in Daiyu, fearing that such a cold snack like red water chestnut chicken head rice would be unbearable, so she quickly took another snack out of the food box, put it in Daiyu's hand, and said, "This is a small snack." The sweet-scented osmanthus sugar steamed new chestnut powder cake made in the kitchen, the girl will try this first. The red water chestnut and the chicken head are a bit cold, and the girl will taste a little less later."

Baochai next to him immediately turned to Baoyu with a smile, jokingly said: "Brother Bao, if others don't tell me, I will only think that this girl is a girl from Xiaoxiang Pavilion. Who would have thought that she is from Yihong Courtyard?"

Baoyu giggled and said, "Now I don't care about this girl anymore. Sister Feng asked her to help cook in the small kitchen. She is not a girl in my yard, she is our cook!"

Originally, Li Wan and the others really didn't know about Liu Mei's help in the small kitchen. Hearing Baoyu's words, they were surprised at first, and then admired.

Baochai suppressed her smile slightly.

She remembered when she was in Lixiangyuan a few years ago, and felt that Liu Mei was a good talent at that time, but she just missed it at that time.

Liu Mei didn't speak, nor did she show any complacency, she just silently helped to peel off a large plate of red water chestnuts and chicken heads, but put them far away from Daiyu.When Baochai looked at it, she looked up to Liumei even more, and felt sorry for it secretly.

In the end, the golden chrysanthemum and perch soup with "autumn wind blowing" won a big purse from Tanchun.Liu Mei took it and handed it to Mother Liu, and left a little money in her hand, planning to make some decent snacks and bring them to Yihong Courtyard for everyone to taste when they get the materials next time, as a thank you Help block Aunt Zhao's "Grace of Relief".

But Liu Mei never made room for it.

The next day, Mother Liu complained that she was too busy, so La Liumei helped out in the small kitchen.

There is no other reason. Miss Shi Shi Xiangyun came to Jia's mansion and lived in Hengwu Garden, and she also proposed-to invite Jia's mother to enjoy sweet-scented osmanthus and eat crabs.

The preparation of this crab feast is very complicated, but it is also quite interesting.

Because the place where you can appreciate osmanthus and eat crabs is in the Grand View Garden, most of the things prepared for the crab feast the next day are stored in the small kitchen, and Liu Mu is in charge of the keys.

This time Liu Mei opened her eyes.

First of all, the wine, the Xue family brought in four or five kinds of good wine, plus what the Rong Mansion already had, there were so many of them, Liu Mei couldn't recognize them all.She could only distinguish rice wine from white wine, and after looking around, she thought of Daiyu, and asked her mother, "Is there any hot shochu?"

Mother Liu smiled and said, "It's enough to boil the wine a little bit, as long as you drink it, your body will naturally be warm. Here, that jar is made of wine soaked in silk juniper flowers."

Liu Mei took a sip of it and tasted it, but felt that it was okay, not too spicy, and it was much softer than the knife-burning Laobaigan provided by Jiang Yuhan that day, but after drinking it, as Liu Mu said, there was a hint of warmth in his chest immediately. meaning.

Liu Mei paused for a while, feeling that the alcohol was not too weak, she hurried to the side, fanned her face with her hand, turned her head, and saw a sea bowl carved with a wooden root beside her, which contained some kind of powder.

Liu Mei subconsciously reached out her hand to take a little out, brought it to her nose and smelled it - very fragrant, chrysanthemum, mixed with sweet-scented osmanthus... Liu Mei smelled it again, and finally found that what she was holding was mung bean noodles, she simply rubbed it A little bit, send it to your mouth to taste, it is very sweet.So she asked: "Mother, are you using this mung bean noodles to make mung bean cakes?"

Mother Liu replied from a distance: "Leave it alone, this is for washing hands when everyone eats crabs later."

Liu Mei quickly stopped, not daring to taste it anymore, but she also found it quite funny.

Look at the preparations in the kitchen, not to mention perilla, ginger vinegar, etc., and several of the huge steamer are also prepared.

But Mother Liu still wandered back and forth worrying, saying: "Eat crabs in the past, you just steamed dozens of crabs in a basket, and everyone ate them to make sure they were fresh, and that's it. Why do you have to serve crab dishes this year?"

Liu Mei was also very dazed when she heard that, she clearly remembered that the crab feast was freshly steamed big crabs, one cage after another on the ground.Whether it is the master or the servant girls in the mansion, they all eat by themselves.Why did the crop of crab dishes appear?

Just thinking about it, Lin Xiaohong came to look for Liu Mei, saw her, quickly pulled her sleeves, went straight to the back door of the Grand View Garden, and said as she walked, "Follow me, our grandma is looking for you urgently!"

"What's the matter?" Liu Mei was puzzled.

"Tomorrow's matter!" Lin Xiaohong was really anxious, she didn't care to say more, she dragged Liu Mei all the way to Sister Feng's yard.

"You wait here, I'll go and see if Grandma is free." Lin Xiaohong ordered, she put down her eyebrows, and went to look for Sister Feng in the inner room.

Liu Mei was alone, standing outside Sister Feng's room, and heard Lin Xiaohong whispering to someone inside.Liu Mei couldn't help but let go of her thoughts again.

For a while, Sister Feng's career line should be progressing smoothly!According to Lin Xiaohong, now Nahongshun Tower is making a lot of money, and it is the first signboard in the capital, but not many people know that the master behind the scenes is Sister Feng.

However, Sister Feng herself has not shown her face in the garden for some time.

It's not that she didn't want to come to Sister Feng's place... to communicate, anyway, the world affairs system is not there.However, inexplicably, Liu Mei felt that even though the system was not there, it was better for her not to act rashly—maybe the system was for her own good?

Liu Mei was stunned for a long time before Lin Xiaohong came out of Sister Feng's room.

She pulled Liu Mei and walked out of Sister Feng's yard. "Our grandma said that she is afraid that it will be inconvenient for her to see you, so if she has anything to say, let me tell you."

Liu Mei was startled when she heard this: Not only could she not communicate directly with Sister Feng, but even Sister Feng deliberately avoided direct communication with her, and Lin Xiaohong, a confidant girl, was caught in the middle.It seems that both sides have some taboos about direct communication.

Lin Xiaohong pulled Liu Mei to a secluded place, and said to Liu Mei: "Our grandma has only one order. She said that the cook from Xue's family will come in tomorrow, and the second wife will let Xue's family use the big kitchen. Grandma just said, we Small kitchen, you can't teach the Xue family to show off all the limelight."

In an instant, Liu Mei's heart was full of question marks.

Lin Xiaohong smiled awkwardly: "I'm just a messenger, and I don't really understand it!"

The two little girls were relatively silent for a while, Liu Mei thought of a possibility, lowered her voice to the lowest and asked, "Could it be, the old lady... doesn't like the Xue family being too popular?"

In this Rongfu, after all, the surname is Jia, not Xue, nor Wang.

Lin Xiaohong laughed twice, shook her head, and said: You ask me, who should I ask?

"Forget it, tomorrow we'll just follow Lian Er|Grandma's wink!" Liu Mei sighed.

Unexpectedly, Xiao Hong immediately followed up with the next sentence: "Don't think about it, our grandma will be sick tomorrow and won't come out."

Liu Mei: ...