dognovel Chapter 67 Is it my problem or theirs?
Chapter 67 Is it my problem or theirs?
When Yang Shaofeng, the county magistrate, thought of pickled vegetables, that was the first thing that came to mind.
The Central Plains Hall has a long-standing tradition of pickling vegetables. Before his time travel, Yang Shaofeng, the magistrate, had eaten many kinds of pickled vegetables, such as pickled vegetables and pickled radishes from Sichuan and Chongqing, pickled mustard greens from Chaoshan to accompany braised pork trotters, pickled vegetables and spicy cabbage from Northeast China, and things like Fuling pickled mustard tuber. If all kinds of pickled vegetables were put together, it would definitely be three times more sumptuous than a Korean state banquet.
However, if we were to talk about Yang Shaofeng, the magistrate of the county, his favorite food was still the spicy dumplings from Shandong that he ate in his childhood.
The so-called "spicy mustard greens" are actually a type of root mustard green, similar to a round radish. It is a cruciferous plant with many common names, including mustard greens, spicy vegetables, mustard heads, radish greens, radish heads, taro heads, salted mustard greens, and mustard greens. When eaten without pickling, it has a slightly spicy taste, but the spiciness becomes much milder after pickling.
In Yang Shaofeng's childhood memories, when adults didn't feel like cooking, they would take a spicy pickled vegetable from the pickle jar, finely slice it into strips, drizzle a few drops of soy sauce and sesame oil on it, and mix it up with a little bit to make a dish. If they were more particular, they would also add some shredded green onions. The flavors of the green onions and pickled vegetable strips blended together, and a small dish of spicy pickled vegetables was enough to make you eat a big steamed bun or a big bowl of rice.
By the way, it's May now, and in a few days people can start planting cucumbers. Once the cucumbers have ripened, they can be pickled in soy sauce, making a very appetizing and refreshing side dish.
There are also salted duck eggs and salted chicken eggs.
Thanks to Emperor Zhu Chongba and Emperor Zhu Biao, the Executive Vice Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, there are now more than a thousand ducks and more than a thousand chickens in Ningyang County, and more than half of them are females. Every day, one or two hundred duck eggs and chicken eggs can be collected from the farm, and they can be pickled into salted eggs once the salt is available.
However, spicy pickled vegetables, pickled cucumbers, salted duck eggs, and salted chicken eggs are ultimately just pickled vegetables. People in Ningyang County can pickle them, and people in other places can pickle them too. It is unlikely that you can make money from this stuff.
What truly gave Magistrate Yang the hope of making a fortune was canned food.
Then, Magistrate Yang Shaofeng spat angrily.
The best way to make canned food is with tinplate or glass bottles, but Ningyang County, such a tiny county, can't produce either tinplate or glass bottles. As a time traveler, Magistrate Yang Shaofeng's knowledge in this area is a disgrace to time travelers. It's already quite difficult for him to even know the term "tinplate," let alone expect him to study steelmaking and glassmaking.
If we're just using ceramic jars, then some merchants in later generations can use ceramic jars to sell fermented bean curd. There's no reason why I, Magistrate Yang, can't use ceramic jars to make canned goods and then sell them to Xu Da and Chang Yuchun.
After all, these two guys are going to launch a northern expedition, and the army will definitely need a lot of canned food.
And it's not just canned goods; fried noodles can also be prepared in advance, with some salt and other random ingredients, such as bean flour and locust powder, and then sold to Xu Da and Chang Yuchun.
That doesn't seem right either. Ceramic jars are easy to use, and sealing them is also easy, but what exactly is the process? Is it simply cooking the food first, then putting it into the jar and sealing it? Or is it putting the raw food directly into the jar and then steaming it at high temperature? Or is it cooking the food first, putting it into the jar, and then steaming it again? Does it need to be sealed during steaming?
After thinking for a long time without coming up with a solution, Magistrate Yang Shaofeng simply left his study. He first went to find the woman who worked as a cook in the county government office, told her the general method of making fried noodles, and asked her to fry some first. Then he went to the front yard of the county government office and asked the yamen runners on duty to find some sealable ceramic jars.
Then, Magistrate Yang Shaofeng returned to the kitchen in the backyard of the county government office and patiently waited for the kitchen to prepare his version of fried noodles.
In the kitchen, the cook was stir-frying locusts in a dry pan without oil. Seeing Magistrate Yang enter the kitchen, she couldn't help but purse her lips and say, "Sir, are you really going to add these locusts to the flour? Just stir-frying them dry already tastes strange. If you add them to the flour, stir-fry them dry, and then steep them in boiling water, the taste will be even stranger."
Locusts are insects after all, and they're already emitting a strange smell during the drying process. It's impossible for them to be completely odorless when you brew them with boiling water later.
But Yang Shaofeng waved his hand dismissively, turned around and walked to a shelf in the kitchen, reached out and took out a jar of peppercorns: "Perfect, I'll roast some more peppercorns later, grind them into powder, and add them to the fried noodles."
Although spices were relatively expensive during the Hongwu era, only things like bay leaves and star anise were expensive. Sichuan pepper, on the other hand, was a spice native to China. There were probably a few Sichuan pepper trees in some nook or cranny of Ningyang County, and there were even more wild Sichuan peppers in the wild. It was not a rare thing at all, and people didn't feel bad using it.
What truly troubled Magistrate Yang Shaofeng was the seemingly insignificant salt.
Yes, when Chang Yuchun forcibly conscripted men from Magistrate Yang, he gave Magistrate Yang some refined salt. However, the stingy Chang Yuchun only gave Magistrate Yang a little over two catties of salt. After several months of consumption, there is now only a little over one catty left. After that, there will be nothing left.
As for the Ming Dynasty court sending salt soon... well, the salt available for sale during the Ming Dynasty was all coarse salt. The refined salt that Chang Yuchun gave to Magistrate Yang would never be available on the market; it was a high-end product that money couldn't buy.
Coarse salt means it's not pure enough, and no one can guarantee that there aren't any impurities in it. At the very least, Magistrate Yang Shaofeng didn't eat coarse salt from the Ming Dynasty.
Just as Magistrate Yang was pondering this, the cook had already dried the locusts.
The cook first laid the locusts out on the cutting board, then poured the peppercorns that Yang Shaofeng had just brought into the pot and roasted them with the residual heat. Then she used a rolling pin to grind the locusts into powder, and finally sifted it through a sieve.
After the locust powder was sifted out, the Sichuan peppercorns in the pot were almost roasted, and the aroma of Sichuan peppercorns began to spread in the kitchen. The cook stirred the peppercorns back and forth with a spatula a few times, then scooped up a few peppercorns, touched them with her hands, and then scooped them out and crushed them into powder.
Finally, there was fried noodles.
The cook poured flour mixed with some fine bran into the pot and stir-fried it without adding a drop of oil. When the flour turned slightly yellow, she added the previously sifted locust powder and Sichuan pepper powder and stir-fried them together. Finally, she added some salt and stir-fried it until it was evenly mixed.
Once the fried noodles had cooled down, Yang Shaofeng scooped some into a bowl and asked the cook to boil some water to make a broth.
Then, Magistrate Yang took only one bite and spat out the fried noodles in his mouth with a "pui" sound.
As it turned out, even though the aroma of Sichuan peppercorns was very strong, it still couldn't completely mask the smell of locusts. In addition, the fried noodles themselves weren't very tasty, and Magistrate Yang couldn't eat any more after just one bite.
The cook, who had been waiting to see the joke, chuckled and said, "I told you, these locusts have a strange taste, and they definitely won't taste good if you mix them into the noodles."
Yang Shaofeng spat again and cursed, "Damn it, what a waste of all this flour and salt."
The cook looked at Yang Shaofeng, then at the bowl he had placed aside, and felt it was a shame to just throw it away, so she couldn't help but ask, "Um, how about I try it?"
However, after obtaining Magistrate Yang's permission and tasting the fried noodles that Magistrate Yang had so vehemently rejected, the cook's eyes widened: "Delicious! So delicious! It has the aroma of Sichuan peppercorns, and a hint of burnt meat, plus the flavor of flour and salt, it's really delicious!"
Yang Shaofeng stared blankly at the cook, then at the bowl in her hand: "It smells really good?"
The cook nodded vigorously and replied, "Would I lie to you, sir? This stuff really smells delicious!"
Just then, Limpy Wu, who had already arranged for someone to deliver the official documents and memorials, returned. Yang Shaofeng immediately grabbed one of Limpy Wu's able-bodied men: "Brother Limpy Wu, try this stuff and see if you can eat it."
Limpy Wu took the bowl from the cook, took a small bite with a wooden spoon, and then widened his eyes: "It's so delicious! It not only tastes like meat, but also a little salty. It's so fresh!"
Seeing that both the cook and Lame Wu said it smelled good, Magistrate Yang Shaofeng didn't care about cleanliness at this moment. He took the bowl from Lame Wu's hand and smelled it.
After smelling it, Magistrate Yang immediately turned his head away, his face full of disgust: "What the hell is this stuff? It smells good? Are there something wrong with your tongues?"
Limpy Wu glanced at Magistrate Yang, then at the bowl in his hand, barely suppressing the urge to drool, and said decisively, "This stuff is delicious! If Your Excellency doesn't believe me, I can call others over to try it too!"
After Magistrate Yang nodded, Lame Wu immediately summoned several yamen runners who remained at the county office and had them taste the fried noodles in their bowls one by one.
Then, Magistrate Yang began to question his life – when everyone says this fried noodle is delicious, only I find it strange and unpalatable, is it my problem or theirs?
After pondering for a moment, Magistrate Yang Shaofeng simply pointed to the wooden basin containing locusts next to the stove: "There's locust powder mixed in here, and you still think it tastes good?"
Limpy Wu glanced at Magistrate Yang, looking completely bewildered, and asked, "So what if it's mixed with locusts? Didn't the magistrate himself eat roasted locusts before? It's just that one is roasted and the other is ground into flour, it's all the same."
Yang Shaofeng glanced at the lame man, then at the constables: "Is that what you all think too?"
The constables nodded in agreement: "Didn't the magistrate say that locusts are meat too, and meat is delicious? They're definitely better than bran and chaff."
Yang Shaofeng suddenly understood what was going on.
Having eaten too many delicious foods before his transmigration, and with the combined effects of advanced technology and grueling work, his appetite had become exceptionally discerning. Let alone fried noodles mixed with locust powder, even the imperial cuisine of Emperor Zhu Chongba would probably only receive a mediocre evaluation from Magistrate Yang.
But how many good things have the cook, the lame man, and all the constables ever eaten?
Just as the yamen runners said, locust meat is still meat, and it's definitely more delicious than bran and chaff!
However, this is also a good thing.
If Limpy Wu and his men haven't eaten anything good, do you think the soldiers under Xu Da and Chang Yuchun have?
Since none of them had ever eaten anything good, would the fried noodles that Limpy Wu and his men thought were "very delicious" also be delicious to the soldiers under Xu Da and Chang Yuchun?
After pondering for a moment, Yang Shaofeng suddenly chuckled and instructed the cook, "Stir-fry some more of these noodles to make a total of twenty jin."
"Fimp Five Brother asked a carpenter to make a square mold, lined it with a layer of oil paper, and then pressed the fried noodles into the mold. Then he took the pressed fried noodles and canned food to Xu Xiang and Chang Pingzhang's army and asked them if they wanted fried noodles."
“In this way, we won’t have to sell locusts separately anymore, and we can also find another way for the people of Ningyang County to make money.”
The cook immediately agreed and then started adding firewood to the bottom of the pot. Limpy Wu also asked someone to find a carpenter to make a mold, but he couldn't help but complain in his heart.
Xu Xiang and Chang Pingzhang were truly unlucky to have encountered a county magistrate like Yang Da!