Chapter 393: The first day of making sweet potato flour
For those who don't know, just looking at Lin Wanwan's current posture, they would definitely think that she is a farm girl with strong hands-on skills.
But everyone in Linjiazhuang knows that Lin Wanwan is actually a strong-mouthed king who grew up in fine clothes and fine food. If nothing else, at least when it comes to farming, she is really not very good, and she can't even dig the ground!
I heard from the clan leader that the method of making this powder cake was written in a book, probably a book left by Wan Niang’s master, but I don’t know if Wan Niang can make it successfully.
Maybe Mr. Xiao is here to help, after all, we are all scholars.
Lin Wanwan was so confident in making sweet potato vermicelli that she specially found her grandpa in the modern family who specialized in making sweet potato vermicelli to practice it.
Of course, in modern times, the last step of powder extraction is using an electric machine, but the machine Lin Wanwan got from Datang had the battery removed.
But the principle is actually the same, except that one uses electricity, which saves time and effort; the other uses hand cranking, which wastes time and effort.
When the children grow older, Lin Wanwan will give them physics lessons and teach them the concept of electricity. It is still early and they have to overcome the life without electricity.
The first step was to clean and sort the approximately 700 kilograms of sweet potatoes brought by Xiao Chong. Naturally, Lin Wanwan would not be asked to do the work. She was only responsible for directing.
Everyone first picked out a large, plump sweet potato with a smooth surface and no obvious defects, put it into a large basket, and then carried it to the water pool at the foot of the mountain, washed it repeatedly, and cut off some of the ends of the sweet potato.
After cleaning, it’s time to crush the sweet potatoes.
If we were in modern times, of course there would be crushers that could be used, but in the Tang Dynasty, we could only use ancient stone pestles and stone mills instead.
These two things are located next to the threshing floor and are the common property of the family (the existence of common property is necessary for a family to have cohesion).
Stone mills and stone pestles were invented by Gongshuzi Luban, a craftsman of the Lu State from the late Spring and Autumn Period to the early Warring States Period.
For more than two thousand years since its emergence, it has been an important tool that people cannot live without. It is usually used to pound rice, but of course it can also be used for crushing.
Shi Lei uses the lever principle, which is an extremely labor-saving method of grain production.
It is hard to imagine that during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period more than 2,000 years ago, the craftsman ancestors of the Chinese people had already invented such a scientific living tool, and it has lasted for thousands of years. Even in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, it was still in use in rural areas without electricity.
of.
The process of crushing sweet potatoes with stone pestles is naturally slower than modern electric crushers, but for the people of the Tang Dynasty, this was not slow at all.
Families and villages with poor conditions cannot even afford to build stone dams, so they have to rely entirely on manpower!
These living tools in Linjiazhuang were purchased when the direct descendants were rich and powerful. They are all in good condition, and they are not imitations made by the farmers themselves, but carefully polished by craftsmen.
Lin Wanwan looked at Lin Mengjin standing behind and to the side of the pestle, stepping up and down, and heard the pestle's head lifting and falling "dong-dong-dong", cracking the sweet potato in one stroke and breaking it into pieces in two strokes, which was very rhythmic.
, can’t help but feel very interesting.
"Cousin Meng Jin, let me try too!" After watching for a while, Lin Wanwan finally offered to go into battle in person.
"Okay, this job isn't too tiring, it's just boring." Lin Mengjin smiled and got out of the way.
Lin Wanwan stepped forward and tried it for a while. After satisfying her curiosity, she released her position so as not to disturb them and continued working.
"You have to add water while beating."
"Oh, okay."
You don’t have to watch the process of crushing sweet potatoes.
In order to speed up the process, in addition to using stone hammers and stone mills, everyone also picked up large wooden sticks for hand-pounding rice and went straight to it!
Lin Wanwan also wanted to work together, but everyone stopped her. Why would a cute little lady do such a rough job? It's not like there are no men in the clan.
Even maids like Huanong and Hongyan didn't want them to do such heavy physical work. How could they let Lin Wanwan do it?
With more people and greater strength, all the strong men of the clan went into battle. Even Xiao Chong was not idle, and he smashed 700 kilograms of sweet potatoes in less than an hour.
Lin Wanwan took a look at the sweet potato powder residue that had been preliminarily crushed manually and then finely processed using stone mills and stone mills. She felt that it was even better than what was crushed by a modern grinder!
"That's good. Now bring some cotton cloth to filter, sift out the residue, and then bring some clean wooden barrels to collect the powdered water."
Lin Wanwan continued to direct. Xiao Chong naturally understood this step. It was clearly written in the cake method chapter of "Essential Art of Qi Min".
It's just that although Xiao Chong knew it well, he didn't say much at the moment. He just watched Lin Wanwan commanding the clansmen vigorously, with an imperceptible smile at the corner of his mouth.
The process of filtering and adding water is relatively long. It needs to be left for at least six hours to allow the sweet potato powder in the water to settle. Then the water is poured out and an appropriate amount of water is added to remove impurities.
The cleaning steps are repeated every few hours.
Naturally, Xiao Chong didn't have time to wait. After having a dinner, he took Dugu Di and his servants and rode back to Xiaoxi Town.
Dugu Di spent the whole afternoon fishing and caught a carp that Lin Wanwan had put in to raise, and he actually proposed to make carp fish dumplings!
In the Tang Dynasty, Li family was the king, and Li Tong carp was prohibited from eating carp by Tang law. There is a record of "the law of the state and dynasty states that carp should be released even if it is obtained, but it is not allowed to be eaten."
However, celebrities in the Tang Dynasty didn't care about this rule at all! Not only did they eat carp in a different way, they also wrote poems that have been passed down through the ages!
For example, Bai Juyi's "There is a stove on the bow of the boat, cooking rice and cooking red carp", Wang Wei's "My husband Yu Le rides a horse, and the maid cooks carp on a golden plate", Quan Deyu's "The future begins when we leave our arms, Wei Si cooks".
Carp" and so on.
The nobles of the Tang Dynasty were so arrogant. Emperor, just give your orders. If you obey them, I will lose!
However, Dugu Di, a scholar of the Tang Dynasty, dared to eat carp sashimi, but Lin Wanwan did not.
She is not afraid of the Li Tang royal family, she is afraid of parasites!
Xiao Chong had eaten the pagoda candy given by Lin Wanwan, although he himself might not have discovered the parasite in his stomach due to his internal strength from practicing martial arts.
But what happened in Linjiazhuang was something he saw with his own eyes when he came to Lin Wanwan's house for dinner!
Since then, he no longer likes to eat fish meat made from freshwater fish.
Xiao Chong was very convinced of Lin Wanwan's attention to food.
Dugu Di didn't believe it, but looking at Xiao Chong's appearance, he had to hesitate.
Lin Wanwan might lie to him, but Xiao Chong would never.
In the end, Dugu Di gave up the idea of eating carp and squid, but since he caught it himself, he could still satisfy himself with a plate of steamed carp!
Huanong didn't listen to his suggestion to make steamed carp, but said to make a different kind - yes, it was braised carp with chili and pepper to remove the flavor!
It was the first time that Dugu Di tasted a spicy condiment like chili. He was almost burnt beyond recognition, but after the pain passed, he cried out that he was so happy that he finished a plate of spicy braised carp by himself, feeling pain and happiness at the same time.
Xiao Chong is still wary of chili peppers. The last time he was tricked by Lin Wanwan, he took a bite and it was almost too spicy to make him go to heaven, so he still doesn't like it.