Yang Dingbang came home from get off work and told Lin Lan what Ye San had confessed and asked her to be careful about Liu Jinbao.
Lin Lan nodded: "Don't worry, I won't go anywhere else except setting up a stall and cutting cow grass at the foot of the mountain."
"Okay, be careful yourself. If something happens and I'm not here, you can ask Xiang Yang for help." Yang Dingbang said.
Lin Lan said gratefully: "Thank you Dingbang, you and Xiangyang have helped me a lot."
"You're welcome, sister-in-law." Yang Dingbang smiled and rode home.
Lin Lan never paid attention to Ye San's affairs since then. She was busy preparing the ingredients for making mooncakes, buying duck eggs to marinate salted duck eggs, flour, glutinous rice, white sugar, rock sugar, honey, melon seeds, sweet almonds, black and white sesame seeds...
After the glutinous rice is soaked and swollen, grind it into rice pulp with a stone mill, put it into a cloth bag and hang it from the beam. The water will drip off, break it into small pieces and put it on a drying mat to dry. In the crisp autumn air, it will be completely dry after two days in the sun.
Everything was ready, it was already the end of July, Zhou Xiaohong told Lin Lan that the supply and marketing cooperative had started selling mooncakes.
Lin Lan took a look and saw that the mooncakes filled with brown sugar were only a dime each and cost two taels of food stamps. Others were not cheap and they had to queue up to buy them.
After everything was ready, Lin Lan started to make syrup. She couldn't find lemons, so she bought green oranges that had just come on the market as a substitute.
Take out some charcoal fire from the stove, put the sugar into the enamel basin, add water, stir it a little with chopsticks, bring it to a boil over medium heat, then add the green orange juice, simmer over low heat slowly, it took nearly an hour, the syrup
Boil it until it turns amber, put it in a porcelain basin, cool it, put it into a clay pot and store it tightly.
Wash the ham, peel it, rinse it several times with water, soak it in water for two to three hours, cut it into thick slices and steam it in a pot for twenty minutes.
Cool the steamed cloud legs and cut them into mung bean-sized pieces, add honey, mix well, put them in a vegetable basket and marinate them overnight.
The next day, pour the flour needed for the filling into the pot, stir-fry over low heat until the flour turns yellow and exudes a faint wheat aroma, shovel it into a basin and let it cool.
Lin Lan began to make the mooncake skin. Pour the honey, powdered sugar, and water into a porcelain basin and mix evenly. Finally, use a fine sieve to sift in the flour and mix well. Then add lard, baking powder, and baking soda, mix well, and sift in an appropriate amount of flour.
, knead it into a smooth dough, cover it with a large wooden basin and let it rise for half an hour. After it rises, divide it into appropriate small doughs.
Take out the marinated ham cubes, add winter melon sugar and mix well. Then add lard and powdered sugar to the ham cubes in sequence and mix well. Gradually add cooked flour according to the dryness and humidity of the stuffing, mix well, and divide into appropriate amounts.
Lin Yuezhen looked at her movements and felt that she was as skilled as a master who had been doing it for decades, and it was not like she was making it for the first time. There was no pastry master in the Lin family, so when did she learn to make these pastries?
The cake is so well made.
Lin Lan raised his head and saw her looking at him thoughtfully. Then he realized that he had been exposed. He laughed twice and said: "You know I am greedy. When I was studying in the town, I pestered the master in the cafeteria to learn a few tricks.
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When I got married here, Yang Laoyao didn’t care about me. I went to the scrapyard to buy recipes and learned how to make them. Maybe I was born to be a craftsman, and the cakes I made tasted good."
Lin Yuezhen laughed after hearing this, laughing that she had been greedy since she was a child, and in the end it became her cooking skill.
Lin Lan smiled and divided the risen dough into small doughs weighing about 7 yen each. After flattening them, she put the kneaded filling into the mooncake skin, slowly pushed it up with the thumb of her hands, and finally tightened it tightly and kneaded it.
After rounding, press lightly and a ham mooncake dough will be ready.
Twenty-four mooncakes were placed on a baking tray. After it was filled, Lin Lan used a seal dipped in red food coloring to stamp the mooncakes. When all four baking trays were filled and the temperature of the oven came up, Lin Lan placed
Place in baking pan and bake.
She took off her watch and handed it to Lin Yuezhen: "Sister, follow the time I marked and take out the baking pan as soon as the time is up."
Lin Yuezhen nodded, took the watch, and put the baking pan into the oven according to the time recorded by Lin Lan. When the time was up, she took out the baking pan and saw the ham mooncakes in the baking pan. The skin was golden, and her appetite was whetted just by looking at it.
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She happily carried the baking pan into the kitchen and gestured to Lin Lan with a smile on her face: "It smells good and looks good."
Lin Lan took a look at it and thought it was quite successful. She smiled and said, "Let it cool down a little and then you can eat it."
After cooling for a while, each person tasted a piece. The aroma of the ham burst out after one bite. The shell was crispy and melted in the mouth. The ham filling inside was salty and sweet, sweet and salty, and very delicious.
Lin Yuezhen gave Lin Lan a thumbs up. She felt that she was in her thirties and it was the first time she had eaten such delicious mooncakes. She felt that Lin Lan was born to make food.
Lin Lan looked embarrassed: "Of course, you don't even know who I am!"
The two of them made all the ham mooncake bases, baked them all, wrapped the ham mooncakes two by one, put them into baskets, and started making egg yolk mooncakes.
After the salted egg yolk is separated, soak it in cooked vegetable oil for one night, take it out and put it on a baking tray. Pour some white wine into the egg yolk to remove the fishy smell. Put it in the oven and bake it for a few minutes until the bottom of the egg yolk is slightly oily. Take it out and cool it for later use.
Flatten the prepared kidney bean filling and sandwich the egg yolk in the middle. Knead it into a round shape and set aside. Roll the dough into long strips, cut into pieces, flatten and add the filling. After the filling is ready, brush a little oil on the mooncake mold and cut the mooncake base.
Put it into the mold and press it into shape, bake it in the oven for a few minutes, then brush it with egg yolk and bake it.
After making a batch of ham and egg yolk mooncakes, Lin Lan next made five-nut and bean paste mooncakes.
After Yang Liying came to taste it, she said that she had only bought the ones with bean paste filling and brown sugar filling, and the mooncakes made by Qualinlan tasted better than those from the supply and marketing cooperative.
Lin Lan asked Zhao Dehai to make a bamboo basket, put a few envelopes of each flavor of fermented bean curd, dried mushrooms, and moon cakes brought back by Lin Yuezhen, and mailed them to Lao Chen according to the address that Lao Chen sent.
Within a few days, I received a package from Lao Chen. There was also a letter in it saying that he had returned to a certain university to take up a position. He also gave Lin Lan an address in this city and asked her to go there to find Chen Dong if anything happened.
In the afternoon, the freshly made mooncakes were divided among brothers Zhou Xiaohong and Wang Zhixue, and the three of them left some for Lin Lan to set up a stall.
Lin Lan brought a vegetable plate and a wooden board and went to the eucalyptus forest with Lin Yuezhen carrying a backpack on his back.
Put the wooden board on the back of the folder, place an envelope of mooncakes on the wooden board, and wrap a big red paper on the brown kraft paper. It looks festive.
Lin Lan cut up several flavors of mooncakes and put them on plates for everyone to taste.
When Li Wu and others saw Lin Lan setting up moon cakes, they all told her to buy them for the festival.
The woman who often comes to buy cakes and orchid beans tasted it and said with a smile: "Yes, it tastes better than the five kernels from the supply and marketing cooperative. Give me two of the same and take them back to give them a taste before coming back."
Lin Lan said enthusiastically: "If you want to send a Christmas gift, you can make a reservation in advance, and I will make fresh ones for you."
The woman smiled and nodded: "Okay, I will make a reservation in advance when the time comes."
When closing the stall, Lin Lan gave him the mooncakes she made for Li Xiangyang in the basket, and said with a smile: "I added ingredients to your ham mooncakes, I guarantee your satisfaction."
Li Xiangyang looked at her with a smile: "I don't care if you lose money!"