In the main room of the central courtyard, He Yuyu sat on a stool with his hands in his pockets, watching his brother draw circles with his feet in the room.
"Brother, can you stop wandering around? I'm so dizzy."
Silly Zhu's chest was heaving and he was breathing heavily. He had been jumping around in the room and scolding Zhou Wenzhong for a while.
"Oh brother! You are rushing to stand up for Jia's sister-in-law, what's going on!"
Silly Zhu angrily pointed his finger at He Yuyu and shouted: "Brother Dongxu lent us 10 yuan so that we could buy train tickets to Baoding. Have you forgotten about this? At that time you had already
Remembered!"
"But didn't you return it to him later?"
"Can this be the same? At first, everyone avoided us, but Brother Dongxu took out money from his pocket and lent it to us. Today, Sister Qin almost got slapped by that guy..."
He Yuyu rubbed his nose, feeling that if he stayed in this room any longer, he would lose his nose.
"Okay, okay. The door beam of Jia's family is still there. What's the matter with you standing up for her? You are not afraid of being laughed at by outsiders. Even if you are not afraid of being laughed at by outsiders, you still have to think about Brother Dongxu.
Think about it? There is no reason for Potian to stand up for other people’s wives. No matter what, we have to wait until brother Dongxu can’t beat Zhou Wenzhong, and then he can ask you to beat him together. This is justifiable."
He Yuyu frowned and opened two windows, then stuck his head out to breathe in the fresh air. The smell of feces in the yard was better than the smell in his brother's house.
"Rolling, rolling, rolling..."
He Yuyu turned around, moved his lips slightly, and walked out of Shazhu's house muttering.
Zhou Wenzhong was standing in the bedroom at this time, pressing his face against the door frame to check the quality of the Yan family's father and son's work.
"This work doesn't look like that at all. Let's just do it like this for today. Anyway, we have to apply dust twice. Then we can level it." After finishing speaking, Zhou Wenzhong wiped a handful of cement from his face.
"Then we can go, right?"
Yan Bugui's thirsty lips turned dry, and Zhou Wenzhong didn't even allow him to drink water for the whole day.
"Let's go, let's remember to come to work at 7 o'clock tomorrow morning."
"Okay." The three Yan family members agreed repeatedly, and then ran out of the courtyard as if running for their lives...
At 6:29 the next morning, the aunt ran into the backyard carrying the deaf old lady's breakfast. She looked up and saw that the door was open. She walked a few steps forward and looked into the house. She turned around and ran away in fright.
Zhou Wenzhong is currently sitting at the dining table of the old lady's house, holding a thick slice of green radish in his left hand. He is holding a knife in his right hand and carving peonies on it. The deaf old lady is sitting by the bed with her hands on the walking stick.
"Old lady, what do you think of me as a carver?"
The deaf old lady opened her eyes and quickly glanced at the vivid peonies in Zhou Wenzhong's hands. Then she closed her eyes and remained silent, pretending not to hear the inquiry just now.
Zhou Wenzhong didn't care about her attitude and said: "This radish flower should be steamed and dried 9 times. If it's drying, the main thing is to steam it! I have to find a lot of rose flowers, put them into a pot, crush them, add water and boil them
, put a steamer on it to steam the dried radish flowers, and then put the radish flowers in the sun to dry. After repeating this 9 times, the dried radish flowers will be filled with water vapor with floral fragrance.
.
Then use sea cucumber, scallops, scallops, chicken, duck, cuttlefish, mushrooms, beef leg bones and other ingredients to make a pot of thick soup. Throw away all the residue of the ingredients, reduce the heat to low, and pour the beaten soup into the thick soup.
Minced meat is used to absorb the turbidity in the soup, and the pot of soup will slowly turn into a brown clear soup.
Put the dried peony-shaped radish flowers in the blue and white porcelain bowl, and finally pour the boiled clear soup into it. While admiring the blooming of the peonies in the porcelain bowl, you can also smell the floral fragrance of the rose flowers, and finally drink it in your mouth
But it has a mellow and umami flavor. Do you think the [flower blooming wealth] I served at the Confucian banquet is more complicated than the [eggplant] cooked by your Tan family?"
The deaf old lady put her hands to her ears, pretended to be stupid and said with a smile: "What carvings are there? The carvings are good and beautiful!"
Zhou Wenzhong smiled, holding the carved radish flower in his hand, admiring the fibers inside through the sunlight outside the window.
"Haha... This Tan's cuisine is a famous official private dish in the capital, also called the second-ranked dish. It was created by Tan Zongjun, who was ranked second in the list in the 13th year of Tongzhi's reign, but it is undeniable that it is very niche. To put it bluntly, Tan Zongjun copied the recipe of Confucian cuisine.
, coupled with the expensive seafood soup from his hometown. He also praised it with a smile on his face: a new dish created by combining the advantages of two companies.
Tan Zongjun was from Nanhai, Guangdong. When he was an editor at the Hanlin Academy, he didn't want to shine every day. He always took his son Tan Zhuanqing to figure out how to eat and drink in Mutton Alley.
In the first year of Xuantong, Tan Zhuanqing moved his family from Yangrou Hutong to Mishi Hutong. He led his third concubine Zhao Lizifeng to inherit and carry forward Tan's cuisine, and transformed the family banquet into a banquet open to the public.
There was a saying circulating in the capital at that time. It was called: When it comes to theater, there is no one who can't learn the story, and when it comes to food, there's no one who can't praise it. The first half of the sentence refers to Tan Xinpei, and the second half refers to your mother's family's Tan family cuisine.
Around 1930, Tan Zhuanqing and his third concubine passed away one after another, and his daughter Tan Lingrou inherited the restaurant, leading the family chef Peng Changhai to run the restaurant together. From then on, the family tradition of Tan family cuisine began to be passed down to daughters.
But after liberation, Peng Changhai led Cui Minghe, who made cold meat, and Wu Xiuquan, who was involved in the white case, to defect from Tan's Restaurant and set up a new stove in Guozi Lane.
Until the public-private partnership a few years ago, Tanjia Cuisine was also merged from Guozi Lane into Enchengju Hotel in Xicheng District.
Finally, in 1958, Tanjia Cuisine officially settled in the VIP Building of the Beijing Hotel. Peng Changhai had an apprentice named Chen Yuliang, and I know where he lives now. Do you want me to bring him over to meet you?"
The deaf old lady's mouth tightened, and even the wrinkles on her face deepened.
"What did you say? I can't hear you."
"It doesn't matter, let me continue. Chen Yuliang had a cook named He Daqing who helped him. You will never forget this person, right? Although He Daqing didn't even learn the basics of Tan's cuisine, no matter what you say! He Daqing
You can be considered as a non-staff member of Tan's Cuisine. Even though Peng Changhai has worked for Tan's Cuisine for so many years, he never got the ingredient list of Tan's Cuisine, let alone the secret recipes.
I have to say that your niece Tan Lingrou has a really good grasp of the recipes. Peng Changhai has worked in Tanjia Restaurant for so many years, and he only learned some of the knife carving and cooking techniques in Tanjia cuisine. The soup ingredients in Tanjia cuisine are also
There is a special secret recipe, which is still in the hands of the serious Tan family.
Tan Zhuanqing is the second son of Tan Zongjun. He has an older brother and a younger sister. His Tan family cuisine is a method of innovation after innovation. To put it bluntly, it means that everything is put in it in a muddle-headed manner. If you want to say it, it is neither fish nor fowl! But the ingredients are the same.
The secret recipe has never changed, and he doesn't dare to change it. After all, it contains the life-long efforts of his father Tan Zongjun.
The youngest sister of Tan Zhuanqing's generation is named Tan Zhuanlan, and she is half-brother to him. She was born to a concubine that his father took after his old age. In addition, Tan Zhuanlan had a daughter after he was born.
She was very favored. Tan Zhuanlan later married a remnant of the Manchu Qing Dynasty in the capital as a concubine. This remnant belonged to the Aixinjueluo branch. During the Republic of China, the Manchus' hard-core crops fell, and he also changed his surname to Jin.
So what do I, Zhou Wenzhong, want in my heart? Old lady, you, the concubine of the Tan family, should be able to guess it. When I read books, I like to read the originals, and I don’t even read the manuscripts. At the same time, I don’t want either of us to
The relationship has reached its worst point. So you should be obedient and hand over the recipe first created by your father Tan Zongjun. My consistent style as a person, Zhou Wenzhong, is to destroy what I can’t get. Not only do I want to destroy the recipe,
I want to destroy people even more. Don’t you think so? Tan Zhuanlan!"
"Hahaha…"
The deaf old lady raised her head and laughed while holding on to her crutches, and her feet moved upward unconsciously.
"Okay, okay...ok. It's really difficult for you, kid. Not bad...not bad, you are considerate...not bad..."
"Thank you for your compliment. If it weren't for the fact that you wrote the surname [Qin] on the property certificate that day, I wouldn't have guessed it at all. I'm still wondering that Silly Zhu, who is so incompetent in his craftsmanship, dares to call himself Tan
The heir to the family dish, why no one has come to beat him up or talk about it for so many years. There is your reason for co-authoring this. I think about it, you helped He Daqing fake his identity, and you liked Silly Zhu, his grandson.
That's it. Let me tell you, changing your surname to a radical is really unnecessary, hahahaha..."
Zhou Wenzhong looked at the deaf old lady's incoherent expression and burst into laughter.
The two laughed for about 3 minutes, and in the end the deaf old lady was defeated because of her old age and frailty. Zhou Wenzhong, whose throat was dry, didn't feel very good, so he took out the 36-centimeter Codonopsis pilosula from his arms and held it in his mouth.
Replenish your energy quickly.
"Um…"
The deaf old lady closed her eyes and smelled the smell of medicinal herbs in the air, and finally nodded silently.
"Alas... people's hearts only have an inch, and there are storms day and night."
When Zhou Wenzhong heard the deaf old lady mocking him in disguise, he pretended to be deaf and put his hands to his ears. The smile on his face remained unchanged and he asked, "What did you say? It's difficult to travel on earth?"
"The next generation is to be feared! The next generation is to be feared!"
"Haha...Old lady, you are serious. I, Zhou Wenzhong, can achieve something because of the help of seniors like you. As for me, Zhou Wenzhong, a useless young man, I want to climb out of the pit.
How difficult it is! In addition to someone pushing me from below, I also have to be pulled by someone from above. Without either of these two, I can’t climb out. But..."
Zhou Wenzhong paused and pulled the stool under his buttocks to sit opposite the deaf old lady. Even the hair on her face could be seen.
"But recently, someone didn't want to reach out to grab me from the pit. If you don't want to help, I won't help. I can't say anything. But I was about to climb out, and the person above actually kicked me down. You always do the same.
Lord, tell me what I can do after having eaten it before. It’s hard for me to do it too!”
The deaf old lady took a deep breath and stared into Zhou Wenzhong's eyes. She said in a calm tone: "You can take away the recipe, but we will not infringe upon it in the future."
"The South Mountain does not depend on the North Mountain."
"We will never interact with each other until we die."
"good!"
The deaf old lady smoothed her hair back neatly with both hands. She didn't even take a walking stick. She stood up from the bed with strong legs. She walked to the window and opened the blue and white floral curtains, took off the bricks and took out a 20
A dark brown wooden box about one centimeter tall came over.
"This is what you want, remember what you said."
Zhou Wenzhong took the wooden box and put it on his lap. He opened the box drawer and found a handwritten book about 7 centimeters thick. The paper was slightly khaki, and the corners of the whole book had rough edges. It was obviously
There are traces of being read through for many years, and the thin binding threads on the sides have been broken in several places.
There are only two words "Tan Family" in the book. Zhou Wenzhong flipped through the book without a catalog a few times. The cooking methods in the book were not planned and organized, just like a thick notebook.
It records the methods of stir-frying, simmering, deep-frying, cooking, bursting, pan-frying, collapsing, sticking, stewing, roasting, grilling, boiling, crisping, braising, rinsing, steaming, stuffing, boiling, stewing, boiling, baking and roasting.
, smoked, stir-fried, pickled, drunk and other production techniques, it is like a collection of recipes from the Qing Dynasty. It should be that Tan Zongjun copied the recipes from all over the country while editing at the Hanlin Academy, and made some
Sort out and summarize.
The pages of the book introducing cooking are all full of changed handwriting, and there are a lot of ink pimples. It is most likely that he experimented with the recipes back then. Until the end of the book, he wrote down the secret ingredients of various dishes and the order in which they should be cooked.
I saw what he wrote to encourage future generations.
This book should be Tan Zongjun's original handwriting, which also records his impressions of certain dishes. There are several pickles and pickle recipes in the book. I have to say that Tan Zongjun's calligraphy is really beautiful.
He is indeed a person who has passed the second place in the exam. Zhou Wenzhong does not recognize at least 30% of the characters in this book. It may be that Tan Zongjun drank too much at the time, so his handwriting is very sloppy.
"I am very satisfied."
Zhou Wenzhong put the radish flowers in his hand into the palm of the deaf old lady. He put the stool under the dining table, walked to the door and said: "Don't reach out, otherwise you will be caught."
After Zhou Wenzhong said this, he turned around and left, gently closing the wooden door of the hall.
"Pfft...ahem..."
The deaf old lady sat on the edge of the bed, spitting a mouthful of blood from her mouth, looking at the bloody radish flowers in her hand. She didn't even wipe the blood from the corner of her mouth, she lowered her head and remained silent as if the oil had run out.