That day, early in the morning, Li Qi said hello to Wu Furong and went out alone. As for where he was going, he didn't mention a word, but Wu Furong was already used to it.
Li Qi wandered around the city for a while, and after making sure no one was following him, he went straight to Wangchun Gate.
After leaving Wangchun Gate, we came to the eastern suburbs of the city. We walked a few miles and came to a blacksmith shop, a wooden house of about 40 square meters. There was a simple shed in front of the house and a large stove under the shed.
Next to the stove stood a large anvil.
At this time, three men were standing in front of the stove, working with hammers. They were a middle-aged uncle about forty or fifty years old and two young strong men about twenty years old.
The three of them looked somewhat similar, obviously they were father and son.
"Master Liu! Da Lang! Er Lang!"
Li Qi stepped forward and said hello.
"Master Li!"
...
When the three father and son saw Li Qi coming, they hurriedly put down what they were doing and went to greet him.
Liu Tiejiang rubbed his hands on the linen cloth around his waist, bowed and saluted Li Qi, and said, "Master Li, why are you here today?"
"I happened to have nothing to do today, so I came over to take a look." Li Qi chuckled.
Liu Tiejiang stretched out his hand in a gesture of invitation and said: "Master Li, please come to the room."
Li Qi cupped his hands, nodded with a smile and said, "Thank you."
"You guys watch here, I'll go in and talk to Mr. Li about something." Blacksmith Liu warned his two sons and invited Li Qi into the house.
Entering the house, I saw some ironware and some blacksmithing tools piled everywhere inside. There were iron filings all over the floor and it was very messy. There was a small wooden table and three wooden stools in the middle of the room. It seemed that they usually ate there.
There is a closed wooden door on the left.
After Blacksmith Liu asked Li Qi to sit down, he took out a bowl, poured a cup of tea for Li Qi, handed it over and said, "Master Li, please have some tea."
Li Qi looked at Blacksmith Liu's big black hands and felt a little nauseous. However, seeing how enthusiastic he was, he couldn't bear to ignore his kindness. He took the tea, took a small sip, and said, "Master Liu,
How much have you done?"
Blacksmith Liu hurriedly said: "Thirty-two, there are still sixty-eight left."
I didn’t expect it to be made by hand and very quickly.
Li Qi nodded with satisfaction and asked: "How many days will it take?"
Liu Tiejiang thought for a while and then said: "I'm afraid it will take another twenty days."
"Twenty days?"
Li Qi frowned and thought for a while, then said: "Okay! By the way, where do you put the things you've already made? I want to take a look first, but I don't know if it's convenient."
"Convenient, convenient. Master Li, please come with me."
Blacksmith Liu stood up and led Li Qi to the closed wooden door. When he opened the door, he saw a piece of white cloth.
Blacksmith Liu lifted up the white cloth, and there were dozens of iron pots of the same size piled under the white cloth.
The body of the pot is round, about one foot in diameter. There is a conical iron pipe in the middle of the pot that is more than ten centimeters high. The base of the pot is also made of iron, ten centimeters high and fifteen centimeters in diameter. It is also conical with a narrow top.
The bottom model is hollow inside and has a round hole, not too big or too small, just big enough to put a fist in.
Li Qi picked one up, looked at it carefully, and tapped it lightly with his hand. He only heard a few "dang-dang-dang" sounds, which were very clear.
After looking at it for a while, Li Qi suddenly put down the iron pot, sighed and shook his head.
"Master Li, did you do something wrong?" Liu Tiejiang asked with worry on his face.
Li Qi was slightly startled, then smiled at Blacksmith Liu and said, "Very good, I'm very satisfied."
Having said that, Li Qi actually had a lot of dissatisfaction with this iron pot. For example, the weight of the iron pot was far beyond his expectation. However, today's technology is just like this. It is already very difficult to make it like this.
That's right, and he originally hoped to use copper as the material, but the imperial court had already issued a ban on copper, and he didn't dare to go against the imperial court, so he had to use iron instead.
After hearing this, Tiejiang Liu immediately turned from worry to joy and laughed a few times.
Li Qi took out a few ingots of silver from his pocket, handed them to Blacksmith Liu and said, "Here are ten taels of silver. You accept it first. When everything is completed, I will give you another twenty taels."
Liu Tiejiang hurriedly took the silver and laughed. This was already the second payment Li Qi gave him. He had given him ten taels at the beginning. In total, Li Qi would pay him a total of 10 taels.
He was forty taels, which was a big deal for Liu Tiejiang. How could he not cherish it? He nodded and promised, "Hey, Mr. Li, don't worry. Our father and son will help you finish this business as soon as possible."
One hundred iron pots."
Li Qi shook his head and said: "I'm not in a hurry now. The most important thing is to ensure the quality - oh, just do it carefully."
"Hey, I understand this." Liu Tiejiang nodded.
Li Qi nodded and warned: "Except for you three father and son, I don't want anyone else to know about this, and I don't want anyone else to see these iron pots."
Li Qi had already said this when he came on the first day, otherwise Blacksmith Liu would not have covered the iron pots with white cloth, nodded and said: "Don't worry, Mr. Li, I know what to do.
"
"That's alright! Just go ahead and get busy, I'll go back first."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
After coming out of the blacksmith shop, Li Qi looked up to the sky and let out a long breath.
Obviously, those iron pots are old-fashioned charcoal hot pots.
hot pot!
This dish with Chinese characteristics will become a key factor in whether Zuixianju can successfully launch its first shot, and it is also a crucial card in Li Qi's hand.
Although during the Northern Song Dynasty, hot pot was available in taverns in Kaifeng, Bianjing, in winter.
But it has not yet been popularized, and the culture of hot pot is still in its infancy. The taste is monotonous, and the essence of hot pot is not understood at all.
However, Li Qi, a chef who came back from 900, is really familiar with hot pot.
He can cook Chongqing spicy hot pot, Beijing mutton shabu-shabu, Guangdong seafood hot pot, and more than ten kinds of nationally famous hot pot, and the taste is very authentic. Not only that, he also cooks even the more famous foreign hot pots.
He had dabbled in it, and he originally wanted to learn from Japan's paper hot pot, but unfortunately, he didn't know what kind of material that special paper was made of, so he had to give up.
Just the word "hot pot" contains hundreds of kinds of dishes, which are flexible and can satisfy most guests with different tastes at the same time.
But this is not the reason why Li Qi chose hot pot.
Nowadays, he is the only one in Zuixianju who can be regarded as a qualified chef. The current level of Wu Xiaoliu and the Zhuzhu brothers can only be regarded as a handyman at best. In the past, Li Qi would never allow people of this level.
Entering his "field", but now he can only accept this fact.
It's not like Li Qi has never thought about recruiting chefs from outside, but those chefs with superb cooking skills have already been hired away by other restaurants or wealthy gentry, and he doesn't trust people he doesn't know well. Who knows?
Are they spies sent by other restaurants?
If the cooking skills of a team of chefs in a restaurant are too different from each other, this is definitely not possible.
That’s why Li Qi chose hot pot.
Because it does not require many people to prepare the hot pot base, he can do it by himself. In this way, he can control the entire kitchen more calmly.
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