Li Qi sat on the threshold, staring blankly at the row of ants carrying food at his feet. Qin Hui stood beside him respectfully and told him the details of the incident in the court. Li Qi's face was expressionless again.
, hesitated for a while, and then said: "Sir, now we have to be on guard. According to my opinion, the Prime Minister will definitely come to us before long."
Li Qi said calmly: "Then what do you think we should do?"
Qin Hui looked around and whispered: "I think it is better to strike first than to wait for death."
"Strike first to gain the upper hand?"
Li Qi suddenly laughed and said: "I understand. You can go back first."
"yes."
Qin Hui didn't say much, turned around and left. He was a smart man and knew that some things should only be addressed as long as he said so. Talking too much would be bad.
Li Qi was alone in front of the door. After a long time, he suddenly let out a heavy breath, stood up, patted his butt, and with an inexplicable smile on his lips, turned his back and entered the imperial dining room.
At this time, the imperial dining room returned to its original appearance, and the nine boilers had disappeared.
But the imperial chefs were still busy and began to process the food taken out of Wuxiang. Now all the food used to stew Wuxiang has been taken out.
Zuo Boqing came over and asked in a low voice: "Is Qin Xuezheng leaving?"
"Um."
Zuo Boqing asked with concern: "What happened?"
Li Qiyi smiled and said: "It's nothing, it's just a trivial matter." After a pause, he glanced and nodded: "It's almost time, it's time to take the last step."
Zuo Boqing didn't ask any more questions. After all, he and Li Qi were not on the same level now, so he couldn't be of much help.
Li Qi made a round of inspection, and then sat next to an hourglass. He looked at the hourglass and saw that more than half of it had been leaked out. After a while, when the last grain of sand fell, he suddenly stood up and talked to Zuo Boqing.
With a glance, the two of them went out together and went to a large room next to the Royal Kitchen Room.
As soon as I entered the house, a blast of air-conditioning hit my face. I saw nine large bathtubs inside. The bathtubs were filled with a mixture of ice and water. In addition, each bathtub contained a large porcelain cup of different sizes.
, the middle one is the largest.
There was an imperial chef standing next to each large cup. They all held a ladle and scooped out some soup into the cup.
What they do is the so-called standing separation method. When the soup cools to zero degrees Celsius, the fat droplets dispersed in it condense and surface, and the oil molecules will also surface. What you do is to skim these things off.
.
Li Qi looked around each cup and saw that they were almost ready. Then he said to the several royal chefs on standby: "Bring the silk."
"yes."
After a while, more than ten royal chefs came in carrying ten large stew pots and nine high stools.
This stew pot is different from other stew pots. Its mouth is huge. The smallest diameter is two feet long, and the largest one is almost one meter. The big mouth is covered with a layer of silk as white as snow.
You should be able to tell at a glance that this silk is a tribute from Suzhou in the south of the Yangtze River. It is called Sujin, and it is a very high-precision silk. It is the only one of its kind and has no other branches.
It is the finest silk and satin available today.
Li Qi deceived this from the calculating woman Empress Zheng, and the process was quite difficult.
The imperial chefs arranged the stew pots and high stools neatly in two rows. There was a stew pot under each high stool, and the largest one was still placed in the middle without any movement.
When everything was ready, Li Qi said: "Get the cup!"
"yes."
After a chorus of voices, the imperial chefs lifted up the large cups in the bathtub and slowly placed them on the high stools. The movements were very gentle, but they saw that there was a small mouth sloping downward at the bottom of each large cup.
It was blocked by a porcelain stopper with a long string attached to it.
I saw the imperial chefs walking forward again with green bamboo. This bamboo should have just been obtained from the mountains. The luster is still very charming. It is about one foot long and thick, which is about the size of a thumb. They
First, the string was passed through the bamboo tube, and then the bamboo tube was put on the small mouth. The other end of the bamboo tube was placed on the edge of the stew pot, seamlessly connected with the silk on the surface. The imperial chefs all held it in their hands.
Holding the string.
This is the final step of Wuxiang, using the finest silk to extract the purest soup.
Li Qi asked: "Are you ready?"
"Ready."
"start."
After giving the order, the nine imperial chefs holding the string began to slowly pull it out.
"Remember, you have to do it slowly and don't put too much pressure on the soup."
A soft "plop" sound was heard.
Obviously the stopper has come out, but there is still no soup flowing out. After a while, until the stopper completely comes out of the bamboo tube, a wisp of clear soup flows out from the bamboo tube. Because the bamboo tube is not big and is different from silk.
They are seamlessly connected, so the clear soup has little impact on the silk.
The small wet mark on the silk instantly covered the entire silk, but because the soup was cold, the silk was still slightly compressed.
Zuo Boqing was very excited at this moment. Although he had learned not long ago that the key to formlessness was this piece of silk, this was something he had never imagined. Standing next to Li Qi, he said curiously: "Brother Li, do you use silk
Purification, I can understand this, but why do we need to arrange this last step, and we must wait for the soup to cool down."
Sweat! There is a lot of physics and chemistry knowledge here. Even if I tell you, you don’t understand it. This question is indeed a bit difficult for Li Qi. He thought for a while and then said: "Brother Zuo, I told you before,
After the soup is cooled and left to stand, it will divide into two polarities. The heavier one will sink to the bottom, while the lighter one will float on top. Although we have removed some that can be seen with the naked eye, there are some oil molecules---."
"molecular?"
"Well, to put it simply, it's oil." Li Qi wiped off his cold sweat, and then said: "In other words, there is still some residual oil on the top layer of the soup. This part needs to be discarded. That's why I
The reason why the opening is designed so low is that the liquid that flows out first must be the soup containing some large particles, and silk can completely isolate and purify these substances."
Zuo Boqing nodded as if he understood, and pointed towards the large unused stew pot. Then he asked, "Then why not just do it in one step and let the nine kinds of soup flow into the stew pot at the same time."
Li Qi shook his head and said: "No, if this is the case, then this dish will be ruined, because the soup is cold now, so some of the substances in it are solidified and left to stand. If they are mixed together like this, then it will not work.
Without effective fusion, the flavor cannot come out, so you have to heat them separately before adding the eight seasoning soups to the main soup."
Zuo Boqing really shook his head when he heard this, and said with emotion: "This is definitely the most difficult dish I have ever seen. Even if I were given another chance, I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to think of it, but it's enough to make this dish once in my life."
, even if you ask me to do it once a year, I’m afraid I won’t be able to bear it.”
Li Qi nodded in deep agreement and said: "Yes! This dish is indeed too tiring. The key is that its details are too complicated, and it cannot make mistakes. It must be done step by step, otherwise it will fall short of the other dishes.
, even if you mess up, you can start over, but this dish doesn’t have this kind of treatment. After today. I’m afraid I have to rest for several days to recover. We are all cooking with our lives.
ah."
Zuo Boqing suddenly said: "What if the emperor becomes addicted to eating?"
"Brother Zuo, don't scare me! If that's really the case, then there's only one way..." Li Qi raised his head and said sadly: "Kill me."
Time flies by, and in the blink of an eye, it is already evening, and the Wuxiang Banquet has begun. The lights in the Longting Garden are brightly lit, and the sounds of conversation, laughter, singing and dancing are endless.
This time the banquet was divided into two parts. The first part was held in the buffet style. After Wuxiang came up, it returned to the traditional banquet.
At this time, the group of dressed beasts in the court had all arrived in the Longting Garden. They stood together in twos and threes and talked. Did you glance at the breasts and thighs of the dancers? They were simply worse than beasts.
Among them, the most popular ones are undoubtedly Cai You, Tong Guan and Wang Fu. One after another, there are never fewer people surrounding the three of them.
"British Sir, congratulations, congratulations."
After Wang Fu finished dealing with those who showed goodwill and fawned over him, he walked towards Cai You with a glass of wine in his hand, raised his glass and smiled.
Cai You raised a glass to greet him and said: "We are happy together, we are happy together. Xian Xiang has reached a higher level now."
"No, no, all this is thanks to the British Duke and the Prince of Guangyang. If the two of them had not led the army in the front and fought bloody battles, how could Fu be where he is today." Wang Fu shook his head and said.
Cai You laughed and said, "Xian Xiang is too humble." But his tone was very proud.
Wang Fu suddenly said: "It must be the first time for a British prince to attend such a banquet, right?"
Cai You nodded and said: "Yes! But I have just heard that this is called a buffet banquet. It was created by the economic envoy. It is a bit interesting. It is also unparalleled in the world and it is really delicious."
He frowned and said: "But I'm more curious. That man was just a cook. How did he suddenly become a third-rank official? What ability does he have that can make the emperor like him so much? By the way, if you say something to offend,
I heard that all the wise ministers suffered a lot at his hands."
Wang Fu waved his hand and said: "It's not offensive at all. This is a fact. Even if I want to deny it, I can't deny it. But you should have seen him? Didn't he go to you when he was on a mission to the Kingdom of Jin last time?"
Cai You's face froze, and then he smiled and said, "It happened that I went outside for inspection at that time."
Wang Fu snorted, and then said: "But I advise you not to underestimate him. Now the emperor values him very much. Now I have also looked away. We are all officials in the same dynasty, so we can just tolerate everything."
Cai You said with a smile: "The wise prime minister is joking. The emperor always attaches great importance to the words of the wise prime minister."
Wang Fu shook his head and said: "If you don't believe what I say, you can ask the Prime Minister. After all, he was promoted by the Prime Minister."
Cai You smiled and remained silent.
Wang Fu glanced at him and said apologetically: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, the British Duke has returned in triumph. Let's not talk about these disappointing things. You may not know that the Emperor also took great pains to clean up the British Duke.
I also invited Lady Feng to perform a dance."
"Speaking of it, it seems that I haven't appreciated Feng Xingshou's graceful dancing for a long time." Cai You's eyes lit up when he heard this, and then he smiled ambiguously: "This must be the idea of the wise minister, right?"
Wang Fu waved his hand and said: "It has nothing to do with me. It was appointed by the Emperor, and now the wife is already a famous woman."
Cai You was stunned and quickly asked: "I wonder who Lady Feng is marrying?" There was a hint of anger in her voice.
Wang Fu said: "I'm not married, but I've been very close to the economic minister recently. But think about how arrogant Mrs. Feng was in the past. Even if you and I invite her, it will take a lot of effort, and
Have you ever seen which man Lady Feng favors? Also, the dance performed by Lady Feng today is called the oil-grabbing dance, which was also invented by the Economic Envoy. Not only that, it’s just the two of them dancing tonight.
"It's really pretty. When I have nothing to do now, I often dance with my wife at home. It's suitable for all ages."
"It's him again?" Cai You frowned. (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to come to Qidian.com to vote for recommendations and monthly votes. Your support is my biggest motivation. Mobile phone users please go and read it.