Food starts with Mapo Tofu

Chapter 853 Banquet
"Chen Nian, today the envoys of the Great Food Kingdom have entered Beijing, and they have been placed in the post house in the city. They will come to see His Majesty tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow will be a banquet, and they will be busy for a long time."

This afternoon Song Qingzhou said to Chen Nian when he was arranging for people to handle the ingredients.

"Master, it's better to be busy. When I was selling tofu in Yangzhou, I was very busy every day. I had to soak the beans in advance every night. I got up in the middle of the night to make tofu. I had to go out to make tofu before dawn. Send it to other people's homes, and the remaining tofu is sold in the store.

Then I have to go to Ruyilou to cook. I think people have to be busy all their lives, too much time would be meaningless. "

Song Qingzhou appreciates Chen Nian's temperament.

Now Chen Nian is busy making desserts every morning, and cooks for himself in the afternoon, until His Majesty and the ladies of the palaces have finished eating, and then rests for a while and has to work the night shift at night.

The purpose is to prevent the emperor from being so busy that he suddenly wants to eat in the middle of the night, but there is no one in the imperial dining room.

"Yeah, it's better to be busy, but you can't be busy. Everything you do must be purposeful. Except for those from poor families who run around every day just to get a last bite of food, we have I'm very lucky, although there are many things to take care of in the palace, at least I don't have to worry about food and clothing."

"Master, how many dishes will we cook in total?"

"You mean a banquet for the envoys of the Great Food Kingdom?"

"Ah."

"That's too much. The whole palace will be busy at that time. I just want to take this opportunity to tell you. First of all, you need to prepare some snacks before the formal meal. These are eaten during the pre-dinner sitting." of.

At the beginning, it was a fruit plate. Generally speaking, the fruit plate has standard specifications. For example, this time when Dashiguo came, we had to prepare a row of eight fruit bowls with embroidered flowers, namely, fragrant rounds, mandarin oranges, pomegranates, zizi, Goose pear, milk pear, Chinese quince, flower papaya and so on.

Secondly, there is a dried fruit plate, that is, a line of Lexian dried fruit fork bags, which contain: lychees, round eyes, lotus, torreya, hazelnuts, pine nuts, ginkgo, pear meat, jujube rings, lotus seed meat, rings, steamed date.

There are also fragrant medicines. The fragrant medicines are a line of gold-scented medicines. There are brain flowers, licorice flowers, cinnabar round seeds, woody cloves, water borneol, Shi Junzi, shrinking sand flowers, official osmanthus flowers, Atractylodes ginseng, olives Flowers these things.

In addition, there are candied fruit, sour and salty snacks, cured meat and pickled products and assorted platters. There are seven kinds of plates, which add up to 72 kinds. "

I was stunned when I heard the old age. Is this the royal specification?
When I used to make banquets for those rich people, more than 20 kinds of dried fruit and candied fruit plates were enough.

As a result, there are 72 types of tapas in the royal family alone!

Looking at Chen Nian's shocked look, Song Qingzhou couldn't help but feel a little proud: "What I'm talking about is only the first round of tapas. In the second round, there are also tapas used at banquets. In addition to candied fruit, sour and salty snacks and The cured meat and pickled products are the same as before.

The other ones need to be replaced.

Among them, the fruit should be replaced with fruit slices, that is, a line of cut fruits: spring lotus root, goose pear pancake, sugar cane, milk pear moon, red persimmon, cut tangerine, cut green orange, and raw lotus root collar.

Sometimes fresh fruits should also be replaced with kumquats, bayberry, Xinluoge, cut honey mushrooms, cut crispy mandarins, elm oranges, new coconuts, Qieyi mother and child, lotus collars, sugarcane incense, new oranges, pear five flower seeds .

In addition, there is a line of Longzang fruit: lychee manna cake, lychee Polygonum flower, lychee Haolangjun, Longzhang peach strips, crisp walnuts, Zangzao rings, Zangpear, Xianglian incident, Xiangyao grapes, Zangpine nuts, frosted jade bee Son, peach sticks wrapped in white.

Of course, you don’t have to worry about these things too much. Remember, every time there is a big banquet like this, there will be a special person in charge, and then you only need to prepare the list, and it’s not just us There is work here, and the other fruit rooms, tea houses, noodle houses and so on have to be busy.

Didn't the palace just send in a lot of goods some time ago, and those were prepared for this banquet. "

Chen Nian remembers these.

From about a week ago until now, many carriages came in from outside the palace every day, and then put things in the warehouse. Originally, Chen Nian thought that he could help move them, but he just said this He was stopped by Song Qingzhou.

At that time, Song Qingzhou said that these things don't need to be done in old age. There are so many people in the palace, so naturally there are special people to do special things.

Maybe doing more work in the kitchen can make you appear more diligent, but when it comes to this kind of cross-departmental work, it is not your own work, and if you have to do it, you will be looked down upon.

After all, although these chefs were people who relied on skills to work in the Great Xia Dynasty, and their social status was not very high, they were still better than those who moved goods purely by showing off their strength.

Find a job in his position, and don't do it if it is not your own job, unless it is arranged by the superior.

"Well, then Master only has so many appetizers, what if they are full after eating just these?"

Song Qingzhou smiled: "No, no matter whether it is the Dashi country or the Yasha country in the northeast, although they rebelled in the previous dynasty, they have basically belonged to us since they were beaten back. A vassal state of Middle-earth.

Every one or two years, they will bring their special products over there to pay tribute, so they also know very well what kind of attitude I Daxia has towards them. Every time I come here, there are delicious treats. This year is a group of newcomers, and some old people will tell them what to do after they come here.

The things on the front are basically just a taste, because the table is very big, so most of the time they can only eat the few things in front of them. After all, there are officials from His Majesty and me, and they are not good. Walking around to eat other things is so ugly. "

Chen Nian understood it. These things look rich, but they are actually just for them to see. Everyone can only eat the few dishes in front of them. Two mouthfuls stopped.

After the big deal, exchange ideas with your companions about what dishes you ate and how they taste.

"Master, when it's time for the formal banquet?"

"For a formal banquet, that would be much richer. First of all, there are fifteen cups of wine at the beginning. Each cup has two dishes. The first cup is fried quail seeds and lychee white kidneys; the second cup is It is the milk house stick, three crispy soup; the third is the sheep tongue stick, the sprout tripe; the fourth is the gizzard stick and the quail soup. I won’t list them all for you, it’s too much , but in short, there are everything that flies in the sky, swims in the water, and runs on the ground.

They definitely can't finish these dishes, and the rest after they retire are basically shared with us or the father-in-law. "

"Do you want leftovers?"

"What's wrong with the leftovers? Even the leftovers from the banquet are things that many people can't eat in their lifetime. Everyone is happy to eat them, and we usually use chopsticks to eat the same dish when we eat at the table. , there is not much difference anyway.”

Chen Nian smiled and said, "Master, do you want to eat?"

"Me? I definitely won't eat it. I've eaten all those dishes. What's so delicious? For me, delicacies from mountains and seas are not as good as the usual simple meals. It's not interesting."

When Chen Nian thinks about it, it is indeed true. What kind of precious things have not been seen in the palace all day long?
Anyway, as a chef, tasting food is the most basic. On the one hand, it depends on the taste of the food, and on the other hand, it also needs to let others see that the food is not poisonous.

"What about after the food and drink?"

"After the appetizers are finished, there are delicacies between meals. This is divided into three categories. The first is inserted food. The normal standards are fried white kidneys, roasted tripe, roasted dried quail, moistened chicken, moistened rabbit, and roasted cooking. The main purpose of inserting food is to make them eat eight percent full.

Then there are persuading snacks, which are mostly fruits, sweet and salty snacks, etc. In addition, there are some persuading dishes that the chefs are good at, usually ten flavors. Years ago, the persuading dishes at that time included river ray fried belly, river ray raw, snail sticks, raw snails in ginger vinegar, fried belly with fragrant snails, fake public rights in ginger vinegar, simmered oysters, special oyster fried belly, fake public right fried belly Cockroaches, cockroaches and fried belly are basically game.

It has the same meaning as the snacks such as folk vinegar peas and broad beans. "

Chen Nian imagined the scene. Even though he has the knowledge and insight of modern people, he was not only a little shocked when he heard that the envoys of these big food countries brought out hundreds of different kinds of food in order to entertain them.

"I thought that I would be able to look down on everyone in ancient times, but now it seems that it's a little bit of a meaning... No, it's a lot of meaning. Even if this level of food is placed now, it probably has to be that kind of food. This kind of scale can only be achieved by hosting political leaders or business leaders from various countries to participate in the summit, or hosting the Olympic Games or the Winter Olympics, a global comprehensive sports competition.

Probably the difference is the difference in the amount of food, but whether it is those summits or large-scale international comprehensive sports competitions, the number of people must be far more than that of a big food country. "

"Still awesome."

"It's nice to have money."

Chen Nian couldn't help sighing in his heart.

And after hearing so many dishes, even if Chen Nian didn't ask him, he would probably know that at this level, those big bosses in the imperial dining room who probably wouldn't see each other would come out.

At that time, my master will probably only be a small category manager below, responsible for some of the dishes.

And besides this kind of banquet for receiving foreign envoys, Chen Nian also knows that there are Luming Banquet, Burning Tail Banquet, Wenhui Banquet, Cheating Horse Banquet, Thousand Seniors Banquet and so on.

Thinking of this, he felt that there was a long way to go, and he still had a lot to learn.

Among other things, there are many things in what Master just said, which I haven't done in Chen Nian, and I haven't even heard many things.

There are still many methods that sound weird, but they can only be put on occasions of the state banquet level, so they will definitely not be unpalatable.

After all, the purpose of this kind of banquet is not to satisfy the envoys, but to show the prestige of the Great Xia. In case people feel that some of the dishes in it are not delicious, and they make irresponsible remarks after returning, that is a mistake. Damage the image of the Great Xia Dynasty.

Therefore, for the imperial court, even if they spend more money, hire more cooks, and collect more recipes from the people, it is always better than letting the envoys be dissatisfied with what they eat and return disappointed.

In this way, they started to get busy on the second day. There was an endless stream of people coming and going to the imperial dining room, and most of them came to deliver ingredients.

Among these hundreds of dishes, a considerable part of the ingredients need to be processed in advance.

Originally, the old plan was to prepare it with them, but this year, after eating the ice cream and desserts he made, the emperor wanted to modify some of the dishes, so that those foreigners could also taste the desserts from their great country.

So Chen Nian had no choice but to make snacks for them.

Fortunately, there were not many of them. Although the Dashi Kingdom sent many people, there were only a dozen or so who could really attack. In addition, the ministers in the court were only a hundred or so.

So after Chen Nian was busy all afternoon and one night, he made these desserts and ice cream and stored them in the ice cellar.

He didn't want to waste his time doing these things.

Rather than making ice cream and cakes to make those people happy, Chen Nian is more willing to follow Master to learn how to cook dishes that he has never cooked before.

After all, this is the real purpose of entering this dream space.

In this way, Aged Nian continued to be busy from the early morning of the next day, without even having time to drink water.

Anyway, when cooking, eat one bite of this and another, drink some soup for this one and drink some soup for that one, and you will be full.

No need to eat anything extra at all.

While he was busy processing ingredients, secondary processing, and helping Master watch the heat and count the time, he frantically memorized all the cooking methods of these dishes.

From kindergarten to the first time he entered the dream space, until now, Chen Nian felt that his brain was not enough for the first time.

Why can't I feel like a computer, as long as the data I have left can all be saved in the form of logs.

Song Qingzhou was divided into nearly a hundred dishes, and most of them were hot dishes. The preparation method of each dish was very complicated, some used broth, some used clear soup, and some used guitar. Specially use bone broth.

The ratio of various seasonings to be put in each dish is different. At the beginning, it can be accurately recorded when it is aged, but as I have more and more things to take into account, my energy must gradually be transferred to these things that are being done. on the dish.

"No, I can't remember, I can't remember at all!"

"Too much, so much information pouring in at once, I can't remember any of it!"

"Ahhhh, the pig's brain is about to overload and explode!"

(End of this chapter)