The Little Officials of the Song Dynasty

Six almost identical yellow tabby cats squatted together, each with different colored silk threads tied around their necks to distinguish their identities.

A few days ago, the six kittens have been named as Da Mao, Er Mao, San Mao, Si Mao, Wu Mao and Liu Mao, and they were officially canonized as Kaifeng government rat catchers. Rat plague, the same as the official of money and food in Kaifeng Prefecture.

And as far as Liumao's name is concerned, Bao Zheng personally came up with it, so Yun Yanhui has nowhere to complain.

Although Bao Zheng may have said it casually, when he thought that Zhan Zhao would come to Kaifeng Mansion in the future and be granted the title of Yumao, Yun Yanhui couldn't help thinking: Didn't you force him to be a "seven hairs"? ? !

Although the logic of Yunyan's return is a bit crooked, at present, the arrival of these six Maos has been unanimously welcomed by the Kaifeng mansion.

Yun Yan sewed cushions for them and put them in her room for the time being, waiting to get familiar with the environment.

But before Liu Mao got familiar with the environment, people came to the door one after another, asking for the mouse catcher to stay there.Especially Shi Cao and Cang Cao are even more demanding.There are many documents in Shicao, and there are many materials in warehouses, and they are all places that are infested by rats.

Yun Yanhui could only dismiss them one by one. Now, after feeding the six hairs, Yun Yanhui stood up again and looked outside. Well, the renovation of Kaifeng Mansion is in full swing.

The original flowers and plants were pulled out, sold and replaced with various fruits and vegetables.Although it looks bare for a while, it will be full of vitality after the vegetables grow up soon.

Moreover, so far, Yun Yanhui has received three pennies of money from Bao Zheng, and after spending it, not only does she not need to ask for it anymore, but she can also get back the money...

Kaifeng mansion had planted a lot of chrysanthemums before, and they sold them for a lot of money. After deducting the money for buying fruit and vegetable seeds, there was still some left over.All the vegetables are grown by the people in the Kaifeng government office, no labor costs, just allocate a little money to buy fruit snacks and distribute them to everyone.

Now whoever is free has to work outside.Because of Bao Zheng's majesty, this matter was also approved by Renzong, and even Yun Yanhui's sentence "grow vegetables according to the order" spread, and the officials naturally dared not disobey.

And with the large number of people in Kaifeng Prefecture, even if the government is occasionally busy, there is no problem of deserted vegetable fields.To take a step back, there is a second-level administrative agency under the Kaifeng Mansion, and there are still many people in each Xiangfang, and the worst is to borrow people to grow vegetables...

Even Bao Zheng now works in the vegetable field for rest when he is not dealing with official documents.

Besides, Yun Yanhui, he has always been a person who can spend money and make money. He dared to borrow money to buy pandas at a high price in his early years. After all, he is confident in his ability to make money.

It's the same now, the vegetables have been planted, the sweat of the big guys has flowed down, and Yun Yanhui is also thinking about how to improve his life.

Yun Yanhui believes that a good working environment can help mobilize the enthusiasm of employees, and can also suppress everyone's resentment about growing vegetables before harvesting. There must always be relaxation in doing things.

Yunyan returned Bao Zheng's suggestion to improve the food in the public kitchen—that is, the canteen of the government office.

After hearing this, Bao Zheng breathed a sigh of relief, "For the past ten days, I have been thinking about when you will propose to improve the food..."

Yun Yan replied: "..."

Facing Bao Zheng's words, Yun Yanhui could only say one sentence: "The officials know me quite well." He still has some selfish intentions, the canteen in Kaifeng Mansion is really not good!These days it is all supported by the pickles brought in.

According to the previous plan, the profit from the vegetable field can completely offset the increased cost of the canteen, not to mention that Yun Yanhui told Bao Zheng that he would not increase the cost of the canteen too much. It's more important than ingredients.

Gongsun Ce listened on the sidelines, but he said alertly: "Is this the third thing?"

"It should be," Bao Zheng said, and then said, "It's the third thing, so what?"

"Brother Guanyan knows how to act. If you come, you will come back. If you go out, you will enter. Even if the public kitchen changes the food list, who knows if there is any mystery in it?" , "However, no matter how good it is, can you still participate in the food festival?"

Yun Yan smiled shyly, "Mr. Gongsun also knows me very well. I just thought of it, and it might not come true, so I didn't tell you two."

Bao Zheng was speechless, "I really have a plan..."

Yun Yan replied: "I've inquired about it. The public cooks in every yamen are not very tasty. There's nothing I can do about it. They all cook in big pots. Not every place is like Taixue."

The dishes of the public chef are not only unpalatable, this is a more euphemistic way of saying it.The canteen cuisine is rated as the ninth largest cuisine in China on the modern Internet, and the background of this era is the same when it is changed to the Northern Song Dynasty.

As for Taixue’s steamed buns, they are famous in Bianjing. The officials have praised them, making them very popular among the people. Taixue’s students never forget to bring some steamed buns back home for relatives and friends to taste.

However, Taixue is famous for only one steamed bun, so people can't eat steamed buns all the time, right?

Yunyan thought back to building the canteen in Kaifeng Mansion. Although it cannot be opened to the outside world, it can satisfy the quality of life of the officials in the government and at the same time attract officials from other yamen... This is also a good way to generate income!

When the vegetables and fruits grow up and the supply catches up, maybe they don't need to be transported to the market for sale, and they can be directly digested by the public kitchen.

Bao Zheng: "Is this okay?"

"Give it a try..." Yun Yan replied indifferently, "We are relying on the imperial city, what a good geographical condition."

Internal and external departments are all banned, so many officials are potential customers.

Bao Zheng struggled again, "Although it's a good idea, will someone really come..."

Gongsun Ce stared at the vegetable field being reclaimed outside the house, and suddenly sweated, "Well, you'd better think about it in the way of Brother Yan."

Yun Yan found out that Gongsun Ce had already understood his routine, so he smiled and said: "We are planting vegetables according to the order. When the vegetables grow, don't you want to invite the officials to eat the vegetables?"

Bao Zheng: "..."

Shameless... If it is said that Taixue Mantou became famous because of the unconscious behavior of the officials, Yunyan Hui said that it was intentionally designed.

In this regard, Bao Zheng had no choice but to convince Yun Yan to return, and also felt that the cost-effectiveness of this person's recruitment was really high, so he agreed to this matter and let him take charge of the matter.

Yun Yan got the approval, so she went to do a questionnaire survey, asking everyone's taste one by one.

But in fact, he doesn't care about the tastes of these people at all. There are no gourmets in the government office. He just took the opportunity to publicize it to inspire people, and he also wanted to guide public opinion.

Sure enough, all the officials didn't know the inside story, and when they did the questionnaire survey, they all felt grateful for Shaoyin's kindness.Although everyone is asked to farm, but they also planted it themselves, and the benefits in the future will not be used by themselves. Instead, they will be spent on everyone's food in advance before there is any profit.

It turns out that Shao Yin is really just trying to improve everyone's life!

You must know that most of the staff in Kaifeng Mansion have no establishment or even a salary.They were either recruited or served as servants. "Evil officials" refer to their group. Because they have no money, they abuse their power to make money.

Of course, after Bao Zheng took office in Kaifeng Mansion, the atmosphere became much clearer.

For unpaid servicemen, the better they eat, the more they seem to be earning money. For those who are recruited, their salary will be improved, and their own expenses will of course be reduced. It will also reduce the burden virtually, which is also a good thing. pile.

Therefore, all of a sudden everyone became more active in farming.

Seeing such a situation, Yun Yanhui felt relieved and carried out drastic reforms to the dishes of the public kitchen.

The public kitchens in Kaifeng Mansion are also divided into three places according to the three courtyards, and the names are also very uncharacteristic.

The supply is definitely different for different ranks, and the food for officials and petty officials is different.

But on the whole, two meals a day are provided, and each person has a limited supply.During the dog days, mung beans are cooked to relieve the heat, rice dumplings are served at the Dragon Boat Festival, and cakes are served at the Double Ninth Festival...all come with the festival.

Yun Yan came up with new dishes, mainly for easy-to-cook and delicious meals, replacing some old simple dishes.

For example, the original dried tofu may be coarse dried tofu, but now it can be shredded and mixed with dried shrimp or shell meat and soy sauce, which is very delicious.All kinds of other pickles have also been improved one by one, all of which are the skills Yunyan learned when she went back to the past or held food festivals.

Vegetables can no longer be monotonous and unified as before. There must be several different vegetables in a day, so we can't just save trouble.

When making it, it is even more important to pay attention to the ingredients.For example, adding some mountain fresh mushrooms or bamboo shoots to Taiwanese cabbage heart will taste better.The taro is rotten, add some cabbage heart, just put a little soy sauce to reconcile, it is much more delicious than monotonous cooking.

There are other dishes that are fried with meat oil and vegetable oil, all of which have a great impact on the taste.As for the staple food, it's even simpler. Don't be too stingy when cooking soup cakes, just boil some broth.

After the basic dishes are improved, there are still some signature dishes that will be more refined, but they can be served in limited quantities to balance time and cost.

A pearl shrimp ball, because it is a "pearl", you must use white shrimp. After chopping, add some gorgon powder, pour onion and ginger juice, knead into small shrimp balls, and then fry them in a pan. After coming out, they are like pearls. , white and smooth, soft and slightly elastic in the mouth.But it still needs dipping materials, you can dip it in salt and pepper, or if you have enough time, fry it in spicy oil.

Because people in Bianjing love sweets, they also thought about asking people to make eight-treasure rice.At this time, the food that is especially loved by later generations in the Jiangnan area is glutinous rice steamed with longan, red dates, lotus seeds, bean paste, etc. It is sweet but not greasy, soft but not sticky, and looks good.

Although it was too sweet for Yunyan to come back, he cooked it for Zheng Ling, Zhao Yunchu and other natives, and it was well received.

There is another very famous one, which was also included in "Suiyuan Food List", and the name is also very interesting, called "Duck Confused".It is to cook the fat duck until it is half-cooked, cool it, remove the bone and disassemble it, put it back into the soup, add rice wine, yam, mushrooms and simmer, and add onion, ginger, salt and other seasonings when it is simmering quickly.

The duck meat produced in this way is rich and mellow, tangible and intangible, like a soup but not a soup, so it is called "confused".

……

After the initial improvement of the dishes is completed, the chefs only need to follow the recipes. After all, there is no particularly technical work.In ancient times, it was very important to keep technical secrets, so Yun Yan returned to teach, and these cooks were also happy.

According to Yun Yanhui's idea, in the future, the dishes will be gradually expanded + upgraded, and some appropriate adjustments will be made in the selection of dishes according to the different functions of the officials of the three courtyards. Of course, these all depend on the subsequent development.

And after the public chef of the Third Hospital was upgraded, officials of all sizes in Kaifeng Mansion also responded enthusiastically...