At night, the courtyard was quiet, and occasionally one or two maids would pass by with smiles on their faces.
"Sister Keqi, these are the chestnuts you want."
Outside the small kitchen, a little eunuch handed a basket full of plump chestnuts into Keqi's hand.
"Well," Keqi looked at the quality of the chestnuts and was very satisfied, "just wait a moment."
He went to the kitchen and showed the chestnuts to the master, then came out with a handful of candies and put them in the hands of the little eunuch. The little eunuch held them happily, said thank you and skipped away.
The light in the small kitchen was bright, and there were three pots emitting white smoke on the stove. Jiang Ying sat at the table with ingredients in the middle, breaking up cabbage.
I just saw a cabbage and shrimp soup online and wanted to make it.
Before she could take any notice, Fourth Master opened the lid of the pot again. On the bamboo basket were two sticks of golden corn and two slender pieces of chestnut potatoes.
Fourth Master is really no stranger to these two foods. In the 28th year, he went to inspect the Yellow River Project. On the way, he bought the corn Jiang Ying mentioned from nearby farmers. There are also many places where sweet potatoes are grown in Shandong.
But the corn and sweet potatoes he had eaten were not the same varieties as the ones Jiang Ying bought from her tablet.
The sweet potatoes from those farmers are small and long, with many bumps on the skin. Unlike the two ones in front of me, the skin is smooth and beautiful.
Farm corn is smaller and has few kernels.
Fourth Master knew that this was a difference in planting. Every time Jiang Ying watched a sweet potato planting video, he watched it with her, so he knew that the difference between now and the place where she once lived was the variety of fertilizers.
However, current farming technology is also very mature.
Although there is no fertilizer mentioned in the tablet, the tablet also says that sweet potatoes grown with green manure are healthier and greener.
The Fourth Master didn't know what green meant yet, and now he saw that the sweet potatoes Jiang Ying brought were not green, so he made them go round and round, adding another mystery to his mind.
After Jiang Ying broke off the cabbage, he turned around and saw Fourth Master standing by the pot like a child. When he saw her getting up, he immediately put down the lid of the pot.
Jiang Ying: "..."
Fourth Master: "..."
"Let me see if it's cooked." Fourth Master said, his cold expression slightly cracked.
Jiang Ying said: "Master, if you lift the lid back and forth like this, it should be cooked in thirty or half an hour, but it will have to wait an extra quarter of an hour, and it will affect the taste."
After saying that, she put a bowl on the pot lid to prevent Fourth Master from flipping the pot again.
Aunt Lan stepped forward with a smile, holding a blue and white bamboo stone plantain shallow-mouthed sea bowl. A pile of clean and crystal clear river shrimps were piled in the bowl. The blue and white color made these small river shrimps look fresh and tender.
"Master, can you do it? Otherwise, let me do it for you."
This Aunt Lan has good cooking skills. I heard from the fourth master that she is also knowledgeable in medical etiquette. She was the capable person arranged by the noble concubine Tong Jia for the fourth master. Later, when the branch government came out, these old people were brought out, and most of them are still there. The front yard is in charge of Fourth Master’s food expenses.
Fourth Master said that he could give Aunt Lan to her, but he was still worried that she would have problems because of her gluttony.
Moreover, Grandma Lan is a very dedicated person, and Jiang Ying has a very good impression of her.
"No need, Mom," she said, taking the basin of small river shrimps with both hands, "what you eat is the taste of what you made yourself."
Aunt Lan's cooking skills were learned in the imperial kitchen, so they were unusual. But what Jiang Ying wanted to eat was the soup she made.
Aunt Lan smiled and said: "That slave is convenient for the master to attack."
"Okay," Jiang Ying, who was about to cook, turned to the fourth master, "please go aside and rest, or go outside and read a book."
Fourth Master: Is this because you are disliked?
He looked at Jiang Ying, who was cooking decently, with a smile on her lips. If he hadn't seen the scene in front of her that paused every few breaths, he would have been confused by her old-fashioned appearance.
After some frying and stir-frying, Jiang Ying made a fresh cabbage and river shrimp soup that looked pretty good. The fresh and steamy flavor made people salivate.
Fourth Master walked in with a book behind his hands, met Jiang Ying's gaze and said with a smile, "Can you eat it?"
Jiang Ying smiled and agreed: "Well, where do you want to eat?"
She is very employee-minded.
Fourth Master thought for a while and said, "Let's eat here."
Putting the book on the table, he opened the lid of the pot and took out the corn and sweet potatoes that were already ripe and exuding a rich and sweet flavor under the scalding heat. His hands were so hot that he didn't even care.
Jiang Ying ran to him: "You didn't wash your hands."
Everyone in the room changed their expressions because of these words. Some were really worried about Jiang Ying, while others were superficially worried but were actually waiting to see Jiang Ying be scolded.
But Fourth Master has no intention of being annoyed at all. Who knows that he often sees advertisements on tablets about the good habit of washing hands before eating and after going to the toilet? What's more, even if people nowadays don't consciously develop healthy hygiene habits, Fourth Master But the prince has been accustomed to washing his hands at any time since he was a child.
The words Jiang Ying blurted out didn't even attract Fourth Master's special attention. He just turned his head and said to Jiang Ying: "The chopsticks I use, don't worry, they won't hurt you."
Jiang Ying turned around with the small bamboo basket in hand, "I didn't expect that you, a master, would be so greedy by the rough and rude food of the people. If you tell me, you will lose your status as the fourth master."
Wei Yu raised her eyes cautiously, only to see that Fourth Master showed a faint smile after Jiang said these words, and even raised his hand to tap Jiang's forehead.
Fourth Master smiled and said, "You are the only one who dares to say that."
Weiyu lowered her eyes and glanced at the others with a smile on her face. Weiyue was kicked out by Aunt Zhao when she was disposing of the servants in Qiantian Mansion because she looked down on Jiang, who was from a small family.
There was a small square table with tall legs in the kitchen. Xiao Caizi took the two of them and moved it to the window, and placed two candlesticks on it. When two dishes and one soup were placed on it, the smell of simple farm cooking came out. .
I don't know if it was because of the atmosphere, but the Fourth Master was surprisingly smooth when he drank the pot of cabbage and shrimp soup made by Jiang Ying.
When the fourth master handed over the empty bowl after drinking, Su Peisheng was shocked.
His grandfather never returned two bowls of any dish during the meal. Su Peisheng was moved to help his grandfather fill the soup, and then received a warning look from Jiang Fujin.
Jiang Ying: [I only drank two bowls, give me some left. 】
Doesn’t he always have a bad appetite?
Jiang Ying thought about it and looked at the Fourth Master on his left.
The Fourth Master raised his eyebrows and said to Su Peisheng, "There isn't much left, why isn't it full?"
Su Peisheng was in a dilemma, so he could only smile apologetically at Jiang Fujin, pick up the soup basin on the table, and pour the last soup base into his father's bowl.
The fourth master picked up the bowl, took a sip, and smiled gently at Jiang Ying: "Yingying, I didn't expect you to have good cooking skills."
Jiang Ying's face darkened, and he said with a smile, "Sir, why did you call me that again?"
Yingying seems to only know how to cry.
The Fourth Master took a delicious sip of the soup and asked with a smile, "I don't know who said she didn't like it when I called her a baby."
Jiang Ying resisted the urge to turn the table over on the spot, picked up a golden corn cob and started eating it. The soft outer skin was wrapped with sweet and tender corn kernels. The sweet aroma unique to corn followed the explosion of the small corn kernels. The opening spreads in the mouth.
I haven’t eaten corn in a long time.
Jiang Ying took two bites of this corn and instantly forgot all his worries.
The fourth master instantly lost the joy of drinking soup. He looked at Jiang Ying, took two sips of soup and went to get the sweet potatoes he had been looking forward to for several days.
The skin of the sweet potato is as thin as paper. You don’t even need to peel it off. When you take a bite, you will reveal the color of a runny egg yolk. It is sweet, floury and fragrant.
The Fourth Master only took one bite and knew that if this sweet potato could be popularized among the people, it would taste like this and become the most popular food on people's tables.
Jiang Ying looked at Fourth Master and smiled: "Is it delicious?"
Fourth Master nodded slightly.
It was a cold night in late autumn, and the two of them felt a strong chill as soon as they went out after eating in the kitchen. Jiang Ying couldn't help but sneeze loudly, which woke up the little orioles that were already sleeping in the nest on the tree, and chirped. Fly down and circle around Jiang Ying.
Su Peisheng gave a cloak to him, but before he could call out to Fujin, he was glanced at by the fourth master. The fourth master took the cloak, put it on Jiang Ying, and shook her hand: "It will be winter soon, please pay attention." Clothes."
Jiang Ying smiled and said, "Thank you, Master."
The fourth master couldn't help but smile. Her eyes seemed to contain a pool of autumn water, which made people happier the more they looked at her.
#
"Do you still have the snail noodles you ate last time?" Around Xu shi, the Fourth Master got a little hungry after processing a bunch of official documents, so he stood up and sat down next to Jiang Ying.
Jiang Ying was leaning on the couch and chewing big melon seeds with a strong nutty aroma. He was watching a love variety show, where several men and women created ambiguous feelings in a room. The Fourth Master, who had already watched a modern criminal investigation drama, was not satisfied with this. So interested.
Jiang Ying was just concentrating on his official duties, so the noise from Jiang Ying's side had no impact on him.
Jiang Ying looked at the big, plump melon seeds she was eating in her hand, and felt embarrassed to tease Fourth Master. After all, people saw that she loved eating snacks, and people had asked people to give her these delicious Qing Dynasty snacks for several days in a row. Snacks.
Jiang Ying said: "One more thing, you are hungry."
Fourth Master: "Yes. After watching official business for a long time, I am indeed hungry."
There was no staple food for dinner, just a stick of corn, a sweet potato and two bowls of soup. Fourth Master felt hungry very quickly, which also made him see the limitations of sweet potato and corn.
It seems that if we want to keep everyone fed, we should focus on increasing wheat and rice production.
Jiang Ying put the melon seeds in his hand back into the Doucai plate on the table, stood up and said, "I put them all in the inner room. I'll go get them."
The Fourth Master smiled and said, "The fish maw that is your specialty that you ate last time on my back was not bad. I would like to heat up a bowl for you."
Jiang Ying: Her brain cells will be insufficient sooner or later if she stays with Fourth Master every day.
What kind of fish maw can survive now, and can Fourth Master believe those nonsense excuses she made before?
Jiang Ying went to the inner room separated by the pearl curtain, looked back and clicked on the small green cart to release it. A bag of snail noodles and a bowl of fish maw fell on the bed.
