Chapter 21: Crab Shell Yellow (Seeking monthly votes!)

On the second morning, Qin Huai, who originally planned to sleep an extra hour and go to the shop at 5:00 to wrap baozi, was forced to go to work early because he forgot to set his alarm and was woken up on time at 4:00.

By the time Qin Huai arrived at the canteen, Qin Congwen and Zhao Rong were already wrapping meat baozi.

Qin Luo was still sleeping. Yesterday was the first day of business, and Qin Congwen and Zhao Rong felt that such an important day required the whole family to prepare early, so they called Qin Luo up. Today was just an ordinary second day, and Qin Luo was still at the age of growing, so if she worked hard, she might grow a few more centimeters, so she returned to the happy life of sleeping until she woke up naturally.

Qin Huai took a look at the ingredients Qin Congwen had prepared and found there were quite a bit more than yesterday.

Clearly, Qin Congwen had discovered that yesterday's sales were very good, and the baozi sold out by noon, so he intended to wrap a bit more.

There were quite a few office workers nearby who were willing to eat cheap baozi for lunch and dinner to save money. After the baozi sold out, there were customers who actively asked why the cheap big meat baozi were gone.

Although the 1.5-yuan baozi didn't make much money, Qin Congwen had earned hard-earned money selling breakfast for a lifetime, and he never thought 1 or 2 cents were too little—even a mosquito's leg is meat. If he could sell them, he would wrap more; if he could earn a little, he would earn a little.

Business was good, so the mood was good. Qin Congwen was full of energy wrapping baozi early in the morning, even humming a little tune happily.

Qin Huai, who was kneading the dough, couldn't help but smile: "Dad, why don't you just close the breakfast shop at home and rent the storefront to someone else? Just stay here and sell baozi with me; the sales aren't worse than at home."

"That won't do," Qin Congwen said without hesitation. "Did Luo Luo's school registration is still in our hometown. She has to start high school in September. Your mom and I have to go back, otherwise, if we let your aunt take care of her, she'll definitely go wild."

"Yeah, besides English being slightly better, Did Luo Luo isn't good at Chinese, math, physics, chemistry, or biology. Now her high school entrance exam results haven't come out yet, and I don't know if she can get into a high school in the city. I heard that if the score gap is large, the school selection fee isn't cheap, and those two high schools in our county are getting worse every year." Mentioning Qin Luo's further education, Zhao Rong had endless worries. "I don't know if this child can keep up in high school. Five subjects need tutoring, and I don't know if she can handle seven days of tutoring a week."

If she had to tutor five subjects a week... Qin Huai could only light a candle for Qin Luo's miserable high school life in advance.

After kneading the dough, Qin Huai divided the fresh shrimp Qin Congwen had peeled into two portions.

Qin Congwen noticed Qin Huai's movements and asked: "Huaihuai, did I prepare too much? I'll peel less tomorrow."

"No," Qin Huai shook his head and pointed to the smaller portion. "This portion is for making crab shell yellow."

Crab shell yellow, a famous Shanghai-style snack.

It's called this because it's a small, yellow, round pastry baked into shape, looking very much like a crab shell. There are poems praising it as "Before seeing the pastry shop, you smell the fragrance; upon entering, the crispy skin falls one after another," which shows its crispness. The taste is divided into sweet and salty.

Qin Huai knew how to make the sweet ones, using white sugar mixed with lard. He also knew how to make the salty ones, just by adding diced pork. But Qin Huai didn't know how to make the fresh shrimp filling that Ouyang wanted to eat.

Qin Luo didn't like eating shrimp, so the Qin family didn't wrap fresh shrimp filling when making wontons at home.

The earliest way to make crab shell yellow was to stick the raw dough directly onto the wall of the furnace to bake. Now the method isn't that complicated; you can just put it in the oven to bake. It's batch-produced and fast, and with the help of technology, it's very time-saving and worry-free.

Qin Huai had heard from Qin Luo that Ouyang had been wanting to eat crab shell yellow for a while, and yesterday he specifically asked for fresh shrimp filling. Qin Huai felt it was time to satisfy his "adopted son's" wish.

After all, during the time Qin Huai first came to inherit the estate, it was Ouyang who took the initiative to suggest he live in his house. Ouyang had helped him with this big favor, so even if Qin Huai hadn't made fresh shrimp filling before, he had to make it.

It didn't matter if he hadn't made it before; there were recipes online.

Qin Huai watched the recipe tutorial on his phone while supervising the baozi filling in the wok.

After watching, no.

The craftsmanship of this person teaching how to make crab shell yellow wasn't good.

It looked very good, brushed with egg yolk and sprinkled with white sesame seeds; the appearance was absolutely first-class. But there was clearly a problem with the production process of the filling. Dicing shrimp and mixing it with pork, adding sesame oil, light soy sauce, pepper powder, white sugar, and even oyster sauce—they wanted to add every seasoning in the kitchen.

Originally, this kind of fresh shrimp dim sum was meant to be eaten for the unique freshness of the shrimp. This flavor is very light; if you add too much pork, it's easy to steal the show, and if you add too little, it's tasteless. If you add a "family portrait" of seasonings, the final filling will be full of seasoning flavor, and the shrimp will be wasted.

Qin Huai shook his head and closed it, looking at the next one.

It didn't seem to work either.

It was also expected; how could a truly awesome secret recipe appear on the internet? This was a secret recipe.

Forget it, let's do it by feel.

Qin Huai believed Ouyang wouldn't mind. And his feel had always been very good.

Qin Huai began operating on three fronts, supervising the baozi filling in the wok while controlling the dough that was silently fermenting, and simultaneously making the filling for the crab shell yellow.

At 6:07 AM, the first batch of fresh shrimp crab shell yellow came out of the oven, fragrant.

Almost right on time, Ouyang stepped into the shop at 6:08 AM, leading 100% of the employees who were paid to work.

Huang Xi hadn't even arrived at this time.

Qin Huai didn't encourage employees to arrive early. After all, there were no customers if they arrived early, and Qin Huai and the others could fully handle the two or three customers who jogged early in the morning.

The rent near the Cloud residential complex wasn't cheap, and the waiters in the shop generally lived quite far away, so working the early shift meant waking up early. Qin Huai knew the pain of not being able to sleep in, so he didn't have much obsession with the fact that employees must clock in on time.

"Crab shell yellow!" Ouyang saw the golden crab shell yellow at a glance.

A whole tray of crab shell yellow was neatly arranged together, which was indeed very eye-catching, not to mention that this large tray of crab shell yellow was just out of the oven. Crab shell yellow was a crispy pastry to begin with, and anyone who had squatted in a dim sum shop knew how fragrant a crispy pastry was when it was just out of the oven.

Ouyang inhaled deeply, intoxicated.

"Fragrant! Too fragrant! It wasn't in vain that I got up early. Qin Huai, I can eat ten!"

Qin Huai didn't believe Ouyang's nonsense at all. The Five-Diced and Three-Diced Baozi in the small steamer on the side would be out in two or three minutes.

"Try two first to taste the flavor?" Qin Huai picked up the rack.

Ouyang nodded frantically.

Qin Huai put two crab shell yellows into a small plate and directed Ouyang to find the crab shell yellow menu sign in the warehouse and hang it on the window, reminding him that this thing was really scalding hot when it just came out of the oven, hotter than baozi, and without Qin Luo's "iron mouth" ability, he shouldn't eat it directly.

Ouyang went to find the menu sign, tossed around for a while, washed his hands, and came back just in time to eat.

Ouyang tentatively picked one up with his hand, squeezed it a bit hard, and the crispy skin fell off directly.

One bite.

Crispy, fragrant, salty, fresh.

The crispy skin and sesame seeds filled both corners of his mouth, falling onto the table with a "pfft," and even staining half of his body. The salty fragrance of the pork and the taste of the shrimp were all extremely distinct. Ouyang ate a bite and only felt that this shrimp must be particularly good.

It had a shrimp taste!

He had eaten many fresh shrimp dim sum, including fresh shrimp wontons with a whole shrimp inside, but he actually couldn't taste much shrimp flavor.

But the crab shell yellow in his hand did.

And it was fragrant and crispy.

Without any hesitation, Ouyang swallowed the remaining crab shell yellow in one bite. Then he picked up the second one, opened his big mouth, and swallowed it in one bite with the same movement.

One bite each, refreshing!

This time he really could eat 10!

Ouyang chewed happily, lamenting in his heart that his parents were really useless.

Why couldn't his parents have happened to travel to Qu County 20 years ago, happened to pass by the welfare home, and happened to meet Qin Huai and adopt him?

If that were the case, wouldn't Qin Huai be his younger brother!

Wouldn't he, Ouyang, be living the good life of eating dim sum every day like Qin Luo!

Ouyang looked at Qin Huai, his eyes full of regret.

Qin Huai:...

Why did he feel Ouyang's look was strange?

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 22 =====