Chapter 25: Mung Bean Cake

This was the first time Qin Huai had been troubled by mantou.

From childhood to adulthood, Qin Huai learned to make dim sum, whether it was following Director Qin to learn vegetable baozi in the welfare home, or being adopted and following Qin Congwen to learn how to make various basic breakfasts, or going back to the countryside during the New Year to follow his grandmother to make rice noodle rolls, or even facing Qin Luo's wild imagination and the dim sum she named to eat, flipping through the "Complete Book of Dim Sum" at home, or searching for recipes and cookbooks online—he had never been this troubled.

The things Qin Luo wanted to eat were sometimes abstract, but at least there was a concrete thing. No matter how outrageous, she would point to the dim sum held by an official going down to Yangzhou on TV and shout: "Brother, I want to eat this, it looks delicious! Please, Brother, make it for me, Brother!!"

Because what Qin Luo pursued was at least delicious dim sum. Whether it was restored or not wasn't important; the point was that it had to be delicious.

But what Chen Huihui wanted to eat...

Was a bit too abstract.

The story of a child from a wealthy family who ate delicacies from mountains and seas every day, but was shocked when she suddenly ate wild vegetables that had no taste, was just a rotten story written in magazines that cost 2 yuan a catty at old book stalls when he was a child. Huihui shouldn't have seen it at her age.

Qin Huai frowned, his expression solemn, and returned to the cooking station.

Qin Luo had already pressed a set of rabbit baozi. At this time, she was holding the mung bean paste that had just been taken out of the refrigerator and hadn't completely thawed, looking like she wanted to secretly press another set of mung bean paste.

"Making mung bean cake today," Qin Huai said.

Qin Luo:!

If conditions allowed and there was no plastic wrap around, Qin Luo would have liked to seal the basin containing the filling immediately, indicating that she was colorblind and had taken the wrong filling.

Qin Luo felt she still had room for salvation: "Brother, I'll help you peel the mung beans."

There are many types of mung bean cakes on the market these days, divided into north and south by flavor. The north is famous for Beijing-style mung bean cake, and the south is famous for Suzhou-style and Yangzhou-style. If you subdivide the types, there are even more—ordinary, new-style, Yunnan-style, and foreign ones.

Qin Huai didn't know what style of mung bean cake he was making. If it was stipulated according to the industry standard for mung bean cakes, it was likely Beijing-style. Because the industry standard for Beijing-style mung bean cake stipulates that the mung bean content must not be less than 50%, and the mung bean content of the mung bean cake Qin Huai made was close to 80%.

Such a high mung bean content required very high quality for the mung beans themselves.

The quality of the mung beans was only part of it; the most crucial thing was that the mung beans pressed into paste after being steamed had to be peeled. Peeling mung beans was absolutely a very troublesome thing. Even if the mung beans were soaked in advance for more than 12 hours, it was impossible to completely peel them by rubbing. The mung beans that couldn't be peeled by repeated rubbing and rinsing had to be picked out one by one and peeled by hand.

Picking out a large basin of mung beans one by one and peeling them by hand—after half an hour, you could see at least three overlapping images of mung beans.

Such difficult work was absolutely impossible for Zhao Rong, whose eyes weren't good, Qin Congwen, whose waist wasn't good, and Qin Huai, who didn't have that much time to pick mung beans.

But Qin Luo could.

Since the year Qin Huai first tried making mung bean cakes in the sixth grade of elementary school, Qin Luo had fallen in love with this job.

This child, her vision had been 5.0 since she was a child.

Her hands were also nimble.

If she traveled into a "house fight" novel, she would definitely be a great hand at being punished by the mistress to pick Buddha beans.

For Qin Luo, when picking mung beans, she could watch TV while picking, and after picking, she could quickly see the results—freshly baked mung bean cakes with a clear fragrance, not sticky to the teeth, and pressed into various molds by Qin Huai with the sweetness most suited to her taste.

Moreover, mung bean cakes didn't drop crumbs much, so she could eat them while walking, and she could secretly stuff them into her school bag to take to school to eat, and most importantly, she could share them with classmates to show off and proudly say: "Delicious, right? My brother made it specially for me, awesome, right!"

Facing Qin Luo's active request, Qin Huai accepted it happily and pointed to the corner, signaling that Qin Luo could start working now.

Qin Luo walked to the corner with high spirits, and was stunned.

Three large basins of soaked mung beans.

As for the size of the basins, they were bathtubs for children.

Of course, Qin Luo wasn't fighting alone; she had a colleague—An Youyou.

Looking at An Youyou's not-so-skilled movements of peeling mung beans, Qin Luo felt she could do it again. Although her brother had been reborn, inherited the estate, changed his gun for a cannon, and became the boss, she was still the best mung bean peeler in the Qin family!

An Youyou, who was watching Qin Luo, who was suddenly full of energy and vitality, was:...

The boss's craftsmanship was unpredictable and fluctuating, and the boss's sister's mood was also unpredictable and fluctuating. This family of the boss was truly unfathomable.

An Youyou felt Qin Huai's family was unfathomable, and Qin Huai also felt Chen Huihui was truly unfathomable.

As everyone knows, people are distracted when thinking about things. When distracted, it often happens that the body is working, but the soul has drifted away.

Qin Huai, who was distracted, packed 8 bags of baozi wrong when packing delivery orders in the morning, packing 8 orders of Qin Congwen's 1.5-yuan fresh meat baozi into 25-yuan Three-Diced Baozi.

The lucky office worker who opened the "blind box" had tears in his eyes when eating the baozi, feeling that pie really fell from the sky. Although it wasn't Christmas yet, Santa Claus had already changed his 1.5-yuan fresh meat baozi into 25-yuan Three-Diced Baozi!

Of course, the mood of the colleague diagonally opposite the lucky one who didn't open the blind box wasn't so wonderful. Seeing the colleague at the diagonal workstation eating baozi with happiness, then looking at the baozi in his own hand, thinking about last month's salary, and looking at the balance of his bank card, he hated it so much that his teeth were about to break.

Santa Claus Qin Huai knew nothing about this and was kneading dough while distracted.

"Brother, the mung beans are ready!" Qin Luo ran over to report the progress of the work, holding a large bowl of mung beans in her hand, and placed the bowl steadily on the cooking station. "This bowl is mine."

Qin Huai understood in seconds. This bowl was Qin Luo's selection, kept for their own family to eat, without a single fish that slipped through the net. Those three basins were for diners, not guaranteed in quality or quantity.

Qin Huai nodded, not caring.

Processing it finely could certainly make the taste and texture of the dim sum even better, adding flowers to the brocade. But processing it normally wouldn't make the dim sum very difficult to eat. Most people eating mung bean cake wouldn't expect to eat a very amazing taste, and many diners might not even be able to taste this small gap.

"Tell Dad, let him steam the mung beans when he has time. I'll probably start making mung bean cakes around 10:00."

Qin Luo ran over to pass the message, ran back quickly, stared at the ingredients on the table for a while without seeing what Qin Huai intended to make, and asked: "Brother, what dim sum are we eating today?"

Qin Huai said absent-mindedly: "Donkey-rolling-donkey sold well yesterday, continue today."

"The glutinous rice was prepared the day before yesterday, today I have to make the Jiang Mi rice cake."

"It's hot these two days, I have to eat something to clear heat and detoxify. It just so happens that I'm making mung bean cake today, so I'll make some mung bean cool cake by the way."

"These ingredients on the table are all for crab shell yellow. Since I made fresh shrimp ones, pure meat ones, red bean paste ones, and white sugar ones, of course, I have to make them too. Make more and put them on sale; they should be able to sell until mid-afternoon."

Qin Luo began to calculate in her heart how to eat to maximize the dim sum.

"Luo Luo." Qin Huai put down the dough in his hand. "Brother asks you something."

Qin Luo perked up.

"Suppose, I'm just saying suppose."

"Our family has always been particularly rich, Mom and Dad didn't restrict your eating and drinking since you were a child, you went wherever you wanted to eat, and delicacies from mountains and seas were like home-cooked meals since you were a child."

"In this case, what you love most has always been coarse grains."

Qin Luo:?

"But you don't know what specific coarse grains you love to eat. What you pursue might be that kind of closeness to nature, simple and unadorned, revealing simplicity in roughness, and freedom in not deliciousness."

"But you have never found the food of your dreams, so what you love to eat currently is the not-delicious buckwheat mantou. So, what do you think you might really love to eat?"

Qin Luo:...

Qin Luo felt that her brother had probably gone crazy from the blow of having to get up at 4:00 every day to make dim sum after getting rich.

Qin Luo also wanted to scratch her head a bit.

Qin Luo pondered for a moment, wanted to say something but stopped, then pondered for a moment, and bared her teeth.

"Maybe..." Qin Luo scratched her chin. "Is it... wild vegetables?"

"Just love to eat this kind of simple, unadorned, original thing?"

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 26 =====