Chapter 31: Cookies. (2/2)

As soon as she turned around, she heard windows and doors closing hurriedly.

Strange, when she first came back, everyone seemed more friendly, but now she could feel a hint of malice.

Shen Miao scratched her chin, thinking that tomorrow was a market day, and perhaps she should buy a dog to guard the house.

She had a feeling about Zheng Nezhi’s expression.

With the eighty coins, she would start fixing up the house.

Once the work began, the noise would alert the neighbors, and they would soon know she had made quite a bit of money.

She wasn’t paranoid, just cautious.

The Shen family only had her and two children, which made them an easy target for thieves. She had been planning to buy a dog anyway, not just to guard against anyone in particular.

With that thought, Shen Miao quickly went back to work on the upgraded egg yolk pastries.

The eldest madam of the Xie family and Zheng Nezhi would both know that what she said was true, her egg yolk pastry really had rich recipes.

Making meat floss at home isn’t difficult.

She had Ji Ge’er watch over Xiang Jie’er, then went out to buy a pound of pork tenderloin and a few large taros.

After returning and cleaning them, she removed all the fat and tendons from the meat, ensuring no tendons were left, or the floss wouldn’t be fluffy.

Then, she cut the meat into large pieces and used a method to remove the blood by soaking it, blanching it, and cooking it with spring onions, ginger, cooking wine, etc. for about fifteen minutes.

Next, she used a rolling pin to crush the meat, making it easier to shred.

Then she shredded it by hand into thin strands, adding salt, oil, sugar, soy sauce, and other seasonings.

She mixed it well and then stir-fried it in a pan until fragrant and dry.

Finally, she ground it into a finer texture using a mortar.

Shen Miao also added some roasted white sesame seeds to make the meat floss even more fragrant.

When the meat floss was done, the house was filled with a delicious smell of meat.

After tasting it herself, she gave Xiang Jie’er and Ji Ge’er each a small bowl with a little bit for a snack.

Xiang Jie’er ate with sesame all over her mouth, smacking her lips, still unsatisfied.

She sneakily approached Ji Ge’er, hiding behind his desk, tiptoeing to steal some of the meat floss from Ji Ge’er’s plate.

Ji Ge’er pretended to be absorbed in his book, closing his eyes, shaking his head as he held in his laughter, letting his sister steal some.

Shen Miao had tasted it earlier, and the meat floss was salty, fragrant, and crispy, as fluffy as cotton.

She nodded in satisfaction—she could also try making chicken meat floss next time.

Chicken breast meat would make it even crispier and chewier.

The pound of pork she bought made a large jar of pork floss, enough to fill egg yolk pastries.

The remaining meat floss… could be used to make meat floss cakes or meat floss pastries, which sounded nice too.

Wrong!

Shen Miao had already planned tomorrow’s breakfast: homemade meat floss cakes paired with Liu’s family’s peanut tofu flower soup from the alley.

That would be a great combination.

She then started making taro paste.

The Song people loved taro, with large taros called “Tu Zhi” and small ones called “Tu.”

Every fall and winter, the Song people’s traditional way of eating it was to sit around a stove with their family, roasting taro on the fire and eating it directly, or warming up a pot of wine and spreading fermented rice on the taro, slow-cooking it over a low fire.

It was served hot, with a sweet and warm flavor from the wine.

When Shen Miao was a child, she loved eating small taro, which was smooth and tender, cooked in a clay pot with sauerkraut to make a rich soup.

The taro dishes she had as a child were mostly savory, and it seemed like it was only after she grew up that taro paste and milk tea, or desserts, became popular.

Honestly, taro paste should be made with milk and purple sweet potatoes.

Shen Miao… didn’t have money to buy milk.

If she added milk, she would need to charge Zheng Nezhi 20 or 30 coins for each egg yolk pastry, otherwise, it would be a loss.

Of course, purple sweet potatoes weren’t available in the Song Dynasty either.

It didn’t matter if she didn’t add purple sweet potatoes, because the main reason for using purple sweet potatoes was for their color and to help reduce the cost of the taro paste.

But without milk, how would she make the taro paste sweet, fragrant, and smooth?

Shen Miao stood in front of the stove for a moment, then smiled.

She melted rock candy into syrup, found glutinous rice flour, and steamed the taro until it was soft and mashed.

Then, she mixed in the syrup and rice flour, stirring it into a fine texture like old yogurt.

After steaming it for a little while, the glutinous rice flour made the taro paste soft and chewy, while the syrup made it smoother than granulated sugar.

She tasted it—it lacked the milk flavor, which was a little regretful, but the texture was good, soft, sticky, and with a bit of a chewy bite.

Next, she went through the usual egg yolk pastry steps.

She had prepared the red bean paste the night before for her stall, since she always made more than needed for red bean bread.

Now, it was ready to use.

Shen Miao pulled up a stool, arranged all the ingredients in front of her, rolled up her sleeves, and started wrapping the pastries, while listening to Xiang Jie’er trying to mimic the sound of a chicken in the yard.

The clucking of chickens blended with Xiang Jie’er’s chatter as she seemed to be trying to communicate with them.

Soon, Shen Miao wrapped up sixty pastries.

Fifty of them were packed in boxes and sent to the Xie family, while the remaining ten were kept for her own family.

The next morning, Shen Miao asked Ji Ge’er to take some meat floss and taro paste egg yolk pastries to Lianxin Bookstore, and also bring some for Manager Zhou to taste.

Speaking of Manager Zhou, he was quite an old resident, and had always treated Ji Ge’er well, so Shen Miao thought she should take care of him whenever possible.

Since Ji Ge’er was off to study, she went to the early market and, after finishing her shopping, carried a basket and shoulder pole with Xiang Jie’er on the earliest long carriage to the outer city to attend the big market, thinking about buying some daily necessities and a dog.

In the Song Dynasty, markets were divided into early and late markets, “town markets,” “grass markets,” and “temple markets”.

Especially in large temples and Daoist shrines, the markets were more extravagant.

For example, at the Great Xiangguo Temple, monks not only engaged in lending, selling spices, charms, divination, and fortune-telling, but also made their own preserved fruits and pastries to sell.

They even sold a type of cloth called “temple silk.”

Despite being devoted to their quiet practices, the monks and Daoists weren’t ashamed to engage in these worldly businesses for a few hundred coins.

This was a reflection of the Song Dynasty’s national involvement in business.

Today, Shen Miao went to the “grass market,” a regular market set up on the outskirts of the outer city.

The market was very lively.

When Shen Miao arrived, it was already late, and people from all over had arrived early.

The road was lined with vendors, and there were many people, just like her, carrying baskets, shoulder poles, driving cattle, or pulling carts.

There were also many simple-looking farmers shouting loudly as they sold fruits and vegetables.

After walking around twice, Shen Miao bought some fresh rice, noodles, meat, and vegetables.

She passed a cloth stall and bought two sets of clothing and shoes for herself, Xiang Jie’er, and Ji Ge’er, as the spring was ending and the weather was getting warmer, so she bought two sets of summer clothes.

Besides clothes, she also bought some oil paper, bamboo baskets, soap, vegetable seeds, and other daily necessities.

She also bought some pens, paper knives, and ink sticks for Ji Ge’er.

After baking red bean bread at the Xie family’s for three days, she earned four coins.

Later, after the weather cleared, she returned to her stall and made over eight hundred coins a day.

Over this time, she had saved more than eight coins.

Now, when she went shopping, though she still haggled and was frugal, she was much more relaxed than before.

The prices at the outer city market were much cheaper than in Bianjing City, and Shen Miao soon had a full load.

Finally, she found a livestock stall selling chickens, ducks, cats, dogs, cows, and sheep.

She was crouched down, selecting a dog, when suddenly a voice called, “Miss?”

She instinctively turned around, and saw her chubby uncle Shen Dabo, dressed in a silk long gown with a scholar’s cap, waving a folding fan despite the not too hot or cold weather.

Beside him were also his wife Ding Shi and their chubby son Hai Ge’er.

Ding Shi looked at her with a dissatisfied look, while Hai Ge’er, holding a greasy meat cake, looked at her with curiosity and surprise.

Since Shen Miao had married, they hadn’t seen her.

Ding Shi had complained about her, and Hai Ge’er thought that his cousin must have suffered terribly in her marriage, and that she would be a pale and haggard figure.

But to his surprise, three years had passed, and although Shen Miao didn’t look as she had before, she looked much more lively now, with a bright and healthy aura.

Her eyes were large and round, with naturally upturned corners, and under the spring sunlight, they shimmered like translucent amber.

Shen Miao also didn’t expect to run into her uncle’s family here, so she stood up and greeted them with Xiang Jie’er.

“Uncle, are you also here for the market? Why did you call for your niece?”