Chapter 77 (1/2)

She used a pair of scissors to cut open the chicken intestines and then used cold water to wash out all of the feces. When they were fixing up the rear courtyard, she had deliberately directed people to create a channel next to the well that connected to the outhouse's latrine pit. By having this, they could wash laundry and vegetables and the dirty water would just flow away.

”Cao'er, what can I do to help?” Madam Liu couldn't bear to just watch the two sisters being busy and walked over.

Yu Xiaocao smiled at her and said, ”Mother, you came at the right time. Do we still have any coa.r.s.e salt left at home? You can grab it and use it to forcefully scrub the inside of the chicken intestines. This will remove any weird odors from it.”

”Use coa.r.s.e salt to scrub? Are you sure you can sell this for money? When the time comes, I hope you can sell out because otherwise we won't be able to eat it and would have wasted all of these materials!” Although coa.r.s.e salt was cheap to buy in areas by the sea, about one copper coin could buy half a jar of it, Madam Liu was used to being frugal and couldn't help from warning her daughter.

Xiaocao pouted her lips and said, ”Mother! Relax! My methods are given to me by the G.o.d of Fortune and they definitely won't fail!”

After the little girl used the G.o.d's name as a reb.u.t.tal, Madam Liu didn't say anything more and squatted down to scrub the chicken intestines clean with salt. She was very thorough in her work as she was afraid that if they weren't clean, she'd end up causing more problems for her daughter.

Xiaocao started to fully concentrate on preparing the chicken liver and gizzards. The most important part when cleaning the liver was to cut off the gallbladder on top. This was delicate work because if you weren't careful, it was very easy to cut into the gallbladder and leak out its contents. With the spillage, the liver would have a bitter taste that would influence the taste of the final dish in a bad way. Luckily, she had more than ten years of experience from her past life in preparing this and could even do it in her sleep.

The gizzards, on the other hand, were slightly more troublesome as she needed to cut them open, wash out the feces, and then cut off the inner layer of yellow colored film. However, this yellow chicken gizzard lining was an important medicinal ingredient and was also called 'fowl's inner gold'. If a child had indigestion from eating too much, the sun-dried fowl's inner gold could be ground into a powder and taken. After taking it, the digestive problems would go away.

Xiaocao was an expert in peeling off this membrane. Out of the forty-so chicken gizzard linings she had to take out, every single one was intact and not a single rip could be seen.

After the chicken intestines, liver, and gizzards were all cleaned, Xiaocao told her mother to go rest. She then pulled Xiaolian into the kitchen with her. The plan was to finish braising all of these meats tonight and then go into town the next day to see if she could sell them.

”You want to sell this in town? The townspeople are sn.o.bbish and picky. If they found out that you had made these dishes out of the innards of a chicken, they would probably beat you to death. In my opinion, you should try your luck at the docks instead. First of all, we live closer to the docks as it takes less than two hours to walk there. Second, the people who work there, such as the fishmongers and dock porters, all wake up early. Most of them either bring their own breakfast from home or buy something. These people don't have high expectations for their food. As long as it tastes good and the price is reasonable, they won't think anything of spending a couple copper coins for food.” Xiaolian had overheard her eldest maternal aunt describing her small business on the docks and proposed this idea to Xiaocao.

Xiaocao thought for a bit and then nodded her head, ”Ok! You are right. It's very lively and bustling at Tanggu Docks. There's a decent market for food even if we only count those dockworkers. We'll go there tomorrow to try our luck!”

The two sisters went into the kitchen and lit the fire to boil water. After the water reached a boil, they first blanched the chicken to remove any odd odors. Next, they needed to make the seasoning sauce. Whether or not a braised dish tasted good depended heavily on its sauce. There were three general types of seasoning sauces for braised food: red sauce, white sauce, and yellow sauce.

In her past life, Xiaocao had received the authentic recipes for the sauces from her shop's boss. All of the sauces were her proprietary specialties. She thought for a bit and then asked Xiaolian, ”Xiaolian, give me a couple more coins, I need to go to Doctor You to buy some herbs and then I'll come back…”

At the beginning of spring, Doctor You had returned to the village with a young boy around the age of ten. It was said that this boy was his grandnephew or some sort of relative. Xiaocao had already returned the medicine trunk with all of the money she had earned during the fall and winter back to him. The villagers were also relieved. Although most people had recognized her medical skills, fellow villagers still preferred to have an older doctor to take care of them.

”Medicinal herbs?” Can you really cook with those?” Xiaolian asked, perplexed.

Xiaocao grinned, ”Of course. Don't the more wealthy families often eat ginseng chicken and angelica sinensis stewed with chicken? Don't those dishes contain medicinal ingredients?”

Xiaolian muttered under her breath, ”How can we compare to those rich people?” However, she still went back to the room and took out the embroidered pouch Xiaocao had returned to her that afternoon and placed it back into her younger sister's hands.

The medicinal herbs that Xiaocao needed were all very common ones and, thus, were cheap. She only spent ten copper coins on a bunch of different types. After she got home, she started to make the sauce. Since the weather was cold now, she made sure to blend a large portion of the seasoning sauce.

The seasoning sauce of a braised dish could be used multiple times as long as it was stored properly. In fact, the more times the sauce was used and the longer it fermented, the better the taste and quality. This was because the percentage of soluble proteins in the sauce increased as time went by. This was also the reason why the braised dishes made with older sauces had a more mellow and rich taste compared to the newer sauces.

Xiaocao started measuring the ingredients. Her recipe required: 20 grams of star anise, 20 grams of chinese cinnamon, 50 grams of dried orange peel, 20 grams of Sichuan peppercorn, 15 grams of fennel, 20 grams of bay leaves, 15 grams of licorice root, 100 grams of dried hot chili pepper, 150 grams of scallions, 150 grams of fresh ginger, one catty of yellow wine, 400 grams of soy sauce, 200 grams of salt…(Author's note: Please don't try to make this at home, this is a simplified recipe.)

When Xiaolian saw forty copper coins worth of materials being wrapped into a cheesecloth and being thrown into the basin, she hastily said, ”Is it okay to make so much on the first try? What if it turns out bad…”

”There won't be a problem with it!” Xiaocao interrupted her firmly. Perhaps her confidence made Xiaolian feel more confident since she didn't make any more comments and only followed Xiaocao's instructions in increasing or decreasing the heat on the stove.

”Smells so good! Mother, do you smell it yet? This must be the smell of Second Sister's finished offal dish. I'm going to go look!” Little s.h.i.+tou, who had been laying on the bed digesting his food, was like a police dog who had smelled something interesting. He scrambled off the kang bed, hastily slipped on his old and worn cotton shoes, and bolted out the room. He ran so fast that he almost tripped on the threshold of the door.