I wish you all a happy Little New Year!

The Li family has shipped a batch of New Year’s goods, including glutinous rice from Jiangnan.

“Cook some rice cakes.”

When Li Chao looked at the plump and crystal glutinous rice, some memories of the past New Year appeared in his mind. In later generations, Li Chao's sister married in Jiangxi, where there was a custom of making rice cakes during the New Year.

Just after the winter solstice, almost every household in the countryside started to make rice cakes. The rice cakes made in the countryside are different from the rice cakes you buy, and they are thicker and more authentic.

Cui Yingying is quite interested in this. She is pregnant with her second child and seems to have become a foodie and is becoming more and more interested in what she eats.

"You can buy rice cakes outside, so why don't you make them so troublesome?" Du Caiwei said while holding the lamb.

"How can I buy it like I cook it yourself? Making rice cakes is a taste of the New Year." Li Chao said.

Rice cakes are also called Nian Rice cakes, which are a good start. During the Spring Festival, it is essential to visit relatives and friends as gifts. I remember that after my sister got married, she would bring a lot of rice cakes she made at home every year for the New Year. Rice cakes became a New Year’s goods that Li Chao could never forget.

Stack the rice cakes one by one and rinse them with water. As long as you remember to change the water frequently, the rice cake can even be stored for several months. If placed directly in the well, it can be stored for more than half a year. It will not break in a year after it is placed in the refrigerator.

When you want to eat, cut it into pieces, cut it into thin slices, fry it in oil, add some eggs and fry it best. The fried rice cake is dipped in sugar, it is glutinous, soft and has the fragrance of rice.

When making rice cakes, you naturally have to use a stone mortar, a large wooden hammer and a stone mortar. Making rice cakes is a landscape at the end of the year in many places in Jiangnan.

However, although rice cakes are delicious, they are not easy to beat. This thing is even harder than brewing wine. The family can brew wine at home, but sometimes, people from the whole village need to work together.

Li Chao went to his sister's house to celebrate the New Year. At the end of the year, the village would have to cook rice cakes for a week.

Every year when making rice cakes, men in the village gather together to draw lots to make rice cakes, while women are responsible for the fire, and children are responsible for watching and eating. Basically, rice cakes are made in groups and take turns. This year, this group of people will be another group next year. The rice cakes are like pressing oil, and they are all such collective activities.

I heard that the prime minister wanted to make rice cakes, and several servants from Jiangnan, the family volunteered.

"Making rice cakes is not easy, you have to grasp the heat. Taobao, grind powder, boil water, steam, turn on, beat cakes, and light red. Each process is not simple."

The person who spoke was an old chef in the kitchen at home, who was responsible for steaming rice for servants at home.

When Li Chao heard that he explained the cake-making process so clearly, he immediately chose this old man as the master of the cake-making master of the Li family this year.

"How much cake can we cook at home?" The old chef named Jiang was so happy that he was full of red eyes after receiving this appointment.

Li Chao thought about it and said that there are so many people in his family, he must have to prepare more. Moreover, rice cakes have a good name, which is a good thing for gifts during the New Year. There are so many relatives and friends in the Li family, and there are many gifts for the family. Besides, Li Chao also plans to give some gifts to the merchants below, and those who cooperate with the Li family’s industry will also give some gifts.

It’s the Chinese New Year, I’ll give you some rice cakes I made at home, which is very sincere.

"Get a thousand pounds!" Li Chao said after calculating.

"Ten Thousand Pounds?" Old Jiang was shocked. His family used to make rice cakes, but only about ten pounds were made, but Master Li actually made ten thousand pounds with him.

"Well, just treat it as a New Year gift, and you will give it to someone at that time."

Lao Jiang calculated with his fingers, "A cage of rice cakes costs about 30 kilograms, and 10,000 kilograms must be made at least 300 cages. A young and strong servant can only get about three cages a day, and it takes 10,000 kilograms, which takes a few days."

"Just arrange more stewards to make cakes. After three or four days, you can still make a thousand pounds of cakes."

Lao Jiang calculated that there were not so many people in his kitchen. If he drew six or seven people to fight, he would have to fight twenty cages a day, he would have to fight for half a month. But Li Chao's calculations were different. The Li family had many members, so he would just beat dozens of people to fight for a few days.

“Make rice cakes with several flavors.”

Cui Yingying asked, "What are the flavors of rice cakes?"

Lao Jiang knew it carefully, "There are osmanthus candy rice cakes, water-ground rice cakes, eight treasure rice cakes and lard rice cakes, and of course there are rice cakes that don't add anything."

"Make something about everything." Li Chao said.

Jiang took Li Chao's order and immediately went to choose the team to make cakes with his head held high. Li Chao told him that he would choose whatever he wanted.

"If you are selected as a cake-making team, the men will give you five kilograms of rice cakes, and the women will give you four kilograms." Old Jiang proudly announced to everyone that it only takes three or four days to make cakes. Although cake-making is a very skillful and tiring job, everyone is originally from the Li family. Now, you can get a few extra kilograms of rice cakes in three days, so how can you not be happy?

The men, women and servants at home signed up enthusiastically.

Five kilograms of rice cake can be exchanged for several buckets of relief food.

Lao Jiang finally chose No. 50 people, and formed ten groups with five people. Anyway, the Li family does not lack mortars, steamers, and pots.

The person who was selected by Chiang Kai-shek was very grateful to Chiang Kai-shek. Those who were not selected couldn't help but sigh and feel deeply regretful. There were still a few powerful people who had to discuss theory with Chiang Kai-shek. In the end, Chiang Kai-shek brought up Li Chao's name, and these unselected people dared not make trouble anymore, and be honest.

To make cakes, you need to make glutinous rice from Jiangnan, and grind the glutinous rice into powder.

There are mills and donkeys at home, so this is not difficult.

The glutinous rice started to grind the powder there, and Lao Jiang had already taken some freshly ground glutinous rice flour and started adding water. After adding water, you can steam it in a pot. Adding water to glutinous rice flour is very particular. You should not add more or less water, otherwise it will seriously affect the taste of the rice cake.

Lao Jiang has a good experience. He takes a dot of rice noodles and then uses a proportion of water.

"Uncle Jiang, can you steam it?"

Lao Jiang rolled up his sleeves and his hands were full of rice noodles.

He shook his head, "It's not OK to steam now. After mixing glutinous rice flour with water, you have to sieve it."

Li Chao stood aside and watched with interest as Lao Jiang found another bamboo sieve to start sieve.

After sifting, the rice noodles can finally be put into the wood cereal and steamed. The servant started to add fire as instructed.

Grind glutinous rice flour, add water and mix powder, sieve, put on the sieve, and steam it on fire. Li Chao arranged the process to turn these processes into assembly lines.

The first cage was steamed quickly and formed a large ball.

"You guys are optimistic, you should pay attention to the skill of making rice cakes."

Lao Jiang brought a big wooden hammer and beat it on the glutinous rice balls placed in the mortar. The freshly steamed glutinous rice balls are very sticky and soft when they are beaten. When the wooden hammer is lifted, it will stick to it.

When making rice cakes, you have to pay more attention to skillfulness, otherwise you can’t use force, making you feel like you are trapped in a mud. Old Jiang’s head fights easily, and the young servants next to you are eager to try.

Old Jiang smiled and handed the gavel to a young man next to him.

The boy was eighteen or nineteen years old, strong and tall. He took the hammer and spitted it in his hand first, then grabbed the hammer and smashed it hard. Then he lifted the wand with force. With the brute force, he beat him fiercely and quickly.

However, in just ten strokes, the young man was already blushing and his hands were getting slower and slower. The seemingly small ball of rice cake seemed to weigh a hundred pounds, which made him, a young man with brute force, unable to swing the hammer.

At this time, Lao Jiang smiled and took the hammer from the young man and began to swing it again. Once the hammer came to Lao Jiang's hand, it became obedient again and would not hit the stone mortar at all, as if it was very obedient.

"I'm sure you'll have to use your strength."

Under the guidance of Lao Jiang, the young man no longer underestimated the cake making and started to learn seriously.

During this period, Li Chao and his father and he also swung a wooden hammer to make a basket together. The cakes that were less than 30 kilograms were beaten for almost half an hour, and at least a thousand hammers were beaten.

In Lao Jiang's words, rice cakes need to be beaten more. The longer you beat, the better the taste will be, and the easier it will be to preserve it in the future. Of course, if you are normal and skilled, it will be almost done if you beat three or four hundred times.

Li Chao and the others did not get half the result with twice the effort, and they did not master the method well.

After insisting on fighting a cage, Li Chao was as tired as a dog. Dad, a veteran who danced a spear on the battlefield, was also a little short of breath. He sighed that he had special skills in his skills and making cakes was not easy.

Looking at the rice cake that is white and slightly beige, as translucent as jade, Li Chao also sighed that it is not easy to make cakes with pure hand-made hand.

I pulled off a small ball of rice cake from the mortar and stuffed it into my mouth, making it extremely tough.

This cage is a pure rice cake with nothing added, and the taste is also very good.

My father also pulled a little and chewed it a few times, "The rice cake I made myself tastes delicious."

The father and father were chewing rice cakes, and they were still steaming, and they all looked happy.

The rice cake was still a large ball at this time, and there were still several steps before the final product.

Under the guidance of Lao Jiang, Li Chao took the rice cake ball out of the stone mortar and placed it on the chopping board.

Take a bamboo tube, roll the rice cakes that have been beaten smoothly, and then cut them into the cake.

A servant brought a knife over, but Lao Jiang said, "The knife cannot work, come over with a thick thread."

The freshly beaten rice cake is still soft and sticky. Cut with a knife and it will stick to the knife. The traditional method is to cut the cake with thread.

Lao Jiang took a thread, pulled the two ends, and tightened it, cutting the cakes one by one, and cut them very flat.

"Give me the red juice I just prepared." Lao Jiang said.

A bowl of red juice was brought, which was prepared for the last craft of the rice cake.

If you have prepared rice cakes, you need to make a red dish and a little red dish on the white rice cakes, it will be very beautiful. During the Chinese New Year, it is also very auspicious to give gifts with such red rice cakes.

"Prince, please click red." Jiang Jiang asked Li Chao to complete this last process.

Li Chao took a wooden seal and gave it to his father one too.

"Dad, let's go together!"

The two of them dipped the wooden mark into the bowl, and dipped it in bright red sponge slices of water, white cake and red mark, which looked very beautiful. After the cake was finished, some servants took the bamboo basket and applied some water on the basket to prevent the cake from sticking to it in the future.

Rectangular cake strips are stacked into the basket piece by piece, and then placed directly on the shelter against the wall and stood up one by one, covering the outside with straw to keep warm and prevent freezing. After a few days, the rice cake will dry and hard.

At this time, you can take it off and then soak it in water, which will last for months without getting damaged.

"Soak the water, remember to use the water before spring to prevent it from breaking." Lao Jiang taught another secret.

Li Chao smiled and asked Lao Jiang to mark the cake, "This is the cake that we both made by ourselves. It has been beaten thousands of times. It's not easy. Keep this cake for yourself."

At this time, another basket of cakes was steamed and it was ready to be beaten. Old Jiang hurriedly greeted the servants and started to beat them.
Chapter completed!