Song felt a little puzzled, but she also thought that Li Shuisheng was a little old and it was a bit embarrassing to talk about marriage, so she just shook her head and smiled, and continued to wash the clothes in the basin.

The clothes were almost washed, and Song washed them quickly. After two more rinses, she took them out of the basin, wrung them dry, and hung them on the hemp rope tied between the tung tree and the window edge in the yard.

After cleaning up for a while, he went back to the house to rest.

Li Shuisheng heard no more movement in the room over there, then he sighed and turned over.

His eyes were wide open and couldn't close for a long time.

The next few days were still busy.

But Xia Mingyue has already chosen some preliminary candidates for the food stall franchise on West Street.

They are Aunt Feng’s two nieces-in-law.

One of them was surnamed Cao and the other was surnamed Chen. They were both honest, clean, and efficient women. Their children were all in their teens and could do some chores such as helping to collect bowls, wipe the table, and make wontons and steamed dumplings.

If both families work together, there will be enough manpower.

Xia Mingyue already highly recognized Feng's character, and thought that the niece-in-law she had taught should also have quite good conduct, so she chatted with her in detail.

After the chat, I became more and more satisfied with Cao and Chen.

The two of them had always been taking care of their family and being filial to Aunt Feng. They were very familiar with cooking and got the hang of making food very quickly. Although they had never done business before, they were able to learn it quickly.

The most important thing is that these two sisters-in-law are both ambitious in making money and take the joining very seriously.

It can be said that the two sides hit it off immediately. They handed over the silver and signed the agreement with Xia Mingyue on the same day.

The next day, Xia Mingyue began to teach the two people how to make various foods from the food stall.

The two sisters-in-law, Cao and Chen, studied very hard and mastered the technique very quickly.

Taking advantage of this time, Xia Mingyue made adjustments to the product planning of Xia Ji Food Stall.

The cold noodles were removed from the shelves and replaced by the previously popular wontons and noodles. As the sesame seed cake took a long time to make, Xia Mingyue decided to suspend its production for a while and instead started selling the willow leaf steamed dumplings that she had tried before.

Xia Mingyue also added a sauce to the noodles: chicken stewed with mushrooms.

The whole chicken is chopped into small pieces and stewed together with various chopped mushrooms to make a bright soup with a rich and mellow braised flavor. It is paired with chewy and elastic hand-rolled noodles and garnished with a little coriander. It is really satisfying to eat.

All the noodle stews are freshly prepared in the morning and simmered in a charcoal basin. The stew can be kept hot but not boiling. The meat will not become too loose. On the contrary, the continuous heating will make the chicken and mushrooms more flavorful and taste better.

By the time the products of Xia Ji Food Stall were adjusted and Cao and Chen completely took over the Xia Ji Food Stall on West Street, it was already early September.

The coolness of the weather in the morning and evening became more and more obvious, even turning into cold.

The important work has come to an end, and the central kitchen has also reorganized the division of labor due to the increase in manpower. Everyone is in an orderly manner and performs their duties.

Xia Mingyue was not so busy, so she started thinking about making some new food.

The best thing to eat on such a cold day is cross-bridge rice noodles.

Cross-Bridge Rice Noodles is a local snack in Yunnan that originated in Mengzi. It got its name because a scholar’s ​​wife accidentally discovered a way of eating fresh meat slices and rice noodles in chicken soup when she was delivering food to the scholar across a bridge to a pavilion in the lake.

The ingredients of the side dishes are even more abundant, with all kinds of ingredients of all sizes stacked up layer by layer, colorful and varied, and poured into the steaming chicken soup together with the rice noodles. The taste is rich but it does not lose its own delicious rules.

Just thinking about it, Xia Mingyue already felt hungry, and couldn't wait to start preparing all the ingredients. In order to make a bowl of delicious cross-bridge rice noodles, Xia Mingyue first needed to make rice noodles.

Mix glutinous rice flour, corn starch and cornstarch together, add boiling water and a little vegetable oil to knead into a smooth dough.

Use a noodle pressing rack to press the dough into thick lines and drop it into a pot of boiling water. After it is cooked, quickly take it out and soak it in cold water to ensure the chewy texture of the rice noodles.

When the rice noodles are completely cool, place them in a bowl and set aside.

After making the rice noodles, Xia Mingyue began to stew the soul of cross-bridge rice noodles - chicken soup.

Choose an old hen with thick meat, add water, onion, ginger, pepper, etc., bring to a boil over high heat, and simmer over low heat for an hour until the chicken is soft and the soup is clear with a layer of light yellow chicken oil floating on the surface. It is then considered cooked.

While the chicken soup was stewing, Xia Mingyue began to prepare other side dishes.

Fresh mung bean sprouts, thin and tough bean curd sheets cut into half-inch wide strips, tenderloin cut into thin slices, leeks cut into one-inch long segments, cooked chicken gizzards cut into thin slices...

In order to ensure the authenticity of the cross-bridge rice noodles, Xia Mingyue specially found a few quail eggs on the street and even bought a pot of chrysanthemums.

Seeing Xia Mingyue coming back with the chrysanthemums, everyone was a little puzzled.

You Qi Lu whispered to Jiang Zhuguo, "Isn't your sister Xia busy making some rice noodles? Why did she buy a pot of chrysanthemums?"

"Chrysanthemums are in full bloom at this time." Jiang Zhuguo guessed, "Perhaps Sister Xia feels that the house is monotonous, so she wants to buy a pot of chrysanthemums to decorate it."

The house now has all the necessary items, except for some flowers and plants.

What we grow in the yard at home are just various vegetables.

"Is that about right?" Before Mrs. Lu finished her words, she saw Xia Mingyue taking a pair of scissors and picking two chrysanthemums directly.

Lu: "..."

I knew it, I never saw my sister-in-law like any flowers or plants, so I guess they bought these chrysanthemums for cooking.

Wait, cooking?
Use flowers...

Cooking?

Lu's eyes widened a little.

Everyone present looked at each other, watching Xia Mingyue happily busying herself.

Another half hour passed, Xia Mingyue brought everything to the table and invited everyone to eat rice noodles.

Everyone had never eaten rice noodles before, let alone seen them before, so when Xia Mingyue called them, they all gathered around the table and sat down. However, when they realized that there were no steaming hot rice noodles in front of them, but small bowls of cold rice noodles, and plates of raw meat, raw quail eggs, chrysanthemum petals, raw leeks and other items, they became even more confused.

How to eat this?
Eat it raw directly?

Yes, I have heard others mention it before, saying that in some places people eat raw food, such as freshly caught fish, which they can directly slice and put into their mouths.

It even has a very elegant name, called sashimi.

Moreover, this way of eating is very popular among dignitaries, who say it tastes delicious. (End of this chapter)