Abnormal Gourmet Chronicle
Chapter 337 - 205: Four Happiness Glutinous Rice Balls

Chapter 337: Chapter 205: Four Happiness Glutinous Rice Balls

When Qin Huai and Ouyang returned home, it was not yet 6 o’clock.

Qin Huai planned to first try the Four Happiness glutinous rice balls, which sounded simpler by name.

Qin Huai knew how to make glutinous rice balls.

He could not only make glutinous rice balls but also Lantern Festival dumplings. Glutinous rice balls are a must-eat snack for the Qin Family on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. Regardless of how much or how little is eaten, a bowl of glutinous rice balls must be eaten before dinner, usually with sesame filling.

There was a period when fruit glutinous rice balls became very popular in Qiu County. Qin Huai tried making them a few times. Perhaps due to incorrect formulas, the taste wasn’t ideal; the Qin Family moved back to sesame-filled glutinous rice balls after trying the fruit ones a few times.

As for the Lantern Festival dumplings, Qin Luo discovered that the southern and northern glutinous rice balls were different while watching TV. In the south, they’re called glutinous rice balls, while in the north, they’re called Lantern Festival dumplings. Glutinous rice balls are wrapped, while Lantern Festival dumplings are rolled, and the Lantern Festival dumplings are bigger. Qin Luo immediately lost interest in any palace drama snacks and just wanted Lantern Festival dumplings.

Qin Huai tried making Lantern Festival dumplings a few times following the "Snack Encyclopedia" recipe. Qin Luo found they were not much different from glutinous rice balls, and their skin wasn’t as smooth and sticky. The most crucial point was that Lantern Festival dumplings were all sweet, unlike glutinous rice balls, which also had meat fillings. After eating them a few times, Lantern Festival dumplings were abandoned coldly.

Over the years, the number of snacks coldly abandoned by Qin Luo exceeded the number of concubines exiled in palace dramas.

In Qin Huai’s opinion, making glutinous rice balls was easy.

This snack posed little challenge. Even though Four Happiness glutinous rice balls were a more complex version requiring four different fillings in four different shapes, the difficulty in seasoning and Finger Skill was low.

Although the game system often complained that Qin Huai never styled the snacks, many snacks indeed didn’t require styling.

The Four Happiness glutinous rice balls had four shapes to distinguish the different fillings to avoid mixing them up while cooking.

As soon as Qin Huai got home, he began studying the recipe.

The recipe was simple. Qin Huai roughly skimmed through it and memorized it in his heart, starting with the glutinous rice wrapping.

Making Four Happiness glutinous rice balls, the wrapping was the most troublesome part.

Special water milled powder, also called rice glutinous powder, was used. To make it by hand is complicated: soaking glutinous rice for a night, grinding it with water to paste, then hanging it in a cloth bag overnight to drain the water from the paste. Finally, breaking the sticky glutinous rice clumps left in the cloth into a powder and drying it to use as rice glutinous powder for glutinous rice balls.

This was an old traditional method.

Now it’s different. With technological advances, water milled powder is directly available in supermarkets in varying quality and grades.

Qin Huai found some never-opened water milled powder in the cupboard, six bags of different brands. He chose a bag that seemed best based on the packaging and ingredients list, poured a small bowl, and mixed it into a dough with cold water.

When Qin Huai first moved in, the cupboards in the kitchen were completely empty. There wasn’t even rice at home.

When Qin Huai first brought ingredients home from Huang Ji to practice making Crab Dumplings, the variety of home ingredients increased.

The kitchen had all needed for pastry: various sugars, powders, yeasts... even the cleaning lady bought six rolling pins.

Qin Huai thought if the house weren’t too small, and space constraints allowed, Gong Liang would have definitely had the cleaning lady order a Huang Ji-style super large steam oven for the kitchen.

Qin Huai slowly pressed the dough into thin pancake shapes and cooked them in boiling water.

Ouyang stood outside the kitchen watching, surprised to see Qin Huai directly put the dough into the pot, wondering if he had offended Qin Huai in the past two days. Did Qin Huai want to take revenge by stuffing him with a pot of dough to fill his stomach?

Ouyang started to reflect on what he had done the past two days.

Was it because he drank four cups of hand-crafted lemon tea yesterday without bringing one for Qin Huai, making him unhappy?

Or had his secret lunch at Guanhe Building the day before been exposed, prompting Qin Huai as a chef of Huang Ji to teach him a lesson?

Or did Qin Huai discover he secretly ate three big packs of cheese sticks in the morning?

Ouyang swallowed nervously as he looked at the tumbling dough in boiling water.

That was glutinous rice dough, eating too much could be bloating.

Could he apply to eat it with some sugar later?

Was there still time to confess?

"It wasn’t intentional for me to go and eat at Guanhe Building the day before; I just heard the food there was good." Ouyang said.

"Guanhe Building’s food is good. Their Squirrel Mandarin Fish is a signature dish, and the Pun Wort Bean Curd Soup is also famous." Qin Huai nodded.

Ouyang: ?

Not that?

Ouyang continued his confession: "I also didn’t mean to eat all the cheese sticks in the fridge; I just couldn’t resist. Those things simply don’t fill the stomach; you start and can’t stop. You know, for the past two years, I lived in poverty, not even willing to eat a cheese stick. Sometimes only when Huihui gave me one could I eat it. Now, facing so many cheese sticks, I really couldn’t resist their temptation."

Qin Huai kept his eyes on the pot, not looking at Ouyang, and seeing the dough had floated to the top, quickly added clear water, turned down the heat, and cooked the dough thoroughly.

Qin Huai had suffered before when making glutinous rice balls, where the dough was undercooked, ruining a whole pot.

"If you like cheese sticks, you should have said so earlier. Later, write a note and stick it on the fridge, telling the cleaning lady what flavors you want. She buys new ones every day."

"Don’t just eat cheese sticks, have some fruit too."

"Huh?" Ouyang was bewildered.

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