Abnormal Gourmet Chronicle
Chapter 338 - 205: Four Happiness Glutinous Rice Balls_2

Chapter 338: Chapter 205: Four Happiness Glutinous Rice Balls_2

While Ouyang was still confused, the dumplings in the pot had already been cooked. Qin Huai scooped them out and soaked them in cold water, without draining them, spread them on the countertop, added cooked lard, and started kneading them like dough.

At this point, Ouyang understood.

Oh, it turns out he is not going to eat boiled glutinous rice dumplings; Qin Huai is actually making snacks.

Only then did Ouyang feel relieved and continued watching closely.

The steps of kneading dumplings are very similar to kneading dough, both involving repeated kneading until the dough is smooth and non-sticky.

After kneading the dough, Qin Huai began wrapping the tangyuan.

The filling was brought from Huang Ji in the afternoon.

The Four Happiness tangyuan has four kinds of fillings, which are actually quite simple: two savory and two sweet. The vegetable-meat and pure meat are savory, and red bean paste and sesame are sweet.

This afternoon, Qin Huai also asked Huang Shengli, and received a confirmed response that the tangyuan fillings are the most basic ones.

This snack is a homemade snack that every household in Longcheng can make. In the past, there were small vendors selling it everywhere on the streets and school entrances. Such a common snack definitely has the most common, basic fillings.

Qin Huai didn’t prepare much; he made a total of 16 tangyuan, 4 pieces per set, which is 4 sets.

The Four Happiness tangyuan is absolutely jumbo-sized, several times bigger than the usual small tangyuan. In upscale restaurants, they’re served in a small bowl, one per bowl, making both the style and the price shoot up.

Qin Huai didn’t have so many bowls at home, so he found four big bowls and planned to let the four tangyuan squeeze into one bowl, making do.

For Qin Huai, compared to wrapping, cooking the tangyuan is more challenging.

Friends who know that a mother isn’t good at cooking know it’s easy for her to break tangyuan while cooking.

When the tangyuan are put into the pot, they’re still intact, but when turning off the heat and opening the lid, it turns into a pot of sesame glutinous rice skin soup.

Having practiced cooking timing for so long, Qin Huai obviously won’t make the low-level mistake of breaking the tangyuan. But cooking tangyuan well, especially large ones like the Four Happiness tangyuan, requires certain skills.

To cook tangyuan, bring water to a boil and gently place them along the edge of the pot, stirring gently from time to time to prevent them from sticking to the bottom. When the water reaches a boil again, add water to maintain a simmer without tipping over. Wait until they float to the surface, then cover and simmer on low heat for two minutes until done.

This is the theoretical knowledge.

In actual operation, there is significant room for adjustment up and down.

For instance, being made of glutinous rice, theoretically, if the chef’s skill level is high, the cooked tangyuan can look as white and translucent as porcelain, hold together when held with chopsticks, not stick to the teeth when eaten, and the filling should be plentiful but not oozing out.

This is all theoretical.

Overall, tangyuan look like a common snack, but they have a very high skill ceiling and a very low floor.

This directly made Qin Huai a little nervous while cooking the tangyuan.

How should I say it? It felt like he was making soup while cooking the tangyuan.

The last time Qin Huai watched a pot so nervously, paying constant attention to the state of the water inside, was when he was boiling broth at Yunzhong Restaurant.

In the end, the tangyuan were taken out.

There was no strong fragrance, just the faint aroma of cooked glutinous rice flour.

Qin Huai served four bowls of tangyuan, one for himself, one for Ouyang, one for Gong Liang, and one for Guo Mingzhu. The two bowls next door were placed in a warmer first, to be delivered after Qin Huai and Ouyang confirmed there were no problems.

Yes, there’s even a warmer in the kitchen.

The freshly cooked tangyuan were scorching hot. Even though he blew on them until the skin no longer seemed hot, Qin Huai dared not take a bite. Without Qin Luo to reference, Ouyang didn’t dare to rashly take a bite either, so he kept blowing and sniffing the tangyuan.

Qin Huai didn’t know what he expected to smell. Tangyuan don’t have much aroma, maybe a hint of cooked glutinous rice flour at best, certainly not fragrant.

"What kind of tangyuan is this? It’s so big and oddly shaped; I saw you wrap it with meat fillings just now." Ouyang asked.

"Four Happiness tangyuan, a specialty snack from Longcheng. I haven’t had it before either; I looked up the recipe online and tried making it today."

"Remember to give me feedback after you eat."

"Don’t worry, buddy. After all the things I’ve tried for you before, you know me, right? Professional taste tester!" Ouyang said, then took a bite.

"Hiss—"

Ouyang almost spat out the tangyuan in his mouth.

He picked a sesame-filled one, and all sweet fillings are hot.

Ouyang inhaled sharply while stirring with his tongue in his mouth frantically. Tilting his head back with his mouth open, resembling a fish gasping for air on shore, he struggled a while before swallowing the tangyuan.

"Sweet." Ouyang gave his review.

Qin Huai:...

What was he even expecting?

Qin Huai already gave up on expecting any valuable feedback from Ouyang, skillfully extracting a vegetable-meat filled tangyuan with a spoon and took a small bite.

Very tender and chewy, not sticky to the teeth.

With Qin Huai’s current dough-kneading skills, he could produce very beautiful tangyuan skin.

Qin Huai glanced at the tangyuan in his spoon.

Beautiful.

The vegetable-meat filling was green, initially, you could only see finely chopped green shepherd’s purse, with sporadic meat bits, tasting very much like vegetable dumplings with barely any meat added.

Wrapping dumpling filling in tangyuan isn’t bad; it’s very fresh, the filling’s color is beautiful, but it feels a bit strange to eat.