Chapter 139: First Challenge With Tofu
When arriving at school in the morning, the news that soybeans could be made into a drinkable beverage spread throughout Class Eight. As a benefit for everyone in Class Eight, they all got a small cup of sweet soy milk from Xiang Chuan’s large water bottle to taste it fresh. Some classmates, without any guidance, directly took buns bought from the newly opened Yue Xiang Restaurant at the school main entrance and ate them with the soy milk. The scene of soy milk with steamed buns directly gave Xiang Chuan a surreal feeling like dreaming back to 30,000 years ago.
The classmates’ feedback was just as Xiang Chuan had anticipated. Since this was the first time many modern people had tasted bean dishes, and it was soy milk made from the essence extracted from soybeans, the natural flavors of the beans needed some time for some people to adapt. However, most people accepted it well. Mandy and other boys enthusiastically suggested that Xiang Chuan simply start selling it directly in the A Bite of China Club’s club activity room in the afternoon, only to receive an eye roll from Xiang Chuan.
Not to mention that these things haven’t been submitted for approval yet, and bean plants currently don’t count as ingredients, with no mass production available. Although there is a large box of soybeans at home, before mass production is possible, using them means one less portion each time. Considering the things to be done next, Xiang Chuan is even worried now that these soybeans might not be enough. Moreover, even if truly planning to sell soy products like soy milk in school, it would have to wait until Xiang Weiguo’s Yue Xiang side completes all the procedures and starts promoting mass production of bean ingredients before starting to consider it.
Occasionally bringing some to school for classmates to taste fresh like this was already the limit.
Everyone in the class comes from families engaged in agriculture-related work, so they more or less understand these twists and turns and considerately didn’t complain. However, led by Chou Manman and others, the foodies couldn’t help but openly and covertly express, out of their instinct to eat, that they could test the waters for Xiang Chuan’s new products—actually planning to blatantly mooch food and drinks—which naturally couldn’t escape the eyes of the A Bite of China Club members.
Ouyang Yating’s one sentence, “Testing poison for the club president’s new products is the duty of our club members,” shut down the foodies. Xiang Chuan twitched at the corner of her mouth wanting to retort, but was killed off completely by her turning around with, “President, stop struggling. I personally saw on Mother’s terminal the scene of you feeding pork to sister Xiang Xue.”
It’s estimated that until the pork issue is resolved, her food tasting sessions can’t escape the title of “poison testing.”
On the fourth day at noon, upon returning home, the first thing Xiang Chuan tinkered with was the glass bottle of lactic acid bacteria. With experience from yeast, making lactic acid bacteria was still quite smooth.
With the explosion in popularity of Yue Xiang Restaurant, mass production of yeast also became a major topic for Yue Xiang Group. Xiang Chuan had once suggested to Father making yeast powder, but when mentioning it might affect texture, it was immediately shelved by Xiang Weiguo. Mainly relying on modern storage technology, large-scale long-term storage of natural yeast isn’t difficult. Rather than sacrificing texture and lowering Yue Xiang Group’s evaluation, it was better to research how to compress and store it while maintaining natural yeast activity. After setting the direction, Yue Xiang’s technical research department was busy again without touching the ground. Since yeast storage involves edible bacteria-related fields, the department head thought it over and, carrying the latest three-layer fruit cake and frozen bun gift package from the product research department, knocked on the Director of Biology’s door.
A week later, five authoritative bacteria experts from the Third Fleet were packaged by their own Director and sent to Yue Xiang’s technical research department as consultants. The five experts initially refused, but the meat buns and cakes sent by Yue Xiang’s supervisor were too delicious. These five were the most food-loving ones in the Biology Bureau. Faced with gourmet food specially customized by Yue Xiang, they couldn’t resist loosening their stance, and Yue Xiang’s supervisor seized the opportunity to directly lure them to their own research department as consultants. The five consultants initially complained a bit, but Yue Xiang Group’s employee meals are now famously delicious throughout the entire Third Fleet, not only including various dishes from Yue Xiang gourmet restaurants but also some homestyle dish menus that Xiang Weiguo “pocketed” from his eldest daughter. So after three days of employee meals, the five consultants were already reluctant to leave, completely molded into Yue Xiang’s shape.
When Xiang Chuan heard about this from Xiang Weiguo’s mouth at dinner one day, she exclaimed that this supervisor was damn awesome.
After a one-hour lunch nap, the three A Bite of China Club members, under Xiang Chuan’s command, began in the kitchen pouring the pre-soaked soybeans, according to the specified proportion with water, into the juicer prepared by the kitchen AI to squeeze into a milky white liquid.
Making soy milk again? The three wondered.
Seeing the kitchen AI start filtering the soy milk, only then did the three truly learn the method of making soy milk. They were also surprised that soy milk wasn’t made by directly blending beans into juice to drink—after all, the beverages they had encountered before were only juice and milk; these two drinks could either be directly juiced or sterilized and boiled before direct drinking. They had never seen a beverage like soy milk that required some effort.
The aroma of the soy milk after steaming, boiling, and filtering was overwhelming. Even Ainuo, who had sneered at fresh-squeezed soy milk without sugar yesterday, couldn’t help but twitch her nose at this moment. Beans are still a novelty for modern people, plus the natural sweet aroma of beans. Not to mention Ainuo, even Xiang Chuan, who had tinkered with soy milk all afternoon yesterday, secretly sniffed a few more times.
At this point, Xiang Chuan understood why elementary school students preferred soy milk over milk when young; soy milk really smells very fragrant and is quite lethal for kids who like sweets.
Pour the soy milk into the pot and heat over low fire, then turn off the heat. Take out the white vinegar prepared by Little Chef during lunch, the pot-like small container for white vinegar has a very small outlet, extremely convenient for coagulation. Xiang Chuan specifically asked Little Chef to find such a container to avoid failure due to excessive nervousness in the upcoming coagulation step.
That’s right, nervousness. Ever since deciding to make tofu in the morning, Xiang Chuan had inexplicably felt nervous, and now her hand holding the pot was shaking nonstop.
This wasn’t because of any psychological trauma, but because—Mother had never made tofu at home before!
Yes, what she was challenging now was a food that neither parents had made at home before. For a corporate slave who rarely entered the kitchen even once a week not long ago, it was indeed quite challenging. Her spirit of challenge had long been worn away to almost nothing in her 997 corporate slave life, with the only remaining bit saved for occasionally challenging the limit by “finishing Saturday’s work early to free up a rest day on Saturday.”
Ouyang Yating and others saw Xiang Chuan’s serious expression and wondered, exchanging glances: Could the next steps involve some big move?
Before the three could ask, Xiang Chuan had already started coagulation.
Smelling the vinegar scent when it flowed out from the pot, the three frowned: This is actually white vinegar? White vinegar with soy milk? Were ancient people this bold?
Since it was a test make, plus the first time challenging tofu, Xiang Chuan only weighed one jin of beans, so naturally didn’t add too much white vinegar for coagulation. Soon the small pot of white vinegar was empty, the vinegar smell in the air gradually overtaken by bean aroma, Xiang Chuan’s nervous mood also gradually soothed by the bean scent, her hand continuously slowly stirring the soy milk.
The stirring step was too boring, Xiang Chuan couldn’t help wanting to chat with someone. Turning her head to call Ouyang Yating, she discovered that the expressions on the three faces by the kitchen side were no different from Chou Manman’s when she first received the steamed fish made by her during the class competition.
The three’s expressions could be simply summarized as: Can this thing be eaten?
Xiang Chuan’s eye twitched, subconsciously wanting to complain, but the moment she opened her mouth, she remembered that unlike the steamed fish last time, this tofu really couldn’t be guaranteed to succeed on the first try, so she could only sullenly close her mouth, her eyes full of resentment.
Ouyang Yating and the other three instead felt a bit embarrassed. Their own club president was showing them the production process, yet they were so disdainful—it really wasn’t right. So they silently took out their own cups, preparing mentally to try the vinegar-flavored soy milk.
Seeing the three cups placed on the cabinet, Xiang Chuan was amused and exasperated for a moment: Did these three think she planned to have them drink this coagulated soy milk?
