Chapter 34: Dumplings And Chicken Meatballs
Xiang Chuan noticed while directing the kitchen AI to knead the flour that Director Ma had somehow come near the kitchen. He curiously looked at the pot steaming something, then at the Chinese cabbage that Xiang Chuan had shredded on the cutting board.
Xiang Chuan just thought he was visiting, after all, Lin Yu was the same way on the first day he came to the Xiang Family, and later he pestered persistently and became a diner at home.
……At this rate, won’t there be another diner added? Xiang Chuan thought with a wry smile.
At this time, the beef next to her had been ground into meat paste by the kitchen AI. Xiang Chuan picked it up, kneaded it, nodded— the texture was very soft, as expected of beef. Then Xiang Chuan added a little salt and pepper powder. Since she really couldn’t find ginger, she could only hope that the saltiness and the inherent spice flavor of the pepper could mask some of the raw meat smell. Fortunately, the beef itself didn’t have a heavy fishy smell, so using it as filling wouldn’t be as nerve-wracking as the first time she made chicken buns.
Xiang Chuan rolled the kneaded dough into a long strip, cut it into five-centimeter-wide small dough pieces, rolled them round, flattened them, and simple dumpling wrappers were ready. Holding a dumpling wrapper in her hand, Xiang Chuan always felt that the ones she made weren’t as perfectly sized as those she bought at the vegetable market when she went with her mother as a child.
Whatever, as long as they can be used.
After rolling out three dumpling wrappers, Xiang Chuan handed this mechanical task to the kitchen AI, which was most suited for repetitive labor, and unsurprisingly received merciless complaints from the kitchen AI:
[Beep— Miss Xiang Chuan, the surface of your flour wrappers is unevenly pitted, greatly in need of averaging corrections.]
These words made Xiang Chuan’s eyelids twitch. Sorry that her handmade rolled dumpling wrappers were uneven!
If there wasn’t a guest outside the kitchen curiously observing, she really wanted to smash a piece of dough onto the kitchen AI’s terminal.
“Just roll the dumpling wrappers flat according to your standards, but not too thin or too thick.” Xiang Chuan held up a bowl for eating rice, “Use the mouth of this bowl as the reference for the dumpling wrapper size.”
[Beep— Understood. Recording new recipe: Dumpling Wrapper. Discarding Miss Xiang Chuan’s dumpling wrapper reference, re-recording size standard.]
Her rolled dumpling wrappers’ standard was discarded just like that? Xiang Chuan gripped tightly the iron rod she was using as a rolling pin.
Calm down, calm down. This thing had at least recorded these days’ menu. If she broke it, she’d have to buy a new AI and re-enter all the recipes, which would be such a hassle.
Watching the kitchen AI start “printing” dumpling wrappers, Xiang Chuan began the most troublesome step— wrapping dumplings.
Why was it troublesome?
Because she hadn’t wrapped dumplings in nearly twenty years.
Using a spoon to scoop a large spoonful of filling mixed with Chinese cabbage and beef, placing it on the wrapper, dipping water to draw a semicircle along the edge of the wrapper, and then…… and then how did it go? Xiang Chuan looked blankly at the dumpling in her hand.
The dumplings in her impression should have a pleated edge, but how to fold that edge with her hands?
She folded the dumpling wrapper in half to seal it and pinched it tight. Looking at this dumpling that seemed like even an elementary school student could make, Xiang Chuan felt her ears filled again with her mother’s laughing scolding and her father’s loud laughter. Looking up, her parents were happily chatting with Xiang Xue and Chou Manman in the dining hall.
Shaking off the faint disappointment in her heart, Xiang Chuan looked at the plain dumplings on the serving plate and still felt this wasn’t quite right.
She picked up another dumpling wrapper, added filling, constantly recalling in her mind the appearance of dumplings she’d eaten. Still dipping water to fold in half, then continuously involuting the edges. After rolling, although the pleats weren’t quite like those in her memory, they looked much better than the first one, so she simply rolled pleats on the first one too.
After wrapping five in one go, the blender next to her had also finished processing the chicken breast and yam.
“Little Chef, you should have recorded the process of me just wrapping dumplings, right? Can you do machine production?”
[Beep— Batch production possible.]
Modern machines are really convenient. Xiang Chuan sighed inwardly, directly handing off the subsequent dumpling wrapping work to the kitchen AI, and started handling another dish.
Lifting the pot lid, inside was boiling hot water. Xiang Chuan had no obsession with “dumplings must be perfectly round!” for her homemade ones, so she directly used the ladle to casually scoop a spoonful of the yam paste and chicken breast paste mixture into the boiling water. After nearly five seconds, the meat paste gradually stopped being sticky. She gently picked it with chopsticks, and the originally gooey mixture detached from the spoon, tumbling in the boiling hot water, followed by doing the same again. After dropping six in a row, she handed this mechanical work to the kitchen AI. At this time, foam began appearing on the surface of the soup. She carefully skimmed it with the ladle, repeating several times, and the soup gradually became fragrant and clear.
Seeing that there was little meat paste left in the bowl, Xiang Chuan poured in the beaten egg mixture and the peeled and chopped tomatoes.
Chicken yam meatballs with tomato egg soup.
This was a recipe Xiang Chuan found on Geegle when she self-indulgently started searching for weight loss meals.
Thinking about it, pork couldn’t be eaten now, and seventy to eighty percent of chicken recipes required soy sauce or ginger or both. Beef and fish were relatively better, but it was still like the pot calling the kettle black. After screening the menu back and forth like this, Xiang Chuan realized— she could only eat chicken, beef, fish, and vegetables. Wasn’t this just a weight loss meal?
Fortunately, at the time she transmigrated, the internet had already started popularizing how to make weight loss meals tasty; otherwise, Xiang Chuan would have had to try challenging the weight loss onion soup that made her flee twenty meters away just from the smell as a child.
But even as a weight loss meal, for humans 30,000 years later, this was already a delicacy rivaling nectar and jade liquid.
Since there were now two guests, one big and one small, at home, Xiang Chuan had the kitchen AI prepare some extra other meals.
The staple foods were flatbread and dumplings. Considering Xiang Xue and Chou Manman, these two minors, Xiang Chuan made half of the dumplings into pan-fried dumplings. The soup was the freshly cooked chicken yam meatballs with tomato egg soup. The side dishes were vinegar fried shredded potatoes without green peppers or red peppers (Xiang Chuan: I’ve never seen vinegar fried shredded potatoes that look this plain on the outside) and pan-fried fish fillets cut into small pieces.
Originally, Xiang Chuan considered whether to cut the pan-fried steak into small pieces and stir-fry with some potato chunks, but scrolling to the end of the warehouse ingredients list, she discovered there was still some sea fish stored!
How big was the warehouse at home to actually store sea fish!
While complaining, Xiang Chuan had the kitchen AI assist her in thawing the frozen sea fish and cutting it into small pieces. Before cutting the pan-fried fish fillets, she drizzled some lemon juice on them, and casually fried some potato shred egg pancakes using the leftover scraps from stir-frying the shredded potatoes. This counted as mission accomplished.
Although it seemed a bit makeshift to Xiang Chuan, to others, especially to Xiang Weiguo and Lin Minzhi, this was the most sumptuous dinner their daughter had ever prepared!
“Chou Manman, Uncle Ma, Uncle Lin, please excuse the simple fare.”
Xiang Chuan habitually greeted politely, unaware that the three felt choked up hearing this: If this was simple fare, what did they usually eat?
Ma Chuanhua wasn’t polite either. He had watched the entire cooking process in the kitchen and was the hungriest among those present. Using the ladle to scoop up a meatball, he bit into it. The chicken breast, after mixing with yam paste, became incredibly tender and smooth, plus soaking in the sour-sweet tomato egg soup, one bite was very appetizing. Ma Chuanhua ate three in a row before remembering to try other things. He picked up a steamed dumpling with chopsticks, looked left and right. The dumpling skin was white and tender, and since Xiang Chuan was generous with the filling, each half-moon-shaped dumpling was plump and round, looking quite cute.
Ma Chuanhua took a bite, and the sweet fragrance of the Chinese cabbage and the deliciousness of the beef nearly made him bite his own tongue.
“Uncle Ma, you can dip this in vinegar to eat.”
Xiang Chuan reminded.
Only then did everyone remember the small bowl of vinegar in front of each person’s dumplings. Ma Chuanhua tried it first, lightly dipping the half-eaten dumpling in the vinegar bowl, then putting it in his mouth. The original fresh fragrance gained an extra tangy refreshment, making it even more addictive.
Dipping dumplings in white vinegar, having a chicken meatball or a bite of flatbread with a sip of soup, everyone ate happily.
Among the crowd, only Xiang Chuan was a bit reluctant when dipping in vinegar.
Xiang Chuan: I only dip dumplings in aged vinegar or soy sauce!
