My name is Chang An, your name is Gu Li

After returning home with the things he bought, Chang An did not go back to his room, but took Gu Li directly to the kitchen. He put the glutinous rice flour in his hand on the table, then clapped his hands and called all the servants in the kitchen over.

As usual, he gave instructions, then checked the stoves around him that could be used, pointed at two of them, and said, "Light up the two empty stoves, but don't put the pots in yet."

"You two, come with me to open the sugar." Then he casually called two servants and asked them to follow him to the sugar jar.

The sugar bowl had been here for almost two months, so Chang An ordered two servants to shovel out the yellow mud on top. Since it was winter and the bowl had been watered a lot in the past two months, the yellow mud had dried up, so the two servants shoveled it out without much effort.

Gu Li and Chang An both poked their heads out and looked into the jar. The sugar on the top layer was already pure white. Gu Li excitedly pulled Chang An's sleeve and said with joy:

"Chang Lang, it's done!"

Chang An patted Gu Li's hand, and then ordered the servants: "You two go get two wooden barrels, one empty and one filled with 25% water."

The two servants quickly found two empty buckets in the kitchen and filled one of them with water. When they returned to Chang An, Chang An had already found a ladle.

Chang An scooped up a ladle of sugar with a ladle and poured it directly into the bucket. After the bucket was full, he asked someone to light a pot and add fire, pour sugar and water into it, and boil it over high heat. Then he called two servants and told them:

"When the sugar turns into syrup, add egg white and five kilograms of water, then filter out the syrup with fine yarn, return it to the pot and continue to boil over high heat. The stronger the fire, the better."

After the four servants nodded, Chang An and Gu Li came to another stove that was on fire. He took some black sesame seeds from the table and poured them out. Then he asked two servants to crush the sesame seeds and put them in a basin. At the same time, he called another servant to take out half of the glutinous rice flour and asked him to process the glutinous rice flour into dough.

While the servant was pounding the black sesame seeds, Chang An was not idle either. He went to get some dry sugar and crushed it to make powdered sugar.

After processing the black sesame and powdered sugar, Chang An mixed the two together and kneaded them evenly with his hands. Then he took honey and lard, putting honey first, kneading them evenly again, and then adding lard, kneading them for the third time.

When Chang An saw that the sesame filling looked similar to what he had seen online, he kneaded the filling into balls little by little and put them in a bowl. After covering the mouth of the bowl with a piece of cloth, he asked the servant to take it outside to "refrigerate" it temporarily.

There were no such things as refrigerators in the Tang Dynasty, but fortunately it was snowing heavily outside, so it could be used as a freezer.

Seeing that Chang An had divided the work among the servants and personally instructed or performed every task, Gu Li asked with some concern, "Chang Lang, is it difficult to make these glutinous rice balls?"

Chang An was stunned for a moment, then he looked back at the entire kitchen, and realized that it seemed that every servant had his own assigned work, and Gu Li seemed to think that these steps were all for making dumplings.

"If it's not easy to make, let's not make these dumplings. I don't like them anymore." Gu Li was afraid that Chang An would insist on making them, so he said hard that he didn't like dumplings anymore, even though he had never eaten them before.

"No, actually I'm doing two things at the same time." Chang An wanted to reach out and scratch Gu Li's nose, but then he remembered that his hands were a little dirty, so he gave up.

"Two things?" Gu Li frowned and asked in confusion.

"One is the glutinous rice balls, which don't take long. The other thing I'm going to make is to help treat your lung disease, Madam Gu." Chang An explained, "I'm going to make some rock sugar, and then mix it with pear juice, and then chill it a little. Drinking it will moisten your lungs."

"Mrs. Gu must be very uncomfortable with coughing on a daily basis. This rock sugar pear juice not only moisturizes the lungs, but also has a slight cough-relieving effect."

Gu Li was somewhat touched. She had been suffering from lung disease for almost two years, and taking medicine for coughing had become a daily routine for her. However, her husband was still thinking about how to make her get better quickly.

At this time, a servant came to Chang An with a basin of water, and then took the soap that was placed beside him. Chang An was a little confused by this series of actions. Then he heard the servant say, "Young Master, wash your hands."

"Okay." It turned out that this was asking him to wash his hands. Chang An nodded, and the servant turned around and left to do his own work.

Chang An had just put his hands in the basin when he saw another pair of clean little hands on the other side reaching into the basin. The hands grabbed Chang An's hands and rubbed them in the water. Then they took the soap and rubbed them in Chang An's hands until bubbles formed. Then they put them in the water again to rinse off the bubbles.

After washing Chang'an's hands, the little hands pulled out the basin. Chang'an also took out the basin, raised his head, and looked at Gu Li opposite him, and the other party also responded with a nice smile.

"Sir, the dough is ready." A servant spoke up at this time.

"Okay, just leave it where it is and let it wake up." Chang An said, stretching out his fingertips, which were still stained with water droplets, and gently touching the tip of Gu Li's nose.

Then, Chang An came to the big pot where the syrup was boiling and saw that it was already quite thick. So he asked the servant to find a bigger pot, and then took two long bamboo chopsticks, tied two hemp ropes to each, and placed them at the mouth of the pot so that the four hemp ropes could be symmetrical with each other.

Then he asked his servants to move the cauldron to a corner and pour all the syrup into the cauldron. He then covered the cauldron with bran husks and put a piece of cloth over the mouth of the cauldron, which was also covered with a lot of bran husks.

He said to the servant who was in charge of making the syrup, "These are the methods for making rock sugar. You must remember them. Then, this cauldron must be placed here for seven days. During this period, it cannot be shaken or vibrated. It can be taken out after seven days."

After giving the instructions, Chang An came to the prepared glutinous rice dough, and then told a servant to bring in the filling that was "refrigerated" outside.

At the same time, he picked up the rolling pin beside him, stretched out his hand and used his thumb to push out a small ball of glutinous rice dough, then put it in the palm of his hand and flattened it with the rolling pin, and then put the already hard sesame filling in it. He gently squeezed his palm, processed the dough a little, and rubbed it with both hands to make it look rounder. In this way, a glutinous rice ball was made.

After watching the glutinous rice balls made by Chang An, the servants around him also started to make them. Those who had rolling pins used them, while those who didn’t used their hands to flatten the dough.

With the help of the servants, all the fillings and glutinous rice dough were turned into dumplings. Chang An nodded with satisfaction, waved his hand proudly, and said:

"Set up the pot and add fire. Today, the young master will treat you to glutinous rice balls!"

Although the servants had no idea what the glutinous rice balls that Chang'an was talking about were, they had eaten the snacks and candies made by Chang'an before, and had been taught by Chang'an how to make hot pot soup base. Naturally, they responded enthusiastically and began to prepare.

Two servants worked together to put the pot on the stove, and then another servant added firewood to the stove. Chang An scooped some water into the pot, and then waited quietly for the water to boil.

After the water boiled, Chang An slowly put all the dumplings into the pot, stirring them with a spoon to prevent them from sticking. After all the dumplings were in the pot, Chang An let them cook in the pot, just stirring them from time to time.

There were still quite a few glutinous rice balls in the pot, until they became round and floated to the surface of the water, and some of them even had some black shadows on their skin. At this point, Chang An took a slightly larger bowl, scooped out some glutinous rice balls and put them in the bowl.

Chang An took another spoon, scooped out a glutinous rice ball from the bowl, blew it gently, and then put it close to Gu Li's mouth and said, "Mother Gu, open your mouth and have a taste."

Gu Li looked at the fair and clean "little fat boy" and, without paying any attention to the servants around him who were looking at him with expectant eyes, he opened his mouth and put the glutinous rice ball into his mouth.

She chewed it, and it seemed that because it was sweet, her eyes lit up slightly. Chang An and the servants around him were a little nervous, so he asked: "How is it, Gu Niang? Is it sweet? Is it delicious?"

"Very sweet and delicious!" Gu Li nodded.

Only then did Chang An feel relieved, and then he put the bowl of glutinous rice balls in his hand into the food box. Then he looked at the servants standing around him and said, "Why are you still standing there? Go eat the glutinous rice balls."

The servants all had happy expressions on their faces, saying something like "Thank you, sir" or "Thank you, Sanniang" one after another, and then turned around to look for bowls and spoons.

"Wait a minute!" Chang An suddenly said, "Pack one portion first and send it to my father. Divide the rest among yourselves. Make sure everyone can have some."

"Yes, son!"

Looking at these noisy servants, Chang An and Gu Li smiled at each other, then held hands and returned to the room together.

After returning to the house, Chang An put the food box in his hand on the low table, and Gu Li took off his cotton jacket and cloak, then sat down in front of the low table.

"Mrs. Gu, eat quickly. These dumplings won't taste good if they get cold."

"Hmm." Upon hearing this, Gu Li picked up the spoon, scooped out a glutinous rice ball and put it in his mouth.

But she seemed to have thought of something, and quickly scooped out another glutinous rice ball, put it close to Chang An's mouth, and said incoherently: "Chang Lang...you eat too."

Chang An smiled dotingly at Gu Li and put the glutinous rice balls in the spoon into his mouth. The taste was almost the same as the glutinous rice balls he had eaten before the Tang Dynasty, and it was so sweet that it penetrated his heart.

"How are the dumplings made by my Chang Lang? Are they delicious?" Gu Li looked at Chang An and said playfully.

"Oh? How dare you give me something your husband made? Aren't you afraid that your husband will teach you a lesson?" Chang An raised his eyebrows and played word games with Gu Li.

Gu Li was a little confused when he first heard it, but he quickly reacted and said, "It's not your family or my family. My Chang Lang is you."

Then she put another dumpling into her mouth, puffing up one cheek, but she continued:

"Besides, my family member Chang Lang is very kind to me, so he is reluctant to teach me a lesson."

As she spoke, her very bright eyes looked straight at Chang An, and she seemed very sincere.

"really?"

"Really," Gu Li said, and put another dumpling close to Chang An's mouth.

"Chang Lang wants to eat too!"