Traveling to an ancient peasant family: I got rich by doing business

The second snack that Li Yu taught Aunt Wu and the others to make was glutinous rice and date cake.

The reason why I chose to make this dish is because red dates are cheap. Any dried fruit shop in the town sells cheap dried dates, so there is no shortage of ingredients.

As for the method of making glutinous rice and date cake, it is more complicated than rice cake. First, wash the red dates, steam them in a pot over water, peel and pit them, and press them into date paste.

Then mix glutinous rice flour, rice flour, sugar, starch, oil and water into a paste, and steam it in a water bath. After steaming, knead it while hot, divide it into balls of uniform size, and roll it into skins.

Then put the date paste into the oil paper piping bag specially made by Li Yu and squeeze it onto the skin.

Finally, wrap the skin and sprinkle a layer of soybean powder on it.

Normally, rice flour is not needed to make glutinous rice jujube cake, but glutinous rice was expensive in the Dayu Dynasty. If all glutinous rice flour was used, the selling price would definitely not be low. In order to control the price, Li Yu had to add rice flour. Of course, she deliberately adjusted the ratio to ensure the taste of the jujube cake.

As for the filling, Li Yu initially considered making purple sweet potato filling and red bean paste filling, but there was no purple sweet potato in the Dayu Dynasty, so purple sweet potato filling could not be made. There was no shortage of red beans for making red bean paste, but they were expensive and difficult to make. Not only was it a waste of time to make, but ordinary people were reluctant to buy them.

After much consideration, I decided that the filling made of jujube paste was the most suitable. However, after the business stabilized, I could also make some with red bean paste filling and sell them to the wealthy people in the town who were not short of money.

*

Regarding the issue of being imitated, Li Yu asked Aunt Wu and others to say that it was rice date cake when they were selling it.

This will interfere with the judgment of those imitators and increase the time they spend making the date cake skin.

Each piece of glutinous rice and date cake is smaller than rice cake, but it is sold by the piece like rice cake, three cents for one piece and five cents for two pieces. After deducting various costs, one can earn more than twenty cents by selling one pound of glutinous rice and date cake.

Aunt Wu and her friends were very satisfied with the profit. After making both date cakes and rice cakes, they could make about three hundred coins a day. According to the 10% profit per person agreement at the time, each person could get about thirty coins, which means nine hundred coins a month. With other share, they could earn one or two taels of silver every month.

I knew that a man in his prime could not earn so much even if he worked hard for a month. Even those scholars who copied books for the town only earned 600 to 700 coins a month.

Li Yu was not very satisfied with the profit. Doing business is not like working for others. If the money earned from doing business is similar to that earned from working, then there is no need to do business. After all, doing business takes a lot of effort.

Still have to do something else.

Li Yu sat in the food store, watching the weather outside getting hotter and hotter. Suddenly, an idea came to her mind and she knew what to do.

*

"Shopkeeper, we want to buy some braised meat." A clear male voice suddenly sounded in the small shop. Li Yu came back to her senses and saw a boy and girl about fifteen or sixteen years old standing in front of her.

The two men looked 70% alike and were dressed elegantly, like nobles from a wealthy city.

Li Yu immediately stood up and greeted: "What would you two like?"

The man looked at the meat on the chopping board and selected pig intestines, pig heart, pig liver and pig lungs.

The woman had a small appetite and chose a few braised pork ribs and braised vegetables.

Seeing the skewers, they each ordered a few.

Li Yu quickly prepared it and brought it to them.

*

The woman probably couldn't accept pig offal, and looked disgusted, but the man liked it. After tasting a piece of the pig offal, he praised Li Yu loudly: "Store owner, the braised offal you make tastes great, better than any I've ever had before."

Li Yu thanked him, "Thank you for your compliment, judging from your accent, you are not from Jiangyang County."

The man said, "We are from Beijing... Beizhou Prefecture, and we are going south and passing by here. We just smelled the aroma of braised meat from afar, so we came here to taste it."

Li Yu did not miss the word "Jing" that flashed across his lips. She lowered her head and pursed her lips. When she looked up again, she smiled and said, "I've heard of Beizhou Prefecture, but I've never been there. I wonder if it's fun there."

The man said, "Beizhou Prefecture is much worse than Nanzhou Prefecture. It's very cold in winter."

Li Yu blinked: "I heard that the capital is just north of Beizhou Prefecture. If Beizhou Prefecture is cold, then the winter in the capital must be even colder."

"That's because it often snows in the capital in winter, the rivers freeze, and we have to burn charcoal every day at home."

"It seems that you have also been to the capital. I am so envious. I have never been out of Jiangyang County since I was a child."

"You can go and have a look at the store later. The braised meat you make is so delicious. You shouldn't be staying in such a small place."

Seeing her brother talking more and more, the woman coughed heavily and stopped him, "Eat your food."

The man seemed to wake up from a dream, laughed dryly twice, and stopped talking to Li Yu.

Li Yu looked at them and felt that something was wrong with them.

They should be from Beijing, otherwise the word "Beijing" would not have been pronounced so smoothly just now.

She had to find a way to find out about the situation in the capital, especially about Qi Yue's family.

A while ago, Li Yayi came to Huangmei Town, and she went to him to ask questions, but she got nothing out of him.

There is a new opportunity now, and we must seize it.

Li Yu was organizing his words when he heard the woman ask, "Shopkeeper, I heard that Huangmei Town is nice. We want to go there to have a look. Can you tell us how to get there?"

Li Yu: “?”

Han Xiaomei couldn't help laughing beside him: "Sir, this is Huangmei Town."

The woman and the man looked at each other and turned their heads together: "Isn't this Huangmei Town, not Huangzhu Town?"

Li Yu: "Huangzhu Town is south of our Huangmei Town. It will take another half an hour to get there."

Neither the woman nor the man spoke.

After a while, the woman blushed and said, "We are looking for Li Ji Food Store."

Li Yu: "My last name is Li, and this is Li's Food Shop. Didn't you see the sign when you entered the store just now?"

Woman, man: "..." Without looking, they just followed the smell and didn't notice what was written on the sign outside.

*

There was not much braised meat left, so Li Yu asked Han Xiaomei and Han Xiaocao to look after the store, and she went to the teahouse to talk with the couple.

They asked for a private room and the three of them sat down one by one.

The man introduced himself first. "My last name is Qin Ci, and this is my sister Qin Su. We have something to discuss with Boss Li."

Li Yu repeated the word "Qin" between his teeth and said, "I am Li Yu. I wonder what you two want to talk to me about."

The man glanced at the woman and took out a letter from his arms. "This is a letter from my aunt. By the way, my aunt is the wife of the prince of the Duke of Dingguo's mansion."

Li Yu took the letter and opened it. The handwriting was indeed the same as Qi Yue's mother's. In order to make her believe it, the content of the last letter she wrote to her was attached to the back of the letter.

Li Yu read the letter twice, then stood up and said, "Qi Yue is at our house."

After more than three months, Qi Yue's relatives finally came to pick him up.