The first step in the book is to start selling tofu

"Boom boom boom!"

There was a knock on the door.

Daya was taught by Lin Zhi not to open the door casually.

So she ran to the door and asked who it was before opening it.

"Mrs. Lin, the door and dining cart you ordered have been delivered to you."

The carpenter spoke as soon as he came in. The apprentice behind him was moving things into the house.

"Is it convenient to install it now? It would be convenient for me to install it for you and then go back."

"Thank you for your help, Master." Lin Zhi took him into the house.

"It's not a hassle, it's a matter of paying for the service."

The carpenter thought Lin Zhi was too polite. But he liked dealing with people like him.

All the valuables in the house were in the house, and Lin Zhi didn't dare leave the carpenter master and apprentice alone in there.

But you can't just stare at them while they work like you're guarding against thieves. That would be too presumptuous!

"Master, I want to make two more chairs. When do you have time?" Lin Zhi asked while watching the carpenter working.

"What kind of chair do you want? If your requirements are not too high, I have ready-made ones."

Since Lin Zhi was already a regular customer, the carpenter probably knew what type of carpentry he did, so he did not take the order immediately but made suggestions.

"It's just an ordinary rocking chair, the kind you can lie down in."

When it comes to furniture, Lin Zhi really doesn't need complicated workmanship.

People in their hometown like mahogany furniture, and almost every household has exquisitely crafted mahogany furniture.

Those furniture were the childhood nightmares of the kids over there.

Every time we do the spring cleaning during the Chinese New Year, the corners and edges of the patterns carved into the furniture are enough to make the children run away from home patiently.

In order not to work himself to death, Lin Zhi kept the furniture as simple as possible after moving out.

When the carpenter heard this, he immediately told Lin Zhi: "I have a finished rocking chair. You can go and have a look when you have time. If you like it, I will have someone send it to you."

Lin Zhi: "I won't look at it. If you have any, please send two to me!"

"Okay, I'll have my disciple bring it to you when we get back."

"Then let's make it like this. We are all regular customers, so you have to give me a more favorable price."

"OK, no problem."

Another deal was concluded. The carpenter was in a good mood and agreed to the deal immediately.

The door was installed very quickly and was completed in a short time. During this time, Lin Zhi bought two large wooden basins and a thousand bamboo sticks from the carpenter.

These two things are not particularly difficult jobs, and the orders were taken by a carpenter apprentice, so the prices are much cheaper.

After seeing off the carpenter, Lin Zhi finally had time to look at his own food cart.

She copied the design of the dining car from a modern one, but the conditions here did not allow it, so the result was different from the modern one.

The biggest difference is that this food cart is very heavy, and it takes both her and Daya to push it.

"Take the pot down and try."

There were two pots on the dining car, an iron plate pot and a deep square pot that he made at the blacksmith's place. Because the car was built by the carpenter and the blacksmith together, the two pots were also delivered together.

After taking down the two pots, the dining cart became much lighter. Lin Zhi could push it alone.

"Not bad, not bad!" Lin Zhi was very satisfied: "Wash it and boil it later."

The cleaning task was left to Daya, while Lin Zhi ran to the market to buy fat meat for cooking.

It was almost noon, and many stalls in the market had closed down. Fortunately, the pork stall was still there.

Lin Zhi bought a large piece of fat and a stalk bone. The fat was used to make oil for cooking, and the stalk bone was used to make soup, which was used as the base soup for skewers.

Lin Zhi looked at the pork offal that had not been sold yet and asked the stall owner, "How much is the pork offal?"

The stall owner thought he just wanted a little bit, so he said generously, "Whatever part you want, I'll give it to you."

Lin Zhi: “I want them all.”

If the stall owner hadn't seen that Lin Zhi bought fat and pork shanks, he would have thought that Lin Zhi was playing a trick on him.

"Do you really want all of it?" the stall owner asked uncertainly. "If you just want to make a whole pig soup, I'll still give you a little. You won't be able to finish it if you want so much."

Whole pig soup is soup made from various parts of the pig.

According to their local custom, the soup is made for the bride and child to drink on their wedding day and the 100th day of the child's birth.

"I'm not making whole pig soup. I run a food store and I'm using this to test dishes to see if there's a market for it."

When the stall owner heard that Lin Zhi was using the food to test the food before the store opened, he threw all the pork offal into Lin Zhi's basket without saying a word:

"Since it's a food tasting, I'll give it to you for free. After you try it, you can come to me to place an order. How about that?"

Lin Zhi smiled and refused: "If I need to place an order, I will definitely get it from you, but now that you are giving it to me for free, there is no need. I can't complete the food tasting in one or two days."

"Okay, then give me eighty coins!"

These internal organs weigh about twenty pounds, which costs about four cents per pound.

The stall owner usually sells it for eight cents per pound, which is much cheaper than the price of meat.

But, the price of internal organs is almost the same. If it is more expensive, no one will buy it.

At this price now, the offal is almost always sold at half price, and most of the time there are some left over.

So it's not a loss to sell it to Lin Zhi for only four cents per pound.

"Give me another pound of pork."

Lin Zhi gave the money, and then asked the stall owner to reserve some of the items sold that day and deliver them to his home.

Yes, Lin Zhi decided to start trial operation tomorrow.

We have the food truck and the seasonings, and now we need to add the ingredients, which will make opening a business much easier.

After leaving the meat stall, Lin Zhi came to the vegetable stall.

I chose a stall that sold a wide variety of vegetables, bought some of each, and asked the stall owner to deliver some vegetables to my home every morning.

Then there are fresh shiitake mushrooms, which are also a common ingredient in chuanchuanxiang.

"I can't guarantee that it will be available every day, but as long as it is available, I will go to your house to ask and sell it to you first."

The stall owner explained that these mushrooms are picked from the wild and one is not lucky enough to get a harvest every day.

"Okay, if you have any goods, just come to my house first. I usually want them."

Lin Zhi bought all the ingredients he could think of, but many common modern ingredients were not available here or were too expensive, so Lin Zhi had no other options.

"Looking at the dishes this way, it's still a bit too monotonous."

The Chuan Chuan Xiang cart opened by Lin Zhi is a little different from the Chuan Chuan Xiang that everyone is familiar with. It is called Chuan Chuan Xiang, but in fact it should be classified as a hot dish?!

Just because the vegetables are sold in strings, Lin Zhi calls it "Chuan Chuan Xiang".

On the way home, Lin Zhi passed by a grocery store and thought of the two students at home who looked pitiful because they had no lunch. She looked at the food in her hand, hesitated for a moment, and walked in.

"Madam, you are here again!"

The shopkeeper was still very impressed with Lin Zhi, who was a long-term customer of theirs.

"I want to buy some flour, do you have any?"

Almost all the crops grown here are rice, no one grows wheat, and Lin Zhi is not sure if there is any flour to sell.

"Yes, yes, yes. How much would you like, ma'am?"

"Give me three...thirty kilograms." Originally she wanted to say three kilograms.

But she thought about the stall that was about to open, gritted her teeth and took thirty kilograms.

She knows how to make noodles, and she has sesame oil at home. After the noodles are cooked, add sesame oil and other seasonings and mix them together, and a delicious staple food is ready.

"Give me another thirty kilograms of rice and thirty eggs, and send them to my home."

"Okay, I'll arrange it for you right away!" the shopkeeper responded enthusiastically with a grin.

After leaving the grocery store, Lin Zhi breathed a sigh of relief.

She spends money like water every day. If she doesn't open a business to make some money, her savings will not be enough to support her.

Her small treasury was severely depleted, so she went to the clinic and spent a large sum of money to buy spices.

These spices are not used for frying sesame oil, but for making braised food.

Existing ingredients such as braised large intestine, pig heart, pig tongue, eggs, and mushrooms can all be braised.

If everyone likes it, you can add pig's trotters, pig's tail, etc.

Although the marinade is expensive, it can be reused, so it is still worth it when the cost is split evenly.

It doesn’t matter if the braised food can’t be sold. She likes it, and the worst that can happen is that she can eat more herself.

After comforting himself, Lin Zhi's feeling of pain about today's expenses disappeared by more than half.

"Mom, didn't you just buy the fat meat to start the pot? Why did you buy so many things?"

How much will it cost?!

Does their family still have money?

Will their family be brought back to their original state next month?!

Daya was worried, but seeing Lin Zhi's enthusiastic look, she didn't say anything about her worries.

Their family is no longer the same as they were in the mountain village. Now they have a house in the county town and a stable source of income. Even if my mother spends more, their living conditions will not be worse than in the mountain village.

At worst, when the family is unable to make ends meet, she can persuade Dalang and Erlang to stop studying.

"Come and help."

Lin Zhi's shouting called back Daya's attention.

"Go wash the vegetables, and I'll take care of the rest."

Daya smelled the stinky pig offal and frowned: "Mom, how about letting me wash these pig offal?"

Although they had not been together for a long time, Daya understood Lin Zhi's personality to some extent.

Lin Zhi didn't like things that were too dirty, too tiring, or too tedious. That was why they never asked Lin Zhi to get up and work with them every day when they got up to make tofu.

If the food cooked by the three of them wasn't to mother's taste, mother wouldn't even want to get involved in cooking.

"You do it? Have you done it before?" Lin Zhi's heart was shamefully moved.

Daya shook her head. When she was at Yang's house, she helped with the cooking, which was just simple tasks like making porridge and cooking some vegetables. If the family bought meat, it would not be her turn to do those tasks.

She knew that the people in the Yang family were afraid that she would steal food, so when there were meat dishes, she never even went near the kitchen.

"Then let me do it. This thing won't be hard to clean."

Before cleaning the pig offal, Lin Zhi first washed the pork ribs and used them to make soup before starting to clean the pig offal.

First, the pork liver.

Soak the pork liver in clean water and use the tip of a knife to poke a few holes in the liver to let the blood flow out.

Change the water after a while, repeat several times until the water is clear and there is no blood.

Use water to flush along the tendons for a quarter of an hour, then squeeze out the blood in the liver and you're done.

Then there are the pig lungs.

Pour water into the pig's trachea, and pour out the water after the lung lobes are filled with water. Repeat this process several times.

Boil water in a pot, and put the pig lungs in after it boils, with the large air duct of the lungs exposed outside. Once the pig lungs encounter heat, they will automatically spit out the dirt inside through the trachea.

After the residue in the lung tube has been leached out, wash it again, change the water and boil until the pig lung is soft.

Next is the pig heart.

Cut open the blood vessels, rinse out the blood clots inside, cut off the white oil on the pig heart, soak the pig heart in salt water for half an hour and wash it several times, and the pig heart will be clean.

Originally, the pig heart would taste better if it was coated with flour and then left to stand before washing, but Lin Zhi couldn't bear to do that because the food here is expensive.

Another thing is to clean the pig's large intestine and small intestine.

In modern times, the most common method is to wash away the mucus with clean water, sprinkle salt and flour inside and outside the intestines, rub them repeatedly, rinse them with clean water, pick them up in boiling water, and scrape off the oil;

Then use cooking wine or white vinegar to scrub repeatedly inside and outside, then rinse with clean water;

Finally, put the pig intestines into the rice washing water and wash them.

But here, salt and flour are much more expensive than offal, not to mention cooking wine, which she has absolutely no money.

So Lin Zhi could only use the method commonly used by her grandparents, using wood ash instead of flour, salt, and cooking wine.

Use wood ash for cleaning. Put the ashes of burning plants such as straw into the large intestine to absorb the mucus in the internal organs through the adsorption effect of the wood ash, and then clean it with plenty of water.

This method saves money, but it consumes more water.

Finally, there is the pig stomach that Lin Zhi likes, and the cleaning method is similar to that of pig intestines.

After Daya washed the vegetables, she sat on a small stool and watched Lin Zhi clean the drain, watching very attentively.

Silently, after Lin Zhi had finished getting everything into the water, he looked up and was startled when he saw her little head.

Lin Zhi patted his chest and said, "People scare people to death."

Daya looked at her innocently.

Lin Zhi touched her head unhappily.

The bone soup is simmered over low heat and has a rich color. No additional ingredients are added to the stew, and the aroma wafting from the pot is only the rich aroma of meat.

The first puff may not be amazing, but the more you puff, the more you become addicted.

Lin Zhi poured out the soup, emptied the big pot and started making the braised food.

The spices for making stewed food have been prepared: Angelica dahurica, Amomum villosum, Nutmeg, Fennel, Aniseed, Bay Leaf, Sichuan Peppercorns, Licorice, Galangal, Gardenia jasminoides, etc.

These spices, which are common in modern times, cost Lin Zhi a lot of time and money to buy.

Soak these spices for about quarter of an hour, take them out and put them into a gauze bag, and a universal marinade bag is ready.

While the spices were soaking, Lin Zhi boiled the eggs and asked Daya to peel the eggshells.

First blanch and wash the pig intestines, then in a large pot, stir-fry the seasonings such as soy sauce, salt, ginger, garlic, etc., then add the broth and then the cooking bag.

Bring to a boil over high heat to first let the aroma of the spices and fried seasonings come out, then reduce the heat to low and add the ingredients one by one.