First-rank palace maid Su Jixiang

The next day, before Su Jixiang got up, Wei Ling had disappeared.

Thinking about what Wei Ling had told her today, Su Jixiang got up and went to the street with Lushui and Guihua.

Some people were selling fresh fish in the market today. They caught them by breaking the ice on a nearby river.

Su Jixiang bought one.

She also chose a chicken, a duck and a goose, and bought some fresh mushrooms and meat.

Su Jixiang was bored these days, so she asked Weidong to build a small kiln for her with stones in the kitchen. It should be completely dry today and can be used.

She took Lushui and Guihua to the blacksmith shop again and took back the spatulas, baking trays and other items she had customized.

When she got home, she went straight into the kitchen.

Although this kiln is not as convenient as modern electric ovens, it is still very good to have it. Charcoal can be placed above and below the kiln, and there is an iron rack inside to place the baking tray. There is a chimney on top, which is the same principle as modern ovens, except that this one burns charcoal.

Su Jixiang first preheated the oven, and then added some low-gluten flour. When she turned on the oven today, she planned to bake a plate of cake first.

I made it in an iron pan before, and although it was good, I always felt that it lacked the baked flavor.

She first asked Lushui and Guihua to help her process the chickens, ducks, fish, meat, etc. that she brought back, while she started to make the cake base.

Today she was going to make the simplest chiffon cake. The most important thing to make a good chiffon cake is to bake it soft, which really tests the baker's ability to control the heat when mixing the cake base.

Of course, this was not a problem for Su Jixiang at all. The only problem was that there was no electric frother here, everything was done manually, but it didn't matter, although there was no electric frother, there were Wei Dong and his men, and these secret guards were stronger than each other, so it would be a waste if they were not used.

While Weidong, the human-shaped egg beater, was busy stirring the egg whites, Su Jixiang had already prepared everything else.

The stove was already preheating, but there was no temperature indicator, so it all depended on Su Jixiang's feeling.

After Weidong had beaten the egg whites, Su Jixiang mixed the chiffon cake base and put it into the baking tray that she had asked the blacksmith to make. Then, she put on the thick cotton gloves that she had asked Qu Wanning to sew for her and carefully pushed the baking tray into the kiln.

Last time, Su Jixiang made a cake and shared it with everyone to taste. Everyone had already tasted it, and when they knew that Su Jixiang was going to make another cake today, almost everyone stretched their necks and watched eagerly.

"Didn't you say that you secret guards don't have any special hobbies?" Su Jixiang looked at Wei Dong's curious look and asked with a smile, "Desires will only affect your speed in drawing your swords."

"Madam, please forgive me for making fun of you. The ones you are talking about are the royal secret guards. We don't have that kind of people in our house." Wei Dong straightened up and said with a smile, "Our previous training was indeed hard, but the Duke and the Duchess were very kind to us. They are certainly not like the royal secret guards who have no desires or demands."

It turned out to be the case.

So the Wei family’s secret guards are just secret guards, while the royal family’s secret guards are death squads.

"Madam, the duck has been killed. What should we do with it now?" Guihua asked.

"Do you know how to debone a duck?" Su Jixiang asked.

Guihua looked confused and shook her head.

"Then let me do it." Su Jixiang picked up a small knife and first cut off the duck's feet and wings that Guihua had washed clean. Then he made a few quick cuts and turned the duck over. A magical scene happened. As Su Jixiang turned over the duck's skin and flesh, the entire duck's skeleton was pulled out of the skin and flesh by Su Jixiang.

Not only Guihua, but even Weidong was stunned. They didn't even see Su Jixiang's method clearly.

Wei Ling was the first to come to his senses. "Madam, you are so good at this!" He was a little flustered. He had never offended Madam before... Madam was beautiful, but her skill in peeling duck bones was amazing...

Su Jixiang smiled and said, "Just practice more!" In order to learn how to make this dish of Eight Treasure Gourd Duck, she had plucked countless ducks and her hands were cut by the sharp duck bones.

Su Jixiang handed the peeled duck skeleton to Guihua and asked her to chop it into large pieces for later use.

Su Jixiang then cut the ham, bamboo shoots, lean meat, mushrooms and chicken into small cubes, and then washed the coix seeds and water chestnuts separately.

Job's tears and water chestnuts are hard to buy. I only saw them by chance when Hua Rui came last time and Su Jixiang and Qu Wanning took her shopping. Although they were dried water chestnuts, they were better than nothing.

Su Jixiang asked Lu Shui to help light the fire, poured some lard into the pot, put in the various cubes that had been chopped earlier and stir-fried them, then added the dried scallops and the water chestnuts and coix seeds that had just been washed and stir-fried them together, then added rice wine, green onions, ginger, soy sauce, sugar, and some dried mushroom powder that she made herself, and put the prepared broth in the pot to cook.

Su Jixiang asked Lu Shui to increase the fire, and after the ingredients were boiled and the juice was reduced to prevent it from becoming too thick, he took them out of the pot.

She took the duck skin that she had just peeled the bones from, tied up the cuts of the duck with soft cotton thread, and then poured the marinade that she had just prepared into the skin from the cuts, and tied up the cuts again after it was full.

Heat the oil in a pan again, and when the oil is hot, rub the duck all over with soy sauce, then throw the rubbed duck into the pan to fry. When the duck is fried into a golden brown, pick it up and set it aside to drain the excess oil.

Su Jixiang removed the oil pan and took out a large casserole. He placed a bamboo mat underneath the casserole and put the duck bones he had taken out earlier into the casserole. He added onions, ginger, garlic, and duck breasts. He added water to cover the duck breasts, and added soy sauce, sugar, salt and other seasonings. He then put the pot directly into a boil. During the cooking process, he skimmed off the floating foam, added some rice wine to remove the fishy smell, and then covered the pot and began to simmer.

After the Eight Treasure Gourd Duck was cooked, Su Jixiang started to prepare other dishes.

The fish is very fresh, and the best way to cook it is to steam it directly in the pot.

Clean the fish, spread some salt on the fish, place green onions and ginger on the bottom of the plate, then place the salted fish on the green onions and ginger, and put two slices of ginger on the fish. Su Jixiang also added some shredded ham for flavor.

Su Jixiang put the whole plate of fish aside for later use.

After all, it only takes ten minutes to steam fish. If it takes too long, the fish will become tough. Just steam it when someone arrives.

She asked Weidong to help cut the chicken into small pieces as she was going to stir-fry a raw chicken.

Most of the ways to cook chicken in Daxie Dynasty are to stew it in soup, so Su Jixiang wants to show you a different way of eating it.