I traveled back to ancient times, but I was able to lie down and relax.

The next day, Liu Nanjia began the experiment again.

It's hot now, and meat can't be stored, so the chicken she bought yesterday was all fried. She still had to find someone in the village to buy another one.

Today she plans to use batter to make a coating, because it can flavor the batter and make the coating more even.

This time it was indeed a bit better, but Liu Nanjia was still not very satisfied. She still preferred the effect she had achieved with breadcrumbs before.

Breadcrumbs...

Liu Nanjia suddenly remembered a food video she had watched before, which showed how to make breadcrumbs by toasting the bread and then crushing it.

If we build an oven, we can not only make bread, but also many other baked goods, and even solve the problem of fried chicken dough.

She roughly knew how to make an oven: build it up with bricks, leave a chimney-like vent on top, and set an opening in the front for taking things out. Then seal it up when baking.

She saw it on a variety show, where the guests used a very simple oven to make incredibly tempting bread. After watching it, she immediately ordered some to eat.

Without hesitation, Liu Nanjia, driven by a desire to earn money, went directly to Aunt Wang's house and asked her husband, Wang Dahe, to help build a grill.

Wang Dahe readily agreed. He had previously said that he would renovate their kitchen again when he had time, and at first he thought that Liu Nanjia had come to him about this matter.

So, Liu Nanjia spent a lot of time explaining what he wanted to do, and thankfully he finally succeeded.

The bricks were brought from Wang Dahe's own home; he happened to have some left over.

When she left, Liu Nanjia gave him some fried chicken that she had made that day. She felt embarrassed because she always asked them for help.

This made Wang Dahe very happy. The golden shell and the aroma were unlike anything he had ever seen before, so it must be delicious.

With the oven in hand, Liu Nanjia started experimenting with flour again; she wanted to make bread.

After combining the original owner's memories, she can now make steamed buns, but she still needs to try to figure out how to make them into softer bread.

I added eggs and sugar while kneading the dough. Actually, I should have added butter or milk, but I didn't have either, so I added a little oil instead. Bread needs a longer fermentation time, and since I don't have yeast, I'll just have to wait.

After a busy day, it's quite late now. The oven has just been set up, and it's not really suitable to use it today, so Liu Nanjia plans to bake it tomorrow.

Dinner was fried chicken again, and it was fried again before eating, which made the skin a little crispier, but Liu Nanjia was still not satisfied.

Liu Yanxi and Liu Sirou didn't understand why, but they thought it was already very delicious.

Song Chen then said, "You feel the meat isn't tender enough? Could it be a problem with the chicken? How about using a smaller chicken?"

"Yup!"

Liu Nanjia slapped her forehead. In the countryside, people usually sell old hens. They are reluctant to sell the hens that can still lay eggs, just like the ones she bought today.

The meat of this type of chicken is relatively tough, making it more suitable for stewing in soup.

Modern fried chicken is made using specially raised broiler chickens, which is why it's so tender.

The following day, Liu Nanjia stopped frying chicken and instead started researching bread.

Not only does the dough need to be kneaded just right, but the oven temperature is also quite difficult to control. In fact, the first few times Liu Nanjia baked, either the heat was too high and it burned, or it came out still raw.

Fortunately, after several failures, I finally mastered the trick and succeeded.

The others ate bread all day, and in order not to waste food, they kept the edible parts of the bread that had failed to bake before, and used them as their meal for the day.

After tasting the final, successful version of the bread—soft, fluffy, and sweet—Liu Yanxi and Liu Sirou finally understood why their younger sister/older sister had gone through so much trouble today.

They clearly thought it tasted pretty good.

These two days of experimentation made Liu Nanjia decide to give up on these two naive and clueless kids whenever she tried to cook again.

Because no matter what she makes, both of them say it's delicious, so it's completely unreliable.

She set her sights on Song Chen.

Song Chen not only reminded her about the quality of the chicken yesterday, but also offered many valuable suggestions while she was making bread today, such as how much egg and sugar to add to the dough for a better taste.

This kid must be someone special; he's definitely eaten good food. If he says something is delicious, then it really is delicious, Liu Nanjia thought to herself.

Besides, she has modern tastes after all, and it's hard to know how well people would accept certain things nowadays. With Song Chen as a reference, it should be much more reliable.

At this moment, Song Chen was unaware that in Liu Nanjia's mind, he had already become the number one candidate for food tasting.

He was just wondering to himself, how exactly did this Miss Liu's brain work? How could she come up with so many novel and interesting foods?

It was time to go to the vegetable market again, and Liu Nanjia started buying ingredients for fried chicken and bread today.

Although the fried chicken hadn't quite reached her ideal level, it was already a pretty good snack at this point.

Actually, she specifically asked Song Chen, without considering her feelings, whether it tasted good or not, and only decided to start after receiving a positive answer.

I'll buy some tender chicken today and try making breadcrumb crust again. That should get it closer to the real thing. If not, I can just keep using batter.

The chicken she wanted to buy was hard to find. The market mainly sold three types of chickens: newly hatched chicks, laying hens, and old hens whose meat had become tough.

There was no other way; for the sake of the quality of the fried chicken, Liu Nanjia reluctantly bought a few hens.

However, she did see a milk vendor today. Although it was expensive, Liu Nanjia bought some. She thought bread with a milky aroma would taste even better.

As soon as she got home, Liu Nanjia went into the kitchen and started using the new ingredients she had bought that day.

Sure enough, the fried chicken was noticeably more tender this time, the breadcrumbs worked well, and the bread with milk made it even tastier.

Liu Nanjia immediately decided that she would go to town to sell fried chicken the next day!

So the next day, Liu Nanjia got up early and started making fried chicken and toast.

The dough was kneaded yesterday, and today it's being baked one batch at a time in the oven.

While waiting, we processed the chicken. We had already discussed it yesterday: the chicken wings and drumsticks, which are the tastier parts, would be cooked separately, while the rest would be cut into small pieces and fried into popcorn chicken.

After a busy day, I finally finished cooking the chicken I bought yesterday.

Liu Nanjia and Liu Yanxi borrowed a cart and hurried to town, as they needed to sell their wares before dinner time.

When they arrived at the market, they took the goods off the cart and set up a makeshift stove, because the fried chicken would taste even better if it was fried again, and the taste was best when it was fresh out of the fryer.

Once ready, Liu Nanjia began to hawk her wares, just like when she first started selling vegetables:

"We're selling fried chicken and bread! We guarantee you've never tasted anything like it before, and you can try them for free!"