When it was time to descend the mountain, and looking at the ‘golden peanuts,’ ‘golden bamboo,’ and ‘golden wolf hairs’ received in her palm, Wen Mingtang couldn’t help but sigh, “A distinguished míngshì is indeed a distinguished míngshì, so very… um, refined.”

Lin Fei, who was walking beside her, glanced at her and pointed out her mistake without hesitation: “The words you wanted to say but didn’t finish were ‘generous’, right?”

The rewards such as “bamboo” and “wolf hair” were indeed elegant, but they were real “gold”, and each one was naturally worth a lot! Who wouldn’t like this as an ordinary person?

Wen Mingtang, who was exposed, didn’t care. She smiled and said frankly: “Lin Shaoqing is right! I really think that these old friends of Yu Jijiu are just like Yu Jijiu, they are really generous and free and easy!”

“No matter how indifferent they are to material things and how little they value money, these míngshì will not be short of money.” Lin Fei said calmly, “Since they are already famous all over the world, the money they can earn from writing a piece of calligraphy or painting or giving lectures in a certain place for some time is equivalent to your salary in the public kitchen for several years.”

This is not a lie! Wen Mingtang put the “Golden Bamboo” and “Golden Wolf Hair” into the purse she carried with her and said, “But our public kitchen’s takeout business is doing well. Ji Caimai has settled the accounts. The money we can get from the takeout is much higher than our wages!”

In this way, the speed of saving money could be accelerated! Maybe after a few years, she could really fulfill her dream of buying a house in Chang’an City!

Seeing Wen Mingtang carefully putting the money into her purse, Lin Fei looked at it for a moment and then retracted his gaze.

…
…

After a trip to Mount Li and returning to Dali Temple, it was time to start preparing three meals a day for the public kitchen.

As the Mid-Autumn Festival was approaching, the village had begun to send chestnuts, the seasonal food after autumn, to the public kitchen.

However, when the chestnuts were delivered, Ji Cai did not use them as the main dish but randomly piled them in the kitchen. He said to Wen Mingtang, “Every autumn, there are so many chestnuts and water chestnuts on the farm. It would be a waste if we can’t eat them. Boil them in water and ask everyone to take a bag back to eat!”

Chestnuts and water chestnuts were not bad when boiled in water, but to say they were delicious… they tasted the same way every year, which was a bit annoying. However, they were okay to use to satisfy hunger when you were hungry!

Ji Caimai didn’t care about the mountain of chestnuts, but Wen Mingtang’s eyes lit up: in today’s Darong, the only way to cook chestnuts seemed to be boiled. Even in the palace, apart from boiling, she only saw the imperial chef take out the meat from the boiled chestnuts, and add sugar and oil to make the filling of pastries. Apart from that, she had never seen any other way of cooking.

There were more ways to cook chestnuts than these. Wen Mingtang has been in the palace for a long time, but because she was in the palace, there were many rules and it was not easy for her to do whatever she wanted.

Now that she was a legitimate chef in the Dali Temple’s public kitchen, without being bound by rules, Wen Mingtang naturally no longer planned to eat the boiled dishes and pastry dishes that she had grown tired of in recent years.

So after hearing what Ji Caimai said, Wen Mingtang immediately said, “We won’t boil the chestnuts this year. I want to use them to make a snack or a dish!”

Ji Caimai, who was about to leave after telling Wen Mingtang, immediately understood what she meant. He stopped, glanced at Wen Mingtang meaningfully, and nodded, saying, “Then we are convinced. Let’s try your new method first. If it’s good, we will sell it to the takeaway stall as a regular item along with the braised duck.”

Originally, Ji Caimai just wanted to wait until he tasted it to see if it was feasible, but when the sweet chestnut aroma filled the air in the afternoon, even before he tasted it, Ji Caimai knew that this thing called Tang Chao Ban Li with such a strong aroma must be a hot commodity.

Sure enough, when he came out of the house and rushed to the public kitchen yard, there were already many greedy people who were attracted by the smell.

Looking across the crowd, he saw Ah Bing holding a large iron shovel and stir-frying chestnuts with cracked shells and black coarse sand in the big pot in the middle.

The fragrance that he smelled in the house just now was even stronger when he got closer. The rich chestnut aroma was continuously coming out from the big iron pot, which attracted people to come over to take a look.

Before Ji Caimai arrived, he heard someone asking.

“This is the first time I’ve seen chestnuts cooked this way. What’s the name of this snack?”

“Tang Chao Ban Li!” Wen Mingtang, who was instructing Ah Bing to fry the chestnuts, said. She took out a few sugar-fried chestnuts from the large plate of fried chestnuts in front of him, gave one to each of them, and said, “Come and try it!”

Chestnuts were common in autumn, but this way of frying them was really fresh.

Someone took the sugar-roasted chestnuts handed to him by Wen Mingtang and said with emotion: “This is truly the most fragrant chestnut flavor I have ever smelled in my life!”

Wen Mingtang smiled and said, “Then let’s try the roasted chestnuts to see if they are worthy of this fragrance!”

The chestnuts in his hand had been fried and turned dark brown. The syrup and oil had been continuously stir-fried to give the chestnuts a shiny luster, and the sweet aroma of the fried chestnuts rushed straight into his nose, making his appetite grow. The roasted chestnut skin was crisp and easy to peel. With a little force along the “cross” opening that had been made long ago, it could be easily peeled off, revealing the brown chestnut meat inside.

Everyone saw the officer put the peeled chestnut meat into his mouth, and then his eyes immediately narrowed.

Such a comfortable expression, needless to say, was enough to prove that the taste of the chestnuts was no less delicious than the tempting fragrance.

Seeing this, the people who were given chestnuts to try began to peel off the shells and put them into their mouths. Then, they began to exclaim in admiration.

“It’s really… Wow! So fragrant and sticky!”

“It’s fragrant and sweet, but it’s different from the chestnut meat in chestnut cakes that has sugar and oil added to it. It seems to be even more fragrant!”

“Delicious! I don’t like sweet things, but this sweetness tastes different from ordinary candy, like a fragrant aroma…”

…

“That’s called caramel!” Wen Mingtang smiled and replied to everyone’s questions. “The caramel aroma is fried into the chestnuts, which is different from ordinary chestnuts boiled in sugar water!”

Ji Caimai, who had been standing behind the crowd for a while, could no longer hold back. He took advantage of the moment when everyone was tasting chestnuts and the crowd was relaxed to squeeze to the front. He took a chestnut from the plate in front of Wen Mingtang, peeled it, and put it into his mouth, saying, “This is a snack. I will give one to each of you to try at dinnertime. For now…you all should go back first!”

There were runners, handymen, and gatekeepers surrounding him. Now was the time for them to do their work. It would not be a good idea to attract a group of people who were not doing their work and came to steal food just because they smelled the food!

As soon as these words came out, the crowd that was about to gather to ask Wen Mingtang for some chestnuts to try began to disperse: they knew this was not a good idea! But if they wanted to blame someone, they should blame Master Wen for making such delicious Tang Chao Ban Li. How could anyone resist?

(End of this chapter)

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