Abnormal Gourmet Chronicle-Chapter 767 - 389: Scalded
Qin Huai clicked on the video tutorial for lotus root powder balls and started watching.
Honestly, lotus root powder balls are not considered to be a particularly high-end or difficult snack. This snack looks quite delicate and pretty, seemingly difficult, but it’s actually very easy to master. Even a novice following a recipe and video tutorial can make this simple snack.
Of course, if you want to make it complicated, you can, but the challenge lies in the filling.
Lotus root powder balls are a standard sweet snack. If you want to make them exquisite and luxurious, fit for consumption by a palace lady, the difficulty and complexity might rival the three kinds of sweet fillings in Four Happiness glutinous rice balls.
However, Master Jing’s version of lotus root powder balls is evidently not that complicated, as it lacks the conditions. Complex fillings require complex ingredients, but Master Jing’s version of lotus root powder balls was just a little thing to casually make to solve an apprentice’s family conflicts, with the simplest lard and sugar filling.
Due to the scarcity of ingredients, both lard and sugar were precious in that era. Therefore, Master Jing’s version of lotus root powder balls were very small, like a miniature version. Their color wasn’t the typical pink and transparent or golden and translucent of traditional high-end lotus root powder balls.
Master Jing’s lotus root powder balls were very traditionally white, with a hint of depth, their color between brown and tea, and the balls themselves were translucent and smooth.
The process of making them wasn’t too difficult.
The preparation of the filling was especially straightforward, just like the vast majority of lard and sugar fillings, only with the addition of dried osmanthus. The three ingredients were mixed and kneaded together, then rolled into small balls the size of a fingertip, completing the filling.
The rest involved the lotus root powder part.
Qin Huai had never made a lotus root powder snack before and was not particularly familiar with lotus root powder. His main understanding of it came from when Qin Luo was in primary school. At that time, Qin Luo particularly enjoyed spending a few coins at the school gate’s small shop to buy cheap lotus root powder, which she would steep in boiling water and stir to eat as a snack. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦
During those times, Qin Luo was obsessed with sitting in front of the TV to watch cartoons, and every day before the cartoons aired, she would consciously boil water to steep the lotus root powder, then enjoy it while watching.
Qin Huai also tasted a bit then and thought the flavor was okay—not particularly distinctive, just sweet with a faint lotus root powder fragrance, a very smooth texture, and a unique taste.
Being not too familiar with it, Qin Huai was quite surprised when he saw Master Jing’s method in the video tutorial.
How should I put it? It was quite different from what he had imagined.
Qin Huai initially thought that the lotus root powder balls were made by preparing the filling first and then wrapping it, similar to making Four Happiness glutinous rice balls.
But that wasn’t the case.
The lotus root powder used by Master Jing was given by Zheng Da’s uncle, probably homemade pure lotus root powder. Although there was some doubt about whether Zheng Da’s uncle truly gave it, Qin Huai gathered from the recipe details that it was likely that Zheng Da’s uncle gave it to Zheng Da’s household, and then Zheng Da discreetly gave it to his master as an offering.
Homemade lotus root powder could not be as fine as what Qin Luo bought at the small shop.
Qin Huai watched as the unmistakable hands of Master Jing in the tutorial video scooped lotus root powder from a bag, used a rolling pin to grind it into a fine powder, then took a bamboo tube from a cupboard, placed the previously formed small filling balls into the bamboo tube, sprinkled lotus root powder into it, shook and rolled it evenly, and then dropped the formed balls into boiling water for a brief 2-3 seconds, and repeated the process.
Repeating the process of rolling, boiling, then rolling again, was done a full three times. Each time, the timing and quantity were controlled exceptionally well, and although the lotus root powder balls varied in size, they were generally small and round, appearing very exquisite.
The final step, as expected, was to cook them, and no surprise to Qin Huai, they were cooked in a pot of clear water. When they floated to the surface, they could be scooped out.
The freshly cooked lotus root powder balls had a gray color, with an outer layer that was very translucent. In the sunlight, they looked like exhibits lit up in a display cabinet, with a translucence from inside to out.
After the lotus root powder balls were done cooking, Master Jing added a bit of sugar and honey to the soup to enhance the flavor, which dyed the soup a light yellow and made the final look of the lotus root powder balls’ color land somewhere between gray and tea.
Lastly, dried osmanthus was sprinkled as garnish, and an A-level lotus root powder ball was born.
After watching the tutorial once, Qin Huai felt he might not have fully grasped the essence of this snack. It wasn’t particularly difficult, nor was it particularly easy—although overall relatively simple, the step of rolling the lotus root powder balls was complex; where it could have been made challenging, like the filling, it wasn’t.
Yet, this snack was rated A-level.
The game’s rating system wasn’t faulty; an A-level snack is indeed a masterpiece, even a simpler version is masterly work.
Qin Huai felt there must be something he didn’t understand, so he watched it again, and again, and again.
Then, Qin Huai realized just watching the video tutorial wasn’t enough. He didn’t really understand this ingredient, lotus root powder. He needed to understand the ingredient first.
Master Jing must have a deeper intention in making lotus root powder balls this way.
So Qin Huai decided to message Cao Guixiang for help.
Master, save me!
In Qin Huai’s account, after arriving in Gusu, he focused on lotus root powder balls but didn’t quite understand the method or grasp the technique, so he sought help from his beloved master.
