Chapter 35: Hotpot Base (1)

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

After checking the spices, Chen Muxue brought over a large basin.

She put cinnamon, star anise, cacti, fennel, and caldron in a pot, then washed them with water and soaked them for twenty minutes. This way, the impurities and bitterness in the spices would be removed.

Before Xiaohu went to buy the spices, Chen Muxue had soaked a lot of dried chilies in water. Now that the spices were being soaked, she could take out the dried chilies that had just been soaked and make them into chili paste.

The dried chili would become soft after being soaked, making it easy to chop it into chili paste. Because of the large quantity, it was not an easy task to chop off the chili.

Twenty minutes later, the chillies were almost all chopped up. Chen Muxue shook her slightly sore arm and took out the spices again. She placed them into the stone mortar and crushed them. The crushed spices produced a stronger fragrance and could reduce the time needed to boil them.

“Let me do it!” After Dafu finished peeling the garlic, he saw that Chen Muxue’s hair was wet with sweat. He couldn’t help but feel guilty.

It was fine if he couldn’t help in other areas, but he could still help with this kind of thing!

Seeing this, Xiaohu and Dagui also joined in. Chen Muxue let them take over. At the same time, she also pulled out Xiaohua, who had joined in the fun. There was no need to add to the trouble since the child was not even as tall as her waist.

Cen Li, who was observing in the dark, sighed in his heart. He did not expect cooking to be such a complicated thing. In the past, when Chen Muxue cooked dishes, he would at most find it too troublesome to cut and wash the vegetables. Now, it seemed that she was serious about making a big dish. It was so complicated.

Indeed, cooking was really bad! The worst part was that he couldn’t eat it. At the thought of this, Cen Li’s face darkened.

After getting the children to prepare the spices, Chen Muxue cut the ginger and scallions. She scattered the heads of the scallions and cut them into slices. She also cut the coriander. The coriander here really added to the aroma. Most of the hotpot base ingredients actually used coriander, but if it was used to boil oil, the taste of the coriander could be blended well, unlike the unique taste of the usual.

In fact, Chen Muxue couldn’t accept coriander when she was young. Later, for some reason, her taste changed and she gradually began to like coriander. However, she had read a study that said that most people couldn’t eat coriander because their genes couldn’t accept it. Therefore, she used to repeatedly remind the new waiters to ask if the customers had any dietary restrictions. This way, some customers could avoid having allergic reactions to certain ingredients, such as peanuts.

She took out a bowl, put in the green pepper, and mixed it with the wine. This wine was the sect’s original wine. She didn’t know what it was, but she knew it smelled very rich.

Among the spices that were soaked just now, there were some dried chilies and bay leaves that were not crushed. She also cut some ginger powder. As cattle were used for farming in this era and the small town at the foot of the mountain was not prosperous enough to sell beef from the western region, she could only settle for the second best and use lard. Chen Muxue had boiled it a lot before. Now, she could cut it into small pieces and use it.

It was finally time to start. Chen Muxue took out her precious metal wok and sighed. “If only it could be bigger.”

Unexpectedly, as if it understood her words, the wok jumped up on its own and spun in the air. It really did become bigger, just like the first time she saw it in the cauldron!

“You have two faces?” Chen Muxue felt that it was a little funny, while the wok was a little tsundere and trembled.

The spices were almost ready. When Xiaohu saw that Chen Muxue was about to start, she quickly ran over to control the fire. Chen Muxue was very satisfied. Xiaohu’s fire spiritual root was very practical.

She heated up the wok and boiled the lard in it. Then, she fried the ginger, scallion, and coriander to a golden yellow.

The fragrance that was now spreading filled the entire kitchen and rushed straight to Cen Li’s head!