Riding the wind of rebirth

After leaving the market, Lan Guiyun was busy going back to her shop to prepare for its opening, so she couldn't have dinner with Zhou Zhi. She took the vegetables and went back with Zhou Zhi, pointing out several places to eat breakfast along the way.

When Zhou Zhi returned to the guesthouse, everyone had just gotten up. Zhou Zhi then took them out for breakfast, putting his newfound knowledge to practical use.

The small county town is located at the border of Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, and has a wide variety of snacks, with many stalls set up along the streets.

The crispy buns were recommended to Zhou Zhi by Lan Guiyun. The filling itself wasn't very good; Zhou Zhi thought it couldn't compare to the fresh meat and scallion filling of Sichuan-style buns. However, the crust was commendable.

Zhouzhi bought a basket of steamed buns to share with everyone, and then commented that the bun skin was cheating.

First, use hot lard and flour to make an oil-based pastry. Then, layer the dough and the oil-based pastry together to make the dumpling skin. The resulting dumpling skin has multiple layers, is soft and fluffy, doesn't stick to your teeth, and is very fragrant. It can also absorb the meat sauce from the filling into the skin. It would be strange if such a skin wasn't delicious.

In a few decades, Zhuasu Baozi and Manzhou Xiaolongbaozi will be found all over Southwest China, which is the final result of survival of the fittest.

Another local specialty is "Yandou Ba," a dish named after the small pot used to make it, which resembles the charcoal iron used in the old days.

Add a little vegetable oil to a small pot, pour in the fermented rice batter, and use a thin bamboo skewer to flip the heated and solidified millet cake. Its characteristics are that the cake is thin, does not stick to your teeth, has a light fragrance and tastes delicious, is sweet but not greasy, soft and crispy, and has high nutritional value.

Zhou Zhi still believes that this is cheating by the people of Huili, because simply put, this is Jiachuan's white cake and paoba. However, Jiachuan white cake is steamed, while the paoba here is baked with oil, so it will naturally be more fragrant and sweet.

Both of these are considered street food, and Li Laosan rarely had the opportunity to experience walking and sharing food on the street, which he found very fun.

These two items were just the beginning; soon everyone arrived at a breakfast shop area.

There are three shops next to each other here, and the tables are all set up on the screen. The three shops seem to have a tacit understanding, using bowls of different colors, but sharing the same dining table. Diners can choose any table to sit at and then eat from whichever shop they like, and the sellers have no objection.

One shop here sells shredded chicken and mutton rice noodles, another sells oil tea and rice noodle soup, and yet another sells rolled rice noodles.

Lamb rice noodles are made with thick Yunnan rice noodles in a broth of black goat meat and offal. Chicken and ham shreds are made with boiled rice cake shreds, topped with shredded free-range chicken and ham, and drizzled with chicken broth.

A porcelain bowl is filled with golden, creamy rice milk, topped with a handful of crispy fried dough twists, and then drizzled with a few spoonfuls of Sichuan peppercorn oil, sesame oil, and ginger juice. A large, pointed bowl of this oily tea is presented before you, already making your mouth water. Gently stir it with a spoon, and the overflowing aroma makes you want to take a few bites immediately. It's soft, delicious, and slightly spicy.

Oil tea and thin bean flour soup are made in similar ways. One is rice milk cooked into a paste, and the other is a milky yellow pea flour paste. Scoop a full bowl of oil tea or thin bean flour soup, add a handful of crispy fried dough sticks on top, and then add a small spoonful of chili oil and ginger juice. A bowl of oil tea or thin bean flour soup is ready.

Rice noodle rolls are made by steaming rice flour to form thick rice sheets that are soft, chewy, and translucent. They are used to wrap various fillings and then topped with dried chili peppers, chili oil, roasted chili peppers, chopped small red chilies, pickled chili peppers, chili sauce, ginger juice, garlic juice, fermented bean curd, peanuts, cilantro, chopped houttuynia cordata, vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic oil, sugar, salt, MSG, etc.

It's quite similar to the method of making Sichuan-style tofu rice where you can choose from dozens of seasonings.

The more ingredients you mix, the better; the amount is adjusted according to the different fillings of the rice noodle rolls.

This snack made Li Laosan feel very comfortable because the method was very similar to that of Cantonese rice noodle rolls. However, rice noodle rolls use very thin rice paper and emphasize the filling rather than the topping, which is just simple soy sauce.

Everyone sat there and took what they wanted. Huang Ruishan ordered his favorite mutton rice noodles. Zhou Zhi wasn't a fan of rice noodle rolls, so he chose rice noodle soup with soybeans, which he hadn't tried before, and shredded chicken. Mai Xiaomiao and Li Yijia ordered rice noodle rolls, but like Sichuan-style cold noodles, they added all sorts of seasonings. Ji Lie Azi was the smartest; she only ordered a bowl of oil tea, saving her appetite for the later battle.

In Zhouzhi, a strange phenomenon was also discovered: of the three shops, only the rice noodle roll shop provided kimchi, which was free and everyone could go to their shop to get it.

It's quite amusing. When Zhou Zhi went to get some kimchi, he quietly asked a regular customer what was going on.

The answer was quite funny. It turned out that all three shops used to have their own kimchi, but the kimchi made by the rice noodle roll shop was the best. Everyone came there to buy kimchi, and no one ate the kimchi from the other two shops. So the other two shops simply stopped making kimchi and let this shop do the job.

However, this shop's pickled vegetables are really something else. They can practically be pickled "anything". Zhou Zhi felt that his family could be called a pickling family, but this was the first time he had seen pickled pears, pickled plums, pickled wolf tooth potatoes, and even pickled green beans here!
The green beans really startled Zhou Zhi, because these things are poisonous when eaten raw. But upon closer inspection, it turned out that the person had blanched both the potatoes and green beans until they were just cooked through before soaking them.

Zhouzhi doesn't know if the method of making these kinds of pickled vegetables came from central Yunnan. What's amazing is that every kind of pickled vegetable is sweet and sour, and they are all exceptionally refreshing and delicious. They complement any kind of snack on the table perfectly.

The breakfast was plentiful but very cheap. After eating their fill, everyone continued to stroll around Huili City to "digest their hunger."

Xicheng Lane, also known as the alley where Xinghua Village is located, is situated on the west side of the North Gate of the ancient city. Its name means "successful in the east and successful in the west." It is three to four hundred meters long and only four meters wide.

There are over a hundred households in the alley. The buildings facing the street are mostly shops, which are mostly double-eaved gable roofs or hard gable roofs with a wooden structure. Behind the shops are courtyard houses or small courtyards with two rooms and a screen wall, all of which are antique in style.

The street is lined with businesses such as dyeing and weaving, pharmacies, restaurants, firecracker shops, and paper craft shops.

The most amazing thing is that there are two framing shops. In Zhouzhi's opinion, their craftsmanship is quite average, but their business is actually quite good. At least the shops are full of calligraphy and painting works, and you can hardly see any on the walls.

"What's wrong? Did you miss something?" Seeing Zhou Zhi's eyes scanning the shop, Li Laosan asked furtively from behind Zhou Zhi.

"No, I was looking at the shop's framing skills."

"how?"

"It's not very good, but the calligrapher's calligraphy is quite good. I've found that almost every ancient city has this kind of cultural heritage."

As they chatted, they soon passed by the Lianghu Guild Hall and the Jiangxi Guild Hall.

These two guild halls were converted from the earliest Yuwang Palace and Wanshou Palace. Yuwang Palace was in charge of favorable weather and abundant water in the two lakes, so it was chosen to be turned into a guild hall.

The Wanshou Palace enshrines Xu Xun, a deity born in Yuzhang. Many Wanshou Palaces in the south were originally built by people who migrated from Jiangxi.

Therefore, there is a natural cultural bond between Huili Wanshou Palace and Jiangxi Guild Hall, which is a great testament to immigrant culture. However, due to the long passage of time, it is no longer known whether the Jiangxi immigrants built Wanshou Palace first or Wanshou Palace existed first and was then chosen by the Jiangxi immigrants as their guild hall.

However, Zhou Zhi didn't have time to delve into the chicken-or-egg question. (End of Chapter)