Chapter 498 Colored Head

Everyone in the palace thought to themselves: "Isn't the peach talisman enough? Could it be that Wang Ping'an would have to make a few more pairs?"

Li Shimin did not make things difficult for Wang Ping'an this time. He said: "Since the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the people of the Central Plains have to stay up to New Year's Eve. When they stay up to the New Year, they must eat and grow food. What is it?"

Everyone in the palace was a little disappointed. Alas, this question is too simple. Not to mention Wang Ping'an's exam, even a three-year-old child could not pass the exam.

Wang Ping'an breathed a sigh of relief and thought to himself: "It turned out to be the dumplings." He said: "When you say to the emperor, you will eat dumplings on New Year's Eve!"

Everyone in the palace spoke in unison and came out. No, even this answer was wrong! Dumplings, what is that? No matter where the dialect is, there is no such word!

Habits become natural. When Wang Ping'an mentioned what to eat on New Year's Eve, he naturally mentioned the dumplings, but as soon as he said it, he knew that he was wrong. In the early Tang Dynasty, there was no such thing as dumplings. The dumplings in this era were called Jiaoer or Tang Zhonglao Pills. People are called Tang Zhonglao Pills, but this is the palace, and Li Shimin asked about the original name.

Wang Ping'an hurriedly changed his words: "I said it wrong and was eager to answer the emperor's question, but he blurted out the dialect of our Wuli Village. On New Year's Eve, I should be fond of you."

Li Shimin thought to himself: "Wuli Village is the place of Xuzhou, but Xuzhou does not seem to have this dialect!" He did not investigate why the people in Wuli Village call Jiaoer dumplings. He asked again: "Why should I eat this?"

Wang Ping'an shouted: "To commemorate the medical saint Zhongjing!"

Dumplings were invented by the medical saint Zhang Zhongjing. At the beginning, this was not made for the sake of deliciousness, but had practical significance. Dumplings were first used as a decoction medicine, called "Quhanjiaoer Soup".

It is cold in winter, and the people's ears are mostly frostbite. Zhang Zhongjing couldn't bear to see the people suffer, so he opened a medical shed in Dongguan, Nanyang, and cooked them in a pot with mutton and cold-removing medicinal materials. After cooking, the things were taken out and chopped, and the food in the shape of the ears was wrapped in dough. It was called Jiaoer, and then put it in the pot and cooked it for the people to eat. The people ate two Jiaoer and drank a bowl of soup. The whole body became hot, the blood was unobstructed, and the ears became warm. Zhang Zhongjing used Jiaoer to resist typhoid fever for the people and cured the frozen ears.

Zhang Zhongjing gave alms to Kuhan Jiaoer Tang until New Year's Eve. On the first day of the Chinese New Year, people celebrated the New Year and also celebrated the recovery of rotten ears. They made New Year's food like Jiaoer and ate it on the morning of the first day of the Chinese New Year. Therefore, an important custom in traditional Chinese festivals emerged.

There are many legends about dumplings, and this is one of them. Wang Ping'an studied medicine and asked him to tell me why he wanted to eat dumplings. He naturally chose this answer first.

Li Shimin smiled and said, "It's great. It seems that you have read a few books. You will naturally have to eat Jiaoer." As he said, he took a string of beads from the ornaments on his waist, took a red bead in the center, and said, "Put it into the filling and wrap it in Jiaoer. If anyone eats this, he will come up to me and tell me that I have given him all the beads!"

Shi Zhongchen stepped forward and took the red beads and said, "Yes, I'll put the beads into the filling!" He asked the little eunuchs to carry them in the big food bowl for filling, wiped the beads, put them into the filling, then stirred them with chopsticks, and mixed the beads into the filling.

Li Shimin clapped his hands and said, "Okay, let's put on the ball and let the pole be exploded!"

At the emperor's order, the sound of a thunderbolt outside sounded again, while Shi Zhongchen divided the filling into small pots, put a basin on each table, and gave dough, panels and other items to make dumplings.

There was a pot on the table where Wang Ping'an was naturally placed. Looking at the food bowl, Wang Ping'an felt funny. Making dumplings was not difficult, but for the royal relatives, it cannot be said that it was not difficult, but it should be extremely difficult. I guess no one would not make it, but just went through the motions and the dumplings I ate in the end were made in the imperial kitchen.

As soon as he finished thinking this, he heard Li Zhi say, "I'm here to roll the dough, you are responsible for wrapping it." As he said that, Li Zhi took out a dough, pulled it into small pieces, then picked up the rolling pin, and rolled the dumpling skin.

Wang Ping'an was shocked and almost screamed. He saw that Li Zhi was skillful in his movements, which could be said to be at the level of a chef. His hands kept rolling out several doughs in an instant, which was just a blink of an eyelid!

Looking at the tables around, I saw that there were people rolling noodles on each table, and they were all skillful in their movements. They definitely didn’t just hold a rolling pin and didn’t know how to start. Especially for Li Ke’s table, Li Ke was like Li Zhi, who was also rolling noodles. Li Zhi’s technique was quite impressive, and Li Ke was even more powerful.

I saw him rolling the dough and throwing it to the other side of the panel... and brushing the ground was as fast as it was. I guess he would not be the prince, but to open a small restaurant in the market. Just playing this trick in front of the guests, he could attract a lot of business!

Wang Ping'an was stunned. It was hard to believe that such a thing would happen? What kind of world did this become? Could it be that he had gone to the wrong place and was not in the palace now, but in the kitchen of a large restaurant?

He turned his head and looked at his table again. Not only Princess Nanping and his wife, but also Li Yiren was making dumplings. He was quick and the dumplings he made were beautiful. Even the kid named Tong'er made a dumpling in a good manner and put them aside!

Wang Ping'an thought to himself: "After working for a long time, in the whole hall, I counted the worst skills in making dumplings... No, the worst one should be the emperor, I should be the second to last!" Thinking to himself, he turned to see Li Shimin again.

Unexpectedly, when I saw that the second to last immediately became the last. I saw a noble lady in the palace dress rolling noodles next to Li Shimin, while Li Shimin made dumplings with her own hands, not only one, but several, each of them looked good and placed on the panel on the side!

Wang Ping'an opened his mouth wide and couldn't close it. Why did this happen? Why do everyone make dumplings? It's okay if you know how to make dumplings, but why do they all make them so well? Could it be that the royal family Li family, who was born in a dumpling restaurant, did Li Yuan do this business?

The concubines, princes and princesses, including Li Shimin himself, can make dumplings. At this time, it is called Bao Jiaoer. Not only can they do it, but they are also very good. For the royal family, they only have the chance tonight in the year. How can they not show off their skills and attract the emperor's attention without observing too much etiquette?

Li Shimin also made dumplings because he was a prince back then. Like the princes now, he also needed to offer his skills to his father at that time and have some fun!

Li Zhi didn't know that Wang Ping'an's skills in making dumplings were poor, at least they were much worse than them. He made it well by himself, so he naturally thought that Wang Ping'an was also well, so he threw a dough in front of Wang Ping'an and said, "No disease, you can also make it."

Wang Ping'an whispered, picked up the dough and thought to himself: "I can't make any tricks. I'd better make an ordinary one. Don't show off to avoid making a fool of myself." He made a very regular and ordinary dumpling and put it on the panel.

Shi Zhongchen walked around the hall, serving the royal family, and came to Wang Ping'an's table, and smiled and said, "Wujian, your delicate ear pack is so ordinary, why don't you pinch it into a good-looking look?"

When royal people make dumplings, they always make all kinds of tricks, and some even make beautiful little animals, so that after cooking dumplings, they can make the emperor like them and eat the dumplings they make themselves. However, Wang Ping'an is ordinary, and even the ones that are not as good as those of children, and there is no novelty at all.

Wang Ping'an said a little embarrassedly: "I used to pack Jiaoer at home, so my nephew has never learned a lot of tricks. In the countryside, some food is good!"

Shi Zhongchen smiled and said, "Come on, let our family teach you. You have to wrap this way... it's better!" As he said that, he picked up a dough and put it in Wang Ping'an's hand.

Wang Ping'an felt a hard work in his hand. It seemed that something was stuffed into his hand by Shi Zhongchen. When he pinched it, he felt like a bead, the size of which was Li Shimin who asked Shi Zhongchen to put into the dumpling filling just now. He felt like he was moved. What's going on? Didn't that bead be put into the food bowl?

Shi Zhongchen gestured and sighed, "You are not sick, you are too stupid. You can't even wrap your ears. Forget it, just eat it later, you will eat it. If you don't have any tricks to make, see if you can eat it!" This sentence is not very compatible with your identity. No matter how important he is, he can't talk to Wang Ping'an, and he still said it in front of everyone.

But everyone didn't care. Li Zhi smiled and said, "It doesn't matter if you don't know how to wrap it, but if you don't know how to eat it, it doesn't matter. Eat a few more later."

Li Yiren also smiled at him and said, "I'm so stupid, I can't even cover my ears!" He reached out and shaved his face, shy, but there was flour on his fingers, which was stuck on his cheeks.

Wang Ping'an laughed and tried his best to pretend to be a silly son-in-law, saying, "I'll go back to study, and when I have the New Year's Eve dinner next year, I will definitely make it better than you."

He held the bead tightly in his hand and thought to himself: "Yes, I can't make any tricks, but I can eat them. You can wait and see!"

Shi Zhongchen shook his head and left. He didn't put the beads into the filling just now, but just made a move to put them on. His sleeves were wide and he moved quickly. No one saw his tricks. He thought he had put the beads into the filling. He took advantage of serving everyone in the hall to hand over the beads to Wang Ping'an.

The dumplings were packed soon, and the little eunuchs carried the dumplings and cooked them in the side hall. It was almost midnight, and in modern times, it was the time to celebrate the New Year happily, and the Tang Dynasty was no exception.

The little eunuch outside the hall dragged his long voice and shouted loudly: "Long live my lord, I wish you a happy new year!"

When Wang Ping'an heard the little eunuch shouting, he quickly got up, but found that everyone in the hall had not stood up. He had to sit down again and thought to himself: "What's going on? Isn't you going to pay New Year's greetings? It should be time!"

Footsteps came from outside the hall, and countless palace maids and eunuchs walked in. They lined up to greet the emperor.

It turned out that they were greeting the emperor with New Year's greetings. It seemed that they were all well-known figures in the palace! Wang Ping'an was not interested in these people. He was about to turn around and talk to Li Zhi, but suddenly he found a familiar face not far away in front of him.
Chapter completed!