Chapter 77: Tempeh

Fu Chen looked at the flashing light brain on his wrist, then glanced up at the old and young who walked into the door with each other. He frowned without a trace and clicked on the switch.

Soon after Fu Chen hung up the communication, his brows furrowed fiercely. He quickly walked into the living room and whispered a few words in Old Man Fu’s ear, then raised his head and looked at Ye Jin with tangled eyes. He wanted to stop talking.

Old Man Fu looked at Fu Chen’s appearance and sighed silently: “Since it’s already like this, A Chen, you’d better tell Xiao Jin, otherwise he will be worried if he gets news from other places.”

When Ye Jin heard what Old Man Fu said, he looked at Fu Chen with a puzzled and worried expression. He wanted to ask directly, but he didn’t know what happened. He could only wait for Fu Chen to speak.

After the old man Fu finished speaking, Fu Chen nodded in silence and looked at Ye Jin and said, “Xiao Jin, I just received news that the former marshal of the First Army, Feng Chen, was rescued. Now he has left the State Capital Star and reached Fu’er Xing.”

“Now he has integrated two of the forces in the Fu’er Xing Triangle and united the Zerg to launch an attack on the Empire, and I need to take the army to Fran Xing, which is far from Fu’er Xing.”

Ye Jin was still sitting next to Old Man Ye, looking at Fu Chen with a puzzled face and waiting for his explanation, but now that he had heard Fu Chen’s words, the only thought in his mind was that Fu Chen was going to the battlefield. 

It took a while for Ye Jin to react. Worried and puzzled, he asked, “Are you going to the battlefield? Are you in danger? What is the situation of the marshal of the First Army, and how can it have anything to do with the Zerg?”

Old Man Fu smiled with relief as he watched the communication between the two of them and turned around and went back to his room, while Fu Chen looked at Ye Jin’s worried and anxious look, sitting next to him, stretched out his hand and hugged him in his arms and said, “Don’t worry, I will definitely come back safely, and I will marry you home.”  As he said, Fu Chen kissed Ye Jin on the forehead.

Then he explained: “Marshal Feng was a participant in the previous spaceship explosion, and he also instigated netizens to force you to teach recipes and give up the secret recipes. Moreover, he colluded with the Zerg, and the Federation was also involved.”

What Fu Chen did not say is that when Marshal Feng was rescued, it not only had the Zerg’s handwriting but also the involvement of the Federation, but he didn’t know what the exact role of the Federation was.

Even if Fu Chen did not say it outright, Ye Jin still understood the meaning. He silently nodded his head and said firmly, “I see. Then you pay attention to safety, and I will do my best to support you.”

Fu Chen looked at Ye Jin, who looked determined and had a soft smile on his face; his eyes sank and he looked deeply at Ye Jin for a while. In the end, he could not resist the urge to hold Ye Jin’s cheek and pecked him shallowly on the lips a few times, from light to heavy and from shallow to deep.

Ye Jin felt the warm and gentle force on his lips and the soft touch on his lips; his heart was soft as if he had stuffed a cotton, and as if there was a warm current flowing slowly from his heart to his limbs, making Ye Jin have a light and hot feeling all over.

When Fu Chen separated from Ye Jin’s lips, he looked at Ye Jin, whose face was flushed and lips were red, and said in a low voice, “I have to go, you, you pay attention to safety at home and wait for me to come back.”

Ye Jin listened to the low mellow voice of Fu Chen in his ear, silently suppressed the worry and reluctance in his heart, nodded in silence and said, “Well, don’t worry, I will take good care of Grandpa Fu.”

Ye Jin’s words fell and the two embraced for a while. Then Fu Chen let go of Ye Jin, turned around and organized his uniform and walked towards the door.

After Fu Chen left, Ye Jin was full of worries and chatted with Master Fu for a while, but he saw that he was distracted and said, “Xiao Jin, since you are so worried, why don’t you do something to distract yourself? Why don’t you continue your research, or let me try your snacks? I still can’t forget those dishes at the state banquet.” Elder Fu finished with a look of reminiscence on his face.

After Ye Jin heard Old Man Fu’s words, he quickly returned to his senses and listened. After hearing Master Fu persuade him, he nodded thoughtfully. He himself felt that it was not a problem for him to be idle every day like this. Even if he couldn’t go to the store for safety, he could do live broadcasts at home; otherwise, it would be easy to be cranky when he was idle like this.

Thinking so, Ye Jin said with a cheerful expression: “Grandpa is right; Fu Chen is working hard on the battlefield, and I can’t just do nothing like this. We must study the medicinal diet as soon as possible so that we can help those wounded soldiers; otherwise, those soldiers who have the ability to riot will have to endure the torment of physical pain when they get off the battlefield.”

The old man Fu looked at Ye Jin, who had regained his glow, nodded in satisfaction and was slightly relieved, and could not help but bring a smile to his face.

The next day, Ye Jin came to the store in a hover car to pull out the tofu cultivated with the bottom of the pot of ash. He squeezed the hardness with his hands and felt satisfied. He started by rinsing it with water to get it clean, and then he steamed it through in a pot before putting it in a basket to dry in the air.

After Ye Jin finished with the dried beans, he turned around and took a look at the tofu that had been fermenting before; seeing that it had only gotten a little moldy, he turned it over and continued to leave it to ferment automatically.

When Ye Jin finished processing the tofu, he idly thought about opening the live broadcast.

Once Ye Jin’s live broadcast was opened, many netizens who had been concerned about Ye Jin because of the State Banquet now saw that Ye Jin was on air, and all of them flocked over to greet him. Many others directly asked if they could try the dishes from State Banquet during the live broadcast.

Ye Jin looked at the flying screen with a helpless smile and said: “If you want to eat the national banquet dishes, it is impossible because those dishes have to sit for a whole day before you can taste them. But I can use soybeans today to make a new sauce; this sauce’s production time is longer, but the finished product can be used to cook and mix rice to eat.”

Ye Jin’s voice fell on live fans quite well, but those who are concerned about Ye Jin because of yesterday’s state banquet have begun to wail.

   【Whining whining, since I can’t eat the State dinner today, I’m a little bit disappointed.】

   【I really want to eat lion’s head, boiled cabbage, and Wensi tofu. My saliva is about to flow out as I talk.】

***Lion’s head means pork meatballs.

  【Hey, actually, it’s right to think about it. If you think about the exquisite level of the dishes served at the State Banquet, you know that they are not so easy to cook. Let’s look forward to today’s new sauce.】

   【Seeing the Wensi tofu mentioned above, I am suddenly curious. Is the tofu in this dish really cut by hand? It looks like they are as thin as hair when they eat.】

   【Stop talking, stop talking! I really want to eat! I want to eat Kung Pao Chicken, lion’s head, Dongpo Meat and roasted duck! Kangkang, kid, woohoohoohoohoohoohoohoo.】

Ye Jin watched everyone’s wailing barrage flying all over the sky in the live broadcast room and smiled good-naturedly: “Okay, okay, next time I have the opportunity to make you a gourmet meal. Let’s make tempeh today. This tempeh is still an important ingredient for making stinky tofu brine, as mentioned before.”

Ye Jin said as he entered the kitchen and grabbed a bag of soybeans. After that, he cleaned the soybeans with clean water and controlled the dry water. In order to quickly soak the soybeans, Ye Jin poured the soybeans into the pot and boiled them. He then put the soybeans in a heat preservation bucket, poured in warm water, and let it stand for half an hour.

After Ye Jin demonstrated this again, after thinking about it and having nothing to do, he said, “Since there’s nothing to do next, let’s do the luo mei that I mentioned a long time ago. The spices used to make lou mei have been found. These were found when I was living on the primitive planet before, but after I came back, it was left to the military to deal with it.”

    【Really?I still remember Xiao Jin’s greedy look when he mentioned Luwei. I really want to know what kind of delicacy it is.】

    【+1. Old fans should have an impression of it. Someone mentioned it before, but I didn’t expect Xiao Jin to be able to collect all the materials in a few months.】

    【It’s been almost a year. I’m finally looking forward to Luo mei. Jin Jin, hurry up, let’s see what Luo mei is like.】

    【Not to mention upstairs, I had no idea it had been nearly a year. I didn’t expect time to pass so quickly.】

    【By the way, a lot of things have happened to Jin Jin in less than a year. Like the previous cyber violence and spaceship explosions, there were so many delicacies made, and he also participated in the production of the state banquet. When it comes to these, I am really proud.. Ohhhhhhhh.】

    【[But now that I think about it: Jin Jin is only nineteen years old. He is still a minor!】

    【[Shut up upstairs, can’t you give us a thought?】

Ye Jin watched the topic of everyone’s discussion slowly crooked and brought up the matter of age. Then he himself remembered that the age of majority stipulated by the Interstellar Law is 25 years old, which means he is still six years away from adulthood.

Thinking of this, Ye Jin choked speechlessly and looked at the live broadcast room and said, “Okay, okay, let’s not discuss this anymore. Next, I will make luo mei for everyone. I promise to make you greedy and want to bite your tongue.”

After Ye Jin finished speaking, he took out a few small packets of spices from his own space and, after dividing them one by one, put them in a hot pot and stir-fry them over low heat to produce the fragrance, then put them out and wrapped them in a clean gauze.

After wrapping the spices, Ye Jin opened his mouth to promote the Institute of Scientific Research: “You can buy these spices in the mall of the Institute of Scientific Research. These are products that are on the shelves.”

After Ye Jin finished the promotion, he took the chicken claws, chicken wings, chicken drumsticks, and pig trotters processed in the kitchen and put them in a pot. He then added water, ginger, and lemon juice to make a broth to remove the fishy smell. 

After removing the ingredients and rinsing them with water, he started a pot again and took out the rock sugar. “The next step is to use rock sugar to fry the sugar color, that is, fry the rock sugar until it melts and turns reddish brown, then add half a bowl of boiling water and pour it out.”

After Ye Jin poured out the sugar water, he began to put water in a clean pot and put the previously fried ingredients and other ingredients into the pot. Then he added two spoonfuls of the fried sugar water, a spoonful of soy sauce, and the right amount of salt, and then started to cook over medium heat for one hour.

After Ye Jin cooked the luo mei, he took a look at the soaked soybeans and said, “The soybeans are also soaked. Next, we will start cooking it with water. When it is cooked to the point where it will be squished in a pinch, it can be controlled and fermented in dry water. It can be used to make tempeh after about a week of fermentation.”

Ye Jin kept talking while his hands put the soybeans in the pot and chose a quick cooking method. After cooking, he squeezed a soybean to see that it was completely soft and rotten, and to control the moisture in the bowl, he put it in a sealed jar.

After that, Ye Jin put the controlled water into the refrigerator, put the sealed soybeans in a warmer cellar, and then walked out and said, “Okay, after waiting a week after the soybeans are fermented, you can start making tempeh. At that time, I will bring everyone together to make stinky tofu.”

A large part of the audience in the live broadcast room was still waiting around the pot where the braised tofu was cooked. When they heard Ye Jin’s words, they just asked curiously what stinky tofu was like again, and then they began to urge Ye Jin to see if the braised tofu was ready. Only a small part of the audience that followed Ye Jin to make tempeh was still asking Ye Jin about making tempeh in the barrage.

Ye Jin watched everyone’s impatience. After answering the questions from fans who asked about tempeh, Ye Jin explained with a smile: “Don’t worry, it will take a while for the luo mei to be cooked. We can take advantage of this time to cook some rice to match luo mei. If you eat luo mei, you can also match it with drinks.” Ye Jin said while scouring for rice.

Flo's notes:

Tempeh:Luo mei: