Weiyuan Building, known as the largest restaurant in Dading Mansion in Zhongjing, is composed of four huge buildings with three floors.

Yang Huairen felt that he had nothing to prepare for the competition to recruit relatives, so he led his brothers to Weiyuan Building, firstly, to learn more about the Khitan food of this era, and secondly, to rest assured that he had come to Weiyuan Mansion to wait for two days for his apprentice Yang Lotian.

The traditional food of the Khitan people is roughly similar to that of other nomadic peoples on the grassland, and they are all based on various grazing livestock, mainly various meat and milk.

There is actually nothing to say about meat, the production method is nothing more than roasting and boiling, and there is nothing surprising about it, what makes Yang Huairen find interesting is their method of storing meat.

The Han people stored meat by salting, salt, and various seasonings to make the meat into salty bacon or sausages to maintain the edibility of meat food.

Later, it was discovered that meat that had been cured and dried, dried and fermented had a different fermented flavor than fresh meat, which some described as the taste of time.

The herders on the grasslands, because the way to obtain salt was not as convenient as that of the inevitable Han Chinese, they found a novel method from their daily lives - using animal fat extracted from meat, applying it to the surface of the meat to be preserved, and then drying the meat.

While the cold and dry air allows the meat to dry quickly, the meat quickly dehydrates and begins to crack and even appear huge gaps.

At this time, the animal fat smeared on the surface of the meat also quickly fills these gaps, and while it deteriorates itself, it provides a protective film for the meat and organizes the internal deterioration.

This kind of stored jerky may smell bad and spoiled, but after cutting, the inside is still intact, and when cooked with water, it still retains the smell of fresh meat.

In fact, since the establishment of the Liao State, more and more Khitan people began to change their way of life, and like the Han people, they lived a fixed life based on agriculture.

The two most common staple foods of the Han people, noodles and rice, have gradually become the staple foods of the Khitan people.

Also for easy preservation, they grind wheat and rice into flour, and then add water to make all kinds of cakes, which can no longer be dried with a large pot of flat bottom, and soaked in cow and goat milk or water when eating, which is somewhat similar to a way of eating steamed buns.

Because this cake has very little moisture, it can be stored for a long time.

Pastries are different, although they are not as diverse as the Han people in terms of types, but in terms of production, they have become more and more exquisite, and all kinds of pastries continue to enter the life of the Khitan people.

The trade between Song and Liao is very developed, and all kinds of vegetables in the Central Plains can be seen at any time in Liao, and in terms of vegetables and fruits, in fact, the Khitan people have also smoothly adapted to these tastes of the Han people.

Cheese is the most common dairy food, rich in fat and protein, which provides plenty of calories on cold days.

Milk tofu should be that they learned the method of making tofu from the Han people, and then used it on cow and goat milk, and they can also make a kind of tofu full of milky flavor, which is a kind of wisdom to discover food according to local conditions.

The reason why Weiyuan Building is known as the largest restaurant in Zhongjing, in addition to its own relatively large scale, the biggest feature is that Weiyuan Building can provide diners with a very rich variety of food.

Whether it is the food that the Khitan people are accustomed to, or the traditional food of the Han people, or a new type of food produced after the collision and integration of different foods of the two ethnic groups under this cultural exchange, Weiyuan Building can provide it.

The back kitchen of Weiyuan Building is very large, almost as big as the entire Suiyuan, Ge Changhe is a Han who grew up in Liao, when he was young, he learned the cooking skills of the Han people from the famous chef in the south of the Great Song Dynasty, and then used these skills to make the traditional cuisine of the Khitan people, which made Weiyuan Building really famous.

From this point of view, Yang Huairen still admires Chef Ge Changhe very much in his heart, in his opinion, to create so many Khi-Han fusion cuisines, and recruit disciples to pass on these dishes, Ge Changhe is already a master.

Ge Changhe was very happy with Yang Huairen's arrival, even if Yang Huairen was allowed to visit his kitchen, there was no taboo.

During the period, he also asked Yang Huairen many questions about cooking, Yang Huairen felt that there was no grudge between him and Ge Changhe, so he knew everything, and some later generations of cooking knowledge opened Ge Changhe's eyes, and he admired Yang Huairen even more.

People say that love knows no borders, art knows no borders, and cooking skills and people's yearning for food also know no borders.

Since Yang Lotian tried his cooking skills in the ring that day, he brought a few people to follow Ge Changhe to Weiyuan Building, and Ge Changhe almost treated Yang Lotian as his own apprentice.

It's a pity that in two days, the mysterious person who was suspected to be the biological father of Yang Lotte did not appear.

I heard Ge Changhe say that the person usually came to buy tofu in the back kitchen of Weiyuan Building, and he always came in the morning, because the back kitchen was not far from the back door, so he always walked through the back door.

But Yang Lotian has been guarding the back door for the past two days, but he hasn't seen the mysterious person.

When Yang Huairen came, Yang Lotian was still guarding the back door, and he was hiding behind a corner and watching from afar, not daring to show his head, as if he was afraid that his father would find out that it was him, and he didn't dare to come out to see him for all kinds of strange reasons.

Yang Huairen wanted to persuade him not to worry, we still have to stay in Zhongjing for a while, Yang Lotian agreed, but his eyes refused to leave the back door for even a second.

Ge Changhe said, "The day when that person comes to me to buy tofu is not fixed, sometimes every day, sometimes every three or five days, sometimes only once in ten days and a half months. ”

Yang Huairen asked, "I wonder how many days it has been since the last time he came to buy tofu?" ”

Ge Changhe touched his beard and thought about it, "It's been about five or six days, so he should come to the door in a few days." ”

"I hope so." ”

At this time, the back door was suddenly pushed open, and Yang Lotian suddenly became energetic, his eyes were full of hope, and his eyes were fixed on the people who walked in.

But what walked in was a few cooks from Weiyuan Building, who had gone out to the market in the morning to buy ingredients, and now they had just returned with a cart to buy vegetables.

Yang Lotian looked hard behind them and found that there were no other faces, so he sighed, his shoulders collapsed, and he shook his head helplessly.

"It's been two days, I've been waiting for two days, but why doesn't that person show up?"