"Mhm, we’ve memorized it all." Gu Daya and her daughter had been helping Gu Jinli with the braising spices for the past few days and had already memorized all the spices she matched. Gu Jinli nodded: "Then let us start simmering the braising sauce." Simmering braising sauce is difficult—it takes at least two hours to simmer and develop the flavor. Six types of braising sauces need to be simmered. Since there aren’t enough stoves at home, they can only set up three small stoves with stones under the kitchen corridor and simmer the braising sauce together. Gu Jinli threw the six packets of prepared braising spices, one by one, into the pot: "Auntie, this one is for the vegetarian sauce, this is for braising chicken, duck, pork, this is for pig’s trotters, this for mutton, this for beef, and this one is for braising river delicacies. You must remember which braising sauce is in which pot, don’t mix them up." "Ah." Gu Daya and her daughter replied. "Next is frying the sugar." Gu Jinli took out six packets of caramel, heated oil in a pan, poured all six packets of caramel into it, slowly melted the caramel, and after turning it into a caramel color, ladled out the syrup, and poured it bowl by bowl into the six braising pots, "For one pot of braising sauce, adding one packet of caramel is enough." Nowadays, caramel refers to maltose, which has a strong malt fragrance. After adding a few cups of wine, a waft of malt-scented alcohol, somewhat similar to beer, emerges from the pot. While the braising sauce is simmering, they began to process the ingredients for braising. The chicken is butchered and cleaned, then directly added to the braising pot to cook. Pork, pig’s trotters, mutton, and beef must be blanched in water first, and after blanching, they can then be put into their respective braising pots. There are also the river delicacies. To put it simply, braising river delicacies means braising chunks of fish. After chopping the carp into large chunks about three fingers in width, they are directly fried in a pot of oil. Once fried, the fish chunks are scooped out to drain the oil. Once the braising sauce is ready, the fried fish chunks are soaked for about two hours before being ready to eat. The method for the vegetarian braising is similar. After blanching the vegetables, they are added to the braising sauce and simmered on low heat for fifteen minutes, then the heat is turned off, allowing the vegetables to stew in the sauce. After a few hours, once the vegetables absorb the flavor of the braising sauce, the vegetarian braising is done. They braised four types of vegetables: lotus root, eggs, fried tofu, and white dried tofu. The white dried tofu is made by first cutting the tofu into palm-sized, half-inch thick pieces, then pressing them with a heavy object for a little over two hours. The three of them were busy in the kitchen for almost two hours until the braising sauce was thoroughly simmered, then the vegetables and fried fish chunks were placed into the vegetarian and river delicacy pots, respectively. "It’ll be ready to eat after simmering for another two hours." The chicken and pork are almost done braising as well, Gu Jinli instructed Qi Kangle to stop the fire. "After stewing the chicken and pork for an hour, take them out, let them dry, and then slice them for serving. The remaining pots with pig’s trotters, mutton, and beef have to keep cooking; these three are harder to cook and need to be simmered for another hour." Gu Daya and Qi Kangle nodded, taking every word and every action of making the braised dishes that Gu Jinli said to heart. Seeing them very tense, Gu Jinli smiled and said: "Auntie, Cousin Le, don’t be so nervous. If you don’t learn it the first time, you can learn it a second time." Gu Daya quickly waved her hand: "That’s not good, making braised dishes once costs quite a lot." It’s not just chicken and beef or mutton; the beef, in particular, is very hard to buy. They had the Jiang Family purchase it from the county. Three taels of beef cost three hundred cents, which is one hundred cents per tael, and it is more than three times more expensive than pork. Gu Jinli said, "Auntie, don’t think beef is too expensive because when it’s braised, it’s delicious. By the time we sell it for two hundred copper coins per jin, we will make all the money back." Gu Daya was astonished at the price, but then she thought about those wealthy families who spend several, or even dozens, of taels of silver on a meal at a restaurant. Compared with that, the price for braised beef didn’t seem too expensive at all. Xiao Yu, we’ve tested the clay oven for roasting ducks. It didn’t collapse, and the heat inside was even." Gu Dashan, his face dirty with ash, rushed into the kitchen to ask Gu Jinli, "Is the braising done? When are we going to your aunt’s house to make the roast duck?" "Almost done, we’re going to make the roast duck right now." Gu Jinli and the others left the kitchen and said to Mrs. Cui, "Mom, please go to the kitchen to help watch the fire. It only needs to burn for another two hours before it can be extinguished. The braised meat doesn’t need to be taken out, just leave it in the pot, covered." "Yes, mom knows. Hurry along now, you said that roasting duck takes a long time, and it’s almost noon. If you’re late, you won’t make it in time," Mrs. Cui said, recalling Gu Jinli’s explanation that just air-drying the ducks takes four hours, which is quite time-consuming. Gu Jinli smiled and said, "Don’t worry, Mom, you’ll definitely get to eat roast duck tonight." She ran back to the room, took a bag full of spices, and followed Gu Dashan to Gu Daya’s house. In the backyard of Gu Daya’s house, a human-height clay oven was built with green bricks and mud. The clay oven was constructed by Gu Dashan and Third Grandpa over the course of three days, and after following Gu Jinli’s instructions to make two revisions, they finally got it completed. The oven was divided into an upper and lower section: the lower section for making fire and the upper for hanging ducks. At the connection between the two sections, there was a hole covered with an iron plate drilled with six holes, capable of blocking the direct flame while still allowing the heat to reach the upper area. Xiao Yu, the five ducks are ready," Qi Panzi brought out the prepared ducks. Gu Jinli handed the bag of spices to Qi Panzi, "Grind these spices and stuff them into the duck’s belly, then use these long iron needles to seal the opening." Gu Jinli then took the mother and daughter, Gu Daya, to the Jiang Family’s kitchen to start making the crispy skin solution. The crispy skin solution was crucial for the duck skin to turn crispy when roasted. To make the crispy skin solution, maltose was melted in water, then after turning off the heat, vinegar and Floral Carving Wine were added to finish the mixture. After preparing the crispy skin solution, Gu Jinli had Qi Panzi bring over the spice-stuffed ducks and gave him a small bamboo tube the size of a finger, pointing to the cut at the neck of the duck, "Blow air into it to puff up the duck’s skin." Gu Jinli had explained the process of inflating the duck’s skin to Qi Panzi in detail a few days earlier. Qi Panzi knew what to do and soon finished inflating all five ducks. After that, the ducks were to be scalded in boiling water to set the skin, and then the skin was to be brushed with the crispy skin solution. "Take the ducks out for air-drying," she instructed. "Okay." Qi Panzi quickly took the ducks out under the eaves to air dry. Four hours later, when the ducks were finally air-dried and their skin color had darkened, Gu Jinli said, "Time to roast the ducks." Qi Kangming’s family had been waiting eagerly. They quickly took down the ducks, hung them in the clay oven on a wooden stick as thick as a wrist, and placed them on the iron rods inside. They then began to heat up the oven, first with a strong fire for fifteen minutes, followed by a slow roast for another hour, and then the roast duck was ready. "This reddish roast duck, isn’t it beautiful? If we had this dish for festivals and celebrations, it would be very festive," Gu Daya was overjoyed looking at the duck taken out; it would surely sell better than braised dishes. Qi Kangming was equally impressed as he looked at the roast duck, "Its color is as red as cinnabar, the aroma is overwhelming. Xiao Yu, you are truly skilled to be able to create such a delicacy."