Chapter 110: A Bumper Harvest! Starting the Broth
Ling Jing had played the role of peacemaker all night long.
It had turned out to be an absolute, staggering bumper harvest.
Beast Cores: 27 E-rank, 8 D-rank, 6 C-rank, and 3 B-rank.
Plant Cores: 31 E-rank, 9 D-rank, 12 C-rank, and 5 B-rank.
Beyond the cores, her two storage boxes were packed to the brim.
Every imaginable ingredient—some familiar, many entirely foreign—had been stuffed inside.
There were even items Ling Jing couldn’t recall picking up at all.
Not only had she secured everything on her shopping list for the night—lemongrass, goji berries, ginger, mint leaves, and morel mushrooms—she had also replenished several ingredients running low in the restaurant’s inventory.
Items like cilantro, tomatoes, lotus root, chestnuts, Chinese yams, and soybeans.
She bagged nine wild boars: five large and four small, with the big ones clocking in at E-rank and the piglets at F-rank or lower.
Six cattle, four of which were E-rank.
One colossal sheep at B-rank.
There were also plenty of edible finds that hadn’t even been listed in the mutant dossier.
Barley, taro, water spinach… Ling Jing even encountered avian mutants for the very first time.
A clutch of mutated chickens that hadn’t yet formed beast cores.
Free chicken meat? Don’t mind if I do.
Even more thrilling was running into natural aromatics and spices.
—Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, cinnamon, dang gui (Chinese angelica), and cloves.
Seasonings were the soul of Chinese cuisine. Bagging several spice-bearing mutants in one fell swoop meant she had secured a supply that would easily last for months.
No more coughing up exorbitant point costs in the system mall.
Better yet, the monsters came bundled with seeds.
Seeds that normally cost extra plant tokens in the Farm Supermarket dropped in generous abundance tonight.
Tomato seeds, wheat seeds, green bean seeds, cabbage seeds, Sichuan peppercorn seeds… the list went on and on.
Every single one could be cultivated right on her plots.
Ling Jing could already envision a future where, as the farm expanded, her kitchen would achieve complete self-sufficiency.
Riding her electric tricycle back toward the restaurant, she felt a lingering itch to keep going.
Zero-dollar shopping sprees coupled with hoarder-style stockpiling.
The combination was simply impossible to resist.
Upon returning from her wilderness raid, the immediate perimeter around the Chinese Restaurant was noticeably quieter than when she had set out.
Practically every mobile mutant within range had already ended up in her trunk.
Had she not needed to head back and prep tomorrow’s new dishes, Ling Jing might well have pushed her tricycle even further into the wastes.
Alright, time to inventory the haul.
Once sorted, she had to get right to the kitchen.
She needed to lay the groundwork for tomorrow’s Rainy Season time-limited quest.
…
Ling Jing planned to brew two types of soup.
When the Rainy Season hit, rainwater and dampness would seep into the pores, stripping away core body temperature as moisture evaporated from the skin.
Cold and dampness wreaked havoc on the spleen.
At times like that, a piping-hot bowl of rich broth was the ultimate remedy to dispel chills and ward off colds.
The mutton gathered during her night raid was ready to shine.
She scrubbed the mutton bones and meat thoroughly, set them to soak in cold water, and stowed them in the dual-temperature reach-in refrigerator.
Drawing out the residual blood purged the meat of any unpleasant gamey funk.
While the mutton and bones soaked, Ling Jing moved on to prep the base for the second soup.
Estimating tomorrow’s headcount, she purchased four additional stockpots.
Two for the mutton broth, two for a woodland mushroom soup.
Both pairs were set atop the dual-access stainless prep table in the center of the kitchen.
Though the kitchen had been upgraded not long ago, the expanding menu was catching up fast.
With the addition of the dishware sanitizer and holding cabinets, the available floor space was once again threatening to burst at the seams.
Ling Jing decided against expanding the kitchen tonight, however.
Her remaining points weren’t limitless, and she had other expenditures in mind.
She cubed white radishes and Chinese yams, shelled a batch of chestnuts, and weighed out a balanced portion of morel mushrooms and brown beech mushrooms.
—The morels had been intentionally tracked down via the dossier, while the beech mushrooms were a sheer, delightful fluke.
She hadn’t even noticed when they had thrown themselves against her bumper; by the time she unpacked the crates back at the shop, she found an impressive pile already waiting.
All the ingredients were loaded into the stockpots, accompanied by thick coins of fresh ginger and a touch of dang gui.
Angelica and chestnuts offered warming nourishment, yams and mushrooms fortified the spleen, and white radish promoted digestion while dispelling trapped cold and damp.
Chinese gastronomy was vast and profound—brimming with variety, governed by ancient principles.
A solitary ingredient might carry harsh or polar properties, yet combining them unlocked remarkable harmony and mutual reinforcement.
Radish and beech mushrooms leaned cool by nature, which the ginger and angelica counterbalanced to perfection.
Aside from the gentle warmth of ginger and angelica, the rest of the ingredients melded together to coax out the deep, savory umami of the mushrooms and the mellow sweetness of the chestnuts and yams.
She cranked the burners under the two mushroom stockpots to a rolling boil.
Once bubbling, she reduced the flame to a gentle simmer and seasoned the broth with sea salt.
Ling Jing ladled out a small bowl, lifted a spoonful, blew gently until it cooled, and took a sip.
Mhm. The mushroom flavor was deep and earthy, the seasoning spot-on, the broth remarkably velvety and fragrant.
A single warm bowl sent a soothing wave of heat spreading straight to her fingertips.
Finishing the bowl, she slipped on rubber gloves and set to work on the mutton.
Pulling the chilled mutton and marrow bones from the fridge, she rinsed them thoroughly beneath a stream of running water.
No trace of excessive gaminess or funk could be left behind.
Only after several rounds of careful rinsing did she pile the generous heap of meat and bones into her cookware.
There was far too much volume for a single vessel, forcing her to deploy both large iron woks simultaneously.
She submerged the bones and cuts beneath cold water.
Then in went sliced ginger, scallion bundles, and a splash of Shaoxing wine.
Bringing the woks to a roaring boil over high heat, she skimmed off the bubbling gray scum continuously, clearing out every last impurity.
After letting them boil for a few minutes, Ling Jing rinsed the blanched mutton and bones with warm water before transferring them into the two designated stockpots.
She refilled both pots with fresh cold water, dropped in fresh ginger slices and scallion bundles, and cranked the burners to high.
This time, the foam rising to the top was minimal. Ling Jing skimmed off the few stray bubbles with a fine-mesh strainer, keeping the clear broth churning over the flame.
After rolling vigorously for nearly twenty minutes, the mutton broth shifted into a rich, milky-white emulsion. Only then did she dial back the flame.
She dropped a cloth spice sachet into each pot—hand-tied using her own blend this time.
Dahurian angelica root, fennel seeds, sand ginger, licorice root, and cinnamon bark.
All courtesy of her zero-dollar shopping spree in the wild.
They eradicated any remaining gaminess while imparting a warm aroma and a subtle, milky richness.
Next, she left the mutton broth to simmer gently, coaxing the rich marrow and collagen to dissolve slowly, thickening the liquid into a silky elixir.
Ling Jing set the lids on the stockpots and pivoted to prep the offal.
Tripe, chitterlings, liver, and lungs were cleaned, blanched, and cooked through until tender. She sliced them into uniform pieces and piled them into large stainless steel mixing bowls for service.
After the broth had simmered for over an hour, she fished out the cuts of mutton.
The soup could keep simmering to deepen in flavor, but leaving the meat inside too long would turn it mushy.
Once the cooked mutton cooled enough to handle, she sliced it into wafer-thin cuts, setting it aside in another large steel basin.
With that, the core ingredients for both the mutton soup and mutton offal soup were fully prepped.
Now, she needed the finishing touch.
Ling Jing pulled up the system mall and purchased a heavy-duty spice grinder—1,200 points.
It sounded steep at first glance, but the description justified the price tag: [Spice Grinder (A multifunctional unit integrating hulling, pulverizing, vibratory sifting, and dehydrating capabilities, capable of milling any whole spice with ease.)]
In the real world, turning raw dried peppercorns into fine white pepper powder was a tedious, multi-step process, but this machine streamlined it into a single touch.
Every appliance sold through the system carried a touch of uncanny convenience.
Ling Jing parted with an extra two hundred points to upgrade the grinder’s auto-feed and auto-dispense modules.
She bought an ample supply of glass jars, slotted the machine onto an iron utility shelf, and set it to work.
Fine white pepper powder, grinding away.
Alright, the two soups were well in hand. All that remained were three designated herbal brews.
—Chrysanthemum goji tea, ginger jujube tea, and mint lemongrass tea.
