Daddy's Gourmet Shop

Chapter 616 - 600: Five-Colored Tangyuan

Time quietly slipped away, and before we knew it, the Lantern Festival of the fifteenth day of the first lunar month arrived.According to traditional customs, only after the Lantern Festival is the New Year truly over in a meaningful sense.

After this day, people will embark on new journeys and officially begin the new year.

Thus.

People end this day in the most festive way: watching lanterns, guessing lantern riddles, setting off firecrackers, dragon dancing, lion dancing...

As the first full moon night of the year, on the day of the Lantern Festival, it is an indispensable ritual for the family to sit together and eat a bowl of tangyuan, symbolizing reunion.

For the sake of this ritual.

Huang Yide and Song Cailian rushed over by car after work to reunite with Huang Tao and Xuanxuan.

However, due to the long journey and some traffic on the road, the two of them arrived at West City Old Street already at night

Huang Tao

"Grandpa! Grandma!"

As soon as the elder couple arrived at the shop, Xuanxuan’s eyes lit up immediately, and she quickly ran towards them.

"Oh my dear granddaughter!"

Song Cailian’s face instantly beamed with joy, quickly went over, stretched out her hands, and embraced her tightly into her arms.

She patted Xuanxuan’s little head, and couldn’t help but ask, "Xuanxuan, have you missed Grandma these days?"

Xuanxuan nodded hard: "Yes!"

"I think about you every day!"

Oh~

These sweet words warmed Song Cailian’s heart deeply.

Song Cailian smiled affectionately: "Grandma misses you too!"

Huang Yide bent down with loving eyes and asked, "What about Grandpa? Do you miss Grandpa?"

Xuanxuan replied loudly without hesitation: "Yes!"

"Oh~ my dear granddaughter~"

Huang Yide’s mouth corner grinned wide: "Here, Grandpa rewards you with a bag of treats."

As he spoke, he waved the plastic bag he was holding in front of her.

"Wow..."

Xuanxuan was simply overjoyed, reached out to grab the plastic bag, and impatiently began to look through it: "Let me see, let me see what’s inside, ah, it’s chocolate, I love it, and Oreo, ah!"

She smiled sweetly, her dimples shallow: "Grandpa, you’re so nice, thank you, Grandpa."

Huang Yide patted her little face and laughed: "Of course, Grandpa loves Xuanxuan the most, so I definitely have to buy what Xuanxuan likes to eat!"

Xuanxuan giggled.

"Dad, Mom, you’re here."

After finishing his work, Huang Tao came over and asked with concern: "Are you hungry? I left some food for you, go eat first."

The elder couple replied: "Not bad, we had some snacks on the way, not too hungry."

Xuanxuan blinked and thought for a moment, asking: "Daddy, are we going to make yuanxiao?"

Speaking of yuanxiao!

There’s always a little partner to argue about the difference between yuanxiao and tangyuan.

Both are white spheres wrapped in glutinous rice, is it just a difference in names between north and south?

For instance, flavor, filling, preparation method, appearance, and texture are all different.

The making of yuanxiao is much more complicated than tangyuan; you must first mix the filling, cut the solidified filling into small pieces, pass them through water, then throw them into a basket full of glutinous rice flour to roll, then water again, return them to the basket to roll, repeat several times until the filling is covered with glutinous rice flour and forms a round ball.

Due to different preparation techniques, yuanxiao is coarser in texture than tangyuan.

After cooking yuanxiao, the soup will be thick, similar to glutinous rice porridge, with a soft skin, firm filling, and rich in fruit and rice fragrance.

The making of tangyuan is a bit like dumplings; first, add water to glutinous rice flour to make a dough, pinch a small piece of wet paste by hand, press it into a sheet, pick a piece of filling to place on the glutinous rice sheet, then use both hands to turn it while closing it to make tangyuan.

As a southerner, Huang Tao naturally won’t make the northern "rolling" yuanxiao but will make the southern "wrapped" tangyuan.

But this time, it’s not sesame tangyuan, but five-colored tangyuan.

Huang Tao nodded with a smile: "To be exact, we should be making tangyuan, and it’s five-colored tangyuan."

"Wow~"

Xuanxuan sweetly smiled in surprise and volunteered: "Xuanxuan will help you make five-colored tangyuan!"

"Okay!"

Huang Tao hugged her and gave her a kiss on the cheek: "Let’s make it together~"

When father and daughter arrived in the back kitchen, Old Qian and Hu were just pressing into puree the pre-steamed pumpkin chunks and purple sweet potato chunks respectively with a spoon, and while it was still hot, knead them into glutinous rice flour to form purple sweet potato dough and pumpkin dough.

Lin Zifeng then poured the black sesame he had stir-fried in advance onto the cutting board, spreading it evenly, and started grinding it with a rolling pin.

Seeing Huang Tao carrying Xuanxuan over, Old Qian couldn’t help but laugh, "Don’t rush, let’s wait for Uncle Qian to knead the dough first, then we’ll all make the colorful dumplings together!"

"Oh~"

Xuanxuan peered into the basin, looking like a curious little baby.

Seeing the white glutinous rice flour and pumpkin chunks, purple sweet potato chunks merge and change color, she showed an amazed expression and was eager to try.

"Come on, let’s wash our hands first."

Huang Tao carried her over to the sink, washed their hands clean, and returned to Old Qian.

Huang Tao took out the heated carrot juice and spinach juice from the steamer.

He poured the snow-white glutinous rice flour into three stainless steel bowls for kneading, then poured in the carrot juice, stirred it a bit, and touched Xuanxuan’s little nose with it, leaving a mark that was white with a hint of red on her pink nose.

Xuanxuan widened her eyes and instinctively wiped her nose with her hand.

And what happened!

The flour smeared from her nose to her palm.

Huang Tao couldn’t help but chuckle.

Xuanxuan pouted playfully and said, "Daddy, you’re so bad, teasing me again..."

She wanted to "retaliate."

But unfortunately...

Being small and short, she couldn’t do it!

How frustrating!

"Oh dear, my baby isn’t happy."

Huang Tao laughed and reached out to touch her cheek, saying, "Alright, Daddy knows he’s wrong, won’t tease you anymore."

However with this action, cute little Xuanxuan ended up with a face like a flowered kitten.

Xuanxuan frowned slightly, poutily exclaimed, "Ah... Daddy..."

Huang Tao laughed heartily.

The kitchen was filled with a cheerful atmosphere.

After some laughter and play, Huang Tao started kneading the dough in earnest.

His skills were naturally beyond doubt.

Very soon.

All the dough was kneaded into moderately soft and hard dough balls.

Seeing the red, green, yellow, purple, and white dough balls, Xuanxuan immediately forgot about being turned into a colorful cat by her dad, eagerly asked, "Daddy, can we make the colorful dumplings now?"

"Just wait a moment..."

Huang Tao explained, "Let it rest for a bit."

Saying that, Huang Tao covered the colorful dough balls with a wet cloth to prevent the glutinous rice dough from cracking.

Meanwhile, Huang Tao brought over the prepared red bean paste, date paste, salted meat filling, peanut walnut filling.

Then he brought the pre-diced pork suet, poured it into the black sesame crumbs Lin Zifeng just ground, and added a little powdered sugar and osmanthus, mixing and kneading it with his hands until the ingredients combined thoroughly into a single mass without the white pork suet visible.

So,

All the necessary fillings were prepared.

"Xuanxuan, we can start now. These different colored dough balls need different fillings, so follow Daddy and don’t get them mixed up..."

Huang Tao helped her put on hygienic gloves and prepared to pinch a small piece of filling in his palm, rolling it into a small ball.

With prior experience in making dumplings, Xuanxuan got right into it, rolling the filling into a round shape, then pinching a small pink ball from the dough, kneading it into a "tiny goblet," wrapping the filling inside and rolling it closed.

And honestly.

She did it with great form, her technique was skillful and standard, like a little dim sum chef!

Moreover, the dumplings she made looked quite decent, nicely presentable!

At such a young age, it’s remarkable she could do this well!

Old Qian and others watching were left speechless with their jaws dropped but didn’t forget to applaud her.

Clap! Clap! Clap!

Old Qian gave Xuanxuan a thumbs up, loudly saying, "Xuanxuan did such a great job!"

"A tiger father’s daughter won’t be a dog!"

He was not indirectly flattering Huang Tao but genuinely thought she did well.

"Hehe~"

The kitchen echoed with her joyful laughter.