The wicked mother-in-law doesn't try to whitewash herself; she only abuses her awful children.

Chapter 159 Innovative Meat-filled Rice Dumplings for Dragon Boat Festival

After the meal, the coachman who was to pick up Tong Huaqiong arrived.

Tong Huaqiong, along with Gu Taohua, Chen Sufen, and Liu Yue'e, boarded a carriage and headed to town.

They came face to face with a donkey cart, and Wang the matchmaker was sitting on it.

"Oh, isn't this Widow Tong?" Matchmaker Wang said to Tong Huaqiong with a forced smile.

"Matchmaker Wang, whose daughter are you going to swindle this time?" Tong Huaqiong retorted sarcastically.

"What nonsense are you spouting?" Matchmaker Wang smiled broadly. "The Zheng family, who are unwilling to marry into the family, have plenty of other families willing to do so. If you ask me, some people are just too thin-skinned; they won't even bite the meat that's offered to them. They deserve to be burdened with a life of toil."

Tong Huaqiong sneered and said, "Matchmakers are supposed to arrange marriages, but you're forcing a match. Your matchmaking is no different from selling people. I advise you to stop doing things that bring such bad luck."

Matchmaker Wang rolled her eyes at Tong Huaqiong and said, "What do you know? What's wrong with the Zheng family? Zaohua can become a young mistress after marrying into the family, and live a life of luxury and wealth. It's much better than marrying a peasant from your Qinghewan."

After Wang the matchmaker finished speaking, she ordered the donkey cart driver to head towards Xu Jin's house.

Xu Zaohua initially disagreed with marrying Zheng Da Gongzi.

No matter how eloquently Xu Jin described the Xu family, Xu Zaohua remained unmoved.

Xu Zaohua was fully aware that Zheng Da Gongzi was definitely not a match, which was why the marriage had come to her.

She didn't want to become a widow like Tong Dajiao after getting married.

After she was locked up, she secretly ran away and blocked Gu Jingzhe, who was helping Gu Dahan clean the pigsty in the temple.

Gu Jingzhe rejected her again.

Xu Zaohua was filled with hatred for Gu Jingzhe, and she felt that her current predicament was caused by Gu Jingzhe and Tong Huaqiong.

If Gu Jingzhe were willing to marry her, and if Tong Huaqiong agreed to let her into the family, she would have no need to marry Young Master Zheng.

She simply refused to admit that her marriage to the Zheng family was orchestrated by her father.

Even if Gu Jingzhe agrees to marry her now, and Tong Huaqiong agrees to let her into the family, her father Xu Jin will still object.

In Xu Jin's heart, she was someone to pave the way for the Xu family and to sacrifice for his brothers.

Sacrificing her to gain access to Zheng Juren's connections—this deal was incredibly worthwhile.

Xu Zaohua, filled with hatred for Gu Jingzhe and Tong Huaqiong, agreed to the marriage. As soon as she agreed, the Xu and Zheng families got busy and completed the engagement and six betrothal rites in the shortest possible time. Xu Zaohua will be getting married in the next couple of days.

Xu Zaohua touched her bright red wedding dress, her eyes filled with hatred.

After marrying into the Zheng family and becoming the eldest daughter-in-law, she decided to seize the opportunity to take revenge on Gu Jingzhe and Tong Huaqiong.

Tong Huaqiong was naturally unaware that Xu Zaohua was blaming her for her own unhappy marriage.

She devoted all her energy to running the peach blossom dessert business.

With the Dragon Boat Festival approaching, visiting relatives and friends and buying pastries is a must, and peach blossom desserts should take this opportunity to launch a marketing campaign.

So Tong Huaqiong made a special Dragon Boat Festival pastry gift box.

The main reason to give pastries as gifts during holidays is to impress others.

She made two sets of gift boxes. One set was wrapped in oiled paper with poems about the Dragon Boat Festival written on it and tied with red string, which was both simple and beautiful. The other set was in a wooden gift box, a dark red lacquered box with a hidden compartment inside, which contained packaged pastries.

Whether they are ordinary people or wealthy families, they all have different choices.

The Dragon Boat Festival gift boxes are not only beautiful in their packaging, but the pastries inside are also delicious.

Tong Huaqiong selected several of the most popular traditional pastries from her shop, such as mung bean cake and mung bean pancake, as well as innovative pastries such as egg yolk pastry and taro paste pastry, to create a combination.

Taking into account the needs of the elderly and children, Tong Huaqiong also prepared soft and easily digestible pastries such as cloud cakes and sponge cakes.

The gift box became an instant hit upon its release.

In addition to Dragon Boat Festival gift boxes, zongzi (sticky rice dumplings) are naturally indispensable.

In the past, Yanguan Town only had jujube glutinous rice dumplings and glutinous rice dumplings made with jujubes, both of which were sweet.

Besides making sweet zongzi, Tong Huaqiong also made salted egg yolk and pork zongzi. In her previous life, due to differences in taste, whether tofu pudding was sweet or savory, and whether to make sweet or pork zongzi, was a topic of endless debate on the internet.

The rivalry between the sweet and savory factions is so intense that they practically want to arrange an offline showdown.

She was unsure how well the people of Yanguan Town accepted savory rice dumplings.

For Tong Huaqiong, sweet has its own flavor, and salty has its own taste; as long as the ingredients are of high quality, she loves them all.

Because pork has a gamey smell, Tong Huaqiong chose to use chicken thigh meat.

Duck eggs are easy to obtain, as most households in Qinghewan raise ducks. She had purchased the duck eggs from the village a month in advance and then pickled them.

By the Dragon Boat Festival, they were all pickled until they were golden brown and glistening with oil, perfect for wrapping zongzi (sticky rice dumplings).

Moreover, the quality of these salted duck eggs has already been proven in the egg yolk pastry.

When she offered to make meat-filled rice dumplings, everyone in the shop looked at her with disbelief.

There was no other way, so she created the first savory rice dumpling in Yanguan Town.

"Mom, you said you'd make zongzi with meat, egg yolk, and glutinous rice. How could that possibly taste good?" Chen Sufeng, who was always good at cooking, questioned, unable to imagine what it would taste like.

At first glance, it sounds like a bizarre or unusual dish.

"Aunt Tong, it's not that we doubt you. It's just that these zongzi are made with chicken leg meat and egg yolks, and these ingredients are very expensive. What if they don't taste good or we can't sell them? Wouldn't that be a waste?"

Hu felt heartbroken just thinking about all that chicken leg meat.

“My mother is the shopkeeper, so we should listen to her. Think about it, which of the pastry recipes my mother came up with didn’t sell well?” Gu Taohua defended Tong Huaqiong, saying, “The egg yolk pastry and taro pastry we made before, they weren’t available in town before, and they sold very well after our Taohua Desserts made them.”

Tong Huaqiong made the final decision: "Whether it's okay or not, let's wrap it up first and then talk about it."

In any case, no amount of opposition from others can change her mind once she's made a decision.

Chen Sufeng and Hu could only follow Tong Huaqiong's instructions to marinate the chicken drumsticks, peel and roast the salted egg yolks, while the young girl Liu Xiuxiu followed along to wash the glutinous rice.

Gu Dashu then collected a cartload of large reed leaves from the village river, and after pulling the reed leaves to the shop, he squatted down by the well to wash them.

After marinating the chicken legs overnight, Tong Huaqiong led everyone to wrap zongzi (sticky rice dumplings) early the next morning.

The wrapping method for savory rice dumplings is different from that for sweet rice dumplings. Sweet rice dumplings generally have less filling and are often wrapped in a triangular shape. Savory rice dumplings are more delicious because they contain more fillings such as meat and egg yolk, so they are usually wrapped in a four-corner shape.

Both Chen Su-fen and Liu Xiu-xiu know how to wrap zongzi, but they both use the triangular wrapping method.

This wrapping method makes it easy for rice to leak out when making meat dumplings with lots of filling.

Tong Huaqiong gave a live demonstration, and fortunately, everyone had some basic knowledge of making zongzi (sticky rice dumplings), so they learned how after making just two.

"You have to be generous with the ingredients; it tastes better when there are plenty of ingredients," Tong Huaqiong instructed everyone.

Two large basins of zongzi were quickly wrapped.

Qin Qingyou had just returned from delivering pastries when he ran to the kitchen to help stoke the fire. After the pot boiled, he put in the zongzi (sticky rice dumplings).

And I must say, the zongzi cooked in the earthen stove are especially delicious.

The aroma of bamboo leaves mingled with the fragrance of meat, egg yolk, and glutinous rice, wafting through the air. People who came to the shop to buy desserts inquired about what new tricks Peach Blossom Desserts was up to in the backyard.

When they learned that it was a meat-filled rice dumpling, everyone was very curious.

What kind of zongzi is meat zongzi?
Is that edible?
Some people expressed their doubts.

Tong Huaqiong thought to herself, "It's good to be suspicious. Suspicion means curiosity, and curiosity means a willingness to try."

Bring it to a boil over high heat, then simmer it over low heat. At noon, Tong Huaqiong lifted the lid, and the aroma hit her head.

She peeled one and ate it right there.

The meat melted into the glutinous rice, becoming oily, sweet, and fragrant. Combined with the runny egg yolk, it was incredibly delicious.

(End of this chapter)