BXBX NOVEL Chapter 37 - 37 Egg Yolk Crisp
“Creak-”
With a soft sound of the door opening, Lang Qin and Dan Bao, who had been busy all day, returned home.
In Qin Lang’s hand were various ingredients bought from the store downstairs, ready to be used to make egg yolk crisps.
“Gurgle!”
Showed Dan Bao, not a trace of tiredness, energetically flying towards the kitchen first.
“Wait for me!” Qin Lang closed the door with a smile and followed suit.
Soon, a man and a spirit appeared in the kitchen.
Seeing Qin Lang take out a bag of salted egg yolks from the shopping bag, Dan Bao squinted its eyes eagerly.
It’s starting!
“Luckily the store sells salted egg yolks, otherwise we’d have to start from making salted duck eggs and we wouldn’t have anything to eat tonight.” Qin Lang spoke with a bit of relief, then placed the salted egg yolks in a small bowl and soaked them in Baijiu.
The salted egg yolk has a fishy taste, and soaking it in Baijiu can make the final taste of the egg yolk crisp more perfect.
This step takes about 20 minutes.
While waiting for the salted duck eggs to soak, Qin Lang began to methodically prepare the water pastry and oil pastry.
The preparation of egg yolk crisps and lotus seed paste is similar, except this time no colouring is needed, so the water pastry doesn’t need red yeast rice powder and doesn’t need to be split in half.
Seeing Qin Lang wrap the water pastry dough with cling film and place it to the side, then divide the oil pastry into small portions of 15 grams each, Dan Bao’s eyes lit up.
“Gurgle-”
I know these, they’re small pastries!
Qin Lang had explained the difference to him in the afternoon.
If it were a large pastry, the pastry should be split into small pieces after puffing.
“That’s right, you learn fast.” Qin Lang praised Dan Bao, “Egg yolk crisps and lotus seed paste are both made using small pastries.”
After dividing the oil pastry into portions, the soaking of the salted egg yolks also came to an end.
He took the salted egg yolks out of the Baijiu, placed them separately on the baking tray and put them into the oven to bake at i6o°C top and 12O°C bottom for 10 minutes.
While baking, Qin Lang took out a box of ready-made bean paste filling and divided it into small balls of 20 grams each.
The small reddish-brown balls carried the unique fragrance of bean paste, causing Dan Bao to immediately move in closer.
What is this?
Let me have a smell!
“Ding!”
Accompanied by the crisp sound from the oven, the set baking time ended.
Qin Lang opened the oven door, a rich aroma of baked salted egg yolk mixed with a hint of liquor quickly gushed from the oven, instantly filling the kitchen and diverting Dan Bao’s attention from the bean paste filling.
Hmm…
The salted egg yolk smells better!
It leaned close to Qin Lang’s side, its eyes full of expectation, watching as Qin Lang took out the baked salted egg yolks.
The baked salted egg yolks had evaporated the Baijiu they had absorbed earlier and high temperatures had brought out more flavors. The bright yellow surface fizzed with pale yellow foam, that was the moisture being baked out.
Flattening a ball of bean paste filling, he carefully wrapped it around a baked salted egg yolk. After closing the opening and shaping it into a ball, Qin Lang moved on to the next one.
Soon, the table was lined with bean paste balls, each filled with a salted egg yolk and noticeably larger than before.
As the salted egg yolk became wrapped in bean paste filling, the strong aroma in the kitchen lessened a bit. Even so, it still made Dan Bao sniff from time to time, its face a picture of longing.
Seeing Dan Bao’s greedy look, Qin Lang laughed and patted its little head, “Don’t worry, there aren’t many steps left. You’ll be able to eat it soon.”
After finishing, he took off the cling film from the well-rested water pastry and divided it into small portions of 20 grams each.
All the prep work was thus complete.
Looking at the already portioned water pastry dough and oil pastry dough, Dan Bao knew that next came the process of laminating them.
“Gululu?”
Is this laminating process the same as the one in the afternoon?
“Actually, it’s not the same.” Qin Lang picked up a piece of water pastry and an oil pastry, and started to explain as he worked. “For the lotus seed paste we made in the afternoon, because we need two different colored pastries, a single pastry layer shouldn’t be too thick.”
“The pastry for the lotus seed paste is layered in a 3-3-2 pattern, but the general approach for small pastries isn’t to layer but to roll instead.” As he spoke, Qin Lang had already enveloped the oil pastry with the water pastry, rolling it into a slim, tongue-like strip.
He then rolled the strip up like a carpet, rotated it by 90 degrees, flattened it back into a long strip, and rolled it once more.
Using this method to roll the dough twice actually results in more layers than the 3-3-2 method used in the lotus seed paste.
He proceeded to prepare the rest of the pastry dough in the same way, then covered them all with cling film to rest for ten to twenty minutes.
The filling of the egg yolk crisp, being larger, required the pastry to be thinner in order to fully encase it. This made the resting step even more crucial.
The waiting time passed quickly with enjoyable chatter between the man and the spirit.
After the rest, the ends of the two swirled strips of pastry dough were folded backwards, then rolled out into the circular pastries with a rolling pin. They then enveloped the previously-made bean paste and salted egg yolk filling, sealing the pastries and tidying up their shapes.
Around ten round, plump egg yolk crisps, as if by magic, appeared neatly arranged on the baking tray under Dan Bao’s watchful eyes, all sealed sides down.
Exactly ten.
“We can have five tonight, and the remaining five will be our breakfast tomorrow, okay?” Qin Lang made the proposal.
“Gululu!”
Dan Bao quickly nodded in agreement.
The thought of having egg yolk crisps for breakfast the next morning filled it with bubbling joy.
“Brushed with egg wash, sprinkled with some black sesame…” Qin Lang spoke, continuing his work.
With that, the egg yolk crisps were no longer monochrome.
“Make a small hole now, and it’s ready to go into the oven!” He pulled out a toothpick and poked a small hole in each egg yolk crisp to let the inside breath, before popping the tray into the oven.
The top heated at 23O°C, and the bottom at 17O°C, for 20 minutes.
“Ding!”
As the oven pinged again, so did Dan Bao’s cheer of joy echoed throughout the room.
Finally, after waiting for so long, they could eat!
“Stay back a bit from the oven door.” Qin Lang reminded with a smile as he pulled open the oven door.
Immediately, a rich savoury scent filled the kitchen.
There was the aroma of the crisp pastry, the sweetness of the bean paste, the richness of the salted egg yolk. The surface’s egg wash and sesame adding the enchantment of egg and sesame to make the scent even richer.
It was a tantalizing aroma that made one impatient to pick one up and start tasting right away.
“Gululu!”
Dan Bao couldn’t hold back any longer. As soon as Qin Lang put down the tray, Dan Bao took a big bite, the yellow oval bud popping out from its spherical body.
Well, it didn’t fear the heat anyway.
With just one bite, Dan Bao’s eyes filled with heart shapes.
This taste, it loved it!
Qin Lang carefully picked one up and blew on it to cool it before taking a bite.
The outer layer was crisp and multilayered from baking. The bean paste and salted egg yolk inside were moist but not dry, with a rich and soft taste.
As he chewed, the textures blended together, and the rich savoury smell blossomed in his mouth.
Amazing-