Traditional Sour Plum Drink Recipe (Part 2)

Bai Yinuo's standards were very high; she resolutely refused to use low-quality vegetables in her kitchen. As soon as she stepped into the market, an enthusiastic street vendor immediately called out to her.

"Young lady, come take a look. My chives, asparagus, and tomatoes are all very fresh. Look, they are still so tender!"

Bai Yinuo walked up to the stall, and with just a glance, she concluded, "Your chives aren't very fresh, Auntie. They've probably been washed with water, right? If I buy them and leave them for half a day, they'll go bad immediately."

Green vegetables look very fresh after being washed. Many vendors, wanting to get rid of old vegetables, would take them out of the refrigerator, wash them, and claim they were freshly picked. But when customers bought them home, they would quickly rot and spoil.

The aunt gave a forced laugh: "Isn't that to make it more convenient for everyone to cook at home? Getting mud on your hands isn't very nice either."

Bai Yinuo smiled and didn't reply. Both understood each other tacitly, and the aunt also realized that this fair-skinned, delicate-looking young girl was not as easy to fool as she appeared. In her heart, the aunt thought she probably wouldn't be able to sell anything to this girl today.

Suddenly, Bai Yinuo pointed to a basket of plums next to her and asked, "How much are these plums, Auntie?"

The aunt immediately regained her spirit: "Young lady, you have a good eye. These plums are grown by my own family, very fresh, just picked early this morning. You can buy them as snacks, 20 yuan a jin, if they aren't sweet, you don't have to pay."

There was a saying, "lethargic in spring, fatigued in autumn." As the weather grew hotter, seeing the fresh plums in front of her made Bai Yinuo feel happy. Eating plums to relieve the heat was very suitable for this hot weather. She lifted the basket and said, "Your basket of plums is roughly five jin. I want to buy them all."

The aunt asked curiously, "How do you know it weighs five jin?" Then, she placed the basket on the electronic scale—five jin and two liang. The basket weighed about two liang, so Bai Yinuo's estimate of five jin of plums was almost completely accurate. The aunt exclaimed in surprise, "Yes, exactly!"

After Bai Yinuo left, the aunt enthusiastically told the vendor next to her, "Just now, a young girl lifted the basket and said the plums weighed five jin. I weighed it, and it was spot on. Truly like a deity!"

"But you couldn't have weighed it short by two liang right in front of her." Hearing this, the aunt was stunned before she reacted. Fortunately, she did business honestly, not cheating like others; otherwise, she would have been exposed on the spot.

After buying some ingredients to make the sour plum drink, Bai Yinuo returned to the shop. She poured water into the ice tray and put it in the freezer, preparing to make some ice cubes.

In her previous life, using ice was always a luxury. Although there was a method of making ice using saltpeter, this mineral was strictly controlled by the government, so it was rarely circulated in the market. Moreover, making ice required a very large amount of saltpeter. In calculation, the cost of making ice was even more expensive than storing natural ice.

In winter, people would dig up ice blocks from the city moat, spread straw at the bottom of the cellar, cover it with leaves, and seal the ice cellar to keep it until summer. But these ice blocks contained a lot of grass, dust, and dirt, so they couldn't be eaten directly and were mainly used to chill items. Therefore, Bai Yinuo felt that the modern refrigerator was the greatest invention.

Bai Yinuo soaked the ingredients in water until they expanded, then poured them all into the pot, turned on the high heat to boil, and then lowered the heat to simmer. She filtered out the water from the first boil, kept the ingredients, then added fresh water and simmered on low heat. Next, she added rock sugar, waiting until the sugar was completely dissolved.

The reason for boiling twice like brewing tea was because the first boil would remove the astringency, and the second boil could fully release the aroma and medicinal properties of the ingredients. Finally, she let the sour plum drink cool completely before putting it in the refrigerator.