Promoting manure and leading the people of the whole country to build toilets, this has been busy for nearly half a month. It has already entered mid-August, and there is only less than half a month left before the autumn harvest.

"Tomorrow is Mid-Autumn Festival, right?" Zhang Ran suddenly remembered that tomorrow seems to be Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15th!

"Mid-Autumn Festival?"

Zhang Ran's words made everyone around him stunned, and even his sister Sui'er said, a little confused. What is that on the Mid-Autumn Festival?

Zhang Sui'er couldn't help but look at Zhang Ran with a strange look and asked, "Brother, what is the Mid-Autumn Festival? Why have I never heard of it? But tomorrow will be the Moon Festival!"

"Salute...Moon Festival? Is it a festival to worship the moon?"

"It's not the moon, it's the moon god... This Moon Festival..."

When Zhang Ran heard his sister Sui'er say this, he suddenly realized that it was not the name of the Mid-Autumn Festival in this era, but only the ancient festival of the Moon Festival.

According to the sister's description, Zhang Ran guessed that this Moon Festival was probably the prototype of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

According to Zhang Ran's sister, this Moon Festival originated a long time ago, probably in ancient times. It was originally a sacrifice to the "moon god". Every day on the full night of August and 15th, people would place round fruits and vegetables, or cakes on the incense table, kneel down to worship the moon, pray for peace and happiness for the family.

At this time, it is also a very important festival for the young men. According to custom, on the night of the full moon on August 15th, the young men must sincerely kneel down to the bright moon, so as to pray that the moon god can bless themselves with the bright moon and as beautiful as a flower...

Therefore, Zhang Suier remembers this Moon Festival so clearly. She probably worships the moon god every year on the full night of August 15th and every year, praying that she can be beautiful when she grows up!

Zhang Ran vaguely remembers that the vocabulary that appeared most frequently in ancient times should be among the Tang and Song lyrics. When will the bright moon appear in the famous "Shuitu Songtou" by the great poet Su Shi? It is a famous article written on the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Therefore, Zhang Ran felt that the Mid-Autumn Festival would not flourish until at least the Tang and Song dynasties. As far as Zhang Ran knew, the initial mooncakes were invented and formed during the Song Dynasty.

Eat mooncakes in Mid-Autumn Festival!

This habit has lasted for more than twenty years in Zhang Ran's previous life, so when he thinks that the Mid-Autumn Festival is coming, Zhang Ran feels a little itchy and always wants to make some mooncakes to taste. Otherwise, he always feels that something is missing!

However, the mooncake has not been invented yet, and the Mid-Autumn Festival is not called the Mid-Autumn Festival, but is called the "Moon Festival". Therefore, the custom of eating mooncakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival has not yet been developed. If Zhang Ran wants to eat it, he can only make it himself.

"Anyway, the Moon Festival will evolve into the Mid-Autumn Festival sooner or later. Since there is no custom of eating moon cakes yet, let's start with me!"

Although there is no concept of eating mooncakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival, it still cannot stop Zhang Ran's determination to eat mooncakes. In order to successfully eat mooncakes, Zhang Ran decided to be the "inventor" again to get the mooncakes out in advance.

"Let me think about what the ingredients are needed to make mooncakes, um...flour, eggs, vegetable oil, sugar, sesame, peanuts, melon seeds..."

As he thought about it, Zhang Ran suddenly became a little overwhelmed. At this moment, he suddenly understood why the mooncakes were not formed until the Song Dynasty. Many of the raw materials used to make mooncakes are not yet available!

Fortunately, Zhang Ran has made flour and raised thousands of chickens at home. The batch I bought first has started laying eggs, so Zhang Ran is not short of egg flour.

As for vegetable oil, it can also be replaced by ointment oil (animal oil) and white sugar, it doesn’t matter. You can use some malt sugar or honey.

But Zhang Ran really has no way to do this sesame seeds, peanuts, melon seeds, etc. Sesame seeds were brought back by Zhang Qian from the Western Regions. Now Zhang Qian is still on the way back to Chang'an. Sesame seeds will take at least half a year to appear in the Central Plains. As for peanuts and melon seeds, they are all things from the American continent. If you want to eat them, you will have to wait at least two thousand years!

Thinking of this, Zhang Ran couldn't help but sigh: "The five-nut mooncakes must not be made. Isn't it okay to make some bean paste mooncakes?"

Red beans were originally from Asia and were already available in the Western Han Dynasty. However, this thing is relatively rare in the north, but it is just an ordinary thing in the south.

According to legend, in the south of the Han Dynasty, there was a small country called Minyue Kingdom. A hundred years ago, a man in Minyue Kingdom was forced to conquer the border, and his wife was looking for her to return all day long.

Later, those who left with him returned, but his husband had not returned, and his wife was even more concerned about him. She stood under the tree at the entrance of the road in front of the village all day long, looking at it day and night, crying and dying from tenderness, crying and blood.

Pods suddenly emerge on the tree, and their seeds are half red and half black, crystal clear and bright. People regard them as blood and tears of their loyal wife, and are called "red beans" and also called "lovesick son".

"Red beans grow in the south, and a few branches are blooming in spring. I hope you can pick more of them. This thing is the most love-loving..."

However, although the red beans used for making red bean paste and the red beans of Acaciazi are called red beans, they are not the same thing. Acaciazi is toxic and is more used for viewing. The red beans used for red bean paste should be red beans.

But the same thing between the two is that their origins are both in the south and are widely grown in the south. Zhang Ran has also seen some stalls selling edible red beans in the Mian Market in Xinfeng.

However, since this thing was shipped from the south, the price was extremely expensive. Zhang Ran asked out of curiosity, but he didn't expect that the other party would directly offer a price of five cents per kilogram!

After hearing this price, Zhang Ran turned around and left. Good guy, a pound of mutton is only seven or eight cents, and a pound of red beans dares to sell for five cents! It’s too dark!

But now is different from the past. In order to eat mooncakes on August 15th, Zhang Ran no longer cares about the price of red beans. In order to eat mooncakes with red bean stuffing, Zhang Ran even asked Zhang Shan to go to Xinfeng and spend a lot of money to buy some red beans and honey.

Afterwards, he came to the door in person and asked Zhang Meng, a good carpenter, to take action. He now made a mold specifically for making mooncakes.

......

After the materials and tools are complete, the next step is to make mooncakes.

First, Zhang Ran asked Sankui and Zhang Shan to go to the backyard to clean the red beans they bought, and then grind the red beans into powder.

Then, Zhang Ran personally kneaded the dough, made the flour into dough, and then rolled it into dough with a rolling pin...

After the red bean powder is ground, Zhang Ran caught fire again and stir-fry the red bean powder over high heat. After the aroma is fragrant, add honey and stir evenly...

According to the previous method of making buns, Zhang Ran and the others started together. First, they added bean paste to the dough cake, kneaded it into a ball, then put the whole ball into the mold, pressed it tightly, and then removed the mold, and the mooncakes formed.

The mooncake mold is only the size of a palm, and is specially customized by Zhang Ran and Zhang Meng. It was carefully polished with hard jujube wood and took a whole afternoon to make it. It also has concave patterns inside. When the dough is pressed and formed, the mooncakes have their own patterns.

Since there was no oven in this era, Zhang Ran himself could not make an oven, so the method of making mooncakes was to follow the traditional methods of later generations, put them in a cage, and steam them for about half an hour.

After the mooncakes were steamed, Zhang Ran took them out of the cage and distributed them to everyone and said, "Come on, how does it taste like everyone?"

Sui'er first took the mooncake, opened her mouth, took a light bite, and exclaimed: "Hey, it's so sweet!"

"Of course it's sweet after adding honey!"

"Yeah..." While eating the sweet and delicious mooncakes, Zhang Sui'er asked Zhang Ran curiously, "Brother, this cake is so delicious, what's its name?"

Zhang Ran took a bite of the mooncake, savored the familiar smell, and at the same time pretended to be meditating: "emmm... Since it was specially made to welcome the Moon Festival, it might as well be called the mooncake!"

:.:
Chapter completed!