Reborn as the Blissful Wife in the countryside-Chapter 120 Surprise

Qin San Lang looked at the soybean oil in the pottery basin, feeling both amazed and pleasantly surprised.

He knew Gu Jinli wanted to make oil from soybeans and believed she could do it, but seeing the soybean oil with his own eyes still made it hard for him to stay calm.

...From tofu to soybean oil, Xiao Yu continuously shattered their understanding of soybeans.

Who would have thought that these tiny soybeans could produce so many novel things?

Qin San Lang suppressed the excitement in his heart and asked Gu Jinli, "Xiao Yu, is the oil done now?"

Brother Cheng also looked at his second sister, waiting for her to speak.

Gu Jinli said, "Not yet, it needs to be filtered before it can be put into jars for storage."

The soybean oil just pressed out contained too many impurities and had to be filtered to get pure soybean oil.

Gu Jinli ran to her and Gu Jinxiu’s room, took out a piece of gourd cloth about half a meter long from a wooden frame, folded it into three layers, filtered the soybean oil with the cloth three times before she stopped.

By this time, the soybean oil no longer had foam and bean dregs, displaying an amber-like translucent color, which was quite attractive.

"Wow~" Brother Cheng exclaimed with delight, "Second Sister, the soybean oil looks so pretty, prettier than the animal oil we fry."

Qin San Lang also thought the color of the soybean oil was beautiful and asked Gu Jinli again, "Xiao Yu, is it done now?"

Gu Jinli nodded, "Yes, it’s done, and can be put into jars for storage."

Third Grandma was cutting tofu with a small knife, seeing them gathered and talking, and Qin San Lang had stopped the clang of oil pressing, she came over to take a look. Upon seeing the filtered soybean oil, she was immediately astonished, "This, this is soybean oil? Wow, you really managed to make oil!"

After she finished, she quickly covered her mouth and ran to the courtyard door to look around, worried someone passing by might have heard her, luckily there was no one outside.

Third Grandma hurried back, and asked Xiao Yu in a low voice, "Is this really oil?"

Gu Jinli nodded, "Yes, this is oil. In a little while, we’ll use soybean oil to fry something to eat and see how it tastes."

Third Grandma was so excited she did not know what to say for a while, but then said, "Great, great, we’ll use soybean oil to fry food, whatever you want to make, just make it, use as much oil as you want, Third Grandma won’t stop you."

In the past, whenever Gu Jinli cooked, Third Grandma always felt sorry for the amount of oil she used, thinking it was wasteful. Now that soybean oil was made, she was no longer afraid of her wasting oil.

Brother Cheng had already run to the kitchen to tell Mrs. Cui and Gu Jinxiu about Gu Jinli making soybean oil. Both hurried out, and upon seeing the soybean oil in the pottery basin, they were both startled.

"Xiao Yu... this, you really made oil," Mrs. Cui’s voice trembled a bit.

Before Gu Jinli could speak, Third Grandma said, "It’s true, oil has been made, our Xiao Yu has got the skills."

Mrs. Cui and Gu Jinxiu who heard this were both very happy, and hearing that Gu Jinli wanted to use soybean oil to fry things, Mrs. Cui said, "Mother will free up a pot for you."

All three pots in the kitchen were brewing soy milk, without freeing a pot, Xiao Yu could not cook.

Mrs. Cui went back to the kitchen, and Gu Jinxiu was not the kind of person who liked to stick around for excitement; after seeing the soybean oil, she also went back to the kitchen to help.

Gu Jinli found a jar, scalded it several times with boiling water to sterilize it, and poured the filtered soybean oil into the jar, filling up more than half of the jar.

Gu Jinli was very pleasantly surprised; this jar was not small, it could hold five jins of water, and now it was almost full; this means the twenty jins of soybeans produced at least four jins of oil, which was far more than she had expected.

Seeing Gu Jinli’s reaction, Qin San Lang supposed she was surprised by the amount of soybean oil and said, "I’ll go and borrow a small scale."

He went to He Shiliu’s house, spent one copper coin to rent a small scale, and weighed the bean oil: "Six jin two liang, with the jar weighing two jin, so that’s four jin two liang of oil extracted."

"Indeed, four jin two liang of oil have been extracted." This yield of oil was truly a pleasant surprise.

Gu Jinli promptly did some cost-benefit calculations: currently, soybeans on the market are three copper coins per jin, so twenty jin of soybeans would cost sixty copper coins, giving four jin two liang of oil for sixty copper coins—much more economical than lard.

Fatty pork costs thirty copper coins per jin, and from one jin of fatty pork, only half a jin of oil can be rendered. In other words, sixty copper coins worth of fatty pork could only produce one jin of oil. With the same price, bean oil would yield three more jin two liang than animal fat.

Gu Jinli was very clear about what this meant.

She calmed her excited heart and said to Qin San Lang, "Brother Qin, you’ve really helped me out today. I’ll prepare some delicious food; please stay and have a meal."

Qin San Lang smiled, a small dimple appearing on his face, and nodded: "Okay."

But he didn’t sit idle; he helped collect the pressed tofu.

Gu Jinli took the bean oil to the kitchen and then took out the oil-pressed cake base from the small cloth bag.

After being pounded for two hours, these cake bases had completely bonded together, forming a half-centimeter thick bean cake.

Gu Jinli cut these cake bases into one-inch pieces, then heated up a wok with oil. As wisps of white smoke rose from the heated bean oil, she dropped the cut cake pieces into the oil.

The cake pieces quickly swelled to about three times their original size in the boiling oil, and once they turned crispy, they turned into fried bean skins.

She made fried tofu and fried sweet potato balls with the bean oil, too. There was also some meat from Scholar Shang’s Family at home, so she made Fried Crispy Pork and fried meatballs.

While the things fried with bean oil were not as fragrant as those fried with animal oil, they were just as delicious.

Brother Cheng, Third Grandma, and the others enjoyed the food immensely. Third Grandma exclaimed, "Who would have dared to eat like this before? We only fried some dough flakes during the New Year’s, but now we can really indulge in deep-fried treats."

Oil was expensive, and rural people were reluctant to make fried foods, only preparing some for guests during the New Year. But now with the bean oil, she didn’t feel pained to use it.

After eating several pieces of fried bean skin, Qin San Lang took the two large pottery bowls of fried food given by Gu Jinli and went home.

Not long after, Third Grandpa, Gu Dashan, and his son who went to run errands came back. The three of them were astonished by the two basins of fried food and a jar of bean oil.

Third Grandpa, being an old man who had seen much of life, knew the value of this bean oil and hurriedly instructed everyone, "Don’t talk about how this bean oil is made. We don’t want any trouble."

People had already come to steal the tofu recipe, let alone bean oil.

The family hastily nodded in agreement.

Third Grandpa then asked Gu Jinli, "Xiao Yu, what do you plan to do with this bean oil?"

Bean oil was a good thing, but because it was too good, it could easily bring disaster.

Gu Jinli looked at Gu Jin’an and said with a smile, "Big brother is going to Uncle Shang’s house tomorrow, and I’ll go too—to deliver the bean oil to Uncle Shang."

Scholar Shang was very interested in bean oil and soy sauce, and she believed this bean oil would certainly surprise him.

Seeing that Gu Jinli had a plan in mind, Third Grandpa felt relieved and said, "Okay, let’s discuss it again after seeing Scholar Shang tomorrow."

Third Grandpa had a lot of respect for Scholar Shang. With a father-in-law who was a County Magistrate, Scholar Shang could indeed help them protect the bean oil.