NOVPUBChapter 817 -816: I’ve had this dish before (5000+)
Chapter 817 -816: I’ve had this dish before (5000+)
What do you need to cook preserved egg and lean pork porridge?
Anyone who can read can tell you: preserved egg, lean pork, and rice.
If you really need a detailed explanation, it basically involves washing the rice, peeling and slicing the preserved egg before dicing it, slicing and marinating the lean pork before dicing it, and blanching it in water before throwing all the ingredients into a pot to start cooking the porridge.
The steps are so simple that even Han Youxin could make it.
But Porridge King Jiang Feng could tell everyone that there is actually a very important step beyond these —
Intuition!
Intuition is very important when it comes to cooking porridge.
For a pot of porridge, how much rice, how much water, how many preserved eggs, how much lean pork, how long to cook, when to turn up the heat, when to turn down the heat, when to stew, when to stir, and when to take it off the stove, all these have to rely on intuition. No one can give you an exact answer, and even if they did, no one really measures how many milliliters of water or weighs how many kilograms of rice, cuts how many grams of preserved egg, or uses how much grams of lean pork.
Jiang Feng refers to all these factors as the intuition of cooking porridge.
His intuition in this area has always been very good, perhaps that’s the talent of the Porridge King.
Jiang Feng started to look for ingredients.
While Jiang Feng was picking rice, a staff member ran over to ask if he would agree to let other competitors start preparing broth at that time. Jiang Feng naturally agreed because Sun Maochai also needed to make broth.
To guess what dish someone is going to make, you just need to look at the ingredients they choose to get a good idea.
At least when Jiang Feng was choosing ingredients, he noticed that Huaiyang Building, Cheng Ji Restaurant, and Yonghe House all needed to make broth, and together with Sun Maochai, the head chefs of the four restaurants almost fought over a section of old hens.
Although the ingredients prepared by the production team were abundant, there were only a few really good old hens, which are rare and highly sought after. Now, the time for making broth was limited, and if you wanted to pursue quality, naturally you had to use the best ingredients. The old hens, which play a decisive role in the broth, naturally became the object of contention among the chefs.
Master Xu, being older and slower in his reactions, even though he picked an old hen, was preempted by Pei Shenghua, which frustrated Master Xu so much that he could only ask his apprentices to help him compete for the chickens. What originally was four head chefs vying for old hens turned into four head chefs plus four young apprentices battling for chickens due to Master Xu’s poor sportsmanship, making the poultry area chaotic with chickens flying and ducks quacking. By the time Sun Maochai returned, he even had two feathers in his hair.
Apart from the necessary competition for old hens, there was almost no interaction between the groups of competitors; everyone did their own selection and cooking. Sometimes, when passing by each other in the ingredient area and seeing other teams picking vegetables, they would remind them that there was better produce elsewhere.
The overall atmosphere was very cozy, harmonious, and friendly, in line with the core values of socialism.
Everyone was cooking, and each team had its unique style. Taifeng Building was doing a set meal, where everyone had to complete their own individual dish. Apart from Taifeng Building, only Eight-treasure House was doing the same.
The top-tier restaurants continued the policy of one chef Arno leading three assistants; the three chefs assisted him, and Rolan practically demonstrated to everyone how important money was and how terrifying it was to have none.
Other restaurants basically had two main and two supporting chefs, which made the setup of Taifeng Building and Eight-treasure House particularly odd.
This peculiar arrangement naturally attracted the attention of off-site staff and onlookers, namely Peng Changping and Xu Cheng.
“Is Jiang Feng only responsible for cooking porridge today?” Such an important competition, such a rich feast, how could Xu Cheng miss it? From the day the production team set this final test, Xu Cheng had his assistant cancel all of today’s schedule and work, and after lunch, he rushed to the site to closely observe tonight’s dinner.
“It seems so.” Peng Changping was also a bit perplexed, unable to understand what Jiang Feng was thinking.
But he soon stopped wondering and turned to focus on Master Xu’s movements, after all, Master Xu was his dear apprentice, even though he had been quite critical of him recently.
With so many contestants present, Jiang Feng cooking porridge could only be seen as odd—it wasn’t eye-catching among these twenty-eight chefs. Those restaurants ranking lower were all holding a grudge, hoping to showcase their skills in this final opportunity.
The most eye-catching was actually Pei Shenghua.
Huaiyang cuisine, being one of the traditional top four major Chinese cuisines, pursues and values knife skills to an almost exacting degree; it’s not just for show-off like the finely shredded tofu but also covers more famous things like melon carving. Pei Shenghua, as a leading master of Huaiyang cuisine and a former head chef of state banquets, stood out among the twenty-eight chefs being quite esteemed and having the most exemplary knife skills.
It wasn’t an exaggeration from the cameraman; while filming Pei Shenghua cutting vegetables, he seriously doubted if he was practicing Chinese martial arts.
To cut ordinary vegetables and meat to look like special effects in TV shows, among so many chefs in the country, only a few besides Pei Shenghua could achieve this.
Pei Shenghua was making a three-duck dish.
Jiang Jiankang could cook the dish too, but his version of “Three Sets of Duck” and Pei Shenghua’s were like night and day, with Jiang Jiankang’s version being just for show, while Pei Shenghua’s was the real deal.
Over at Taifeng Building, Jiang Feng, stationed next to Huaiyang Building’s cooking area, only had to focus on Cooking Porridge and desserts, which left him a lot of free time. Since the competition didn’t end until five, Jiang Feng planned to make almond dew at the last minute, knowing that making it fresh would yield the best taste and texture. After getting his congee going, which didn’t require constant vigilance, he finished prepping ingredients for Wu Minqi and then stationed himself at the spot closest to Huaiyang Building’s cooking station to watch Pei Shenghua make “Three Sets of Duck.”
Overtly stealing techniques.
But it wasn’t exactly stealing, as “Three Sets of Duck” required such advanced knife skills that it was even more demanding than cutting three thousand strips from a single block of tofu—a daunting threshold indeed.
If your knife skills weren’t up to par, you really couldn’t steal this technique.
Though Jiang Jiankang knew how to make “Three Sets of Duck,” knowing the method didn’t mean he could actually execute it. Virtually, he made “Three Sets of Duck” in name only for amusement, and Pei Shenghua would never acknowledge Jiang Jiankang’s dish as true “Three Sets of Duck.”
Domestic duck, wild duck, and pigeon, one inside another, after deboning they must still have shape, each fitting seamlessly into the next without any visible damage to the skin, resembling Russian dolls more than three unstandardized birds—the complexity of it was immense.
The most admirable part was that, in “Three Sets of Duck,” knife skills weren’t just for show but were the key to the dish’s deliciousness.
If the dish was to be delicious, it truly required exceptional knife skills.
Jiang Feng watched as Pei Shenghua stuffed the pigeon.
The pigeon had to be stuffed through a small incision in the wild duck and tucked into its belly, followed by ingredients like mushrooms and ham slices into the pigeon. The smaller the incision, the better, as a large one would make it hard to retain the juices and flavors, thus losing the value of “nesting” the birds.
Stuffing the pigeon was actually not difficult, given the small size of the deboned pigeon, allowing for precise force application. Even with a very small incision, it was possible to nest the pigeon perfectly inside the wild duck without damage.
This step was relatively easy, but fitting the wild duck into the domestic duck proved much more challenging.
The wild duck at this stage was not the same boneless, pliable pigeon from before—it had a pigeon stuffed in its belly, making it bulging. Trying to make a small incision on the domestic duck to insert the entire wild duck was exponentially difficult.
Not to mention, in his show of skill, Pei Shenghua made the cut particularly small.
And then…
Pei Shenghua realized his skills weren’t quite up to the task.
He couldn’t get it to fit…
This couldn’t really be blamed on Pei Shenghua; his knife skills were already superb, arguably better than Jiang Feng’s. Perhaps the thrill of having snatched the best hen from several other chefs had gone to his head, making him momentarily forgetful, resulting in too small an incision for the wild duck to fit.
Pei Shenghua was starting to sweat.
He could feel the back of his shirt getting a bit wet.
Not just that, he was also starting to sweat from his nose and forehead.
It was a bit embarrassing.
Feeling awkward, Pei Shenghua looked up and twisted his neck, deciding to enlarge the cut slightly.
Then he saw Jiang Feng, who was staring at him and nodded with a smile.
Pei Shenghua: ?
Mocking me????
Quietly, Pei Shenghua made the cut a bit larger and successfully nested the wild duck inside the domestic duck.
With the most challenging part of the “Three Sets of Duck” now complete, Jiang Feng saw no more to watch and turned to assist Wu Minqi.
Relieved at having completed the toughest step, Pei Shenghua took a deep breath, wiped the sweat from his forehead, prepared to wash his hands, and glanced back at Jiang Feng only to find that Jiang Feng wasn’t paying him any attention but was instead helping Wu Minqi. The pair stood together like a perfect couple, even cooking in a way that flaunted their relationship.
Pei Shenghua couldn’t help but smile a matchmaker’s smile.
Jiang Feng had essentially played matchmaker for this couple, so he felt somewhat like a matchmaker himself.
He was truly overjoyed.
The subtle interaction between Pei Shenghua and Jiang Feng seemed particularly strange to outsiders.
It was like some mysterious communication, only they didn’t understand it.
From Xu Cheng’s perspective, Pei Shenghua had encountered a bottleneck while cooking, and Jiang Feng noticed it and gave Pei Shenghua a knowing look. Suddenly enlightened, Pei Shenghua overcame the difficulty and looked up gratefully at Jiang Feng, revealing a happy smile.
(Pei Shenghua: ???)
“Master Peng, was there any problem with Master Pei’s triple duck just now?” Xu Cheng asked curiously.
“He cut the piece too small, so it didn’t fit in, and adding another cut probably meant the flavors weren’t locked in well, which was a mistake,” Peng Changping explained.
Xu Cheng suddenly understood.
Xu Cheng glanced over all the chefs on the floor. From his professional perspective as a food critic, he believed the final dishes from Master Xu and Chef Arno would be outstanding.
Right from the start, Master Xu had been preparing high broth and soaking shark fins—it was clear he intended to make a shark fin dish, one of the essences of Tan Family Cuisine. Regardless of the type of shark fin dish, the final product was bound to be quite good.
This is the advantage of quality ingredients.
Xu Cheng almost immediately recognized the dish Chef Arno was making—it was too famous. Chef Arno was preparing one of his signature dishes, also his breakthrough dish—Beef Tower.
The name sounds rather plain, but translated directly, the dish’s name is “Beef Soup.” True to its name, this dish is a small tower made from beef.
Three pieces of fresh beef from different cuts, after marinating and other preparations, were grilled over charcoal in the most primitive method to achieve three pieces of beef with different doneness and fire control. These pieces were then cut according to their cuts and grain into slices and stacked into a tower between five and eight centimeters tall, baked in the oven for ten more minutes, and completed with a topping of sauce and the juices from slicing the beef.
This dish is quite challenging for the diner, because the most delicious way to enjoy it is acknowledged to be slicing it from top to bottom and engulfing it in one bite.
Eating this dish means you can’t possibly look elegant while eating, and it’s especially awkward for those with small mouths to take it all in one bite.
Chef Arno originally gained fame with this, orchestrating just three pieces of beef into a dish with a multi-layered, indescribable taste that swept across America.
Of course, after Chef Arno had Stand Firm in the western culinary world, he seldom made this dish because it was simply too much trouble.
It was both time-consuming and labor-intensive.
Xu Cheng had thought that Chef Arno would save this dish as his trump card for the finals, but unexpectedly, he made it even before the semifinals.
It left Xu Cheng wondering whether to marvel at Chef Arno’s confidence or at the fact that Chef Arno had many trump cards.
Chef Arno was still grilling the beef.
“Do you know what dish Arno is making?” Peng Changping suddenly asked.
Xu Cheng paused: “Beef Tower, right?”
“Beef Tower?” Peng Changping clearly didn’t know the dish. When Chef Arno was sweeping across America, he was still at home raising his cat.
Xu Cheng was surprised that Peng Changping didn’t know about Chef Arno’s famous dish and began explaining its exquisite qualities to him.
In this manner, amid the soft discussions from those outside the scene, and the sounds of chopping, footsteps, frying, stir-frying, and bubbling within, the competition finally approached its climax.
The lengthy competition was grueling, especially as everyone was very serious and almost completely focused.
Of course, Jiang Feng was fairly slacking off.
He even had time to revisit an old skill, carving radishes into small decorative shapes, not forgetting his roots as he carved the entire Peppa family.
Radish carving was just an interlude during a lull, and by four o’clock, as the competition neared its end, Jiang Feng had already started making almond dew. The previously carved radishes were lined up on the cooking station, evidently becoming the most striking feature at Taifeng Building’s station.
“Mom, look, Peppa! And George!” Han Youxin, who arrived around mealtime, noticed the row of radish carvings as soon as he entered and precisely identified Peppa and George among them.
Even though he was past the age of liking Peppa and George, seeing the familiar radish carving still inevitably stirred a touch of excitement in him.
“Keep it down, don’t disturb the uncles and aunties on stage.” Wang Jing said, walking alongside Han Guishan and Han Youxin towards Xu Cheng and Peng Changping, smiling and nodding cheerfully at them.
Xu Cheng and Peng Changping had guessed long ago that Han Guishan wouldn’t miss this opportunity to bring his family and freeload a meal. Xu Cheng even suspected that the reason Han Guishan took over the investment for this show from him was simply to freeload now.
Of course, judging by the current response to the show, Han Guishan definitely had not made a loss.
For some reason, ever since he started doing business, his luck had been extraordinarily good, hardly ever experiencing a loss, and there were few who could start from scratch and earn a fortune like Han Guishan did.
“How is it?” Han Guishan asked excitedly.
“You’ve come quite on time, there’s just over half an hour left.” Xu Cheng responded, “Look, Master Xu’s firewood duck is already ready.”
The firewood duck is also a distinctive dish within Tan Family Cuisine, which involves steaming the duck until cooked, removing the bones, and ensuring the duck skin and meat remain intact before cutting it into three strips of consistent width for further preparation.
This dish looks very interesting, as all the ingredients are cut into strips—the mushroom strips, winter bamboo strips, duck meat strips, and ham strips are finally tied together with leafy greens and thickened with cornstarch, looking just like a bundle of firewood, hence the name firewood duck.
“Firewood duck?” Following Xu Cheng’s lead, Han Guishan glanced towards the cooking station of Yonghe House and noticed that the dish looked somewhat familiar, as if he had seen it somewhere before.
“You probably haven’t tasted firewood duck before, today you’re in for a treat. This is Master Xu’s specialty dish, and it’s not available at just any banquet. Sometimes, I want to eat it, and if I go to Yonghe House and Master Xu is busy, I can’t even have it,” Xu Cheng laughed.
Han Guishan, who frequented Taifeng Building as if it were a canteen, seldom visited Yonghe House, and had not tried many of the Tan Family’s dishes.
“I have seen it before,” Han Guishan said with certainty, confident in his memory, “I think I ate it many years ago, but I can’t remember where.”
Xu Cheng smiled wryly, “Where else could you have eaten it? Nowadays, aside from Yonghe House, where else could you get authentic Tan Family Cuisine? You must have had it in Beiping while discussing business years ago.”
Han Guishan shook his head, “No, I think I ate it in the south.”
“You had it in your hometown,” Wang Jing suddenly spoke, “You’ve forgotten, over twenty years ago, the first time you took me to your home, we ate it in a restaurant in a county town near your house.”
“A county town restaurant?” Xu Cheng was perplexed, just about to say how it could be possible for a county town restaurant to make Tan Family dishes, then he paused, suddenly realizing who had made the dish Han Guishan had eaten.
Made by Cao Guixiang.
Peng Changping also realized.
Xu Cheng looked at Han Guishan with a mix of emotions.
“Old Han.”
“Uh?”
“Next time, if you find some tasty restaurant confidently, tell me and take me with you.”
“Uh???”
Xu Cheng silently shed tears of jealousy in his heart, even feeling a bit relieved.
Thank goodness Han Guishan was lucky and had a good appetite, but couldn’t write. If Han Guishan decided to become a food critic, where would Xu Cheng stand in the world of food critique?
In all these years, there had been only two restaurants he heard of and sought unsuccessfully—one was the state-run restaurant where Jiang Weiming worked in Shu, and the other was the small county restaurant in Guangdong Province where Cao Guixiang worked.
Han Guishan had tasted it all.
Thinking about it, Jiang Feng, this promising sapling, was also first discovered by Han Guishan.
“Oh,” Xu Cheng sighed.
Jealousy indeed.
