Chapter 353 Eyeballs Arrive

"So they started to praise him forcefully?" Wan Yuyue guessed, following Yun Yongyuan's train of thought.

"Yes, they just started to praise it. Word spread from one person to ten, from ten to a hundred, and the more it spread, the more exaggerated it became. More and more people came to eat the fish soup, and more and more people praised it. The owner of a big restaurant even heard about it and wanted to ask Song Sao to sell her exclusive secret recipe for making fish soup. However, after tasting it, they all kept their mouths shut and never mentioned it again, and just asked their chefs to make any fish soup under Song Sao's name. So the specific method of making this dish has never been passed down, for fear that future generations would scold them for being stupid after eating it!" After the story was told, Yun Yongyuan and Gu Shanfeng laughed for a long time.

"I agree with what Senior Brother Yun said. I'm afraid Master Cai is resentful about this dish and is making up stories about ancient people to vent his anger." Zhao Xiaojing said happily.

"Who knows? Old Cai always says that, haha. Yeah, Xiao Nie learned this dish back then, and I don't know how it turned out. If you're interested, ask him to make it someday!"

"By the way, will he be here soon?" After talking about the famous dishes, Zhao Xiaojing finally remembered to care about her reserve employees.

"I told him to come a little later, after I leave, so you don't feel pressured by the interview. It's around three o'clock." Gu Shanfeng looked up at the clock. "Okay, it's getting late. Xiao Zhao, you can fry it first and let me see."

"Okay." As soon as the words fell, the four of them immediately became serious. Zhao Xiaojing fried while the other three watched from the side.

"Spray-fried Sichuan cuisine usually requires starch. You're right in this step, but your way of preparing the starch is wrong." Gu Shanfeng watched Zhao Xiaojing prepare the starch and start stir-frying, and quickly reached out to stop her.

"Wanjiang is used to shorten the cooking time and control the heat of stir-frying. But if the dish of Shuangcui uses county flower and yellow throat, the seasoning of Wanjiang is not enough. You have to marinate it, and you have to marinate it separately."

Gu Shanfeng took the ingredients on the side and added a little salt and a little water starch to the county flower and yellow throat respectively.

"There are many ingredients to choose from for Double Crisp. Some use pork belly and kidney. Some also add pickled bamboo shoots or wood ear mushrooms. If it's pork belly, just marinate it with bamboo shoots. If it's kidney, add less salt."

"Ginger and garlic can be put into the pot together with the main ingredients. If you want to add auxiliary ingredients such as bamboo shoots and wood ear mushrooms, blanch them in water in advance and put them into the pot together."

"Then there's your bowl starch. You can add cooking wine and pepper, but it's missing the most important thing: sugar. Add some sugar." Gu Shanfeng picked up the bowl starch prepared by Zhao Xiaojing and added half a spoonful of sugar with a spoon.

"Sichuan cuisine is famous for its spiciness, but most of it is inseparable from sugar. Sugar is a palette and a blending agent. It is the key to fragrant but not spicy. Adding sugar softens the pungent, spicy and numb parts, and polishes the stimulating smell, so that the spicy and numbing and fresh aroma can be achieved at the same time."

The three heads listened attentively and nodded in unison.

After Gu Shanfeng finished speaking, he put the bowl of starch back in its place, raised his hand to signal Zhao Xiaojing to start, and gave up his seat and stood aside again.

Zhao Xiaojing turned on the fire and followed the steps that Gu Shanfeng had just said. She heated oil in a pan, added junhua, ginger and garlic, and stir-fried them for more than ten seconds. Then she immediately added the pig throat, followed by the auxiliary ingredients and starch, and stir-fried them quickly over high heat. After another five or six seconds, the dish was ready.

A look of surprise flashed in Gu Shanfeng's eyes. He said nothing but slowly picked up his chopsticks.

The four of them tasted it one after another, with different expressions on their faces.

"Oh my god! Junior sister! You are amazing! Master just taught you, but how come you are almost as good as Master?!" Wan Yuyue exclaimed.

"Ahem, Master is still as skilled as ever. Junior sister is doing as good as Master." Yun Yongyuan hurriedly tried to smooth things over.

"Thanks to the chef's guidance, the dish feels right right right away." Zhao Xiaojing didn't listen to what the two of them said at all, but just looked at Gu Shanfeng with shining eyes.

Gu Shanfeng's eyes were filled with complex emotions. He sighed and raised the corner of his mouth. "I said at noon that you had made great progress, but that was an understatement. I didn't expect you to have such a good control over the heat. I was going to remind you after you finished frying, but it seems that's not necessary. Just practice a few more times and you'll be fine."

Zhao Xiaojing smiled slightly. "Actually, after Master Gu taught me the ropes, all that's left is the heat control for this dish. We stir-fry a lot of dishes in our restaurant, and I practiced on it last night. With that experience, I'm pretty proficient in controlling the heat now."

"It's just one night. If everyone had this kind of savvy, wouldn't top chefs be everywhere?" Gu Shanfeng shook his head. "I'm actually looking forward to you participating in the competition. Advancing to appear on TV shouldn't be a problem."

"What about me, Master?" Wan Yuyue squeezed over.

"You? You'd better not go over there and cause trouble for others. Stay in the shop and practice!" Gu Shanfeng waved his hand, "Xiao Zhao, I'm leaving first. You can teach them. Xiao Nie should be here soon."

"You only care about the eyeballs." Wan Yuyue muttered softly as she looked at Gu Shanfeng's back.

"Brother Nie has the left eyeball, and you have the right eyeball." Yun Yongyuan calmly prepared the sauce and began to recall Zhao Xiaojing's method and practice.

At three o'clock, Zhao Xiaojing finished today's special training for Yun Yongyuan and Wan Yuyue. Just as she looked up at the time, a knock on the door, so faint that it almost made her doubt her ears, came from the front hall.

Zhao Xiaojing walked to the back kitchen door in confusion, leaned over to look, and saw that there was indeed someone standing at the front hall door, so she trotted out.

"Brother Nie? Come in."

The man was wearing a thick gray sweater. He looked up at Zhao Xiaojing and then quickly looked away.

"Um."

Zhao Xiaojing took a deep breath and tried hard to control her expression that was about to laugh.

It was all Wan Yuyue's fault. After seeing Nie Xiuqi's appearance, Song Xiaobao's face lingered in her mind. They weren't exactly alike, just a little darker, with deeper nasolabial folds, but how could... his aura be so precise?

"Senior Brother Nie, sit down." Zhao Xiaojing tried hard to keep her lips tight and quickly adjusted her expression while pouring water for Nie Xiuqi.

"We have three chefs here. Besides me, there are two others you've met. They all graduated from Master Gu's school. Their current salaries are a base salary plus commission, which is around 9,000. If you come over, we can give you an extra 500 on your base salary."

"good."

"The shop mainly serves rice bowls. Although it sounds like there are a lot of chefs, business is still good at the moment. It's still quite busy at mealtimes, and we prepare the food ourselves, so it's still quite hard work overall."

"As for working hours, they come in at 9:30 in the morning, have lunch at around 1:30 and leave at 2:30. They come in at 4:00 in the afternoon and leave around 10:00. The specific time depends on the customers."

"Um."

"Every Tuesday..."

"good."

"The store is still doing takeout, but only..."

"Brother Nie, do you have any questions?"

"without."