Chapter 118: Pig Blood Noodles. (First update)...
Linzhi and Chef Wei both fell into deep thought, each with their own ideas.
They did not speak out their guess, but turned around to observe the people in the courtyard. According to Mr. Qiu, some of the chefs here came on their own, and some were brought by recommenders.
There are too many people nowadays, and it is impossible to tell who is real and who is fake just by talking. We need to use some practical methods to screen them.
Lin Zhi frowned, and soon she realized something. She lowered her voice and turned her head to Chef Wei, saying, "Do you think there are a few people who don't look like cooks?"
Chef Wei nodded and replied softly, "Master Qiu feels that everyone has worked hard, so every year he gives some money to those who come to his house. I imagine there are still many people who are taking advantage of the situation."
The two men discussed their plan quietly for a few moments, and soon shared it with Mr. Qiu. Mr. Qiu nodded immediately, and first sent the servants from the mansion to the backyard to bring in four live pigs. He also ordered people to bring in a dozen long tables and set them in the center of the courtyard.
After everything was ready, Chef Wei stepped forward and announced, "Everyone, be quiet! Mr. Qiu is looking for a chef who can make the best soup noodles, not just to join in the fun. Those who are here to recommend someone, please stand to the left. Those who are here to cook for you or have been recommended by others, please stand to the right!"
As soon as he finished speaking, the people in the courtyard quickly separated. Chef Wei asked the person who had come to recommend him to sit down and rest, while Lin Zhi took the opportunity to walk around the crowd, carefully observing those who stood in the line of cooks.
"You, you, you, and the three of you." Lin Zhi pointed out the few people mixed in with the chefs in a crisp and clear manner: "You can leave now."
"What?"
"I haven't done it yet!"
"Are you sure you're a cook?" Lin Zhi raised her eyes to the protesting idler. "Look at your sleeves and collar; there's still grease stains on them."
"And you." Lin Zhi looked at the other person and chuckled, "Just to visit Mr. Qiu's residence, you even chose silk clothes? Do you know that these clothes must not be stained by oil?"
The idle man in the silk shirt looked around and found that most of the others were wearing short cotton clothes, and his face immediately turned red.
The remaining people did not dare to refute. They walked out of the team in shame and moved to the team on the left with red faces.
After this round, the team of cooks had lost seven or eight people who were just trying to take advantage of the situation. Then Linzhi asked if anyone present knew how to butcher a pig. Some said they could, while others said they couldn't.
Linzhi selected eight people and instructed them to take turns butchering the pigs. After removing the pig's blood and offal, she turned to the remaining people and said, "Zhuangyuan Soup Noodles are said to be made from the essence of the entire pig, and preparing the offal is a testament to one's skill. Now, please each take a portion of the offal and prepare it as you normally would for soup noodles. We'll come back in half an hour to see what you've done."
As soon as he finished speaking, the remaining cooks came forward to collect the pig offal. One took the pig intestines, carefully turning out the fat inside and rubbing them repeatedly with coarse salt to remove the odor, his movements swift and decisive. Another prepared the liver, deftly removing the fascia with his fingers and slicing the liver into even slices with the rise and fall of his knife.
Some moved with efficiency and decisiveness, while others panicked, holding the pig heart in their hands, not knowing where to start cutting for a long time.
Some people just rinse the pig intestines casually without even scraping off the mucus on the inner wall, let alone removing the odor.
Linzhi and Chef Wei checked each table one by one. Anyone who was clumsy or handled things in a messy way was asked to stand on the left.
Some of the people who were pointed out were still unwilling to give up and shouted loudly: "I'm not doing odd jobs in the shop! I specialize in making noodles. Pig offal is just an ingredient for soup noodles. It's normal that I can't handle it!"
This time, Linzhi didn't even need to help. A nearby cook, whose hands were stained with lard after having just slaughtered a pig, sneered, "How dare you claim to be able to make these top-notch soup dumplings when you can't even handle the pungent smell of pig offal?"
"You!" The person who was shouting blushed, and after a while he managed to say, "Just pour the cooked pork offal up there..."
Lin Zhi stepped forward, interrupted the man, and said, "Do you know when Mr. Qiu tasted this champion soup noodle?"
"Of course I know. Mr. Qiu tasted it when he was young." The man replied with his neck stiff, his face full of confusion.
"That's a correct answer, but it's a pity you didn't get the point." Lin Zhi smiled, her voice clear and steady as she continued, "Mr. Qiu said that back then, our family wasn't well off, and only when my father got first place in the monthly exam could we afford to eat out."
"So what?"
"Given his family's financial situation at the time, the choice would have been to eat at a local food store." For a poor farmer who needed to pay for Mr. Qiu's father's education, every penny had to be spent frugally, and it was certainly impossible for him to eat at a big store once a month.
"A foot shop is usually run by a family, so how can a chef not handle pig offal?"
"Besides, large restaurants use all sorts of spices to remove the fishy smell of pork, but to save costs, a foot shop can only rely on careful upfront processing. How dare they be lazy? If you really thought about Mr. Qiu, how could you not even be able to process the pig offal?"
She paused, her eyes falling on the man's hands. "Looking at the location of the calluses on your hands, I think you are indeed a cook, or perhaps a dough craftsman in a flour shop."
When the man heard Linzhi reveal all his secrets, his face turned pale and red. He could no longer stay and hurriedly squeezed out of the crowd with his head lowered.
After that, no one protested.
After the screening, the team of nearly a hundred people was reduced to less than thirty people, less than one-third of the original number.
Mr. Qiu stood on the steps and watched. The worry on his face finally faded a little. He bowed to Lin Zhi and Wei Chu and said, "Thanks to you two, otherwise I would still be busy among these people."
“We are also doing our best.”
"Mr. Qiu is very polite. We are just doing our best." Lin Zhi replied, "For the rest, please let them make soup noodles."
As the people in the courtyard began to bustle about, Lin Zhi sat aside, quietly observing the movements of the people below. Her thoughts were still on the word "crisp" that Mr. Qiu had just mentioned, wondering if Mr. Qiu was eating something else instead of soup noodles.
Just as Lin Zhi was thinking about this, Chef Wei came over and whispered, "Do you think it could be shredded tripe?"
As he spoke, he glanced at Chen Yan.
Since entering the Qiu Mansion, Chen Yan had been silent, his presence very low. Wei Chu had been hoping to see Chen Yan trying to please Mr. Qiu, so that Lin Zhi could see his true face, but he hadn't expected this to happen, and he couldn't help but feel a little disappointed.
Then, Chef Wei continued, "If Mr. Qiu had eaten pork offal soup back then and mistook the tripe strips for ramen, that would make sense."
Lin Zhi thought for a moment and said, "It's certainly possible. After all, if pig stomach, intestines, liver, and heart are processed well enough, they can taste crispy."
Especially since the pig's stomach could be processed into thin strips, picking it up with chopsticks, would the young Mr. Qiu mistake it for a suochuang? Or perhaps more than 30 years had embellished Mr. Qiu's memory, causing him to change many details.
"But I don't think it's that simple." Then, she changed the subject: "There are many dishes made with pig tripe nowadays. My family has stir-fried tripe shreds with coriander, and on the street, there are also braised tripe shreds, cold tripe shreds, and fried tripe shreds. Mr. Qiu has been looking for so many years. If it really is tripe shreds, he should have found it long ago."
Chef Wei thought this made sense, so he simply asked Mr. Qiu directly.
As expected, Mr. Qiu shook his head and said, "Every year, people mistake it for shredded tripe. One family made particularly delicious shredded tripe and even opened a shredded tripe pancake shop based on my suggestion. But I'm sure what we ate back then was suobing pancakes, the taste was just different."
"Do you remember anything else?"
"This..." Mr. Qiu thought for a moment, "I remember it was red."
"The soup is red..." Chef Wei frowned. The pork offal soup was clear and bright, and it tasted like the original soup. If red oil sauce was added, the taste would be really varied. God knows which one is the taste in Mr. Qiu's memory.
"Red?" Lin Zhi suddenly looked up, her voice a little surprised. "You mean the Suo Bing is red?"
"I'm not sure about that." Mr. Qiu tried to recall it and sighed, "It's been over thirty years. I really can't remember."
"The biscuits are red?" Chef Wei frowned and repeated Lin Zhi's words. After a while, he looked up at Lin Zhi and suddenly asked, "Chef Lin, do you have any ideas?"
As soon as these words were spoken, Mr. Qiu also cast an expectant look. He had previously asked the heads of the catering business, but those people all came from famous shops and specialized in making delicacies like mutton and venison. They shook their heads when the topic of pork offal soup was mentioned.
But Lin Zhiji's background is different. I heard that they almost spent all their money when they first arrived in Bian Jing. They started from the bottom and worked their way up. Maybe they really know the answer.
The more so, the more likely it is!
Mr. Qiu's eyes were full of anticipation. He stood up and bowed, saying, "Chef Lin, I hope Chef Lin can help me realize my dream!"
Mr. Qiu stood up and bowed, saying earnestly, "Chef Lin, I hope you can help me realize this dream!"
"Mr. Qiu, there's no need to be so polite. I'm just guessing, so it might not be correct." Lin Zhi waved her hand quickly, then said frankly, "I do have an idea."
After a pause, Lin Zhi said, "Mr. Qiu might be looking for the bloody face."
Mr. Qiu and Chef Wei exclaimed at the same time: "Bloody face?"
Not only Mr. Qiu, but even Chef Wei had never heard of it before. Unable to conceal his curiosity, he excitedly asked, "Chef Lin, what is this blood noodle?"
"It's noodles made with pig's blood." Lin Zhi pointed to the pile of unused pig's blood in the basin and answered in a gentle voice.
"Use pig blood to knead the dough?" Chef Wei felt like he had turned into a babbling child today. He wished that Chef Lin would repeat what he said.
Lin Zhi nodded, then turned and explained something to Mr. Qiu: "I have to tell you first, if you want the cake to be bright red, you have to steam it first and then dry it in the sun to achieve the bright red color. If you boil it directly, the cake will be black."
"Mr. Qiu, look—"
"I've been looking forward to this for several years. Now I just want to see the bowl of food I ate when I was a child... Please go ahead and make it for me, Chef Lin!" Mr. Qiu replied without any hesitation.
Lin Zhi said worriedly, "It's not that I don't want to make it, but I have other things to do in the shop. Plus, it takes three or four days to steam and dry the noodles, so I can't stay in your house all the time."
Mr. Qiu didn't think it was a difficult task and said bluntly, "Chef Lin, just come according to your schedule. When the food is finished, send someone to inform me and I will come to your shop to taste it myself."
Lin Zhi agreed to this, but he did not forget the people who made it in the courtyard: "Let's sit down and wait, who knows, there may be something with similar taste."
Unfortunately, until the last chef came on stage, Mr. Qiu still couldn't find the taste he remembered, and finally placed all his hopes on Linzhi.
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