Chapter 134 Eighteen Delicacies, Century Egg and Meatball Soup [Second Update]...
The so-called "Eighteen Stuffed Food" uses eighteen different ingredients to make the shell, and the filling is made of meat, eggs and tofu, which is similar to the tofu box that was made some time ago.
In many places, there is even a saying that "no feast is complete without stuffed dishes."
Wen Fan plans to make it a round number this time, making eighteen different kinds of brews, one for each plate. Everything can be brewed, and they look nice when displayed together.
Early the next morning, Wen Fan began preparing the ingredients.
The half-fat, half-lean minced pork is seasoned and set aside.
Cut the eggplant in half, halve the bell peppers, remove the seeds from the bitter melon, place the gluten balls on a plate, and wash the cabbage leaves...
Stuffing meat filling is a skill that requires time and effort. Wen Fan ruthlessly conscripted everyone in the shop. Customers waiting for a table at the door tentatively peeked in, saw everyone working, and couldn't help but ask what they were doing.
"Eighteen Brews".
Wen Fan explained simply that the guest pulled his head back in, but then poked it back in a little while later.
"Boss lady, why don't we join us?"
Since we're going to wait outside anyway, we might as well come in. It's just stuffing meat in; you just hold a spoon in one hand and pry open the opening with the other. It's that simple!
Wen Fan glanced at the girl's fingernails and coldly rejected her.
"You have manicures."
Although I had gloves, they were still inconvenient.
The girl's friends laughed, pulled her back, and then squeezed in themselves.
"I can do it! I don't have manicures!"
Wen's mother looked at Wen Fan, and Wen Fan nodded: "Okay, you can come on over."
That saves her trouble, so she can do something else.
Wen's mother smiled and told everyone to wash their hands, and also asked Ji Baiyi to find disposable gloves: "Thank you for your help... I'll bring you a dish later."
The mention of delivering vegetables energized the group, and they even felt there wasn't enough work to do.
"Is this all the minced meat you have?"
This is only a small amount; it'll probably only be enough for two or three tables later.
As they were talking, Wen Fan arrived carrying an enormous basin.
"Take your time, there are still more than a dozen items to go."
guest:……
We had no choice but to start stuffing things in, even though it was tough.
This one bite made me realize how truly excellent Wenji's products were.
The minced meat was fine and even. Although it was stuffed with minced meat, Wen Fan would always take some away to re-mix it, adding corn kernels to one dish and starch to another...
And the number of shells used to hold the meat filling is also increasing.
From the initial dishes of chili peppers, eggplants, and lotus root, to the later dishes of shiitake mushrooms, cabbage, zucchini, dried bean curd sticks, and bamboo shoots, Wen Fan even brought out a bag of bean sprouts.
Everyone watched as Wen Fan straightened a handful of bean sprouts, blanched them in hot water until soft, stuffed them with meat filling, surrounded the meat filling with bean sprouts, and tied the ends with blanched chives.
A young man eagerly asked, "Boss, do you know how to make that? It's...it's...it's that dish where you stuff meat into bean sprouts! Oh, it's the one the Empress Dowager loved to eat!"
He couldn't recall the name of the dish for a moment, but he was very excited and said he wanted to see how to make it!
Wen Fan: "You mean... inlaid silver buds, right?"
The so-called "Inlaid Silver Sprouts" is also a very famous dish in the imperial court, known for its long preparation time and complicated process.
As soon as Wen Fan said it, the boy clapped his hands and exclaimed, "Yes, yes, yes!"
"Your craftsmanship is so good, you can definitely make it, right?"
Wen Fan didn't say whether he would do it or not, but asked him how he thought the meat filling could be incorporated into the bean sprouts.
The boy thought for a moment: "Just use a wire to push it in!"
Wen Fan laughed, scooped out a plate of minced meat, found a thin needle, and handed it to the boy: "Try it."
The boys and their friends all tried it, laughing and joking, but they found it extremely difficult to even insert a needle into the meat filling, let alone push it in.
"No wonder it's imperial cuisine! The Empress Dowager really takes a lot of effort to eat a dish!"
Wen Fan was busy with other things and didn't look up when he heard this. He casually said, "That's a misunderstanding. Even if you painstakingly stuff the meat filling in, think about how crunchy the bean sprouts are. After squeezing them in your hands for so long, they won't have the right texture, whether you steam them or fry them. It's called bean sprout stuffed with meat, but it's just soft and mushy in your mouth, and it doesn't look good after steaming. Um... Your Majesty, either you've lost all your teeth, or how could you possibly like this dish?"
The boy asked curiously, "Then tell me, what makes this dish taste good?"
Wen Fan: "Most of those strange and unusual methods are just rumors. The dish 'Inlaid Silver Sprouts' does require meat, but not minced meat. Instead, it uses simmered chicken paste, then threading a needle through the chicken paste and passing the needle through the bean sprouts with the thread. This way, some of the chicken paste is preserved in the bean sprouts. It is indeed time-consuming. A chef with poor eyesight and weak hands would have to do this for a whole day."
"The bean sprouts that are skewered don't need to be steamed or stir-fried. Fry the Sichuan peppercorns in oil for a while, then pour the oil over the bean sprouts. Be careful to pour the oil evenly, turning the bean sprouts over as soon as they change color, making sure each bean sprout is evenly coated. Sprinkle a little fine salt in the middle for seasoning... The final bean sprouts will be translucent, and you can see a white line in the middle, which is the chicken filling..."
All the guests were stunned after hearing Wen Fan's description, so shocked that they stopped what they were doing.
The boy who had been clamoring to eat silver sprouts at the beginning had nothing more to say now; he could only utter one word.
Clothes.
Can you do it?
Wen Fan put down what he was doing: "Sure, how much are you willing to pay?"
The boy, sounding very uneasy, asked, "Is this dish very expensive?"
Wen Fan snorted: "It's just a waste of time. Anyway, I won't do it for less than eight hundred."
Besides, from her perspective, the taste was just so-so. Back in the palace, it was made for novelty and visual appeal; actually, very few people actually ate it. Most of the concubines would only order it once and never again.
Wen Fan isn't completely rusty now, but making a dish like this would take at least two or three hours, and she's really too lazy to put in the effort!
Wen Fan thought that if she asked for 800, these people would think it was too expensive, but to her surprise, the boy turned to his companion and said it was cheap.
"It sounds like such a hassle, but selling it for eight hundred is pure craftsmanship money, it's really worth it."
Wen Fan:......
No, that's not what you said when you were criticizing Jin Yu Lou for selling for 800!
Fortunately, these people just listened and treated it as food, and no one actually said anything.
Seeing that everyone had stuffed their meat fillings, Wen Fan began to take them to the kitchen one by one for processing.
Traditionally, the eighteen stuffed dishes are mostly steamed, but Wen Fan didn't steam them all. Some vegetables, such as cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, and bean sprouts, were steamed. The remaining green peppers, eggplants, and lotus roots were deep-fried in hot oil.
The aroma of fried meat wafted everywhere, making the young people at the table who had already entered the store even hungrier.
"It smells so good!"
"Waaaah, I just heard her talking about inlaid silver buds, and it made me so hungry."
"That's amazing! Such skill is far superior to Jin Yu Lou's. I don't know why they've only opened one small shop now."
"Maybe this family are some kind of hidden master chefs! It must be!"
...
A group of people lowered their voices and quietly discussed the origins of Wenji, even assuming that Wenji's slightly crowded shop was intentional.
If Wen Fan knew their guesses, he would probably shout out loud.
I didn't mean to, I really don't have any money!
Soon it was lunchtime, and the people who were let in immediately faced their first choice of the day.
Wen's mother said that there was a big dish today called "Eighteen Stuffed Dishes," which cost 88 yuan. The restaurant made a lot today, so they made 30 servings.
"...I'll have one!"
Eighteen Stir-fry – with a name like that, it can't possibly be bad!
Soon, the eighteen stuffed dishes were served. Various ingredients wrapped around meat filling, and the steamed cabbage was slightly yellow and translucent. Yellow corn kernels could be vaguely seen in the meat filling. The sweetness of the corn kernels and the tenderness of the cabbage made for a rich flavor in every bite.
The minced meat inside the green peppers was pan-fried until it was a deep brown color. Underneath were green peppers that had been pan-fried until they had a tiger-skin pattern. Wen Fan poured a sauce over them, making them savory, slightly spicy.
Stuffed tofu is made by splitting a triangular piece of tofu open and stuffing a ball of meat filling in the middle. This meat filling was specially adjusted by Wen Fan, so that the filling is compact and firm, and bouncy, as if a meatball has been put in the tofu.
For the stuffed bitter melon, Wen Fan added some sugar to the sauce. Customers who expected the bitter melon to be very bitter were surprised to find that the sweetness neutralized the bitterness, giving it a unique flavor. It had a slightly bitter taste amidst the salty and savory flavor, with a lingering sweet aftertaste.
"It's so delicious!"
Of the other dishes, the eggplant and [unclear] were both fried, and the dry seasoning made them even more delicious. On a large plate, the most eye-catching dish was the stuffed bean sprouts.
The steamed meat filling clumps together tightly, surrounded by bean sprouts that stick to it. It's best to eat it all in one go, as the savory meat filling and bean sprouts dance together in your mouth.
The stuffed tofu skin is steamed in a pot. The soft and chewy tofu skin wraps around the meat patty. It's quite large, and you can cut it open and dip it in sauce to eat.
The pulp in the middle of the gourd was replaced with minced meat. After pan-frying both sides, Wen Fan braised it with a spoonful of tomato sauce, making it sweet and sour.
...
The eighteen-ingredient dish was considered well worth the price by almost everyone.
"Although I thought 88 yuan was a bit expensive at first, I didn't feel that way at all after I finished eating."
This dish takes so much effort to make!
The processing of just eighteen kinds of ingredients is troublesome enough, not to mention that the fillings are not all exactly the same.
If there's anything inappropriate about this, it's that with only one of each item, and several people at a table, everyone ends up regretfully eating only a few items. It might even lead to some fighting over the food.
"Damn it, spit out my stuffed winter melon!"
"Whoever ate my stuffed bitter melon, I deliberately saved it for last!"
"Waaaaah, my eggplant!"
Some people were careful and counted them; there were only seventeen.
"Boss lady, one item is missing!"
Wen's mother smiled and said, "The other one is soup."
The original plan was to make eighteen, but Wen Fan suggested changing it to soup.
The preserved egg and pork patty soup is served in a small bowl, covered and simmering in the pot.
Wen's mother used tongs to take them out and served them to each table.
This soup isn't strictly speaking a stuffed dish, but many people still enjoy it immensely.
The broth is clear and delicious, with the preserved egg and meat patty clinging tightly together. The meat patty has a light pink color, which shows that it is fresh meat. The preserved egg is half in one piece, with the egg white being bouncy and the yolk being soft. The rich aroma is mixed with the meaty fragrance. After drinking it, you feel completely comfortable.
"Eighteen kinds of brewing, absolutely amazing!"
If it weren't for exceptional skill, who would put eighteen different dishes together on one plate?
Wen Ji's offerings are truly terrifying; the menu seems endless, almost to the point of being wasteful.
"If this were sold at Jin Yu Lou, wouldn't it fetch four figures?"
Just this gimmick alone is so appealing!
Why talk about that unlucky thing? Let's eat!
After the first eighteen-ingredient brewing was finished, Wen Fan was still busy in the kitchen.
Wen's mother called out the names of the dishes again.
"Sliced Pork with Roasted Peppers!"
"I want it! I want it!"
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