Chapter 129 The story of stir-fried beef
"Speaking of which, this dish was developed by Lao Sun and I when I first started learning cooking." Gu Shanfeng spoke to Zhao Xiaojing with a hint of nostalgia in his eyes.
"The stir-fried beef here strives for tenderness, so egg white and cornstarch are commonly added. Some people simply add water and stir it until the meat absorbs the water before adding oil. This way, the moisture can be locked in even when stir-frying, making the meat tender and smooth.
But Lao Sun and I have known each other for a long time. We have been to Xiangxi together and eaten authentic Hunan cuisine. I feel that this way destroys the essence of Hunan cuisine.
Not to mention that when they stir-fry the beef here, they also drizzle a layer of cooking wine on it! " Gu Shanfeng shook his head and sighed in disapproval of this practice.
Before he even started learning to cook, he and Sun Dehai traveled to western Hunan and Sichuan together. They both loved food, and while they said they were traveling, they were actually there to try authentic Sichuan and Hunan cuisine.
We didn't visit many places on that trip, and all our time was spent looking for restaurants and satisfying our stomachs, but both of us felt that we had a great time.
Sun Dehai prefers the spicy and numb flavor of Sichuan cuisine, while he prefers the fragrant and spicy flavor of Hunan cuisine.
After they came back, they were still not satisfied, so they made plans to eat at local Sichuan and Hunan restaurants several times, but they all felt that the food was not as good as before.
It just so happened that both of them wanted to learn cooking at that time, so they started researching on their own, copying recipes from bookstores, and trying to cook on TV through cooking channels.
After they started to cook on their own, they realized the difference between themselves and professional chefs, and began to think about learning from others.
At that time, there was a state-owned restaurant in the city where they lived. It was very famous locally. It was said that the chef there was a national second-level chef.
At that time, Gu Shanfeng had a cousin who worked as a supervisor in a state-owned hotel.
Gu Shanfeng went to him for help, and after he pleaded several times, the two of them went into the kitchen.
After entering the kitchen, I realized that state-owned restaurants have several chefs, all of whom are apprentices of the second-level chef. Under these chefs, there are more than ten kitchen masters. They are the small workers who follow behind the masters to do odd jobs.
At that time, odd jobs were paid very little, but there were many people doing the job. There were more than 20 people of the same generation as them. They tried their best to stay around the masters all day long, hoping to learn a few tricks.
But it is not easy to learn just one or two tricks. There are many people in the kitchen who hope to learn from the master chef, but they are just at the bottom and have too much work to do.
The status relationship at that time was that the second-level special chef commanded other chefs, other chefs commanded several cooks, and several cooks commanded a group of handymen.
Not to mention becoming a special second-level chef, they can't even learn the skills of a cook.
But he and Sun Dehai were not discouraged. They worked hard and honestly when the masters were not around and everyone else was slacking off. They also worked hard when the masters came and everyone around them was trying to please them.
The other handymen were impatient and laughed at them for being clueless, but when they saw that they couldn't learn anything, they all quit and left. However, these two worked hard and listened to the cook's instructions without complaint.
It was at that time that the two were noticed by Lao Jia, a cook. Seeing that they were honest people, Lao Jia began to teach them knife skills in private.
The teaching lasted for half a year. The three of them were all good at speaking, but they were down-to-earth and not good at showing off, so they quickly became friends.
Half a year later, the master chef noticed their small group of three, and was quite impressed with them. He gave them some pointers and officially promoted the two who were still handymen to kitchen workers.
It was then that the two of them were finally able to officially touch the things on the stove. Every day after finishing their own chores, the three of them would watch the chefs cooking with fascination, and when the chefs occasionally said a word or two, they would wish they could take notes at that moment.
Fortunately, the chefs at that time were all very nice people and were always willing to guide them in their spare time. After receiving guidance, the three of them learned from each other and practiced hard. During that period, their cooking skills improved by leaps and bounds.
Later, they were both noticed by a chef working under the master chef, who took them in as apprentices.
That is, after they formally became apprentices and had a basic and systematic grasp of cooking techniques, seasoning, ingredients, and the characteristics of the ingredients, they began to re-examine this stir-fried beef dish. During this period, they even asked for advice from a free master chef.
Only then did I realize that authentic Hunan cuisine generally does not contain cooking wine, is not coated with starch, thickened with starch, or added with sugar. Instead, it is stir-fried over high heat with chili peppers, ginger, and garlic to remove the fishy smell. These ingredients are used to highlight the dry aroma of the ingredients, blending the meat aroma with the chili peppers to the greatest extent, rather than being taken away by the cooking wine.
Moreover, Hunan cuisine does not excessively pursue the tenderness of meat, but focuses on frying out the moisture and flavor of the meat. A little chewiness is better. Therefore, the stir-fried beef in Hunan cuisine is not actually marinated in advance, but cut into thin slices and stir-fried directly. The taste of the meat is determined by controlling the heat, rather than relying on marinating.
The two of them suddenly realized and continued to work hard in this direction.
But they were just beginners in cooking, and their control over the heat was only superficial. Without marinating, the food they cooked was either cooked but tasteless, or tasted but so tough it was hard to swallow. In Sun Dehai's own words, it was "more tiring than chewing a pair of shoes."
There was no other way. The two of them were not skilled enough to stir-fry and season quickly in one go, so they used their brains and decided to go back to the old way of pickling.
Cornstarch and egg white must not be added. Adding water and stirring is not a good idea. Once added, the dry and fragrant taste of Hunan cuisine will be gone. Adding salt is not a good idea either. Although it can be used to season the food in advance, salt will kill the moisture in the meat, making it tougher when stir-fried.
But it is okay to add light soy sauce in advance to adjust the taste first, so that you don’t have to rush to add multiple seasonings when stir-frying; you can also add oil to lock the juice of the meat itself so that it does not need to be overcooked. At the same time, the oil will gradually evaporate during stir-frying, so it will not lose its soul like adding starch.
In this way, after continuous research and experimentation, both theoretical and practical, they finally succeeded in neutralizing part of the pickling and non-pickled methods and made a similar version.
So many years have passed, and the two have taken different paths. After becoming a real chef, he went to Xiangxi for an inspection and learned the authentic Xiangxi method of making this dish, but it did not taste as amazing and satisfying as when he first ate Hunan cuisine with Lao Sun.
I didn't expect that today I would taste the flavor that the two of us originally researched together at Lao Sun's apprentice's place.
Zhao Xiaojing nodded in understanding. "When Master Sun taught me this, I had just learned to flip the wok. No wonder he said this method suits me and told me to practice it first."
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