Chapter 513 Loulan
After washing her hands and putting on her chef's uniform, Zhao Xiaojing took a deep breath to clear her mind and stood in front of the operating table.
Pork stomach and duck gizzards are the two main ingredients for making the fried crispy double dish.
Cut the duck gizzard from the middle of the head, cut to the end but do not cut it off. Instead, slice out the most tender and crisp part of the duck gizzard along the tendons and skin.
After removing the tendons and skin, the white outer layer on the surface of the duck gizzard disappears and becomes a tender red block.
Place the flat side of the duck gizzard on the bottom and cut the surface into chrysanthemum-shaped pieces.
The thickness is 2 mm and the depth is 4/5. After cutting, the surface of the duck gizzard blooms like a chrysanthemum.
Next is the pig's stomach. For the pig's stomach, only the thickest part of the head is needed. Divide the head into two parts from the middle, and then slice off the pig's stomach skin along the belly meat below the skin.
This step is extremely challenging for knife skills. In the past, pigs were raised for a long time, so the meat and the pig stomach were thicker, which naturally made slicing the stomach much smoother. However, now pigs are raised for a shorter time, and the pig stomach is much thinner, making slicing the stomach much more difficult. Also, because it is too thin, we have to slice on both sides instead of one side.
Zhao Xiaojing carefully pulled and pressed her belly with one hand while slowly slicing forward with the other. When she reached the end, she carefully cut through the sticky fascia.
After slicing the pig's stomach, Zhao Xiaojing put the belly aside and continued to cut the remaining belly meat.
This step is called the "net-shaped knife cut." After the belly skin is removed, the thin slices are first scored diagonally on one side with a half-depth knife mark. Then, turn it over and score the other side with a half-depth straight knife mark.
The other side was just sliced into a head and the pig's stomach was broken.
Zhao Xiaojing calmly activated the step-by-step recovery function, returning to the point just after slicing the pig's stomach, and then made mesh cuts again.
The reason for failure in this step is that the pig's stomach is very thin after peeling, and the depth of the cut becomes very difficult to control. If you are not careful and cut a little deeper than 1/2, the knife will break.
After finishing the straight knife marks on the other side, you have to turn it back to the side where the knife marks were made diagonally, and make another knife mark of 1/2 the depth in a cross shape with the diagonal lines. This is called a cross knife.
After using the step-by-step recovery function twenty-seven or twenty-eight times, Zhao Xiaojing finally cut the pig's stomach into a satisfactory shape.
Twenty-seven or twenty-eight times may sound like a lot, but in fact, Zhao Xiaojing has been immersed in the virtual space for the past few months practicing this step countless times. Twenty-seven or twenty-eight times is already very good.
After cutting the pattern, Zhao Xiaojing lifted the belly piece upwards, and the whole belly piece unfolded like a work of art. The fine patterns were translucent, like an exceptionally clear and delicate net.
Zhao Xiaojing admired it with satisfaction, then cut the tripe into small pieces, soaked it in clean water, and added a spoonful of baking soda.
This step removes the fishy smell and makes the pork belly crispier.
The ingredients for the fried double crispy dishes are very few, just a few slices of bamboo shoots and a few slices of carrots as garnish.
After preparing the ingredients and seasonings, Zhao Xiaojing began to batter the food.
Add a spoonful of cooking wine soaked in scallion and ginger paste, a pinch of salt, a dash of MSG, half a spoonful of pepper, and ginger juice. Mix well to incorporate the base flavor, then add a little dry starch and half a spoonful of scallion oil to seal the mixture. Start with the duck gizzards. Once the gizzards are battered, follow the same method with the pork belly.
Stir-fried vegetables are cooked very quickly, so they also need to be cooked with a sauce.
Take a spoonful of the surface layer of onion, ginger and cooking wine without foam, add a little salt, a little MSG, two spoonfuls of clear soup and a little cornstarch.
Turn on the fire and pour in the oil. Zhao Xiaojing took a deep breath.
Use carrot slices to repeatedly test the oil temperature until very tiny bubbles appear on the surface, then add the duck gizzards.
As the duck gizzards sizzled, Zhao Xiaojing carefully slid them apart with chopsticks while keeping a close eye on them. As soon as the surface changed color, she put the gizzards into the pig's stomach, slid them twice with chopsticks, and then added the side dishes.
As soon as the side dishes were put in and rolled half a circle in the oil, Zhao Xiaojing immediately took the pot off the heat, then picked up the colander, placed the colander on the oil tank, and poured in the oil and the ingredients together.
While controlling the oil here, Zhao Xiaojing immediately started stir-frying the chopped green onion and ginger with the oil in the pan.
When the food is fried but not yet burnt, Zhao Xiaojing takes the pot off the heat again and pours in a spoonful of cooking wine.
Then, put all the ingredients in the colander and pour in the sauce.
When the sauce was poured in, Zhao Xiaojing's pupils shrank, and she immediately began to shake the pan continuously. The ingredients in the pan kept rolling under the high fire, and the juice kept shrinking. After more than ten seconds, Zhao Xiaojing took the dishes out of the pan while shaking the pan.
After being taken out of the pot, the juice slowly seeped out from the pig's stomach in the plate and formed a circle at the bottom of the plate.
Zhao Xiaojing sighed silently. It was already smashed, so she decided to take a bite first.
"What did I teach you back then? A little bit of base flavor, a little bit of base flavor. The pepper is to remove the fishy smell, not to show off that you put pepper in it. Why don't you just pour the pepper in directly?"
"Forty percent oil temperature, forty percent oil temperature, try it yourself, what's your temperature?"
"When I make a fried double-crust product, the juice is dripping down. I can tell it's a failure at a glance!"
"Calling the fried double crisps a failure is an insult to the fried double crisps. Yours is nothing but fried pork belly and duck gizzards!"
When the dish was ready, the instructor came over and started scolding.
Zhao Xiaojing was caught off guard and was shocked by being scolded. She turned her head to look at her tutor in astonishment.
The tutor of the previous study module didn’t have this kind of temper. Why is the storm so severe?
"What are you looking at? You have the nerve to look at me after making such a mess of it. Do it again!" The instructor continued to scold.
Zhao Xiaojing shuddered when she was scolded, and hurriedly put down her chopsticks, rewinding the scene to the original state where the pig's stomach and duck gizzards were still intact on the chopping board, then picked up the knife and started again.
Seeing this, the instructor walked out of the stove in two or three steps, returned to his original position where he was not in the way, and continued to watch Zhao Xiaojing cook.
5 hours later...
"Are you worried that the gizzards won't be cooked through? Why do you fry them for so long?"
“Redo it!”
20 hours later...
"You don't plan to cook the pig's stomach at all, right? Who's going to eat it if it's so raw?"
“Redo it!”
45 hours later...
“Redo it!”
450 hours later...
“Redo it!”
4500 hours later...
Zhao Xiaojing dully and mechanically poured out the pork stomach and duck gizzards in her hand to drain the oil, staring blankly at the ingredients that were obviously over-fried again. Without moving, she shook her head and sat in a chair on the side in a daze.
Zhao Xiaojing had been scolded countless times, and it had become her experience. Perhaps to avoid interrupting her cooking process, the instructor would not scold her until a dish was finished. So when she saw Zhao Xiaojing stop, she just watched quietly, her eyes following her movements.
Zhao Xiaojing felt that her mental state was indeed affected. Although there was no concept of day and night in the learning module, time stood still, and she didn't feel hungry, sleepy, or tired, but endlessly repeating the same dish did test her perseverance. Her brain became chaotic, and even became more chaotic the more she cooked.
She looked up several times to check her proficiency, but it was not proportional to her practice time. It had only increased from 31% at the beginning to 37% now. It was worthy of Loulan.
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