Chapter 60: A tutorial vlog on filming milk chicken strips. ...
Gu Qingqiu was unaware that the booming business of her restaurant was even inadvertently squeezing out some of the business of restaurants in Yongrun Plaza and Shenghui Plaza, which were not far away.
For now, she only notices that her own restaurant's business will somewhat affect the business of similar restaurants on Surrey Street.
Many customers who used to eat at Lao Wang's Home-Style Restaurant now frequently come to his restaurant to eat, and it's no exaggeration to say they rave about it.
However, it seems that Lao Wang's Home-Style Restaurant has not done anything that violates public order and good morals or is detrimental to its own restaurant.
On the contrary, some customers at the restaurant said that Lao Wang's Home-Style Cuisine has recently started to innovate. Unlike before, when they stuck to Zhang's menu and didn't change, they try to add some new dishes. Although the taste is not as good as Gu's Private Kitchen, it is quite fresh, and they are happy to take the time to try it.
Gu Qingqiu said it was good, as fair competition and positive development are what everyone hopes for.
She wasn't upset that customers would occasionally go to Lao Wang's Home-Style Restaurant; after all, her own restaurant couldn't be the only one doing well.
However, Gu Qingqiu accidentally discovered something. She remembered that in the early days of the restaurant's opening, a boy who looked like a scoundrel often came to eat at the restaurant. At first, she was worried that he might be there to cause trouble.
He often comes here to eat alone, ordering all the meat dishes on the menu, eating half and packing the other half to go. He still frequents the restaurant to this day.
It was by chance that Gu Qingqiu saw him at Old Wang's Home-Style Restaurant as she passed by on the street. His relaxed, old-man-like appearance made him stand out.
An elderly woman from Suli Street, who happened to be passing by, was also a regular customer of the restaurant and greeted her. Seeing Gu Qingqiu looking at the boy in Lao Wang's Home-Style Dishes, she smiled and said that he was the son of the owner of Lao Wang's Home-Style Dishes.
Gu Qingqiu quickly realized what was going on and shook her head helplessly.
It turns out that it wasn't that Old Wang's home-style restaurant business was affected and hadn't responded, but rather that he had already sent people to the restaurant to inquire about and sample the dishes.
What's reassuring and reassuring is that the boy in the middle had countless opportunities to use this to falsely accuse his restaurant of eating meat and vegetables, claiming he felt unwell or had diarrhea, but he didn't.
Old Wang's Home-Style Restaurant has chosen to reform its menu and launch new dishes to attract customers and boost business.
Based on this alone, Gu Qingqiu greatly admired the owner of Lao Wang's Home-Style Restaurant and this young man.
And, to be a little narcissistic, the fact that the guy consistently comes to the restaurant to eat, and seems to enjoy it while he eats, suggests that he's impressed by the restaurant's food.
If you eat half and pack the other half to go, while it might seem like you're researching your own dishes, it's also possible that the owner of Lao Wang's Home-Style Restaurant has fallen in love with his own Gu Family Private Kitchen.
Unlike the restaurant across the street, which resorts to underhanded tactics like reporting food safety officials to their restaurant for random inspections.
Fortunately, everything turned out alright in the end. The released test report actually benefited the restaurant, letting customers know that Gu's Private Kitchen uses high-quality ingredients that are rich in nutrients, so they can eat with peace of mind!
That evening, after leaving Yongrun Plaza, Gu Qingqiu and two shop assistants took a taxi to Suli Street as usual, and specifically asked the driver to take a detour to this side of the street.
Since Sister Zhou and Sister Tang both live nearby, it's convenient for them to walk back.
After waving goodbye, Gu Qingqiu strolled back to the entrance of her family's restaurant, took out her key, opened the wooden door, went inside, and then closed and locked the wooden door from the inside.
After checking that all the windows in the dining area and kitchen were closed, she took her phone and went upstairs. She turned on the air conditioner and sat at her desk for a while, looking at her phone. Once she had calmed down a bit, she took her clothes to the bathroom to shower, and then began her evening leisure time.
Every night when she didn't have to work, Gu Qingqiu would play on her phone until she was extremely sleepy and then fall asleep immediately.
When I woke up and unlocked my phone, it was still on the short video page, and the battery level had dropped from 75% last night to 32%.
Since she wasn't in a hurry to do anything important on her phone this morning, Gu Qingqiu lay in bed and browsed Xiaohongshu and short videos on her personal account for a while. Only when the battery dropped below 20% and she was prompted to charge it did she get out of her comfortable bed.
After plugging her phone into the charger and placing it on the bedside table, Gu Qingqiu turned off the air conditioner, changed into a French-style light green floral dress, checked herself in the full-length mirror and thought it looked pretty good, before leaving the room.
She first went to the kitchen to get the kettle, filled it with water, and started boiling it, then went to the bathroom to wash up.
After washing up, Gu Qingqiu tied her hair up with a sky-blue scrunchie, went to the kitchen, poured half a cup of hot water, then poured in half a cup of cold water that had been left out of the kettle overnight, added some salt to the cup, stirred it with chopsticks, and then picked it up to test the water temperature before drinking it.
Warm salt water tastes pretty good. It has a slightly salty flavor, and you feel refreshed after drinking it. It's nice to have a cup every now and then.
After finishing her drink, she made herself a simple breakfast.
Gu Qingqiu simply scrambled two eggs and chopped them with a spatula, then added some minced meat and stir-fried it until fragrant. Next, she added two ounces of rice noodles and bean sprouts and stir-fried them together. When the heat was almost up, she added soy sauce, salt, and other seasonings. Soon, a fragrant plate of stir-fried rice noodles with eggs and lean meat was ready.
She filled a whole plate, took the chopsticks she had used to stir the salt water, and brought them to the dining table to sit down and start eating.
The originally pearly white rice noodles turned into a dark brown color after being stir-fried. Each strand looked soft and smooth, with brown granular minced meat, golden egg bits, and tender bean sprouts mixed in, making it look quite tempting.
Gu Qingqiu picked up a mouthful of rice noodles and ate it.
The rice noodles are soft and smooth, with a savory and salty flavor. As always, you can feel the rich aroma of rice milk while chewing, which is why Gu Qingqiu especially likes the rice noodles from this shop.
Rice noodles have the aroma of rice flour, and wheat noodles have the aroma of wheat flour. When the ingredients are of good quality, the stir-fried dishes will naturally taste delicious.
In her bite, she not only tasted the savory rice noodles, but also the meaty minced meat and the crispy egg, all mixed together, making it especially delicious.
After finishing her meal, Gu Qingqiu picked up another piece of rice noodles and ate it. The smooth rice noodles had a slightly glutinous texture. Because a lot of minced meat was added during the stir-frying, the presence of the minced meat was still very noticeable.
This time, there are also crisp and juicy bean sprouts, which make them even more refreshing and give the overall flavor a richer taste.
Gu Qingqiu ate several bites of the stir-fried rice noodles and was quite satisfied with the taste, except that it lacked a bit of wok hei (the smoky aroma imparted by a hot wok).
However, it's quite impressive that I could make such a fragrant stir-fry of only two ounces of rice noodles.
After leisurely finishing her breakfast, Gu Qingqiu took the plates and chopsticks into the kitchen to wash them, including the pot, before going into her room to check her phone.
Her phone was fully charged. She unplugged it and looked at it for a while. Seeing that it was still early, she first went to get a broom and swept the entire second floor. Then she went to get a mop and a mop bucket and mopped the entire second floor.
In this sweltering weather, with the windows open for ventilation, the ground dries out very quickly.
Gu Qingqiu was also busy and sweating a bit. After washing her face in the bathroom, she sat down in the living room to rest for a while.
Her gaze fell on the floor, which was so dry that there were no obvious water stains. The floor was clean after being mopped, without any dust, which made her feel inexplicably comfortable.
During the day, I'm busy cooking at the restaurant. After closing at night, I'm so tired after taking a shower that I just want to lie down. I have no energy or mood to clean.
Gu Qingqiu usually sweeps the second floor every other morning after getting up, wiping away any dust on the sofa, coffee table, dining table, etc., and then mops the floor on her day off.
After resting for a while, she felt a bit cooler and less hot, so she took her phone and went downstairs. Unlike usual, she didn't have to pull two shopping carts; she could just go out directly.
If Gu Qingqiu hadn't been thinking about filming a tutorial video on making milk chicken strips, she wouldn't have needed to go grocery shopping today; she could have just ordered takeout to solve the remaining two meals.
The market traffic was about the same on weekdays, so Gu Qingqiu didn't rush to buy chicken strips after entering the market. She strolled through the stalls one by one.
Passing by a seafood stall, Gu Qingqiu noticed that the clams were all plump and large, and quite fresh. She grabbed the plastic basket the owner had placed next to her, squatted down, and started picking them out with her hands.
The shop owner noticed that she hadn't brought her shopping cart today, and realizing it was Tuesday, he understood. Although he was disappointed that there wouldn't be any big business, he still greeted her with a smile: "Little Gu, why don't you buy some clams to eat at home today? These clams are all good and very fresh."
"Yes, it was because these clams were so big and plump that I thought of buying some to stir-fry and eat," Gu Qingqiu said with a smile.
She picked through half a plastic basket, had the vendor weigh it, and then casually dipped her two fingers into the clean water next to her to wash them.
The seafood stall owner shook the plastic basket repeatedly, constantly splashing water out, until there was practically no water left before weighing it: "It weighs one jin and one liang in total, so I'll just give you twenty-seven yuan per jin."
After saying that, he tore off a plastic bag and added all the clams from the plastic basket into it, asking, "Do you need some water?"
"Yes, thank you, boss," Gu Qingqiu replied with a smile. The water used to soak the clams at the seafood stall was specially prepared, so the clams wouldn't easily die in it.
After paying by scanning the QR code, she took the bag of clams, thanked the owner again, and headed to the next stall.
Gu Qingqiu was planning to stir-fry some spicy clams today. She was about to walk to the stall where she usually bought seasonings to buy some chili peppers, scallions, ginger, garlic and the like when she passed by a vegetable stall and saw that the loofah looked pretty good. Suddenly, a dish popped into her mind, so she simply bought a loofah.
Afterwards, she passed by the condiment stall and bought some scallions, ginger, and garlic, but not chili peppers.
Gu Qingqiu walked to the chicken stall where she usually bought chicken, looked at it and said, "Boss Chen, I want a pound of chicken breast, could you please weigh it for me?"
When Mr. Chen saw her, he greeted her with a smile: "Okay, these days we only see you coming to our stall to buy chicken when the restaurants are closed."
He said with a smile, as he picked up a cleaver, took out a half-cut chicken, cut off some chicken breast meat, and weighed it.
Gu Qingqiu smiled and said, "Yes, thanks to you, Mr. Chen, you usually deliver the chicken I order directly, which saves me a lot of trouble."
Mr. Chen laughed and said, "I'd like to thank you for patronizing my business. There's a perfect pound of chicken breast here, only 8.5 yuan."
"Okay, thank you, boss." Gu Qingqiu scanned the code to pay, picked up the bag, greeted him, and continued walking.
Actually, there wasn't much she wanted to buy at the market, but since she was already there, she figured she might as well browse through all the stalls, but in the end, she still didn't buy anything.
On her way back, she passed a pharmacy and went in to buy some jasmine flowers. The restaurant also had goji berries, so she didn't need to buy any.
After entering Suli Street, Gu Qingqiu picked up a box of the same brand of milk she had bought last time when she passed by a grocery store. She would keep the rest to drink slowly at other times.
Back at the restaurant, Gu Qingqiu carried the groceries into the kitchen, took out a basin, and poured the clams and water into it.
Since the water used to soak the clams was already salt water, she added a few drops of oil to let the clams slowly expel the sand.
Gu Qingqiu placed the chicken strips, loofah, jasmine flowers, and other seasonings she had bought next to the kitchen counter, intending to process them later.
Then, he took out the delivery knife he had just swiped from the cashier and cut open the outer packaging of the milk carton, taking out three boxes of milk and putting them aside temporarily.
She carried the rest of the milk up to the second floor and left it there.
Gu Qingqiu slumped onto the sofa and rested for a while with the fan blowing.
She originally planned to take the groceries she bought upstairs to the kitchen on the second floor to cook, so she wouldn't have to go to the kitchen on the first floor.
However, she couldn't bear to miss the opportunity to show the kitchen of Gu's Private Kitchen to netizens while filming the milk chicken strips, so she still had to film in the kitchen on the first floor.
After resting for a while and catching her breath, Gu Qingqiu got up and went into the room to get the photography tripod she had dug out in advance over the past two days.
It wasn't anything fancy; it was just something she bought back when the live-streaming industry was booming during her school days. She tried shooting and editing some unboxing videos and uploading them to her personal account. She bought it to stabilize her phone and get a better shooting angle.
In order to film this tutorial video today, Gu Qingqiu has watched some simple introductory vlog shooting techniques over the past two days, and recalled some shooting and editing skills that she learned in college, which seem to be a few years apart but are actually decades old.
She took the camera tripod downstairs to the kitchen, and after turning on the lights, it was quite bright, especially around the stove. She took a picture with her phone's camera and the result was perfect for shooting a vlog.
Gu Qingqiu quickly found three suitable shooting positions, from the cutting board to the stove, making it easy to move around and switch scenes.
She simply opened her phone's notes app and wrote out the complete process of making milk chicken strips step by step, then marked the long, medium, and short shots, hoping to get it right the first time.
While writing, she even wrote out the overall script and copy.
Gu Qingqiu knew what to do. She fixed her phone on the camera stand, switched to the rear camera recording mode, and got ready.
She took out the remaining goji berries and set them aside, as well as the jasmine flowers. She took out the chicken breast, rinsed it under the tap, squeezed out most of the water with her hands, and placed it on the cutting board. Then she went to get a kitchen knife.
I also took a small glass bowl, put the ginger and cornstarch aside, and brought over the peanut oil and salt along with the oil bottle and jar.
After confirming that everything was ready, she pressed the start button and then began preparing the ingredients for the milk chicken strips on camera.
The video's instructional and educational content will be recorded later during the editing process. For now, only some immersive cooking sounds need to be recorded. Gu Qingqiu started making the dish as usual.
She placed one of the chicken breasts on the upper left of the cutting board, held it down with her left hand, and picked up a knife with her right hand to start cutting it into pieces.
The knife skills are crisp and clean, with a unique personal rhythm when cutting, sometimes slow and sometimes fast, and the cut chicken breast pieces are uniform in size and look nice.
After cutting the two large pieces of chicken breast into chunks, she adjusted the camera position to shoot from above, took a small glass bowl, put the chicken breast into it, then poured in an appropriate amount of peanut oil, salt and cornstarch, mixed it well, and set it aside to marinate.
She turned her phone and stand to the left, slightly tilting it downwards for a close-up shot. Gu Qingqiu then took a piece of ginger, placed it on the cutting board, and began slicing it into strips with a knife in her right hand while holding the ginger down with her left.
In the shot, slender, bony fingers press down on the ginger, and the cleaver slices it quickly, creating long, even strips of ginger on the cutting board, which looks quite beautiful.
She piled the shredded ginger on the upper left of the cutting board for later use. Gu Qingqiu washed her hands first and then placed her phone and camera stand near the sink. After adjusting the angle, she brought the jasmine flowers she bought from the pharmacy into the shooting range.
She piled the jasmine flowers together, poured enough into another small glass basin, and turned on the tap to rinse them directly in the basin.
At this point, the camera switches to a close-up overhead shot, showing the continuous flow of water washing over the white jasmine flowers with a hint of pale yellow. The petals gradually open, trembling precariously, making one fear that the petals might be violently destroyed by the water flow at any moment.
After rinsing it almost completely, Gu Qingqiu held the small glass basin in one hand and tilted it slightly to pour out the water, while covering the bottom edge of the basin with the other hand to prevent the jasmine from escaping.
After emptying the water from the small glass basin, she freed her hand to adjust the angle of her phone camera, then took out a clean small glass bowl, grabbed a handful of jasmine flowers with her right hand, and shrunk them over the sink to remove the water they had absorbed.
After wringing them out as dry as they can be, put the bunch of jasmine flowers into the newly taken-out small glass bowl.
After squeezing all the jasmine flowers dry several times, and then doing it all over again, the jasmine flowers are considered processed.
Gu Qingqiu wiped the water off her hands with a rag and then reached out to end the recording.
Long videos like the one we just recorded will have to have a lot of shots cut during editing, but the advantage is that they're easy to record. Recording videos in segments makes editing a bit simpler, but it's quite troublesome for someone like her to record and cook at the same time.
The chicken breast needed some time to marinate, so Gu Qingqiu took her phone off the camera stand and went outside to sit down and rest.
A dozen minutes later, she went back into the kitchen, fixed her phone back onto the stand, took it to the stove where she had previously chosen to shoot, and adjusted the angle.
After gathering all the ingredients needed, Gu Qingqiu pressed the start button on her phone's camera to record, and then turned on the stove to heat the pot.
She poured a generous amount of peanut oil into the pot, and waited until it was hot enough that chopsticks inserted into it would bubble. Holding a small glass bowl containing chicken breast in one hand, she used chopsticks to slide pieces of chicken breast into the oil.
Chicken breast pieces were added to the pan, sizzling in the oil. Once they were slightly set, Gu Qingqiu gently pushed them with a spatula to ensure they were fried evenly.
During this period, she adjusted the shooting angle twice, including both close-ups and medium close-ups.
Since this chicken breast, or rather chicken strips, will be cooked with milk later, it doesn't need to be fried until golden brown and crispy like fried chicken strips. It only needs to be fried until it's about 70-80% cooked so that it's slightly crispy when you eat it.
Gu Qingqiu used a large slotted spoon to scoop up the chicken breast from the pot and let it drain slowly by suspending it against the edge of the pot.
Occasionally, some pieces of chicken breast would slip through the net, and she would use chopsticks to pick up the pieces that were still floating in the pot and put them into a large strainer.
After draining for a while, she picked up a large strainer and tossed it up slightly, which allowed a lot of oil to drip off.
After repeating this process several times, the chicken breast, which has been fried to a slightly golden brown, will have almost no visible oil droplets on its surface.
Gu Qingqiu deliberately switched the phone camera to a close-up, and the pieces of chicken breast in the lens looked very tempting.
Without stopping, she took another small saucepan, placed it on another spot on the stove, turned on the fire, then bent up the two sides of a milk carton, squeezed it slightly into a pointed shape, and used scissors to cut an opening at an angle before pouring the milk into the small saucepan.
The camera perfectly captured the rich aroma of silky milk flowing from the carton and dripping into a small saucepan.
After pouring three boxes of milk into the pot repeatedly, Gu Qingqiu would occasionally stir the milk with a porcelain ladle to prevent it from burning.
After the milk boiled, she added the previously fried chicken breast pieces and shredded ginger to the pot and simmered it over low heat.
During this time, you also need to use a ladle to stir the pot from time to time.
About five minutes later, Gu Qingqiu added salt to the pot for seasoning, then sprinkled in the previously drained jasmine flowers and bright red goji berries.
A dish of creamy white milk chicken strips is now ready.
After being taken out of the pot, the chicken strips were placed in a deep white porcelain plate, with more than half of them filled with milk. Jasmine flowers and goji berries were placed on top, and the chicken strips were half-exposed and half-hidden in the pure white milk, which looked very tempting.
Gu Qingqiu moved her phone closer with a tripod and filmed a close-up video of the finished milk chicken strips from both side and overhead angles.
After finishing the photoshoot, she took her phone off the stand, switched it to photo mode, and took a tempting picture of the milk chicken strips.
This is for a vlog cover later.
Gu Qingqiu quickly tidied up the mess on both sides of the stove and the cutting board, and put the dishes that needed to be soaked in the sink there to soak first.
Then he took a pair of chopsticks and a spoon, placed them on the plate of milk and chicken strips, carried them to the dining area, found a table, and sat down to eat lunch.
She ate this for lunch and was too lazy to cook rice or stir-fry vegetables.
Gu Qingqiu picked up her phone to check the time and realized it was almost midnight.
I just got back from the market a little after 10 a.m. The milk chicken strip tutorial I just filmed looks simple, but it actually takes quite a bit of time.
She wasn't in a hurry to eat lunch, so she simply opened the videos she had just recorded and watched them one by one to see if there was anything that needed to be re-recorded.
After watching several videos, Gu Qingqiu finally breathed a sigh of relief.
While it may not be as sophisticated or atmospheric as those professional bloggers' videos, it's at least smooth enough, has everything you need, and the camera angles are decent.
While reviewing the footage, she had already figured out what to cut out and what to highlight, which was basically in line with the shooting script she had written before starting.
Gu Qingqiu smiled and picked up her chopsticks to eat the milk chicken strips. She was in a good mood.
I picked up a piece of chicken strip and put it in my mouth. The taste was similar to last time. The first thing I felt was the rich and mellow aroma of milk. After taking a bite, I could taste a slight crispness of the chicken strip, but mostly it was tender and juicy.
The tender chicken is infused with the rich aroma of milk, and also has a touch of saltiness, making it flavorful without being bland.
The subtle jasmine fragrance is the most unique aroma of this milk chicken strip. It makes the meat taste very refreshing, and you won't feel tired of eating it no matter how much you eat.
Gu Qingqiu recalled the efficacy descriptions she had seen in that health-preserving recipe book and thought she could use them as copywriting for her vlog later.
She ate the chicken strips bite by bite, and could increasingly taste the tender and savory flavor of the chicken, the rich sweetness of the milk, and the subtle fragrance of jasmine.
Occasionally, I'll use a spoon to scoop out the milk from this milk chicken strip dish and drink it.
The milk is rich and sweet, yet it's infused with the savory aroma of chicken strips and the fragrance of jasmine; it's quite delicious even on its own.
She stopped eating when she was about 70% full, and two-thirds of the milk chicken strips on her plate were gone.
She cooked a whole pound of chicken strips just now, and if she could finish it all, Gu Qingqiu would feel that she was too amazing.
She got up, took the plate into the kitchen, took out a piece of plastic wrap, sealed the remaining milk chicken strips, and put them in the refrigerator's crisper drawer.
Thinking that she could finish her work early and rest early, and that she would have to work again after waking up if she didn't work, Gu Qingqiu came to the sink and washed all the pots, pans and utensils she had used before putting them away, before going upstairs to rest.
After waking up from her afternoon nap, Gu Qingqiu made herself a glass of lemon honey water.
After regaining some composure, she sat down at her desk, turned on her computer, created a new folder, and then connected her phone to import the videos and the only photo she had taken at noon into the newly created folder.
Gu Qingqiu opened Premiere Pro, which she hadn't used in a long time, and started editing.
Around 4:30 pm, she posted the edited video on Xiaohongshu and Weibo.
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