Chapter 9. Braised Pork Belly with Preserved Mustard Greens.
At Gu's Private Kitchen, after seeing off the last table of customers at 1 p.m., Gu Qingqiu hurriedly closed the wooden door, afraid that someone else would come to eat.
She cleared the dishes and chopsticks into the kitchen and put them in the sink. Then she took out a rag to wipe the table and turned off the air conditioner and fan. After tidying up the restaurant, Gu Qingqiu washed her hands and went upstairs to lie down.
After a busy morning, I was quite tired, so scrolling through my phone became a great way to relax.
I first opened Weibo to check the current trending topics, then opened WeChat to check for no news, but my Moments was quite lively. Former colleagues posted advertisements for their upcoming books, while my junior high, high school, and university classmates shared recent travel photos, some posted amusing anecdotes, and others complained about colleagues and bosses.
The latter clearly had blocked people from the company. This old classmate, whom she hadn't contacted in a long time, was fortunate enough to witness the irritable side of the working class in private.
Gu Qingqiu chuckled and scrolled through her WeChat Moments, finding nothing interesting, so she decided to check out Xiaohongshu instead.
I just browse randomly based on big data recommendations, and click on anything that interests me.
Gu Qingqiu saw a blogger post photos of handmade rice noodles. The pearly white rice noodles looked very smooth and were said to be purely handmade. They smelled of rice and were a good choice whether stir-fried, boiled, or steamed.
This post on Xiaohongshu got a lot of likes and saves, and quite a few comments, most of which praised it for being delicious. The blogger even posted a link saying that people could order and have it shipped to them.
Looking at the color of the rice noodles in the photo, Gu Qingqiu was quite interested.
However, looking at these photos online, she couldn't tell if the rice noodles were really as fresh as the advertisement claimed. The magic touch that allows you to see how much black smoke or mist is on food is useless through the internet. Thinking this way, she wasn't about to impulsively place an order.
She noticed that the post on Xiaohongshu also included a location tag; it was in a farmers' market in the next district, and she could check it out when she had time during her vacation.
After exiting the app, Gu Qingqiu scrolled through Xiaohongshu again before reluctantly putting down her phone and closing her eyes to try and fall asleep.
Waking up in the afternoon, she leisurely made herself a cup of lemonade on the second floor. After drinking one cup, she filled another, intending to take it downstairs and drink it slowly later. Suddenly, an idea struck her. She remembered that she had several lemons left, so she could make some lemonade to serve to her customers in the evening.
She only noticed at noon that the shop was short of tea.
Teas like Tieguanyin, Pu'er, chrysanthemum tea, and luo han guo (monk fruit) water are generally offered free of charge to customers in restaurants; whatever is available is served along with the bowls, chopsticks, and rinsing utensils after the customer is seated. Of course, some upscale restaurants may charge for tea bags.
Since opening her business, Gu Qingqiu has always provided customers with plain boiled water, and of course, she has not charged a tea fee.
Once the tea is served, it will be more appropriate to charge a tea fee.
She then washed and sliced lemons, made three large jugs of lemon water, and put them in the refrigerator to chill before washing the dishes and utensils.
After finishing her work, Gu Qingqiu checked the remaining ingredients; there were about two-fifths left. Business was surprisingly good at noon, at least better than yesterday, and a large customer even came in to take away leftovers, so a little more ingredients had been used.
However, she didn't plan to go to the market again. She had already bought more vegetables this morning than yesterday, and if she sold out early tonight, she would close the shop early. After all, money can't be earned forever, and she couldn't exhaust herself just to make money.
Gu Qingqiu absolutely refused to admit that she had been intermittently lazy.
She sat at the table in the dining area and played on her phone for a while before going into the kitchen to prepare the dishes.
Around 5:30 p.m., Gu's Private Kitchen welcomed its first table of customers for the evening session.
Gu Qingqiu came out with a smile to greet them. After taking their orders, she brought out bowls, chopsticks, and washing utensils. Then she brought out a pot of lemon water: "This is lemon water, please enjoy."
This table is full of regular customers. Yesterday, the couple was thinking of going out to eat, and when they passed by Gu's Private Kitchen, they couldn't resist the aroma and came in to try it. They were amazed by the food, and even in their dreams last night, they were still thinking about the meat dishes at Gu's Private Kitchen.
Tonight, the couple was too lazy to cook, so they didn't even go home after get off work and just came here for dinner.
The woman who had the lemonade was surprised: "I didn't expect the boss to be so considerate. Yesterday it was just plain water, and today he's serving lemonade."
The man laughed and said, "It's a new opening, so we didn't think about it yesterday and made up for it today."
He poured his wife a glass of lemonade, then poured one for himself, and drank it.
Iced lemonade is especially refreshing. The sweet and sour taste of lemon is enhanced by the ice water, making it just right with a touch of tartness.
The woman sipped her lemonade and thought it tasted pretty good: "A glass of lemonade in the summer is something even the gods wouldn't trade. I don't know if it's just my imagination, but the lemonade the shop owner makes seems to taste better than ours."
The man carefully considered the sensation and said, "It's not that exaggerated. Maybe it's because we just came in warm from outside, and drinking something cold is more refreshing."
He looked at the menu on the wall with regret, "It's a pity it's just the two of us, otherwise we would have ordered all these dishes and tried them all."
They had the sour plum duck last night. It tasted sweet and sour, with crispy skin and tender meat. They could eat two or three bowls of it every time they ordered it.
Today, faced with these three meat dishes, I reluctantly ruled out the plum duck. After much deliberation between sour soup fish fillets and steamed beef, I finally listened to my wife and chose the steamed beef, saying that the sour soup fish fillets were similar to sauerkraut fish and that we could save them for next time.
They also ordered pea shoot soup and two bowls of rice, which came to 92 yuan. It was a slightly extravagant dinner, but they could barely afford it.
If possible, who wouldn't want to order three meat dishes and two vegetable dishes? But you can't work hard all day to earn money only to have it all go to your mouth, can you?
The woman comforted us with a hint of regret, "It's alright. We'll be eating steamed beef later, and the aroma wafting from other tables will be enough to satisfy our cravings. By the way, why don't we bring our parents over this weekend and order everything?"
"Great idea, you're so smart, honey!" The man nodded in agreement, already looking forward to coming over for dinner this weekend.
As they were talking, Gu Qingqiu brought over steamed beef and two bowls of rice, then went back to the kitchen to cook pea sprout soup.
The couple fell silent and each picked up their chopsticks to eat the steamed beef.
The steamed beef was fresh out of the pot, with sizzling oil still clinging to the slices. The first bite was a caramelized aroma, followed by a smooth and chewy texture. The satay sauce was rich and fragrant, making even the scallions taste delicious. The lemongrass added a refreshing touch, instantly eliminating the greasiness of the beef without diminishing its flavor.
When the pea shoots in broth arrived, the couple tasted them and were full of praise, never expecting that this vegetable dish was just as delicious as steamed beef.
Of course, while they were eating, they kept an eye on the next table, trying to get a taste of the sour soup sliced meat through sight and smell. They were also tempted by the sour plum duck they had eaten the night before.
But for the sake of my wallet, I'll just have to put up with it for now.
We'll definitely eat our fill this weekend!
Business was booming in the evenings, with half of the customers being repeat customers who brought their families and friends. New customers came in out of curiosity, but after tasting the food, they were instantly captivated and began to enjoy the meal.
Just as Gu Qingqiu had expected, all the ingredients were used up before seven o'clock. After seeing off all the customers at seven-thirty, she hurriedly closed the wooden door.
Starting at seven o'clock, she apologized to countless customers who wanted to eat there, explaining that the kitchen was out of ingredients that day.
I also received a lot of helpful suggestions from the customer.
"Boss, you can't do this. There's no way you can just let customers walk in. You should prepare more food next time. I'll come back for dinner tomorrow night."
"Boss, you need to prepare more meat and vegetables. It's only a little past seven o'clock, which is the busiest time for restaurants. How can you say you're sold out already?"
"Boss, are you sure you don't have any ingredients left? Not even a little bit? You'll have to buy more tomorrow."
After leaving Gu's Private Kitchen, these customers naturally found a restaurant nearby to sit down and eat.
Gu Qingqiu took this to heart and planned to buy more meat and vegetables tomorrow. Today was definitely the last time she would slack off this month.
She went back to the kitchen to wash the dishes, plates, and pots.
On Friday, the third day of Gu's Private Kitchen's opening, business was just as good as before.
On Saturday, Gu Qingqiu thought that there would be a lot of people around on the weekend, most of the students and workers would be on holiday, and there would be more people eating out, so she bought more meat and vegetables than on Friday.
After returning to the restaurant, I put the ingredients away, cleaned the restaurant, and then hurriedly went into the kitchen to get busy.
Gu Qingqiu plans to make braised pork with preserved mustard greens today, which will take a long time, so she needs to prepare in advance.
She bought eight pounds of pork belly, and cut off about four pounds with a cleaver to cook tonight. She put the remaining four pounds of pork belly into a hot pan and rubbed it until the skin turned black.
Rinse the two pieces of pork belly under running water, and then gently scrape off the blackened skin with a knife.
Next, cut the two pieces of pork belly into four small pieces, put them in a pot, add water to cover the pork skin, bring to a boil over high heat, skim off the foam with a spoon, add scallions, ginger, star anise and peppercorns, then cover the pot and simmer over low heat for half an hour.
She took out the preserved mustard greens she had bought, which weighed about six ounces, put them in a basin, and added water to soak them.
While the pork was cooking, Gu Qingqiu went to get the chicken legs she had bought. She set aside half for dinner and soaked the other half in a basin to prevent the chicken from being fishy when cooked.
Then I took out half of the shrimp and kept the rest in water.
These shrimp are incredibly fresh, their legs are moving vigorously, they're large, about one and a half fingers thick, and they cost thirty yuan a pound. They're also the shrimp with the least amount of black fumes among all the seafood stalls in the market.
Gu Qingqiu stood in front of the sink, holding scissors in one hand and a shrimp in the other. First, she cut off the shrimp head at an angle, then pulled out the shrimp's internal organs and vein along the exposed part of the head. After cutting off the shrimp legs, she opened the shrimp's back and put it in a basin for later use.
She skillfully prepared the shrimp.
After processing the shrimp, seeing that it was almost time, she opened the pot lid for the pork and inserted chopsticks into one of the pieces of pork belly. There was no resistance and the chopsticks went through easily, indicating that it was about 80% cooked.
She pulled out four pieces of pork belly and placed them on the cutting board, then used a toothpick to prick small, evenly spaced holes in the skin. She made sure to prick them deep so they would brown later.
After wiping the fat off the pork belly and pork skin with kitchen paper, Gu Qingqiu washed her hands, poured some soy sauce into her palm, and then evenly spread it on the pork skin, trying to make sure it was evenly coated.
The most crucial step in making braised pork with preserved mustard greens is frying the pork. She had previously watched a cooking video where the blogger used an air fryer to fry the pork, which was not only convenient but also produced a lot of lard.
But the shop didn't have an air fryer at the time, so she directly put oil into the pan, enough to cover the pork skin. After the oil started to smoke, she held the lid in one hand and used the other hand to put the pork belly pieces in.
After quickly adding the four pieces, Gu Qingqiu immediately closed the lid, leaving a gap. Hearing the sizzling and splashing of oil inside, she breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that she had been quick.
She turned off the heat and let the residual heat of the oil fry the pork skin. Only when she no longer heard the sizzling sound of the oil in the pot did she open the lid.
The skin of the four pieces of pork belly inside had been fried to a beautiful dark red color, glistening with oil and looking very tempting. Remove the four pieces of pork belly and place them skin-side down in a bowl of cold water to soak for at least half an hour.
Gu Qingqiu began processing the dried plum vegetables. She tied up the soaked dried plum vegetables in the basin, wrung them out, and then rinsed them twice to remove the impurities and salt.
She pinched some dried plum vegetables and put them in her mouth. Seeing that they weren't very salty, she knew they were almost washed.
Squeeze the dried mustard greens dry again and put them in a dry pan. Stir-fry over high heat until the moisture evaporates and the greens are separated. Then turn to low heat and stir-fry slowly until fragrant. Once the dried mustard greens are dry, remove them and set aside.
Gu Qingqiu remembered the marinade for making braised pork with preserved mustard greens, so she took a large bowl and started mixing it.
Pour red fermented bean curd, red fermented bean curd juice, seafood sauce, hoisin sauce, dark soy sauce, and light soy sauce into a bowl in the correct proportions, then add peanut butter and mix well.
Gu Qingqiu felt that the peanut sauce was the essence of the marinade. The marinade made this way would not make the braised pork with preserved mustard greens taste like peanut sauce, but it would make the meat more fragrant.
When my parents ran a restaurant, this braised pork belly with preserved mustard greens was the most popular dish and was widely recognized as the best. The secret lies in the peanut sauce.
It is said that the recipe was developed by her grandfather when he worked at a big restaurant. Luckily, she had heard her parents mention it before. Combining it with the recipe for braised pork with preserved mustard greens that she learned from the internet, she thought that the braised pork with preserved mustard greens she made would taste good.
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