Chapter 13: Really Good at Cooking
Yue Ning came to the chopping board and placed a palm-sized crucian carp on it. She used a wide slicing knife to slice off a complete piece of fish meat from the tail to the head. She turned the fish over and sliced off the other half of the fish meat in the same way.
She cut the fish fillet bones with a slanted blade, put down the knife, touched the fish meat with her fingers, picked up the knife again, and gently cut into the fish back and tail, removing the two thin bones. She put the two intact pieces of fish meat in the scallion and ginger water, chopped the fish head, fish bones and fish tail into pieces, and put them back on the original plate.
The school cat smelled the fishy smell and ran over, "Meow... Meow..." Yue Ning gave it two pieces of fish with small bones as a reward.
Yue Baohua was stunned by his granddaughter's skillful technique. When he was young, he learned to cut and cook, but he was not as skillful as Ningning. Not to mention crucian carp with many small bones, even grass carp for sashimi, it took three years of cutting to master such skills.
This is not the key point. The key point is that Yue Baohua wanted to slap his head. He has been cooking for so many years, following the traditional way of deboning fish, but he has never thought of removing bones in this way. Isn't this also the way to debone sashimi?
Luo Guoqiang scratched his head and asked, "Ningning, was this stabbing technique taught to you by Uncle Rong?"
"Yes! The cattle and sheep here belong to the country, and rice and flour are rationed. My father and I can make do with just enough for half a month, and we live on potatoes for the second half of the month. I don't grow tall, so my father runs dozens of miles to catch fish at night. We don't have bighead carp or silver carp here. The most common fish are carp, crucian carp and catfish. My father makes soup with crucian carp, but he wants me to eat meat, so he makes fish soup for me. But crucian carp is small and has many bones, so it's too troublesome to take out the fish meat. My father uses this method to remove the fish bones. It's quick and worry-free. He can make fish soup or slice the fish meat and blanch the fish fillets directly for me to eat." Yue Ning removed the bones from all five crucian carps.
It was true that her father made fish soup for her, but he always removed the small bones one by one by hand. This was a habit she had acquired in her previous life. She was too lazy to remove the bones one by one, so she developed the skill of deboning crucian carp.
Yue Ning heated the pan and poured in some oil. Perhaps because they saw Yue Baohua and Luo Guoqiang standing by, others came over to watch her cook.
The fish meat was put into the pan and started to fry. Yue Ning's movements were neither hurried nor slow, and his movements were smooth and flowing. The fish meat was fried until golden brown and then put into clear water.
Yue Baohua secretly praised himself, saying that the timing was just right. None of the disciples in Baohua Tower could control it to this extent. His granddaughter's ability was no worse than that of his eldest disciple.
Yue Ning fried the fish meat and used the fish head, fish tail and fish bones to make soup.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, she went to get the side dishes. These vegetables were brought back by Yang Danian, and she greeted him: "Uncle Danian, I'll take a little of each of these vegetables to add some color to the fish soup, okay?"
"There are plenty, take whatever you want." Yang Danian seemed to remember something, "Are you free?"
"Yes, I have."
"Help me make some potato pancakes." Yang Danian glanced at Li Qiaomei who was chatting, "The potato pancakes your aunt made yesterday were not tasty. Make them again so they know that the potato pancakes here don't taste that good."
"Okay!"
Yue Ning took some vegetables and picked out a few big potatoes and washed them.
Yue Ning cut the side dishes into thin strips, and Luo Guoqiang opened his mouth slightly. His skills were evident in his deboning and frying of fish, and the carrots were cut as thin as hair, which was enough to show off. At least compared to Yue Ning, he was far behind.
After cutting the side dishes, Yue Ning went to get the grinding board and started grinding potatoes.
"What is this for?" Luo Guoqiang asked.
"Potato pancakes."
"Didn't I remember you made it with cooked potatoes yesterday?"
Yue Ning smiled and said, "I use cooked potatoes because I'm lazy. I boiled a pot of potatoes in the morning, peeled them, crushed them and mixed them with flour in the evening, so the pancakes are soft. The mashed potatoes made from raw potatoes are more elastic and fragrant, and they are delicious when fried. Today I'll let you taste the authentic fried potato pancakes."
Yesterday, Aunt Qiaomei was lazy, so there were fewer potatoes and more flour in the potato cakes. Mashing potatoes is a laborious job. After Yue Ning finished grinding the potatoes, he prepared the batter, made potato cakes, and also made an egg skin, which he cut into shreds as a side dish for the fish soup.
Seeing that she was skillful, Yang Danian asked her to cut mutton slices for stir-frying later.
"Yue Ning is a guest, do you really want her to help you?" Li Qiaomei complained to her husband.
"Aunt, how can I be considered a guest? I am a girl from Xiaoyanggou." Yue Ning took the mutton and started cutting it.
After cutting the mutton slices, she also helped cut garlic slices, green onion segments, chili peppers, and coriander...
Yue Ning washed the knife and chopping board, opened the lid of the pot, and an aroma came out. The fish soup had already turned milky white. She filtered the fish soup and washed the pot.
The porridge in the casserole has been cooked thoroughly. Yue Ning moved the casserole to the side. The casserole has good heat preservation properties, so he simmered it for a while with the residual heat.
She pinched the soaked fish meat and felt that it was almost done. After the fried fish meat was soaked in water, it became soft. She pressed and rubbed it with the side of the knife until the fish meat was mashed.
"Ningning, the fish is fried for the aroma. Some restaurants will put the fried fish into fish soup to make it easier to remove the bones. After it is cooked soft, they will remove the small bones. But in order to maintain the aroma, Fuyunlou will remove the bones immediately after frying, and it can't be boiled for a long time. If you soak it in water like this, the aroma will be lost, right?"
Luo Guoqiang said this not to say that Yue Ning's fish soup was not authentic. As the saying goes, an expert can tell whether it is good or not just by looking at it. He was already convinced by Yue Ning's knife skills and control of the heat, but he just raised his own doubts.
Zhang Lifen didn't think so. She said, "Guoqiang, what are you talking about? Ningning is not like you. She has studied in Fuyun Building for so many years. It's good enough for her to be able to do it. What you said are the secrets of Fuyun Building. It's normal for Ningning not to understand."
Yue Baohua glanced at her and was too lazy to argue with someone who knew nothing except her own little thoughts.
At this time, Yue Ning lit the pot again, added a little oil to the pot, and put the minced fish in to stir-fry: "If the fried fish is put into the fish soup, the aroma will disperse. Soaking in cold water will reduce the aroma, which will have some impact. So there is this step to dry the moisture in the fish meat and re-stimulate the aroma. Another function is to make the minced fish more dispersed, so that the fish soup will be more delicate."
After the minced fish dried up, Yue Ning took it out. There was still some slightly browned minced fish on the pot wall. She didn't rinse the pot, but poured the milky white fish soup directly in. The pot was still hot, making a sizzling sound, and a fragrance rose up.
"Ningning, why did you pour out the soup without washing the pot?" Zhang Lifen asked.
Yue Ning closed the pot and said, "Aunt, do you know what the wok aroma of Cantonese cuisine is?"
"Of course I know. It's the smoky aroma created by cooking over a high fire." Zhang Lifen was very proud. If she didn't even know this, how could she be considered a chef's wife?
Yue Ning turned around to filter out the porridge soup and said, "It's the browning reaction of food, which was proposed by French chemist Maillard in 1912. The flavor of fish soup is the burnt aroma produced during the frying process of fish meat, and the same is true for the fish paste stuck to the edge of the pot."
"Brown reaction?" Luo Guoqiang frowned.
Qiao Junxian said first: "The browning reaction is called the Maillard reaction in the West. The most common reaction is when frying steak. When the cast iron pan is heated high enough, the aroma will come out when the steak is put in."
"Yes, when my father was teaching me, he also used steak as an example. When he gave me small pieces of beef, he tried to fry them for me, but I couldn't chew them. He said that the cattle here are all grass-fed, and the meat is too tough and not suitable for frying. Grain-fed steaks are rich in fat, so they taste good when fried that way." Yue Ning opened the lid of the pot and began to add the side dishes one by one. "My father said that cooking is a science. Learning the skills from a master is to know the whys, while learning related knowledge is to know the whys."
Yue Baohua was very confident in his cooking skills, but now he found that he knew the cooking skills but not the reasons. His master taught him how to cook, and he studied hard to master the skills he has today, but he never understood the principles. He asked, "Does your father know these?"
"Yes! When he was in Yuecheng, he often went to the library, took a lot of notes, compiled recipes from various places, and went to various restaurants to try local flavors. The ancestral teachings of Cantonese cuisine are that there is tradition but no authenticity." Yue Ning seemed to have thought of something. She turned her head and said to Yang Danian who was serving the lamb head, "Uncle Danian, can I fry the potato cakes?"
"Sure!"
Yue Ning added minced fish: "The birthplace of Cantonese cuisine is Yuecheng, which is a thousand-year-old commercial capital where merchants gather. My father read about the classics of Cantonese cuisine from a book. The origin of crispy pigeon comes from the fact that a Western chef was fired by his boss and had no money to buy imported Western sauces, so he could only use soy sauce instead of black pepper sauce to fry steak. Later, the Western method of roasting duck breast was used to make pigeon. Later, the method of making pigeon was combined with that of roast goose, using crispy water, which is completely different from Western cuisine and became today's crispy pigeon. He told me that this is the origin of the lack of authentic Cantonese cuisine."
Yue Baohua smiled and asked, "So what if there is a tradition?"
Yue Ning poured the porridge water into the fish soup and stirred it with a spatula until it became thick: "Grandpa, drink this bowl of fish soup first, and I'll talk to you later."
On the playground, several desks were put together, and dishes were placed on the tables one after another.
Director Chen from Beijing greeted everyone: "Come on, sit down and eat."
Yue Baohua invited Qiao Junxian to sit down with him. Li Qiaomei brought over the fish soup, while Yue Ning was still frying potato pancakes.
Yue Baohua's eyes were fixed on his granddaughter who was cooking in the distance. With the sound of "sizzling", the ingredients in the pot were thrown up and down. Her cooking skills were not inferior to any of his apprentices. Wrong! In fact, there was no difference between her and himself, an experienced chef who had been cooking for decades.
Stir-frying requires quick frying over high heat. In a matter of seconds, the potato cakes were already in two large bowls.
Yue Ning held the bowl and asked Yang Danian, who was still frying pumpkin seedlings, "Uncle, do you have any more vegetables to fry?"
"I'm ready too, I'll be right there."
The aroma of the fish soup has not yet dissipated, and the fried potato pancakes are wafting with the rich fragrance of the city life.
Everyone at the table looked at Yue Ning. Yue Ning put down the fried potato pancakes and sat down next to his grandfather.
Li Qiaomei served fish soup to the distinguished guest, which made Yue Baohua embarrassed. Fish soup should be eaten fresh out of the pot, and although the potato cake is not a Cantonese dish, he knew that the potato cake should also be eaten while hot because of his granddaughter's cooking skills. So which one should be eaten first?
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