Chapter 139 Watching the Game
Yue Ning had just told her third aunt that harmony brings wealth, and now the saying "harmony brings wealth" was made concrete for her.
In order to increase ratings, Cai Zhiyuan asked her to attend the filming of this episode.
Yue Ning and Li Xinrong sat together in the audience, waiting for the show to begin.
Cai Zhiyuan brought a few Japanese people over and said to her, "The people from Japan's TS TV are producing a global food program and want to film the most high-end Chinese cuisine."
Yue Ning suddenly recalled a legendary program in the catering industry in his previous life. A Japanese TV station came to Hong Kong City to film a Manchu Han Banquet. At that time, a well-established restaurant in Hong Kong City prepared for more than three months. One hundred and eight dishes were prepared, one meal per day, and twelve people ate for three days. The show was broadcast live via satellite for three days.
Cai Zhiyuan introduced them to each other and said, "This is the most outstanding Cantonese cuisine master in our Hong Kong."
Master? Yue Ning's cooking skills are recognized by everyone, but the people of Hong Kong like to call her "Ning Ning". When Yue Ning first heard this name, she was a little uncomfortable.
Sure enough, several Japanese people opened their eyes wide when they heard the translator's introduction, as if they couldn't believe it. One of them even raised a questioning tone and said something. The translator said: "A young female master?"
Yue Ning would not be angry about questions about her age, after all, she is a veteran and is suspected of cheating. But questions about her gender are too much: "Well, I am not only a Cantonese cuisine master, I also study cuisine from all over the world, including Japanese cuisine. The pork bone ramen I make is not much worse than that made by the famous Japanese ramen chef."
The translator looked at her, wanting to confirm whether she wanted to translate it. Yue Ning nodded and translated it for the Japanese people.
"Japanese ramen, can't be worse than the one made by Japanese ramen chefs? This lady is very confident."
"Craftsmen don't lie." Yue Ning said, "After all, you can tell whether it tastes good or not by trying it."
After the translation finished, the Japanese man wanted to say something, but Yue Ning signaled and the filming began.
Li Xinrong's apprentice He Jiahui has a festive look, with a fat head and big ears and a big smile. As soon as he came on stage, the host asked him if he was nervous. He said, "I am nervous because Master and Ningning are here. I am afraid I will make a mistake and embarrass them. However, Master Ming told me not to worry, he has already been embarrassed before."
The other team was from a restaurant in Gangcheng that was quite unique. It was similar to Baohualou and usually had good business. The team leader was the boss's son, who said, "I should be the one who was nervous. You have a chef like Yue Ning to guide you before the competition."
The translator was saying something to the Japanese. The Japanese looked at Yue Ning, but Yue Ning was just smiling at the stage.
On stage, when it was time for both parties to bring out their own food, Ah Hui brought out a piece of...
The host asked, "Kelp?"
Isn't this thing available on site?
Ah Hui said: "It's kelp, this is Japanese Rishiri kelp."
"Japanese kombu?"
"Ningning has seen more and more Japanese guests in Hong Kong recently. She is studying the daily cooking of Cantonese cuisine. I will bring it to everyone for tasting today." Ah Hui said.
In fact, the biggest headache for Ah Hui when he came to participate in the competition was making the stock. If a Cantonese chef doesn't know how to make the stock, how can he cook Cantonese food? Especially since there is a soup dish in the competition.
Yue Ning just opened Ning Kitchen, and his goal is to enter the Japanese market just like Ning BBQ in his previous life.
She has been thinking about the importance of harmony recently. The Japanese soup base, also known as dashi, is simple and delicious. It does not require strict heat. By controlling the amount and time, you can get a very delicious soup base. Her new Hong Kong-style wonton noodles use this soup base. Ah Hui does not know how to make soup, so she used it to fool Ah Hui and told him to say so to others.
Yue Ning didn't expect that there would be Japanese people watching today. Now those Japanese people were not looking at the stages, but at her.
In the Yue Ning stands, the opponent brought a bag of chicken kidneys.
Professional judge Yang Yuhe said with a smile: "Today is another very interesting competition. Both teams have very unique ideas."
"It's okay! Chicken is a common ingredient in Cantonese cuisine." Xu Lemei looked at Yang Yuhe, "You can eat more oysters stewed with chicken."
Yang Yuhe asked with a little surprise: "Why do you suggest this?"
Le Mei said, "Your age is there."
Everyone at the scene burst into laughter, and the Japanese nearby didn't know what they were laughing at. Cai Zhiyuan said to the translator: "It is said that chicken white and oysters have the effect of strengthening yang."
Several Japanese people looked surprised.
The competition started offstage, and during the preparation phase, the opponent really started with the soup stock.
Ah Hui stewed the soup, took a piece of mutton belly, a white eel (the white eel people in Guangdong province refer to is actually eel), and also found a piece of pork fat.
His assistant processed the eels while he chopped the mutton. After blanching the mutton, he turned on the oil pan and started frying the mutton.
The chef on the judges' panel commented: "Let me guess. Chef He's two hot dishes are braised lamb and Sebu eel. Is that right?"
Ah Hui's assistant removed the large bone in the middle of the eel, cut it into pieces, and gave it to Ah Hui, who fried it and used it to make soup.
The white eel is cut, with each cut being nine tenths deep, but the skin remains attached, and is pickled with salt, which is exactly how Sebu eel is cooked.
Although Sebu eel is a traditional Cantonese dish and is complicated to cook, it cannot be considered a lost dish. As for braised lamb, unless you can make it into something fancy, like Chef Zhang’s clay pot rice, and reach the level of perfection, it will ultimately lack creativity when put out for competition.
It was already warmed up on TV yesterday, saying that Yue Ning would coach Chef He of Yongjin Palace Hotel. Is Yue Ning's coaching really that simple?
At this time, Ah Hui took out a young chicken and a bigeye fish.
Ah Hui processed the baby chicken. He cut open the baby chicken from the abdomen and removed the chicken skeleton inside. Since it was cut open, it was impossible to make crispy glutinous rice chicken. Besides, there was not enough time to make crispy glutinous rice chicken for this competition.
The assistant processed the eyefish, chopped the eyefish and pork fat, is this to make eyefish paste? That's probably just stewing it. In other words, at most adding a little Japanese kelp, a little kelp flavor, is that considered a novelty? The professional judges and the audience were somewhat disappointed.
On the contrary, it was another family who blanched the chickens they brought, cut them into small pieces, crushed them with the back of a knife, and were adding eggs.
"Chicken egg dregs? It's a dish that requires a lot of skill." Yang Yuhe talked about the origin of this dish.
At that time, the third generation of rich people in Yuecheng studied how to eat it. They probably felt that chicken kidneys stewed with oysters did not taste delicate enough, so they mashed the chicken kidneys to make them like tofu.
Yang Yuhe had just finished speaking when Ah Hui from Yongjin Palace Hotel went to get another dragon and a geoduck? What was he going to do?
Now the professional judges discussed with each other, and no matter how they calculated, it was wrong. Yongjin Palace already had a full range of hot dishes and soups. Could they use lobster and geoduck as the staple food?
Xu Lemei looked at Yue Ning and said, "After all, the instructor of this Yongjin Palace Hotel is Yue Ning. If the dishes instructed by Yue Ning can be guessed by you, then he is not Yue Ning."
In the audience, several Japanese kept asking questions, but Cai Zhiyuan was not a professional, so he couldn't answer them and could only act as a mouthpiece. He became really impatient, so he stood up and asked Yue Ning to change seats with him.
These Japanese people who make global food programs naturally have a certain amount of knowledge accumulated, but due to the times, the channels for knowledge dissemination are limited. Unlike the information explosion in the future, they can only know the basics of Cantonese cuisine.
Yue Ning explained to them the origin of the opponent's chicken dregs. After the explanation, the other party asked her what to do with the kelp?
Yue Ning waved his hand: "Take your time to watch."
A Japanese man watched the people on the stage preparing eels and said something to the translator, who then told Yue Ning, "Mr. Yamamoto said that the best way to prepare eels is to grill them."
"This is what I taught me. I also put Wagyu beef into Chikuzen-niboshi," said Yue Ning.
Chikuzenni is a local dish of Kyushu, Japan. It is a stew of chicken pieces with taro, carrots, lotus root pieces, konjac and other ingredients.
This shocked the Japanese man, who said something with an expression of disapproval. The translator said, "You are insulting top-quality ingredients."
Cai Zhiyuan heard it and said to the translator through Yue Ning: "Tell Yamamoto that it is the glory of the ingredients to be made into dishes by her."
The translator was a diligent translator and should have told Yamamoto the original sentence.
The Japanese man kept shaking his head.
Cai Zhiyuan quietly asked Yue Ning: "Can Wagyu really be cooked in Chikuzen Niburi?"
"Isn't it just Japanese style one pot stew? Why not?"
"I will bring them to Ningyan for dinner in the evening, and you can make one for them. Find a way to get this opportunity yourself. This program will be broadcast live via satellite." Cai Zhiyuan said.
Is this really such an opportunity? Ning Xiaochu wants to expand into the Japanese market. This is really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. At least in the last life, such an opportunity was recorded in the history of catering.
On the stage, Ah Hui stir-fried the onions, ginger and garlic, then put the fried mutton into the pot and stir-fried it. He added the soup that had been stewed with white eel bones into the mutton soup.
"White eel is to be cooked with mutton?" the chef judge asked. "When stewing mutton, tangerine peel and flower mushrooms are added, as well as seasonings such as chuju sauce. It should be Sebu eel."
Ah Hui looked up and said, "This method is inspired by fish and mutton. Mutton needs to be stewed for a long time to become soft, melted and glutinous, so stew it for a while first and add the eel later."
"So that's how it is." The judges on the stage finally understood.
After all these were ready, Ah Hui began to prepare cold dishes. The import and export company asked Yue Ning to recommend some pickled cucumbers from Beijing. Yue Ning originally wanted to let Ah Ming take charge, but now that Ah Hui was competing, Yue Ning asked him to do it.
Ah Hui opened a bottle of Old Beijing Pickled Cucumbers, took out the pickled cucumbers and cut them into shreds. He then cut ginger, bamboo shoots and pork into shreds, and stir-fried them together to make a cold dish.
People in Hong Kong have never seen this dish before, and several professional judges have never seen it before, so they can't explain it.
Another of his cold dishes is made by blanching fresh abalone, chilling it in ice water, cutting it into thin slices with a knife, and then adding the seasoning sponsor's new black truffle sauce to mix it together.
The cold dishes of our neighbor’s house are the exquisitely cooked tea-flavored Taiye chicken and the cold-mixed fish skin.
"This is the first time I've eaten stir-fried pork with cucumber and sauce. The addition of shredded ginger makes the taste very unique, with all the characteristics of sweet, salty, spicy and fresh," said Xu Lemei.
Ah Hui smiled and replied, "This dish is really ancient. It is said to be the golden minced meat and jade minced meat from the Tang Dynasty. Now it is said that only Nantong still has the dish called shredded pheasant."
Comparing the two cold dishes, the one from Yongjin Palace was based on ancient classics but was also novel, while the other side's tea-scented Taiye Chicken was indeed exceptional. When they were cooking just now, the air was already filled with the aroma of tea and chicken, which made people salivate.
Yongjin Palace lags behind a little in the cold dishes, but it doesn’t matter. The professional judges said that the highlight today is the hot dishes.
The rival's chicken gezha is cooked with extremely exquisite techniques, but here at Yongjin Palace, they have unveiled a dish of sebu eel stewed with fish and mutton. It is still unclear how the flower dragon, geoduck, young chicken and cuttlefish are matched together.
The audience was now on high alert.
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