Chapter 165 The Chef Delivered to Your Door
Lu Peide cut a piece of paper, used it as a mold, brushed osmanthus jam on it, picked up the paper, and used the osmanthus syrup to make a semicircular bat holding the word "Fu", and placed diamond-shaped pieces of pea yellow on the other half.
Yue Ning stood by and ate pea yellow dipped in candied osmanthus.
Needless to say, the dish presentation was beautiful, and Yue Ning's little mouth was constantly smacking, so the taste must have been good.
The last dish is the boiled mutton meatballs, which is not a difficult dish to make. The main feature of this mutton meatball is its delicate texture, which melts in your mouth. It is completely different from the chewy beef meatballs in the south.
The difference in strength between the two sides was too great, and the opponent accepted defeat with conviction.
"Yue Ning, Chef Lu won today. Although he could have won without you today, he still had the ability to do so. But I have to say that he performed even better with you today." Yang Yuhe asked with a smile, "He advanced. His next match is against Chef Zhang from Baohualou. Will you still be Chef Lu's assistant in the next match?"
Yue Ning said sincerely: "Brother Lu asked me to do it, so I will continue! So what if my uncle A Ming participated in the competition? He still got the advantage, A Xing's cutting skills are better than mine."
"Chef Lu, let her continue." Everyone cheered.
Lu Peide was really embarrassed, but Yue Ning didn't care: "Brother Lu, let's do this! I'll be your assistant for as many matches as you want."
She looked at the others and said, "I'm telling you, don't ask me to perform a show every time."
The game was over, and Lu Peide said hurriedly, "I'll be your assistant. I'll go get the fish."
"good!"
Lu Peide picked the fish and Yue Ning picked the side dishes. Without deer tendons, the stewed silver carp head she made would be no different from Lu Peide's.
There is no first in literature. As a chef, it is very boring to use the same dish to rank first and second.
They watched Yue Ning pick ingredients such as sauerkraut, pickled peppers and lemons.
"Yue Ning, are you going to stew the fish head?" someone on the judges' panel said.
"Yes!" Yue Ning nodded, "I'll make you a Sichuan-style braised fish head."
"I knew she had other tricks up her sleeve."
Yue Ning diced the pickled peppers and sauerkraut, and cut the pickled radish into pieces, and said, "Ningyan has a dish called braised fish head. I also borrowed the method of Shandong cuisine's braised black sea cucumber with scallions, adding deer tendons to increase the viscosity of the soup, and used the red stewing method. Now the deer tendons are too late to ferment, so I can only make it faster. Anyway, everyone wants to know if I can cut a fish head?"
Lu Peide cut the fish head and Yue Ning asked him to cut the remaining fish tail into pieces while she cooked the fish head.
While the fish head was cooking, Yue Ning took a piece of pork fat and a piece of chicken belly fat, cut them into cubes, added the two kinds of oil into the pot, and added onions, ginger and coriander to boil out the oil.
She then fried the fish pieces in oil and mashed them.
Xu Lemei said, "Isn't this the way to teach the Japanese to make seafood noodle soup?"
"yes!"
As Yue Ning spoke, she uncovered the pot of stewed fish heads. She took out the fish heads and put them aside.
The soup from cooking the fish head is poured into the mashed fish meat, and steam rises.
"Why didn't I think of it? I have been calculating, with such a short preparation time, which one to cook first and which one later, for fear that the fish head soup would not be thick enough." Lu Peide said.
Yue Ning smiled and said, "You've never made fish soup, have you?"
"No." Lu Peide shook his head.
"This is how we make the fish soup, which is also our basic soup base." Yue Ning said, "This way, there will be no time conflict between making the thick fish soup and removing the fish head."
"Been taught a lesson."
When the fish soup was boiling, Yue Ning started to remove the fish head. Her technique was light and fast. She finally touched and checked with her hands to make sure there was not a single bone in the fish head.
"You insisted that Ningning take off the fish head. Now you see it?" Xu Lemei said to Yang Yuhe.
Yang Yuhe laughed: "I'm not the only one who wants to see this, does everyone want to see it?"
Yue Ning filtered out the snow-white fish soup, sautéed the scallions, ginger and garlic, stir-fried the sauerkraut and pickled peppers, then poured the fish soup in, and the sour, fragrant and spicy taste rose.
"It smells so good!" Lu Peide couldn't help but exclaim.
Yue Ning covered the pot and said, "This is the basic flavor of pickled fish. People here can't eat spicy food. If you follow my taste in the northwest, you can add more spiciness."
Yue Ning cut the green onion and green and red peppers, chopped up two Chaoshan salty sour plums, and soaked them in clean water.
She came back and opened the lid of the pot. The soup in the pot was cooked with pickled peppers and sauerkraut, and it smelled sour and fragrant. She filtered the fish soup again, filtered out the sauerkraut and put it aside, and poured the fish soup into the pot again to season it.
This time she put the disassembled fish head into the soup and simmered it on low heat. During this time, she spread the sauerkraut in the center of the bottom of the plate and placed the pickled radish slices around the sauerkraut.
She cut the lemon, opened the pot, and poured the lemon juice and the water soaked with salty sour plums into the pot.
Turning off the heat, she carefully slid the fish head into the plate, covering the pickled radish and cabbage, poured the thick, spicy and sour soup on the fish head, and finally garnished it with shredded green onion, green and red peppers, and a small spoonful of hot oil to stimulate the aroma.
Sichuan cuisine has an aggressive aroma. When it is served in front of the judges, even if they have tasted so many delicious dishes before, the aroma can still make their stomachs start to move.
Let’s first look at the shape. They are both complete, but Lu Peide uses ham and winter bamboo shoots to add flavor, while Yue Ning uses green and red peppers to match the colors. Each has its own merits.
Tasting the food, Lu Peide's braised fish head is rich and mellow, it is an extremely delicate Chinese dish, while Yue Ning's dish is mixed with sour, fragrant, hot and spicy, with the flavor of the underworld. However, just like a fight between masters, the famous and upright sects may not be able to defeat the underworld masters.
Yang Yuhe expressed this, and Xu Lemei couldn't help laughing: "Yue Ning is a direct disciple of a famous and upright sect. He is a direct disciple of the Fuyun Building lineage, but you make him sound like a wild fox practicing Zen."
"That's not what I meant. What I meant was that Ningning's moves are ever-changing..."
"If we can't tell who's better, then let's not do it."
The host announced that this was the end of the day.
Yue Ning was about to change her clothes when Lu Peide caught up with her: "Ms. Yue."
Yue Ning stopped and Lu Peide said, "Thank you!"
"You're welcome. We are all from the mainland. It's only natural for us to help each other." Yue Ning accepted his thanks and was about to leave.
"Ms. Yue, can I talk to you?" Lu Peide seemed to have mustered up the courage.
Yue Ning raised his wrist to check his watch: "It's time for dinner. Shall we go out for dinner together? There's an Indian restaurant here. Let's try it?"
"Okay!" Lu Peide responded happily.
Yue Ning said on a TV show that she likes to try delicacies from all over the world, and viewers wrote to her to recommend various restaurants in Hong Kong. Several viewers recommended this Indian restaurant, which happened to be near the TV station.
The two walked out of the TV station together and were immediately blocked by reporters. Yue Ning waved his hand: "We can't reveal the details! Everyone wait and watch the show!"
After turning two corners and arriving at a small street, I found this Indian restaurant. The Indian proprietress, wearing a sari, spoke fluent Cantonese.
Lu Peide didn't understand Cantonese, and he couldn't understand the menu, so Yue Ning took the lead in ordering the dishes.
“It’s too difficult to come here without knowing Cantonese,” Lu Peide lamented.
"That's for sure. Learning a language is not easy, don't rush it."
Most craftsmen are very proud and would not lower their dignity when they want to ask others for something, especially when they are a stranger to them, so they just start with small talk.
"Although I ran into obstacles everywhere before, fortunately, at least I still have a friend who can help me."
"Yes! The person who came to the competition with you for the first time was your friend, right?" Yue Ning asked.
Lu Peide nodded: "Yes."
The first dish, the Crispy Popcorn Balls, came up. Yue Ning picked one up, scooped a small spoonful of sauce on it, and handed it to him: "Try it."
Lu Peide took it, and Yue Ning took one for himself: "Friends also have their own lives, and they can't always help you. But if you leave at this time, we won't be able to be friends in the future."
"Yeah! It's not easy for everyone."
Lu Peide took a bite of the popo ball. The outer shell was crispy, and inside was soft and glutinous mashed potatoes and some vegetables. Yue Ning added some sauce for him. The taste was very complex, sour, spicy, sweet, and with the refreshing taste of mint. It was a very unique feeling.
The juice overflowed from the corners of his mouth. Lu Peide quickly stuffed the remaining pop balls into his mouth and took a tissue to wipe the juice from the corners of his mouth.
He wiped the corner of his mouth and said, "I can understand, but he left just to trick me."
"Why would he cheat you?" Yue Ning followed his words.
Lu Peide briefly talked about the background of his coming to Hong Kong.
Lu's cuisine was very famous in Beijing during the Republic of China. After the founding of New China, the restaurant was jointly operated by the public and private sectors. His father joined the army and went to the Korean battlefield, and returned injured.
Because of his father, his second uncle and third uncle worked steadily as chefs for state banquets in those years.
"But my father came back from the battlefield in poor health. He passed away when I was six years old. I have been learning from my second uncle, and now my cousins have grown up. Who will take over my second uncle's job in the future has become a problem."
"Everyone has selfish desires?" Yue Ning said.
"No." He shook his head. "My second uncle didn't hide anything from me. In his exchanges with chefs from other places, my second uncle found that the inheritance of our Lu family cuisine is still pretty good. The Fuyun Building in the south has declined. He heard that there is a heritage here in Gangcheng, and his initial idea was to let his son, my cousin, come over to try it out, saying that this is an opportunity. My cousin was already dissatisfied with my second uncle's dedication to teaching me, and when he was asked to come to Gangcheng, he started to make a fuss. He said that my second uncle was determined to let me take over his job. He made a fuss at home and also at my mother's. So I decided to come to Gangcheng."
"Does that mean you're giving up your chance to be a chef for a state banquet?" Yue Ning asked him, "Come to Hong Kong City to gamble on an uncertain future?"
"Yes! I thought too simply. I thought I was the heir of the Lu family, the direct disciple of the state banquet chef, and a craftsman who could travel the world with just a wok. But who knew that when I came here, I couldn't speak Cantonese and ran into obstacles everywhere."
Yue Ning could completely understand what he told him about coming to Hong Kong City.
He has a grandfather and the Qiao family behind him, so he can thrive in Hong Kong.
A few days ago, she received a scholar who came to Hong Kong from the mainland in the 1960s. He talked about how he worked as a laborer in a printing and dyeing factory in the first few years after arriving in Hong Kong, dealing with chemical dyes every day.
So it was normal for Lu Peide, who didn't know Cantonese, to run into obstacles everywhere. He moved from Hong Kong to Macau, and finally only the owner of a noodle restaurant hired him and gave him a place to live. His monthly salary, according to Yue Ning's conversion, was only about five or six hundred Hong Kong dollars.
Lu Peide said he was already very grateful.
Although the noodle shop is small, it has been open for decades. In the early years, the old man was ambitious and wanted to do something big. He joined the catering association, so the catering association would still give them invitations for activities. He knew about this competition and signed up for it, hoping to find an opportunity through the competition.
As expected, he became famous in his first competition.
Then Guo Shijie came to him and asked him to give up the competition and come directly to Yulongxuan, but he refused.
He talked about his arrogance when he first came to Hong Kong City, his experience at Yulongxuan, and also analyzed the problems at Yulongxuan and Guo Shijie's character.
Yue Ning asked him to try the curry chicken and asked, "Do you want to come to Ningyan?"
"Yes. I want to go. I want to learn from you. The difference between you and me is not in who cooks a dish better, but in the breadth of our thinking, our breadth of knowledge, and our ability to integrate knowledge." Lu Peide looked at her, "Is it okay?"
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