Chapter 273: The number of turnovers at Baohua Tower
Yue Ning changed into a chef's uniform and appeared on the field, causing the audience to exclaim in surprise.
"I'm participating in the competition today, but you guys always call me onto the field." Yue Ning said to the audience with a smile.
At this moment, a girl stood up and yelled at the top of her lungs: "Ningning, we love you."
"I love you too." Yue Ning responded with a smile.
Yue Ning walked to the material area to select ingredients. She first filled a large bowl with half a bowl of water, then cut the tofu into small cubes and placed them in the water.
"The dish of Mapo Tofu originated from a restaurant called Chen Xingsheng near Wanfu Bridge in Chengdu during the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty. The restaurant owner had pockmarks on her face, so the guests called her 'Mapo'. The tofu she made was especially delicious, so everyone called it 'Mapo Tofu'."
As Yue Ning spoke, he cut the beef neatly and chopped it into small pieces. He then continued, "Mapo Tofu was originally made with beef, but later people used pork instead for convenience. Today I will make two versions for you, one is pure beef, and the other is a mixture of beef and pork. For this dish, I prefer to mince the meat by hand, not too finely, with a slightly grainy texture. Of course, if you make it at home, you don't have to be so particular, you can just use the minced meat bought from the market."
After chopping the beef and pork, Yue Ning also cut the minced garlic, green onions and fermented black beans.
Water was boiled in the pot. Yue Ning put some salt in the pot, put in the tofu cubes, and added some dark soy sauce, explaining: "Dark soy sauce can add a base color to the tofu."
After blanching the tofu, she added rapeseed oil and lard to the pot, and put in a handful of peppercorns. "If we use minced beef, we have to mix lard and rapeseed oil in half, which is called two-in-one oil."
After taking out the peppercorns, Yue Ning began to stir-fry the chopped green onions, ginger and garlic in the pan, and then added most of the minced beef. "Slow stir-frying over low heat is very particular. Add a little of each ingredient and stir-fry for a while, step by step to slowly stir-fry until the aroma comes out. Don't be in a hurry."
When the minced beef shrank and turned golden, she added chopped black beans and continued to stir-fry. When the black bean aroma came out, she added Pixian bean paste and continued to stir-fry until the aroma came out. Then she added a spoonful of minced garlic and stir-fried it again, then added chili noodles, and after that, added sweet noodle sauce, a little soy sauce, and finally a spoonful of broth.
In the kitchen, the aroma gradually changed from single to complex, and the taste became stronger and stronger.
At this time, Yue Ning put the tofu into the pot. "Tofu Hydrangea has a clear soup, while Mapo Tofu has a strong flavor. The flavor must be fully absorbed into the tofu."
After the tofu had been cooking in the pot for two or three minutes, Yue Ning began to season it, adding a little salt, a little white pepper powder and a little Sichuan pepper powder.
She also scooped up a small spoonful of starch water and poured it into the pot. "Now we are doing the first step of thickening, the purpose is to allow the tofu and the juice to blend completely together."
Then, she pushed the tofu with a spoon and poured in starch, saying, "This is the second step of thickening. It makes the sauce thicker and wraps the tofu tightly."
When adding the next layer of starch, she said: "After this layer of starch, the starch sauce will not fall off. It is different from the method I taught the Japanese sisters. When I taught them, I only used one layer of starch, and the starch sauce was relatively thin, mainly because they learned it to make rice with toppings. Bibimbap needs a thick sauce."
She picked up the small bowl and said, "Sprinkle some chopped green garlic on top."
The green garlic was sprinkled into the pot, and the mapo tofu was tightly wrapped in the sauce. The spicy, fragrant, hot and tasty mapo tofu was served on the table.
Yang Yuhe extended his hand and asked Mr. Jin to taste it first.
Mr. Jin did not refuse, picked up the bowl and spoon, scooped a spoonful of tofu, blew it twice and put it into his mouth. After eating, he said: "The taste is beyond words, the layers of flavor blend together, not at all overpowering the taste, and some minced meat particles are deliberately left, which is very chewy. Each piece of tofu is covered with a lot of sauce, so that the tofu can fully contact with the sauce."
The father and son of the Zhao family were also eating. Mr. Jin was confused by what Zhao Ping'an said before, and just wanted to ask Bao Pi Long who came out of nowhere and said that the other party's cooking skills were not good. He said: "I thought that Mapo Tofu relied on bean paste and pepper to highlight the spicy taste. It's like using a brush as chopsticks, which is not right."
These words made everyone laugh, and the Zhao family father and son looked even uglier.
Yue Ning brought up another plate of Mapo Tofu with a mixture of pork and beef, "Master Zhao, try this version again."
Mr. Jin did not refuse. He scooped up a spoonful and shook it deliberately. The sauce tightly wrapped the tofu, and not even a drop of soup dripped out. "Great."
He smiled and shook his head, but squinted his eyes the moment he took a bite. The fat aroma of pork was richer than that of pure beef, and the fibers of the two kinds of minced meat intertwined between the teeth, making the taste richer. He gave a thumbs up and said, "Xiao Yue, you are amazing!"
Yue Ning picked up the small bowl and scooped a spoonful for Zhao Ping'an, "Master Zhao, try it. This is what I think is the best ratio."
Zhao Ping'an's face turned redder than the red oil on the plate, and his hands were still shaking as he took the small bowl. Yue Ning looked at him and said, "Chef Zhao, you need to keep a calm mind when participating in the competition. Every chef has his own ideas and opinions. As the saying goes, 'When three people walk together, there must be one who can be my teacher. I will choose the good ones and follow them, and change the bad ones.' Regardless of whether you win or lose, if you can learn something in the competition, that is a gain."
Yue Ning didn't care what the Zhao family father and son thought. She just hoped that the teams that came later, those who thought they were the best in the world, claimed to be orthodox, looked down on others, but had no skills, would speak less arrogantly. After all, there are all kinds of birds in a big forest.
The Sichuan cuisine prepared by Zhao's father and son today was average, but it brought back Mr. Jin's memories of Sichuan cuisine, especially the delicious Mapo Tofu made by Yue Ning. He couldn't help but miss Hechuan meat slices, sand-stuffed meat, glutinous rice cake fish, and crispy meat soup...
Several chefs were very interested in his description and looked at Yue Ning in unison. Yue Ning finally decided to treat everyone to Sichuan cuisine she made herself, plus fried blood duck, at Baohua Building tomorrow.
The next day, Yue Ning brought Da Hei to Baohua Building. Most of the shops on their street were closed, so Yue Ning let go of the rope and Da Hei happily visited the neighbors.
Yue Ning killed the duck himself in the back alley. He first bled the duck and added some white vinegar to the blood to prevent the plasma from clotting.
Yue Ning, who was plucking the duck, saw Pierre and the others coming over. They insisted on coming over to watch her cook the blood duck from the beginning.
Pierre and his friends have been to two Ningyan restaurants these past two days. Chunfenglou is considered a high-end restaurant in Hong Kong, but they have never been to the back alley of Baohualou, a traditional restaurant located in a busy neighborhood.
"After we have dinner, I will take you around this area." Yue Ning said to them, "This is a very distinctive area in Hong Kong City."
As Yue Ning was talking, Dahei came running over. Nicholas saw Dahei and greeted him happily. Dahei looked at the group of foreigners and immediately became alert.
"They are all my friends." Yue Ning said to it.
Dahei immediately wagged his tail, sat down and looked up at Nicholas.
Nicholas touched its head, and Dahei rubbed him in a friendly manner. The translator told everyone about Dahei's heroic deeds.
"So amazing?" Nicholas bent down and rubbed Dahei, "You're so cute."
Chang Bo, who ran a dry goods store, came in and called out, "Da Hei."
Dahei stood up and walked towards Changbo. Changbo said to Yue Ning, "Ningning, let Dahei catch the mice for me."
This is an old neighborhood with old buildings, and Dahei is very good at catching rats.
"Here is the dog leash, take it." Yue Ning asked Chang Bo to take the dog leash.
Seeing Dahei leave, Nicholas felt a little lost. He hadn't seen his dog for several days.
The translator told him that Dahei had gone to catch mice. Nicholas said, "I also have a hound. I will bring it here and let Dahei teach it to catch mice."
"Sure, my boyfriend's Teddy was taught by Dahei." Yue Ning had already plucked the duck's feathers and stood up. "Let's go to the kitchen."
The layout of Baohua Building is difficult to change unless it is renovated. Although the layout is old, the kitchen is as clean as the two Ningyan restaurants.
At this time, several uncles and aunts in their fifties and sixties were still doing the cleaning work. They did a basic cleaning after the night market ended at 10 o'clock in the evening. At six o'clock in the morning, the uncles and aunts came over and cleaned the place thoroughly to ensure that there were no dead corners before opening the door to welcome customers.
"I heard that many dishes at Baohualou are priced one-tenth of those at Ningyan. With your requirements, how can it make a profit?" asked Pierre.
He asked yesterday and found out that Ningyan Lufu did not allow ordering, and the price was almost higher than his restaurant after conversion based on the exchange rate. The price of another Ningyan was relatively lower, but it was about the same as the high-end restaurants in Paris. Yue Ning also told him that she had another restaurant line with even lower prices.
"Ningyan only has two receptions a day, lunch and dinner, but Baohualou can receive seven to eight times a day." Yue Ning said, "When the afternoon session opens, you will see the long queues. The Baohualou next to your hotel has a higher turnover rate, and can receive up to 12 batches a day."
The chefs were stunned. Three or four times was considered a popular restaurant, but twelve times? Too scary, right?
"So the profitability of this restaurant is no worse than Ning Yan." Yue Ning greeted the chef who came to work.
He Yunbang is on duty today, and the deputy chef is A Zhong who was brought up by Yue Ning.
"Ningning, please save a few pieces of blood duck for me later." Fan Xiuqin said to her.
"knew."
Yue Ning was chopping the duck into small pieces. Today she was going to show Pierre the whole dish, doing every step herself.
“We’re frying duck now.”
Yue Ning walked to the stove, heated up some oil in a pot, put in some scallions and ginger, and put the duck in the pot and stir-fried it until the water dried up and the aroma spread. Duck oil had already appeared in the pot. Yue Ning added half a pot of water and then white wine to the pot, and the duck soup instantly turned milky white.
"Okay, cook it on low heat for more than half an hour. I'll take you to see my shop." Yue Ning said.
Yue Ning took everyone to visit Baohua Building.
As soon as they entered the lobby area of Baohua Building, everyone found that the layout of Baohua Building was very different from Ningyan. Ningyan was spacious and had partitions, which made it very private, while the tables and chairs in Baohua Building were arranged compactly, with only enough space between two people to pass by each other. Yue Ning introduced: "With such a compact arrangement, there are naturally more tables and chairs. And there is no separation between the adjacent tables and the tables in front and behind, which actually prevents diners from chatting too much and leaving quickly after eating."
Pierre looked through the lobby glass and saw that although the restaurant was not open yet, there were already people sitting outside, some holding menus, and some holding small packages of snacks.
"They are..."
"Baohualou only accepts reservations for the first batch. If a reservation is not made within 15 minutes, the seat will be cancelled. Those who didn't make a reservation can try their luck at this time. If someone else hasn't shown up, they can get a seat. If they still can't get a seat, they will have to wait for the table to turn." Yue Ning explained.
"Oh, my God! This is amazing," Valer exclaimed as he watched more and more people line up.
"There are really a lot of people in Hong Kong." Yue Ning said.
The population of the port city is dense and concentrated in several areas, and the large number of tourists ensures the customer flow of their several stores.
Yanxi smiled and said, "Ning Xiaochu Noodle House in Dotonbori, Osaka, always has a long queue and is very busy."
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