Chapter 287 Another Game
In the last episode of "MasterChef Competition", an Australian team competed against a Cantonese restaurant in the UK.
Two Chinese Australians cooked Chinese food, serving curry chicken, curry shrimp, curry beef and curry pork. The British Cantonese restaurant opposite had a Chinese and a foreigner team serving sweet and sour shrimp, sweet and sour chicken, sweet and sour beef and sweet and sour pork. This duel was like a dragon meeting a phoenix, and in the end the Chinese and foreign "phoenix" team won.
That would be fine, but the last match was between Baohualou and Dongfenglou. The chefs of Dongfenglou were quite capable, but the chef who represented Baohualou was Chen Jinying! She was one of the strongest chefs in Baohualou, but in the end Dongfenglou was eliminated.
The weak teams advanced and the strong ones were eliminated, which made the audience so angry that they almost smashed the TV and even called to threaten HTV.
In this episode, HTV released a preview early, saying that Yue Ning would come to watch the game; and last night there was a news report that Yue Ning and Cai Zhiyuan went to pick up an old lady, who was known as the "Queen of Chinese Cuisine" in the United States and was the first person to promote high-end Chinese cuisine in the United States. The news detailed the story of the "Queen of Chinese Cuisine", mentioning that the contestant this time was her granddaughter, and the other team was Yufenglou, one of the eight major buildings in Beijing. After hearing this news, the audience's emotions finally calmed down a little, but they still felt sorry for Dongfenglou.
The two teams were ready. Yue Ning and Cai Zhiyuan accompanied Ms. Zhu Liling into the venue and took their seats in the audience seats.
Sun Yuke has a typical sunny Chinese American face: healthy honey-colored skin, two rows of white teeth when she smiles, and a particularly cheerful expression. She introduced her partner, an African-American chef, saying that this was a dishwasher hired by her grandmother when she opened the store. She was a single mother, and this mother had no choice but to bring her child here. When the child grew up, he learned cooking skills in their kitchen. This young man, whose English name is Louis and Chinese name is Liu Yi, is an extremely outstanding chef in the store, so she chose him as her partner to participate in the competition.
Master Zhou's introduction was very brief, and he only gave his own name and the name of his assistant. Yang Yuhe had to add for him: "We all know that the Manchus had eight banners, and old Beijingers like to use the word 'eight' to describe it, like the Eight Great Residences, Eight Great Buildings, and Eight Great Hutongs. 'Eight' is an imaginary number here, but Yufenglou is a real famous building in Beijing. In particular, their stewed mullet eggs are recorded in the Suiyuan Food List, and it is one of the signature dishes of Beijing Yufenglou."
Master Zhou smiled with a fat face and held up a plate on the table: "There are mullet eggs. I will make this dish today."
"We'll wait," Mr. Jin replied.
Master Zhou happily took his apprentice to pick out ingredients: a big elbow, a piece of pork belly, and a handful of duck feet. When he saw a bunch of red hawthorns, his eyes immediately lit up, and he quickly took a small basket and picked up a bunch of ingredients.
On the other side, Sun Yuke also selected the ingredients, and the two teams began to get busy.
Lao Zhou asked his apprentice to remove the seeds from the hawthorns, and then blanched the meat and bones. He added the bones to the old hen to make soup, and put the pork belly and elbow into another pot, and poured in the old soup he brought. Since only three ingredients were allowed to be brought to the competition, he had to concentrate the marinade in the old soup in advance. Ever since Yue Ning gave him the authentic Suzhou-style meat recipe, Yufenglou has divided it into two pots: the original Suzhou-style meat was named "Lao Hou Braised Meat" after his master, and a new pot was opened to sell authentic Suzhou-style meat. Unexpectedly, the number of customers eating the original braised meat did not decrease, but the authentic Suzhou-style meat was spread from one person to ten, and from ten to a hundred, and the number of diners increased.
The head chef of the building, Lao Dong, patted him on the shoulder and joked, "Old Zhou, at this rate, we should just set up two pots at the door of Yufeng Building to sell meat!"
He could only chuckle and say, "Old Dong, I have to thank your second brother for this Su Zao Rou. It was your second brother who gave me the opportunity. He allowed me to go to Shanghai to participate in the selection, where I met that girl and got this recipe."
When he put the meat on the stew, his apprentice had already peeled the hawthorns. He sent his apprentice to deal with the duck feet while he boiled the hawthorns and made hawthorn cakes.
On the other side, Liu Yi handed the blanched and cleaned duck to Sun Yuke, who took out the prepared secret soup and put the duck into the soup to simmer over low heat. After stewing the duck, she began to process the yellow croaker: she only took two pieces of fish meat, removed the bones from the abdomen, and then cut the fish meat into chopstick-thick, one-inch-long fish fillets, adding seasoning and egg white to coat them.
The host interviewed Sun Yuke and asked her what she wanted to do.
“Yellow croaker and bean curd rolls. My grandfather was from Ningbo and this was his favorite dish. It later became my grandmother’s specialty and now it’s the most popular dish in our restaurant.” Like most Americans, Sun Yuke expresses his emotions openly.
After starching the yellow croaker, she took out a piece of meat that was eight parts fat and two parts lean, cut it into small dices, blanched it, washed it, added half a bowl of water, green onion, ginger and cooking wine, and boiled lard over low heat.
One family was boiling lard, while the other was mashing the cooked hawthorns into a paste, sifting it and putting it into syrup to boil. After boiling it into hawthorn paste, it was poured into a square plate.
When Lao Zhou finished making the hawthorn cake, his apprentice had already deboned the duck feet, so he took over and continued processing: he braised the duck feet in white sauce and prepared a bowl of sauce and put it aside. He also had a bunch of vegetables in his basket, so he and his apprentice cut, carved, and sliced them one by one.
The preparations were complicated, and Ms. Zhu took the opportunity to talk to Yue Ning about future cooperation.
While having dinner last night, she learned that half of the employees in Yue Ning's restaurant came to Hong Kong from the mainland for further studies. At first, she didn't quite understand why Yue Ning wanted to run the restaurant as a training school.
In her opinion, whether Chinese or foreign chefs, most of them pass down their skills from generation to generation. Even if some are more open-minded, they are generally reluctant to teach others easily. Just like the restaurants in Beijing back then, more than 90% were controlled by Shandong people. Yufenglou belonged to the Jiaodong Fushan Gang, and the roast duck chefs were from the Rongcheng Gang. The roast duck chefs of Quanjude were all from Rongcheng, and their skills were passed down from generation to generation. She spent a lot of money to buy the roast duck recipe from a roast duck chef.
However, after Yue Ning revealed the secret of crispy skin of crispy chicken to her last night, she also told her the recipe of crispy skin water for roast duck in her own restaurant.
After listening to her, Yue Ning said that the crispy skin water could be slightly adjusted, but the key was still the temperature control during roasting. He then wrote a detailed roast duck recipe and the store's glass crispy skin recipe for her.
She couldn't help but ask Yue Ning why he was so generous. Yue Ning said, "The roast duck recipe was improved by a chef from Beijing. Although my father and I developed the glass crispy skin recipe, many restaurants in Guangdong and Hong Kong are using it now."
She also said that if there weren't so many foreign chefs, it would have been difficult for her to revive Baohualou in just one and a half years. It was these foreign chefs who supported Baohualou, which was in crisis, and gave her the confidence to open Ningyan. The open communication between foreign chefs and local chefs also greatly accelerated the training of chefs. Today, not only have her three uncles become top chefs, but several of their apprentices have also made it onto the chef list.
"The geographical location of Gangcheng is unique, and it is convenient for chefs to come for training. But if I want to do the same there, it may not be that easy," said Ms. Zhu with emotion.
"It definitely won't be easy." Yue Ning agreed.
"How about we train together? You train for two years, and I train for another year?" Zhu Liling reacted as soon as she said this, "Ningning, I may have thought too simply. All the chefs trained here for two years are great chefs. If they come to me, wouldn't I be taking advantage?"
"You work so hard to promote Chinese food, why can't I let you take advantage of this?" Yue Ning looked at her with a smile, "It also gives these chefs another chance to make money."
"Really?" Zhu Liling asked.
Yue Ning nodded: "I called Pierre and Lucas last night. They all know you. They were very happy to hear that such an influential restaurant like Fuyuan is going to join. Now there is a restaurant in Japan that also wants to join, and there is another one in Spain that is applying. When the time comes, you fill out the form, I will be the recommender, and then arrange two members to review it. After you join, when other Chinese restaurants apply to join the alliance, one of us can review it, so as to avoid communication problems with foreigners."
Suddenly, a thick aroma of stew lingered in Yue Ning's nose. This smell was different from the ordinary five-spice flavor. The flavors were layered and blended very skillfully. She took another deep breath: "This smell is so comfortable."
"Really? I kept tweaking it, adding nutmeg and dried orange peel. That's how it came to be."
A richer aroma spread out. Sun Yuke opened the lid of the casserole, and the dark brown marinade was bubbling on the stove, with white mist rising. She picked up the duck that had been braised to a bright red color, and the rich aroma of the marinade instantly filled the whole place.
She placed the duck on a grid to drain the water, then heated up the oil pan, fried the bean curd rolls wrapped with yellow croaker fillets, and then placed them on a plate. According to Yue Ning's common sense, the bean curd rolls were already done, but Sun Yuke mixed a bowl of sauce with white sugar and ketchup.
"In order to cater to the tastes of foreigners, our restaurant has to be cliché and end up preparing ketchup-flavored sauce." Ms. Zhu whispered to Yue Ning.
Yue Ning shook his head: "I've also been told that the Mapo Tofu made by the Japanese is not authentic, the seasoning is too sweet, and the sauce is too thick. But food is for people to eat, and when it enters a place, it must be improved to suit the local taste."
At this time, the host announced that the cold dishes could be served.
Yue Ning saw Sun Yuke pouring ketchup on the bean curd rolls. The red sauce wrapped around the golden fried yellow croaker bean curd rolls, and paired with the green cucumber plate, the color combination was very eye-catching. Her second cold dish was the husband and wife lung slices: pig ears, beef tendons, tripe, beef tongue, lettuce slices, carrot slices, and cucumber slices were placed on the plate in an orderly manner, arranged in a fan shape, and finally drizzled with red oil.
Two cold dishes from Yufenglou were also served: one was mustard duck feet made by Chef Zhou, with the yellow duck feet surrounded by emerald green lettuce; the other was hawthorn and snow pear shreds, with the red hawthorn cake shreds contrasting with the white snow pear shreds, and the colors were also harmonious.
Yue Ning felt that the dish presentation of both teams was acceptable, but the audience and judges had already been "spoiled" by the dishes of Baohualou and Lu Peide's teams in last year's competition. After all, everyone had seen the stunning dish presentation like "Da Cai Feng", so what was in front of them could only be said to be mediocre and did not cause any waves.
On the judges' bench, Mr. Jin picked up a piece of yellow croaker bean curd skin roll and put it into his mouth, and a look of surprise immediately appeared on his face. After he swallowed it, he quickly said to Yang Yuhe: "It tastes surprisingly good! Come and try it!"
Yang Yuhe took over the conversation: "The spiciness of this Fuqi Feipian has also been reduced. It is a little different from the spicy taste of Baohualou, but the taste is also very good."
They both took a sip of water and then took turns tasting it.
As special guests, Yue Ning and Ms. Zhu were also tasting the dishes. As soon as Ms. Zhu put the mustard duck feet into her mouth, she was choked by the stimulation of the direct rush to her nose, and her eyes turned red, but she couldn't help but eat two bites: "The overbearing power of this Jiaodong mustard, coupled with the soft and chewy duck feet, tastes so good! This is not the yellow mustard sauce bought in the market. I can't even make a yellow mustard dumpling in the United States."
"This is our Yufenglou recipe, fermented yellow mustard." Chef Zhou said with a smile, "Try my hawthorn and snow pear shreds."
Ms. Zhu took a sip of water, changed her chopsticks and picked up the hawthorn and snow pear shreds. She nodded and said, "This dish is sweet and sour, refreshing and refreshing, especially when served with mustard duck feet. The two dishes are completely different, which reflects the essence of Shandong cuisine, 'one dish, one flavor'."
She looked at Yue Ning, who said, "You have done your best to strike a balance between preserving Chinese food traditions and adapting to local tastes."
The two restaurants each have their own characteristics, and the audience also has their own preferences. As the scores were being tallied, the audience waiting for the results suddenly smelled a scent of meat in the air. The aroma was not strong, but it had a "spirituality" that went straight into people's noses.
"What's that smell?" someone couldn't help but ask.
"I stewed Suzhou-style meat." Master Zhou chuckled.
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