Chapter 303 Dragon Beard Mandarin Fish
The host quickly turned the microphone to Chen Jinying: "Chef Chen, are you going to make yuza beef trotters?"
"Of course not. Do you remember the live broadcast when I was in Taiwan?" Chen Jinying asked.
"Remember."
That time, Ningyan and Desheng Hotel did a live broadcast together, but what does this have to do with cow hooves? Desheng Hotel has never made cow hooves in its live broadcast.
"That time I made a dish of braised bear paw." Chen Jinying said, putting the ox hoof and meat into the pot to cook, "The bear paw was airlifted from Japan to Taiwan, but when I cooked it, I found that the bear paw had a very strong smell of mutton, so I had no choice but to use a lot of spices to cover it up. In fact, the first condition for delicious bear paw is good ingredients, and it must be bear paw without mutton smell. The probability of encountering bear paw with mutton smell is about 50-50, right? Ningning said that it is not worth it to take this chance just to eat a delicious bear paw. But braised bear paw is the most famous dish in Chinese court cuisine. So Chef Lu uses yak hooves to make braised bear paws. I will make this braised bear paw today. Chef Lu made red braised bear paws, and I will make white braised bear paws."
After hearing this, everyone remembered this incident.
On the other side, in front of Chef Zhang were chicken, shrimp, edamame, abalone, duck tongue and other ingredients.
"Chef Zhang, what are you going to do?"
“In Shanghai, everything can be spoiled. I made six kinds of spoiled dishes, which means good luck,” said Chef Zhang cheerfully.
Chen Jinying's side is also filled with various ingredients, which is dazzling.
The most nervous person was not the two chefs competing, but Jose beside Yue Ning. It was his first time to come to Hong Kong, and he knew very little about Chinese food before. This time Yue Ning went to Lyon, and made stewed dishes, and even Vietnamese braised beef with a cooking method similar to French cuisine. Today he really saw the competition between the top Chinese chefs, and the preparations of the two chefs were almost finished.
At this time, the camera focused on Chen Jinying. She was concentrating on processing the sliced fish that had been cut and baked at low temperature to remove moisture. The fish slice was as thin as a cicada's wing, and under the light, it was almost transparent, as if it would break if touched lightly. Chen Jinying carefully picked up the fish slice from the plate and gently placed it in the preheated oil pan.
With a "sizzling" sound, the fish fillet instantly came into contact with the hot oil, and the moisture on the surface evaporated quickly, making a slight crackling sound. The fish fillet quickly changed color in the oil pan, and the originally light color gradually became crystal clear. Chen Jinying gently turned the fish fillet with chopsticks to ensure that every part was evenly heated and fried to perfection.
Chen Jinying quickly fished out the fish fillet and placed it in a colander to drain the oil. The fish fillet was now even more crystal clear, like a piece of transparent glass.
Chen Jinying took Qin pepper powder and Sichuan pepper powder, mixed the two types of pepper powder, sprinkled salt, sesame seeds and pepper powder, and slowly poured a spoonful of white wine in. The wine seeped into the pepper powder and wet it.
She poured rapeseed oil into the pot, waited for the oil temperature to rise, put the onion, ginger, garlic and coriander roots on the chopping board into the oil pot, waited for the onion leaves and coriander leaves to turn brown, Chen Jinying picked up the colander and scooped out the onion, ginger, garlic and coriander. She changed the iron spoon, scooped up a spoonful of boiling hot oil, and hung it above the bowl of chili. The hot oil rushed into the chili powder, and with a "sizzle", the chili powder in the bowl boiled up, and the spicy smell rushed into the nose, making people sneeze.
Chen Jinying picked up the bamboo chopsticks and stirred it quickly. The chili in the bowl gradually calmed down, but became more and more red and attractive.
Chen Jinying took another bowl, added soy sauce, sugar, oyster sauce and other seasonings, and finally added a few spoonfuls of chili oil and stirred evenly.
She placed the drained fish fillets on a plate and poured bright red chili sauce over the crystal clear fish fillets.
She raised her hand to indicate, "The lamp shadow fish fillet is ready."
Chef Zhang has also prepared the food, including braised pig's trotters, chicken, shrimp, edamame, abalone, and duck tongue, making a Jiangnan-style braised platter.
Two cold dishes were served on the table.
Mr. Jin picked up a piece of fish fillet with silver chopsticks and held it up to the light. The glossy spicy sauce flowed on the transparent fish fillet.
“It may seem a bit redundant to praise Chef Chen’s knife skills, but I still have to say that the fish slices are thinner than rice paper and can remain intact after frying. Amazing!”
He put the fish fillet into his mouth. After low-temperature dehydration, the fish fillet was obviously crispy, but the fish meat fibers were very fine, which was different from fried fish.
"Chef Chen's Sichuan cuisine is seasoned with a hint of Northwest flavor. It seems he was influenced by Ningning."
"That's for sure."
As soon as Chef Zhang's glutinous rice wine platter was placed on the judges' table, the refreshing aroma of rice wine and fragrant glutinous rice wafted out. In the six-grid porcelain plate, the glutinous rice trotters were tightly packed, with salted egg yolk embedded in the inner circle, and several other colors were placed in staggered order.
Pierre picked up a piece of pickled chicken with a fork. It tasted fresh and salty with a strong smell of wine and the faint aroma of osmanthus.
"What kind of alcohol is added to it?" Jose asked.
"It's a kind of Chinese grain wine, semi-dry rice wine. The other flavor in it comes from the dregs left after filtering the wine. After the dregs are mixed with spices and seasonings, a kind of juice is precipitated, called 'Zaolu', which is used to cook dishes." Pierre explained to Jose, "It's a popular seasoning in a small area of China, a flavor of summer."
"It does have a special flavor. What do you think would happen if I used this recipe on mussels?" asked Jose.
"It will be delicious, but not everyone can eat it. I also make this dish in the United States, and I use octopus and shellfish," Zhu Liling explained to him.
Jose picked up a duck tongue with his fork: "What is this?"
"Duck's tongue."
Jose stopped, and Zhu Liling said to him, "It's delicious, why don't you try it?"
José was about to eat it when Pierre said, "Since we can eat goose liver and duck blood, why can't we eat duck tongue?"
Seeing that they were discussing happily, the host passed the microphone to them. Jose took it and said, "This one has a direct and strong spicy taste, and the fish is very crisp. This one has a flavor that seeps out slowly, and the more you eat it, the more refreshing it feels. It has the flavor of wine. I think they are both good."
The first cold dish was served, and Jinhua’s second cold dish was soon served. It was still a Shanghai specialty cold dish, Four-Happiness Roasted Gluten.
The dark brown sauce wraps the fluffy roasted bran cubes with peanuts, day lily and black fungus embedded in it. The color alone will increase your appetite.
Mr. Jin scooped up a piece of roasted gluten with a silver spoon. The four-happiness roasted gluten should be dry on the outside and juicy on the inside. It looks fluffy but chewy. The more you chew it, the more delicious it becomes. It should also have a thick sauce with a salty and sweet taste that complement each other.
“Chef Zhang has really mastered this Shanghainese home-cooked cold dish,” said Mr. Jin.
"Thanks!"
Others were about to make some comments when a large white porcelain plate was brought up. The audience were all sitting far away. Just now, they only saw Chen Jinying and Wu Zhihai, master and apprentice, with their heads put together, and they didn't quite see what they were doing. Now that it was fully displayed, the whole venue fell silent in an instant, and the judges stood up and moved closer to take a closer look.
The master and the apprentice actually put together a Peking Opera mask: the eyebrows and eyes outlined with black fungus and egg whites were as sharp as knives, the forehead lines paved with egg yolk crumbs exuded nobility, the jaw was carved from braised beef, the crown was made of lettuce slices and ham slices in green and red, and the most amazing thing was the white face made up of abalone slices, which was lifelike.
"Last year, Chef Zhang Junming made the Big Colorful Phoenix. This year, Chef Chen's apprentice brought out the Peking Opera mask. This is Baohualou!" said Yang Yuhe.
Mr. Jin's silver chopsticks were suspended in the air, but he didn't drop them. "I've been evaluating dishes for half my life, but this is the first time I've seen such a perfect combination of knife skills, plating and cultural heritage!"
Yue Ning had known that the chefs and Paul would be interested in this mask, so she took out a picture album introducing Chinese Peking Opera masks from her bag and handed it to them, while Zhu Liling introduced China's opera culture to them.
As soon as this cold dish came out, there was no doubt that Baohualou was leading by a large margin in the cold dish section.
However, Jinhua Hotel still has a chance, after all, hot dishes and soups account for a higher proportion of the scores.
The two families returned to their respective workbenches. Chef Zhang took out a variety of steamed mushrooms from the steamer and handed them to his young apprentice, who squeezed out the water from the mushrooms and chopped them into fine pieces.
Chef Zhang cut a large piece of winter melon, peeled it and removed the flesh. He then scored one-inch squares on the peeled side and carved a few grooves on the fleshed side, then coated it with starch.
He took the mushroom puree, added starch and seasoning, stirred it evenly, and then stuffed it into the side of the winter melon with the flesh scooped out, so that the mushroom filling and the winter melon were completely fitted together.
The young apprentice had already heated up the oil pan. He handed the winter melon to the young apprentice, who put the winter melon stuffed with mushrooms, mushroom-stuffing side up, in a colander and fry them together with the colander in the oil pan.
Chef Zhang picked up a casserole, poured the water used to steam the mushrooms into it, added seasonings, and placed a bamboo sieve in it. The young apprentice placed the fried winter melon on the bamboo sieve.
Chef Zhang covered the pot and let the winter melon stew in the casserole.
He picked up a mandarin fish, cut off the head and tail and gave it to his young apprentice, who added scallions, ginger and cooking wine to the head and tail and put them into the steamer to steam.
Chef Zhang sliced the meat from both sides of the mandarin fish, removed the skin, sliced the meat diagonally, cut the meat into thin slices, and then cut into shreds.
"Wow! Today both chefs are competing in knife skills!" said Yang Yuhe.
"Chef Zhang is amazing. He dares to cook dragon whisker mandarin fish in such an occasion." Mr. Jin introduced with a smile, "Dragon whisker mandarin fish is a Huaiyang dish. Since it is called dragon whisker, the mandarin fish shreds must be cut as thinly as possible. However, fish shreds are not like meat shreds. We all know that mandarin fish has garlic cloves and the meat will loosen when you pinch it. Mandarin fish shreds need to be cut in oil and it is easy to break. If they break, how can it be called dragon whisker?"
Zhu Liling translated these words to the chefs. They are all experts, so who doesn't know the difficulty here?
Chef Zhang cut the mandarin fish into shreds, and his apprentice spread a piece of egg skin for him, which he also cut into shreds, and then cut the ham and green pepper into thin shreds. Finally, he prepared a handful of silver sprouts with the heads and tails removed.
At this time, the host took a sewing needle, picked up a piece of ham, and passed the ham through the eye of the needle.
Jose couldn't believe it: "It's amazing."
Chen Jinying was also cutting into strips. The host picked up a strip cut by Chen Jinying and easily passed it through the eye of the needle.
Pierre said, "I remember the first time I came here, one of your chefs made noodles as thin as a hair, right?"
"Yes." Yue Ning nodded.
"Chef Chen, are you going to make the classic Shandong dish, scallop balls?" Yang Yuhe introduced.
Chen Jinying nodded: "Yes."
Wu Zhihai chopped the shrimp paste and gave the shrimp paste and shrimp granules to Chen Jinying. Chen Jinying added scallion and ginger water, egg white and starch to the shrimp paste and beat in one direction. The shrimp paste gradually became sticky and shiny in the bowl. Finally, shrimp granules were added to make the taste more layered.
After stirring, Chen Jinying repeatedly beat the shrimp paste on the wall of the basin. When the shrimp paste showed a gelatinous and transparent texture, she took a ball of shrimp paste, squeezed out a shrimp ball from her tiger's mouth, took the shrimp ball with a spoon and put it into a plate mixed with scallops, ham, winter bamboo shoots, and shredded mushrooms. When the shrimp balls were done, she rolled the shrimp balls one by one with her hands, and various colored filaments stuck to the shrimp balls like snowflakes, and a furry hydrangea came out.
At this time, Wu Zhihai had already boiled the water in the pot until it was about to boil. She put a plate of hydrangeas into the steamer and steamed the hydrangeas at this temperature so that the shrimp meat inside would remain fresh and juicy.
Over there, Chef Zhang was preparing to fry the shredded mandarin fish. He had just heated the pan and cooled the oil. He heated the pan, cooled it, and waited until the oil temperature reached 50%. He then slid the shredded fish into the pan. At first, he waited quietly for the starch on the shredded fish to completely solidify and wrap around the shredded fish. Then he used long chopsticks to gently spread it. He scooped up the fried shredded fish with a colander.
Leave some oil in the pot, add the scallion and ginger and stir-fry until fragrant, then remove the scallion and ginger, then add the shredded ham, stir-fry with the spoon, then add the shredded green pepper and stir-fry again, add the shredded egg skin and silver sprouts, stir-fry twice, and finally add the shredded fish, use chopsticks to cut a few times to mix the shredded fish and the other shredded ingredients, and pour in the water starch mixed with chicken broth and seasoning.
As soon as the water starch entered the pot, it immediately solidified into glass starch, wrapped around the fish shreds, and then drizzled with oil.
The apprentice placed the steamed mandarin fish head and tail on the plate and decorated the two sides with flowers carved from cucumbers. Chef Zhang carefully piled the fish shreds in the middle and finally sprinkled them with roasted river shrimp roe.
He raised his hand to indicate, "Dragonbeard Mandarin Fish, done."
At this time, at Baohua Building, Wu Zhihai moved the steamed hydrangeas into a plate with a border, and Chen Jinying used the broth as the base in the pot, added chicken oil to make a sauce, and poured it on the scallop hydrangeas, and their dish was ready.
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