Chapter 57 Food Safety
Yue Ning first soaked a piece of dough in boiling water. The R&D person said that wheat gluten was added. This is actually a protein extracted from wheat, commonly known as gluten. After adding it, it can increase the chewiness of the noodles.
The noodles were scattered. Yue Ning picked up one and put it on a plate to taste it. "It's still a little off. This recipe is still too soft. It falls apart easily when stir-fried. It doesn't have that dry and chewy texture when eaten."
This means that another wide noodle dish with the same recipe will not work either.
Another recipe is to add a whole egg like bamboo noodles. After soaking, it is still quite smooth. Yue Ning drained the noodles and said, "Soak the other piece of dough too."
Yue Ning stood in front of the stove, which was either a high-powered stove like those in a restaurant or a gas stove like those used at home.
Since it is called instant noodles, you can eat it by soaking, boiling or frying.
According to the standards of tea restaurants, bean sprouts and chives should be added to the fried noodles, but they were just testing the noodles and did not include these steps.
Yue Ning heated the wok and tore open the first oil bag, which was a mixture of chicken oil, lard and scallion oil in a semi-solidified state. The oil melted immediately after entering the wok and an aromatic aroma wafted out. He poured in the noodles and stirred them with chopsticks, just like dry-fried beef noodles. The dry aroma was fried out and the moisture on the surface of the noodles was dried, so that the fried noodles would taste good.
After about half a minute, she flipped the noodles with chopsticks, frying both sides, and then opened the seasoning packet.
The seasoning packet contains the dripping oil for stir-fried beef noodles, as well as sauces for fried chicken and pork, which is why this instant noodle is called soy sauce chicken noodles.
After adding this seasoning, the noodles are colored and shiny red, just like the aroma of stir-frying in a restaurant. This is actually the caramel aroma of brown sugar boiled in dripping oil. It can't be compared with the stir-fry of the chef in the restaurant, but it is more than enough to be used as a seasoning for instant noodles.
After the two portions of noodles were fried, Yue Ning tasted them and said, "I think the thinner ones are better."
"But adding eggs made the cost too high," said the R&D manager. "So we tried this formula again. Try it!"
"good!"
Yue Ning fried the last two pieces of noodles. The noodles were chewy and elastic, and there was nothing wrong with them except that they lacked the egg aroma of the second portion.
If there are such good noodles, why not bring them out first?
Yue Ning took out a type of noodles that was currently on sale from the window and turned the packaging over. She had never paid much attention to the packaging of food in this era. How could the ingredient list be so clean?
Yue Ning turned around and asked Cui Huiyi: "Sister Huiyi, can I see the recipe?"
Cui Huiyi said to the manager, "Give the formula to Miss Yue."
The manager was a little embarrassed, Yue Ning smiled and said, "Sister Huiyi, if it's embarrassing, forget it. You can use the recipe for this instant noodle. But Baohualou will not take advantage of it. And I don't want the formula licensing fee or future usage fees."
"Ningning, what do you mean?" Cui Huiyi was anxious.
"I make noodles myself, adding gelatinized starch, gluten, eggs, and even some other things to increase the stability of the noodles and make them smoother. But if you use borax to increase the chewiness of the noodles, if you use ethylene oxide to sterilize?" Yue Ning laughed, "Then I'd better not get involved, lest I get burned one day."
Cui Huiyi glanced at the manager and said to Yue Ning, "Go to my office."
Cui Huiyi said with a sullen face as she led Yue Ning out of the test kitchen, went up to the second floor and entered the office. She said to her secretary, "Ask the warehouse to bring me the ingredient requisition list from the nearest workshop, and also bring up the list of materials and requisitions purchased by the test kitchen."
Cui Huiyi took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat off her forehead. Then she remembered something and said, "Ningning, coffee or tea?"
"Tea."
Before Cui Huiyi could make tea for Yue Ning, a man in his sixties walked in: "Second Miss, what happened?"
"I've been forcing the R&D department to develop noodles suitable for lo mein these days. This morning, Lin Lekang from the R&D department asked me to try this new noodle. I tried it and all three noodles are good. I asked Miss Yue to come and order them. Miss Yue wanted to see the formula, and Lin Lekang stopped talking." Cui Huiyi said, "I suspect that something messy was added to the noodles."
"We have been trying over and over again. We couldn't make noodles like that without eggs. If we used eggs, the cost would go up and we couldn't compete in the market. That's why we use the current recipe for Yuanzai noodles." The man thought for a moment and said, "The workshop has not received any notice to change the recipe and has not made any changes."
A man in work clothes knocked on the door, holding a stack of documents in his hand: "Mr. Cui, these are the documents you wanted."
Cui Huiyi almost ran over, took the list and began to look through it.
Cui Huiyi breathed a sigh of relief after reading it. Yue Ning asked, "If you don't want to reveal this noodle recipe because I'm an outsider, I can understand. Then check it yourself first."
"There's nothing I can't tell you. Fortunately it's you today, otherwise, if something really happened..." Cui Huiyi hung up the phone, "Le Kang, come to my office."
Cui Huiyi called the R&D manager over and introduced him: "This is the director of our factory, and also an old man in my grandfather's care, Mr. Peng Da'an."
"Hello, Mr. Peng."
"Hello, Miss Yue!"
Finally, they waited for the R&D manager, who stepped into the office and said, "Mr. Cui."
"Can I take out the prescription now?" Cui Huiyi said, "Le Kang, I dug you out. You know what I'm thinking, right?"
"Boss Cui, actually many noodles out there are added with borax. The benefits of adding borax..."
"The advantage is that borax can make noodles delicate, flexible, elastic, and not easy to spoil." Yue Ning said, "What about the disadvantages? You are in the food business, you must know it, right?"
"You want a good bullet, a low price, and I need to come up with a solution right away." Lin Lekang wiped his face and said, "Boss Cui, I'm sorry! I can't continue to be the R&D manager. I resign."
"I agree." Cui Huiyi agreed immediately and called the Labor and Personnel Department in front of him, "Lisa, Lin Lekang from the R&D department is here to settle the salary. In addition, he will be paid an extra six months' salary as compensation."
Lin Lekang looked at her in surprise. Cui Huiyi picked up the lists and said, "Are you retreating to advance? Do you think I will keep you if I go back to the mainland to set up a factory? Sorry, I dare not. In your R&D department, there is no expenditure on buying borax. I dare not think that as the manager of the R&D department, the people who started making Yuanzai noodles with me would cheat when I was running between the mainland and Hong Kong. What should I do? It's a matter of principle. Fortunately, it didn't cause a big disaster and didn't damage the reputation of Li De. We parted ways in peace."
Yue Ning stood up: "Sister, you probably still have a meeting to attend. I'm leaving first. There's still dinner!"
"Ningning, I'm sorry!" Cui Huiyi spread her hands helplessly, "I'll arrange a car to take you there!"
"OK."
Yue Ning went downstairs and got in Li De's car to leave. It is really difficult to have a high moral bottom line in the catering industry. There are too many temptations and too little profit, and people gradually lose their humanity. Fortunately, Cui Huiyi is not such a person.
Back at Baohua Building, Yue Baohua asked her, "How is it? Did you find out?"
The sample violated the rules and did not cause any major social damage. It had been dealt with internally. Yue Ning did not want anyone else to know about this, not even his grandfather. Don't put your hope of keeping your mouth shut on others.
"No, the noodles are still not chewy enough."
"What about eggs?"
"The noodles with eggs are okay. Is there a recipe for bamboo noodles? But the cost is too high." Yue Ning said to Yue Baohua.
"Our seasoning tastes pretty good, let them try it slowly!" Yue Ning said, "Grandpa, let's prepare for the dinner market!"
"good!"
Yue Ning changed her clothes and went into the kitchen. Soon the orders came in like a stream. She didn't think about it anymore. She believed that a smart girl like Cui Huiyi could solve this problem.
It was past eight in the evening, the peak of the evening market had passed, and Yue Ning felt a little more relaxed. She picked up the cup and was drinking water when Sister Hua walked in quickly and said, "Uncle Hua, the people from the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department are here."
Yue Ning went over and took the pot from Yue Baohua, and Yue Baohua walked out quickly.
Ever since the incident at Sheng Wah Building, the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department has stepped up random inspections of restaurants and hotels like these, and has been announcing the results of the inspections on television, radio and newspapers.
Food safety has always been a big problem. Grandpa and I share the same idea. These days, she has brought out many hygiene management measures from her previous life. Baohua Building can withstand inspections, and we welcome inspections.
Yue Ning had just put out the dishes when Sister Hua came in: "Ning Ning, go to your grandfather's office."
Yue Ning gave the rest of the list to Asong.
"What's the matter?" Yue Ning asked Sister Hua.
"I don't know. Uncle Hua asked me to call you."
Yue Ning went up to the second floor and saw two people in Grandpa's office. She greeted them: "Hello!"
"Ms. Yue, we are here to investigate the illegal addition of borax by Lide Foods."
"Lide Food adds borax?" Although Yue Ning was at the scene, he didn't think that a sample would be so serious. And wasn't it too fast?
"Today, someone made an anonymous call to HTV's Citizen Caller program, saying that Lide Foods violated regulations by adding borax. They also said that you were also at the scene."
"Can I see your investigative qualifications?" In previous lives, many wealthy people were defrauded of a lot of money by fake experts, so it's better to be careful.
The two showed their IDs, and one of them said, "Ms. Yue, can you answer my question now?"
He called the TV station and mentioned himself, obviously wanting to make a big deal out of it.
Yue Ning told the truth: "I was at the scene, and this was a collaboration between Lide Food and me to develop soy sauce chicken noodles. I was not satisfied with the taste of the current round noodle cakes, so I asked them to develop a more chewy cake. Today I went to test three cakes, and I found that one of them had a problem, so I asked to see all the ingredients. Ms. Cui Huiyi decided to investigate, and when I was there, from the data she checked, there was no involvement of marketed products. This is all I know."
The two investigators asked some more questions. Yue Ning told them that she had just arrived in Hong Kong and it was her first time to go to Lide Food, so the information she could provide was really limited.
Yue Ning and Yue Baohua saw the two off. She was very popular. The group named the person who called the TV station and said she was at the scene.
Reporters rushed in, and the microphone poked at her lips: "Ms. Yue, is it true that Lide Foods used illegal additives?"
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