Chapter 48 Chapter 48
Several apprentices under Chef Fang were somewhat puzzled as to why their master took the initiative to be a chef at the Jiang family. To be honest, being a chef at a wealthy family was less stressful than working in a restaurant.
But they are apprentices and Fang the chef is the master, so naturally there is not much to say.
As for learning the new recipes of the Jiang family, although several apprentices were there, they didn't pay much attention to it until they had a meal of the new dishes cooked by Chef Fang.
Even when diners taste delicious dishes, they sometimes don’t realize how big the difference is between them. Only chefs know the difference between dishes.
It would have taken quite a while to make an iron pot, but fortunately the blacksmith shop had accumulated a lot of experience when making pots for Jiang Huai, and Chunfenglou gave enough money, so soon, several large iron pots were made.
During these few days, several apprentices learned two dishes from Chef Fang, which can be used as the signature dishes of Chunfenglou.
Chef Fang has not only been teaching his apprentices these days. After all, cooking requires speed and a good control of the heat, but his apprentices are not novices. After a little teaching, they will know what to do. After that, they will practice on their own. Chef Fang only needs to taste the food to judge the heat and taste. His main focus is still on researching new dishes.
After all, he was hired by Jiang Huai, so naturally he had to focus on his current job.
This research gave Jiang Huai some inspiration. Although he didn't have any new ingredients, he could try to make some changes based on some of the ones he had eaten. Jiang Huai came up with quite a few dishes, mainly based on chicken, duck, and some of the most common vegetables. He could clearly describe the steps for the dishes he still remembered, but for some that he couldn't remember clearly, he could only describe the most common processing steps: heat the pan with cold oil, sauté the scallions and ginger until fragrant, then add the ingredients to stir-fry or boil them...
Although not every dish needs to be prepared this way, it gave Chef Fang some inspiration, allowing him to add some cooking techniques when cooking the ingredients, and soon made several new dishes that suited Jiang Huai's taste.
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"How about finding another chef?" Xiao Jingzhao asked when he saw that Jiang Huai liked the new dishes prepared by Chef Fang so much.
It takes time to research new dishes. If there is only Chef Fang, the research will be slow and it may take several days to come up with a new dish. No matter how much Jiang Huai likes a dish, he cannot eat it all the time. One chef is not enough.
"No, no, one is enough." Jiang Huai shook his head, and it was difficult to recruit a proper chef nowadays.
"Can't recruit a proper chef?" Xiao Jingzhao heard Jiang Huai muttering in a low voice and repeated it in confusion. He had been busy with military affairs these days, and also interacted with some people who suddenly wanted to bribe him. He had no time to go back to the Jiang family. Even if he came back, he would have a quick meal and spend the rest of the time with Jiang Huai. He didn't know what had happened recently.
Jiang Huai realized that what he said was heard by Xiao Jingzhao, and his face turned slightly red. To be honest, it was he who caused this matter.
Although Jiang Huai's poaching of Chef Fang was not a big deal, the restaurants in Anyuan Prefecture were quite familiar with the situations of the chefs and naturally noticed this matter. After confirming that Chef Fang would not return to Chunfeng Tower after being poached, these restaurants were not only glad that Jiang Huai did this and defeated an opponent for them, but they were also more wary of Jiang Huai, fearing that Jiang Huai would not think that he had enough chefs and would poach more from them.
Chunfenglou also took advantage of this time to renovate because Chef Fang had to teach his apprentices how to cook and there was no suitable chef in the building. This made Chunfenglou seem even weaker in the eyes of other restaurants.
No one expected that after several of Chef Fang's apprentices came out of the Jiang family, Chunfeng Tower reopened. On the opening day, other restaurants were not affected at all. In fact, because they divided up the business of Chunfeng Tower in the past few days, their business was quite prosperous.
But when his cooking skills became popular, new and old customers came one after another, and Chunfenglou's business was booming. He even had to turn away some customers and postpone their reservations to tomorrow, or even the day after tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, because he really couldn't accommodate all the guests. The big iron pots in the kitchen were about to be burned through, and several apprentices felt unprecedented tiredness. After cooking, their arms were so tired that they could not even lift them.
It only took two days for the owner of Chunfeng Tower to go from being depressed to being overjoyed. His attitude towards his apprentices also changed 180 degrees. He was originally a little angry with them because of Chef Fang's departure, but now he is just glad that all of Chef Fang's apprentices are in Chunfeng Tower. Otherwise, if other restaurants also knew this new dish, how much business would be taken away from Chunfeng Tower.
Now, Chunfenglou’s food business is unique.
Chunfenglou is doing very well, but other restaurants are having a hard time. Even if some diners are unwilling to wait because Chunfenglou doesn't serve them, the money they spend on meals in other restaurants cannot be compared with that of Chunfenglou, not to mention that there are fewer people. This makes many restaurants feel uncomfortable and jealous.
Of course, jealousy is one thing, but the most important thing is to find out what Chunfenglou’s new dishes are like and why they attract so many diners.
After all, although Chunfenglou was the most famous restaurant in Anyuan Prefecture in the past, other restaurants were not bad either. There were always some diners who were regular customers of their own restaurant, but this new dish broke this situation.
In fact, stir-frying is indeed useful, but some diners come because it is delicious, and some also come because they are following the trend. However, these restaurants do not know this reason, but stir-frying really has such a strong charm.
In order to find out what cooking is all about, the restaurant in Anyuan Prefecture sent out its best chefs to investigate. However, Chunfeng Restaurant’s business was so popular that even if they wanted to eat it as soon as possible, they could only wait a few days.
Originally, for the sake of their own face, the chefs wanted to ask people to buy food from the restaurant and bring it out, but they heard from others that one characteristic of stir-fried dishes is that they have to be eaten immediately. Once they are simmered or cold, the taste will be much worse. In order to analyze this so-called stir-fried dish more quickly, the chefs shamelessly went in.
After entering, I faced the gaze of the waiter at Chunfenglou and ordered a dish of stir-fried dishes to try. I was so amazed that I wanted to replicate it.
Since everyone has good cooking skills, it is not impossible to force a replica. It's just that a dish can only be made 60% to 70% similar in appearance, but the taste is quite different. Such a dish is actually an improvement compared to the previous one. If this is something they have researched themselves, these chefs will feel that they have made great progress.
But this dish is a replica and is so different from the original. Even if the restaurant owner thinks it can be put up temporarily, the chefs are unwilling to do so. After all, doing so is fooling the diners. The diners will find the problem as soon as they eat it, and their reputation will be ruined.
As long as the reputation is there, the worst that can happen is that you can't stay in this restaurant and have to move to another one. But if the reputation is ruined, it will not be easy to change restaurants, and you will be controlled by the current restaurant. No one wants to take this risk.
The chefs were unwilling. If only one or two of them were unwilling, perhaps some restaurants could force them. But if all of them were unwilling, the restaurants did not dare to force them too much. After all, if they forced them too much, the chefs might run away like Chef Fang did. They might run to other restaurants, or even to Jiang Huai's side.
This idea gave the people in other restaurants a shock. They suddenly remembered that Chunfenglou became famous because Chef Fang went to the Jiang family and got the job of cooking. But for a wealthy family like the Jiang family, one chef was not enough. They had to recruit a few more chefs. It just so happened that their head chef could be sent over. At worst, they could imitate Chunfenglou and have the apprentice learn new dishes and come back to support the restaurant.
"Could they all be here?" Xiao Jingzhao immediately understood after hearing what Jiang Huai said.
Jiang Huai nodded. When a chef came at the beginning, Jiang Huai thought that only one chef was enough, but it was not impossible to add a new chef. However, after trying the dishes, he found that the dishes made by the new chef were as delicious as those made by Fang Chef. Jiang Huai was a little surprised. Has Anyuan Mansion got another good chef?
Then, before Jiang Huai could ask for the other party's identity information, Chef Fang finished studying a dish and came over and revealed the other party's identity. When he learned that the other party was the head chef of a big restaurant in Anyuan Prefecture, Jiang Huai realized that something was wrong.
But he didn't think too much about it at the time. In the next few days, when more and more chefs came to apply for the job, he vaguely guessed the reason why these people came.
After consideration, Jiang Huai rejected all of them. After all, he had just taught Fang the kitchen and cooperated with Chunfeng Tower. If he cooperated with these restaurants without any regard for others, he might earn more and conduct research faster, but there would also be more trouble. So many restaurants would have to compete with each other, and it would be difficult to compete in other places. In the end, they would have to come to him to compete. Jiang Huai didn't want to get entangled in these things at all.
It’s just that Jiang Huai didn’t want to get entangled in these things, but things were developing and changing too quickly.
Jiang Huai and Xiao Jingzhao let it go after talking about these things. Who knew that the next day, most of the restaurants in Anyuan Prefecture submitted visiting cards, and the owner of Chunfeng Tower even came to visit on his own initiative.
"You mean, the restaurants in Anyuan Prefecture want to unite and turn stir-fried dishes into Anyuan Prefecture's specialty dishes?" After hearing what the owner of Chunfeng Tower said, Jiang Huai almost thought he was hallucinating.
The owner of Chunfenglou nodded. He had no choice but to come. Although the business was much better after Chunfenglou monopolized the cooking business, there were so many diners coming and going in Anyuan Mansion, and Chunfenglou only had a few chefs. No matter how much they ate and took, they could not take up all the diners. The most important thing was that other restaurants had united and were vaguely rejecting Chunfenglou. It was obvious that Chunfenglou put too much pressure on them.
If Chunfenglou cannot join in, it will definitely suffer some setbacks. Chunfenglou is confident in cooking, but cooking is not something that can be kept strictly confidential after all. With so many chefs researching, as long as they know how to cook, they will definitely be able to figure out something in the end.
Therefore, in order to resolve the hidden crisis, Chunfenglou had to join, and since it had joined, it had to offer some benefits.
Of course, having received the benefits, Chunfenglou will naturally also reap the benefits, and this specialty dish is the idea they came up with.
This idea was also inspired by Jiang Huai's business. Woolen sweaters have become a specialty of Anyuan Prefecture. Some merchants would not pass through Anyuan Prefecture originally, but in order to get wool sweaters, these merchants came. Some merchants even collected wool and sold it in Anyuan Prefecture. Most of these merchants ate in restaurants. They discovered this when they did some statistics.
If stir-frying becomes a specialty, will it also attract some diners?
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