Chef Meng, the assistant cook in the third canteen, resigned because his family arranged a blind date for him and asked him to return home to get married. This left the canteen with one less cook. So, besides Chef Yun, who didn't help out, the only ones left to cook were Chef Sun and Chef Du Liang.
Chef Xiao Du was about 26 or 27 years old, a chubby kid. His cooking skills were pretty average. It was said that after graduating from culinary school, his snack bar went bankrupt soon after, forcing him to work as a chef. As a chef, most restaurants wouldn't hire him after a trial period, meaning the school cafeteria didn't have high requirements.
The school logistics department had to make unified arrangements for recruiting people for the cafeteria, and it was not possible to recruit new people quickly. Master Yun was unwilling to do it himself, so he thought of Ye Tian.
He hadn't wanted Ye Tian to cook before, because he didn't want her, a part-time job girl, to work so hard. It was too much of an oppression to ask her to cook for just a few hundred yuan a month. Now, if he wanted her to cook, he would have to go to the school and ask for a salary adjustment.
When Master Yun and Ye Tian mentioned it, she agreed without a second thought. But she also took the opportunity to make a small request of her own: "Master Yun, can I add a camera next to the stove and record myself cooking? I want to try my hand at being a food blogger."
"What's the big deal? It's just a small matter! Our cafeteria is so clean, we don't have to worry about being photographed." Master Yun took a sip of the half-cold tea in the can and agreed readily.
Ye Tian was secretly delighted, as this was really killing three birds with one stone: she could continue cooking, get a salary increase, and also shoot short videos to prepare for becoming a food blogger.
That night, Ye Tian told her roommates the news: "Girls, I'm going to be cooking in the third cafeteria at noon tomorrow. I'm a pretty good cook, would you like to come and try it?"
"Tiantian, you are so amazing! You are a chef now!" Li Yue exclaimed.
"Wow, then we will definitely go!" Lu Xinyi's eyes were starry.
"I'll go line up in advance. You're such a good griller, so your cooking must be delicious." Zhao Yu also has unconditional faith in Ye Tian's cooking skills.
Ye Tian felt a little embarrassed by her roommate's blind flattery, but then she thought: I'm the boss of Tianxia Diyilou, I'm just that awesome!
…
The next day at noon, Ye Tian borrowed Lu Xinyi's mobile phone holder and decided to use her old mobile phone to shoot a cooking video.
She came to the cafeteria early and worked with Aunt Liu to prepare the meat and vegetables for lunch.
Chef Sun took a lunch break, so only Ye Tian and Chef Xiao Du were cooking. Xiao Li was still in charge of the chopping board and garnishing. Chef Xiao Du was also in charge of steaming the mantou. While his cooking skills weren't great, he was definitely a master at making steamed mantou and baozi. Ye Tian felt that if he had opened a mantou or baozi shop before, he might not have gone bankrupt.
The lunch menu ordered by Master Yun is still four meat dishes, two vegetable dishes and a soup, and the staple foods are steamed buns and rice.
Among them, the meat dishes are beef brisket with potatoes, braised lion's head, stir-fried shrimps and spicy chicken; the vegetarian dishes are mushrooms and rapeseed and long beans and eggplant; the soup is tomato and egg soup.
Xiao Du likes to cook lighter vegetarian dishes, so Master Yun assigned him to make stir-fried shrimp, mushrooms and rapeseed, and tomato egg drop soup. He confidently handed the rest to Ye Tian, who sat back in his chair, crossed his legs, and drank his tea.
Aunt Liu and Xiao Li had both seen Ye Tian's cooking skills, but Chef Du had never seen it, so when he saw Chef Yun handing all the meat dishes to the part-time girl, his eyes widened.
Ye Tian, already adept at cooking, arranged the order of preparation based on the time required for each dish. She cooked the beef brisket ahead of time, then used a meat grinder to grind the pork mince for the lion's head. She pan-fried the long beans, eggplant, and chicken first, then the lion's head. This approach conserved oil and streamlined the cooking schedule, ensuring that the dishes were all cooked at roughly the same time. Some dishes wouldn't be left unprepared or cold by the time the cafeteria opened.
However, Ye Tian felt that there were too many fried dishes today. Maybe Master Yun thought that students needed oil and water!
When she makes braised lion's head, she likes to add some water chestnuts. Since there weren't any in the cafeteria today, she used lotus roots instead. This way, the lion's head tastes better and isn't too greasy. Because some people don't like scallion and ginger in their meat, she also soaked the scallion and ginger in water beforehand.
"You are really particular about cooking. You even use scallion and ginger water. We used to put the scallions and ginger into the meat grinder together. It's so convenient!" Xiao Li took a moment to glance at Ye Tian.
"You never tire of fine food, and you never tire of fine minced meat! It's not a big deal anyway." If she had more time, Ye Tian would have liked to mince the meat herself. The taste of minced meat from a meat grinder and hand-minced meat was completely different. But now that time was tight and she was cooking for the cafeteria's communal pot, she couldn't afford to be so particular.
After frying the eggplant, long beans and chicken nuggets, Aunt Liu helped to prepare a long iron plate of pork meatballs and waited for Ye Tian to fry them.
The fried meatballs must be cooked on high heat to ensure that the large meatballs are quickly formed, and then fried on low heat until cooked. The meatballs are golden in color and have a firm texture, which is considered a successful meatball.
After the first step of frying, Ye Tian prepared to start the second step. Before that, she put the chopped potatoes into the pot of boiling beef brisket and added salt.
As soon as the lid of the pot was opened, the aroma of beef brisket came out and went straight into everyone's nostrils, making people drool.
Afterwards, Ye Tian set up the wok and started cooking.
She started by making braised lion's head, then set up another wok to stir-fry eggplant, beans, and crispy spicy chicken. By the time all three dishes were finished, it was exactly 11:25. The beef brisket with potatoes was also cooked to perfection.
Chef Yun didn't seem to be looking at Ye Tian, but he was taking it all in. "This little girl, even her timing is impeccable. She's definitely an experienced cook." Her methodical and confident demeanor couldn't be achieved by someone who'd only cooked at home for a few years. Xiao Du, on the other hand, hadn't considered that much. He'd fried the shrimp too early, and they'd probably cooled.
Two windows were open in the cafeteria today, and Aunt Liu and Xiao Li were still responsible for serving the food. They moved the dishes over and chatted while preparing them.
Aunt Liu: "The little girl is really good at cooking, much better than an old lady like me. Although I work in the cafeteria, I can only do some odd jobs, but I can't cook."
Xiao Li: "Yes! They all look delicious. My mouth is watering. I was too busy to have a taste just now. No, I have to save some spicy chicken, lion's head, and beef brisket with potatoes, otherwise I'm afraid the students will grab them all and we won't be able to eat them." Then, he really ran back to the kitchen quickly, found a clean plate, and put out 3 lion's head, some spicy chicken, and beef brisket with potatoes.
As soon as I put the dishes away and used the remote control to open the automatic glass door, the students who were having lunch came in.
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