The first thing I did was to find out

Chapter 318 Sea Cucumber
Since he was going to eat the double crab buns made by Zheng Siyuan in the afternoon and practice making crab roe sauce at the same time, Qin Huai moved the time for practicing knife skills to noon.

Cao Guixiang watches TV at noon. As an old lady who sleeps little, she doesn't have the habit of taking a nap. The online class at noon did not delay Cao Guixiang's watching TV. Zhang Chu also made a wooden mobile phone stand for Cao Guixiang, so that Cao Guixiang can watch TV while scanning the mobile phone screen with the corner of her eyes, without delaying both entertainment and teaching.

Because of the camera, Cao Guixiang appears from the side, and you can also see Zhang Chu sitting next to Cao Guixiang, eating melon seeds and watching TV.

Qin Huai was still cutting radishes.

Radish is a very suitable ingredient for practicing knife skills, as it is cheap and low-cost. In Cao Guixiang's words, every beginner who practices knife skills starts out by cutting radishes until they vomit. When they no longer need to cut radishes and start cutting other ingredients, they are reluctant to do so because they have developed a deep affection for the radishes.

Qin Huai has not developed any feelings for Luobo at the moment.

On the contrary, An Youyou and Luobogao have developed a deep relationship. Apart from money, the thing An Youyou cannot afford to lose the most is the title of Luobogao's sister.

Zheng Siyuan is kneading dough.

It’s not the noodles for double crab buns, but the noodles for three-diced buns and fermented glutinous rice steamed buns.

Since the debut of Master Zheng, the three-stuffed buns and fermented glutinous rice steamed buns at Yunzhong Canteen have basically been handed over to Zheng Siyuan. Master Qin, who loves the new and dislikes the old, has a lot of snacks to make and doesn't have much time to spare for these two old loves.

Master Zheng likes it.

Zheng Siyuan likes to make only a few kinds of pastries all year round. In the past, the most popular ones were shortbread, Dingsheng cake and fresh meat mooncake, which were the trump cards of his pastry shop. Now, the three most popular pastries have become three-piece buns, fermented glutinous rice steamed buns and fresh meat mooncake, with shortbread and Dingsheng cake taking the back seat.

"Xiao Qin, I've been thinking about the double crab buns you mentioned last night, but I still can't figure it out." Cao Guixiang was watching TV when she suddenly said, "Making buns with fresh crab roe and sea cucumber is a bit inconsistent with our cooking philosophy."

Qin Huai didn't expect Cao Guixiang to talk about philosophy. He was a little surprised and looked up at the phone screen: "What do you mean?"

"This combination of ingredients is amazing," said Cao Guixiang. "To use the words in Suiyuan Food List: Any dish must be accompanied by side dishes. I don't quite remember the long string of words that followed, but the general idea is that light dishes should be paired with light ingredients, strong dishes should be paired with strong ingredients, and mild dishes should be paired with mild ingredients."

"You said before that before Master Huang taught you how to make crab roe steamed buns, he first let you get to know the ingredients for a few days. This is the normal process for a chef to learn how to cook. You must first be familiar with the ingredients and know which ingredients go well with which. Only then can you have a cooking concept, an idea, a clearer direction for seasoning, and make a good dish."

"Foods with strong flavors are usually only suitable for eating alone. It's not that beef and mutton can only be cooked alone. Yuan Mei thinks that these strong-flavored foods have prominent advantages and many disadvantages. They need to be blended with the five flavors and carefully prepared to retain the delicious taste and remove the disadvantages. In this case, how can one have the leisure and elegance to consider what ingredients they should be paired with? Pairing ingredients means giving up some of them."

"But this is just Yuan Mei's personal opinion. He dislikes pairing sea cucumber with soft-shelled turtle, and crab roe with shark fin. But crab roe and shark fin is a famous dish in itself, and there are countless people who love to eat it. It can be seen that there is no absolute right or wrong way to pair ingredients. It mainly depends on how the chef cooks it."

"But I've never heard of crab roe and sea cucumber being used as bun fillings."

"I am a chef who is very good at cooking sea cucumber dishes. Sea cucumber is a very difficult food to cook. It has no taste, is full of sand and has a strong fishy smell. It cannot be cooked in clear soup and the processing process is extremely troublesome."

"You need to soak it in clean water to remove the mud and sand, and it usually takes some effort to get rid of its fishy smell, such as boiling it in broth three times, and then stewing it with chicken broth and broth until it is well cooked. Not to mention that sea cucumbers are difficult to cook well. I usually stew sea cucumber dishes a day in advance during festivals. Even if I make sea cucumber salad, I have to use a strong sauce to mix it."

"I really can't imagine what kind of magical combination it is to pair such a fishy ingredient that is difficult to deal with with fresh crab roe."

"The chef who created this dessert recipe must be a master of seasoning. It would be a headache for ordinary chefs to deal with just one, not to mention that 1+1>2 is greater than the other."

"Xiao Qin, have you ever cooked sea cucumber dishes?" Cao Guixiang asked Qin Huai.

Qin Huai knew that it was very difficult to season the double crab buns, and he had heard from many people. When Huang Shengli, Zheng Da, and Zheng Siyuan learned that Qin Huai wanted to learn how to make double crab buns, the first thing they emphasized to him was that double crab buns were very difficult to make and seasoning. A slight mistake would lead to a huge error, and the slightest mistake would lead to a complete failure.

But Qin Huai was best at seasoning from the beginning to the end, and seasoning was also the skill he reached the master level the fastest. After reaching the master level, Qin Huai had a lot more experience in seasoning. In addition, he was born with a good tongue, so Qin Huai was actually quite confident in himself before hearing what Cao Guixiang said.

Although he had never eaten or made double crab buns, and had simply looked at the recipe given to him by Uncle Wang, Qin Huai felt that he could do it.

Don't ask, just ask to be confident.

After hearing what Cao Guixiang said, Qin Huai's confidence was slightly weakened.

"Does the five-member package count?" Qin Huai asked.

Cao Guixiang shook her head: "That's not a sea cucumber dish. It can only be considered a dish using sea cucumbers. Sea cucumbers are not the main ingredient nor the main character. They are used as a side dish."

Qin Huai:......

Cao Guixiang showed an inquiring expression, staring at the phone screen at Qin Huai, and asked curiously: "Are you scared?"

Qin Huai shook his head: "Although you and others have said that the double crab buns are scary, I haven't even tried it. It would be embarrassing if I was scared first."

"You have to let me do it once first, so I know how difficult it is and whether I can do it with my current level before I get scared, right?"

Cao Guixiang smiled so much that wrinkles appeared at the corners of her eyes. "It's a pity that I have retired for decades. Otherwise, if I had met you decades earlier, I would have accepted you as my apprentice and let you learn both the red and white cases. You are really what I like! If my second senior brother had met you, he would have accepted you as his apprentice as well."

Qin Huai took this as Cao Guixiang's highest compliment to him and just smiled without saying anything.

"Okay, you are a pastry chef after all, and you have been practicing your knife skills for an hour today, so just stop here for now." Cao Guixiang turned off the TV directly, which shocked Zhang Chu next to her and made him open his eyes wide. His face was full of "Wife, if you don't watch TV, I will."

Qin Huai:?
"Since we are making double crab buns, we should buy sea cucumbers, right?" Cao Guixiang asked.

Qin Huai nodded: "I bought a lot. But they are not of particularly good quality. Zheng Siyuan said that Shuangxiebao does not require very high quality sea cucumbers."

"It's normal. Sea cucumbers don't have much flavor. They provide a soft and sticky texture. The focus of the double crab bun is definitely the crab roe."

"We won't practice knife skills for the next period of time. I will take you to know and familiarize you with the ingredient of sea cucumber."

"Although I have been retired for decades, when I was still a chef, the dishes I cooked most every day were sea cucumber and shark fin. Sometimes I really don't understand what's so delicious about these two dishes. It's never the ingredients themselves that give them flavor, but the various soups I made. These two ingredients are expensive and difficult to prepare, but the customers at that time just loved to eat them. The more expensive they were, the more they liked to eat them. It was really helpless."

"At that time, all the main dishes in the restaurant had to be booked in advance. Sometimes when I looked at the menu, I would see braised shark's fin, crab roe shark's fin, three-shredded shark's fin, casserole shark's fin, clear-boiled shark's fin, thick soup shark's fin, sea-braised shark's fin, scallion-fried sea cucumber, cold-mixed sea cucumber, braised black sea cucumber, and shredded chicken sea cucumber soup. I was overwhelmed. Obviously, I am also good at chicken, duck, and fish. My firewood duck and Wanfu meat are not bad, but no customers ordered them."

Cao Guixiang's list of dishes stunned Qin Huai. After hearing them, Qin Huai had only one thought in his mind:
Sure enough, the high-end Versailles only requires a simple announcement of the dishes.

You can tell these dishes are expensive just by listening to them.

Zhang Chu felt hungry after listening to this. Without TV to watch, he wanted to eat something delicious: "Guixiang, are you free these two days? If you are free, make some shredded chicken and sea cucumber soup. I haven't had it for a long time. Doesn't Xiao Qin also want to make some sea cucumber snacks? Teach him while you're at it."

Zhang Chu is quite quick-witted when it comes to eating.

Cao Guixiang didn't care and nodded: "Okay, call the children over in a few days on the weekend and I will cook a good meal."

After hearing this, Qin Huai wanted to go back to Qiu County on the weekend.

Cao Guixiang even said she wanted to teach Qin Huai about sea cucumbers, but Qin Huai stopped practicing his knife skills after cutting the last radish on hand and went to pick up the sea cucumbers.

Zheng Siyuan had already processed some of the sea cucumbers yesterday. As Cao Guixiang said, sea cucumbers are a very difficult ingredient to process. They need to be soaked in water for a long time to remove the sand, and various methods are used to remove the fishy smell. During the cooking process, it takes time to overcome the shortcoming that it is difficult to soften. In the end, you will get a very soft and glutinous ingredient that has no taste and a unique taste.

Sea cucumber has never been a home-cooked dish because it is too tiring to cook it at home.

Cao Guixiang asked Qin Huai to compare the unprocessed sea cucumbers with the ones processed by Zheng Siyuan, and then explained to Qin Huai the characteristics of sea cucumbers, the ingredients and cooking methods under normal circumstances. In short, it takes a lot of time and effort to chew this hard bone.

Cao Guixiang spent more than 20 minutes explaining the process in great detail, breaking it down step by step, allowing Qin Huai to fully understand how creative it was to use sea cucumber as the main ingredient for buns.

Then Cao Guixiang affirmed Zheng Siyuan's processing, saying that the sea cucumbers processed by Zheng Siyuan were very beautiful and pretty.

Zheng Siyuan, who was kneading dough, straightened his back involuntarily.

Finally, Cao Guixiang asked Qin Huai to try it himself.

It doesn’t matter if you mess up. Sea cucumbers are cheap and the cost is not high. If you really can’t do it, you can use mustard and chicken juice to make a cold sea cucumber salad, which is edible.

What Master Cao has here is the recipe.

Qin Huai felt like he was back to the time when he first learned how to make crab roe steamed buns.

Because he didn't understand or know the ingredients, he couldn't learn to make dim sum right away. Instead, he had to start from the most basic level - familiarizing himself with the ingredients and how to handle them.

Just like when he was learning how to make crab roe steamed buns, there was always a very careful and patient master beside him who corrected him promptly when he had problems, and it was simply correction without any blame.

Even if this problem is very common sense, in the mouth of this careful and patient master, it will become a problem that everyone will make. It is normal for you to have this problem. If this problem occurs once, we can correct it. If it occurs twice, remember it. If it occurs three times, it means that the problem has been discovered correctly. You are just not good at this aspect. We need to learn more and correct it.

Although Cao Guixiang said that she had never accepted an apprentice and did not dare to accept one for fear of misleading her students, Qin Huai felt that if Cao Guixiang were to become a master, she would definitely be a very good master.

A very good master like Huang Shengli.

It was already 2:46 in the afternoon when Qin Huai finished learning about sea cucumbers.

It’s not that Qin Huai has already learned it completely, but that Cao Guixiang should go out and chat with her good sisters in the park.

"Xiao Qin, when you finish practicing radish, come to Qiu County. Don't forget to make a double crab bun for your Master Cao and Grandpa Zhang. I'm really curious about what this bun tastes like." Cao Guixiang stood up and took the canvas bag, speaking as she walked.

"Of course. But with the speed at which I'm practicing cooking, I might not have learned how to make the Double Crab Buns by then." Qin Huai smiled bitterly.

"It's better if you don't learn it. Make more for your Grandpa Zhang. Next time he buys the wrong vegetables, let him eat the double crab buns you made every morning."

"Those who don't learn well must taste terrible."

Qin Huai was amused by Cao Guixiang. He didn't know what to say for a moment, so he could only smile and say, "Then I will definitely do more, enough for half a month!"

"Do your best. If you have any questions about seasoning, feel free to ask me on WeChat. Although I don't know how to make seasoning, Master Cao, I still have some experience in seasoning, so maybe I can give you some advice." After saying this, Cao Guixiang hung up the video call and went out to the park.

Qin Huai also put away the sea cucumbers he had just processed, preparing to make cold sea cucumber salad according to the recipe given by Cao Guixiang later. He washed his hands and watched Zheng Siyuan make double crab buns.

Zheng Siyuan has already kneaded the dough and is processing the sea cucumber.

He is frying sea cucumbers.

Qin Huai was amazed by this magical way of processing food. Although he didn't know much about sea cucumber, he had just taken an emergency class for more than an hour.

Cao Guixiang didn’t talk about this part.

The sea cucumbers that Cao Guixiang talked about are either braised, simmered in broth, or served cold. The main cooking methods are braising, stewing and stewing.

What is this new mode of explosion?

This dessert is really creative.

The most important thing is that the recipe given by Uncle Wang did not mention frying the sea cucumber.

Could it be that Zheng Siyuan made a decision that went against his ancestors?
Qin Huai walked closer in shock and asked, "Why...why do you want to fry the sea cucumber?"

Although the shredded sea cucumber was just fried for a few seconds, this is also against our ancestors' tradition. Is there such a way to fry sea cucumbers?
"Won't fried sea cucumbers turn into a puddle of water?" Qin Huai asked weakly.

"So I just deep-fry them for a few seconds," Zheng Siyuan said. "If you use fresh crab roe to make the double crab buns, you don't need to deep-fry them, but if you use crab roe sauce, you do."

"I know you have a recipe for double crab buns. I've seen that recipe before, and there's no such step on it. But deep-frying was actually discovered by my master by accident. Adding this step will make the texture different, and it will go better with the crab sauce."

"You'll know after you eat it."

Qin Huai still didn't understand how Master Jing discovered that frying sea cucumbers would make the double crab buns taste better.

"Then how did Master Jing discover it?" Qin Huai asked curiously.

Zheng Siyuan was silent.

"It's my dad."

"It is said that a group of old customers sent a lot of sea cucumbers. In those days, sea cucumbers were hard to find outside coastal areas. My father was a white pastry chef, and he only made and touched sea cucumbers a few times."

"He was young at the time, fearless and daring enough to question authority."

"It is common sense that sea cucumbers cannot be fried. No chef would fry them for customers. My father is a believer in this. He thinks they cannot be fried for too long. Deep-frying them for a few seconds to make the skin crispier is also possible. He even tried coating them with starch and frying them."

"Anyway... that's how I found out."

Qin Huai:......

You are worthy of being called Master Zheng.

“So sometimes my dad says I’m too rigid and don’t know how to innovate, but I never pay attention to him.”

"He is so innovative that he has become what he is now."

"Sometimes I don't understand how he innovates. He not only fries sea cucumbers and bird's nests, but he also fried shark fins wrapped in starch."

"My mom said he just followed the trend and loved fried chicken, so he wanted to throw everything into the frying pan and fry it."

Qin Huai:......

6.

(End of this chapter)