Chapter 160: What exactly is in Gusu

By the time Qin Huai returned to the kitchen, everyone was already eating the pastries. Even Huang Shengli was holding one in his hand, having already gnawed halfway through it.

The one in Huang Anyao's hand had only been bitten once; Qin Huai had reason to suspect this was his second one.

One pastry weighed a full half-jin, and Huang Anyao was eating two pastries shortly after lunch...

Qin Huai could only say the young man had a good appetite and a promising future.

Zheng Siyuan had saved one for Qin Huai.

He saved one that Qin Huai had made himself, which looked particularly ugly, but was also among the highest-graded batch.

【Apple-Shaped Pastry, Grade B+】

Qin Huai actually rarely made Grade B+ snacks.

An ugly pastry, but with a heart-pounding grade.

Qin Huai picked up the pastry and took a fierce bite.

One chew.

It was warm and still a bit hot, with the slight sweetness of carrot puree and the salty, fresh juice of the meat filling blooming in his mouth.

The skin of the pastry was slightly hard, not soft enough to eat. The inside of the dough skin had been stained with the color of the meat filling, fully integrated with it, making it taste a bit like a baozi filling wrapped in meat juice.

The outside still had the taste of the pastry skin; the combination of the two had quite a unique flavor.

The filling went without saying—two words: delicious!

Meat filling is the most delicious!

As the most common pork filling, its characteristic was that it was very versatile; this could be seen just by looking at the types of baozi. Pure meat baozi, pork and scallion baozi, shiitake and meat baozi, preserved vegetable and meat baozi, cabbage and meat baozi, radish and meat baozi... basically, as long as you wanted, there was no filling that couldn't be paired with pork.

Juicy, fat but not greasy, and perfectly salty and fresh, the filling was the soul of a baozi.

What? You say everyone is eating pastries now.

Come on, everyone present was a professional; even Huang Anyao could tell that the filling of the pastry was simply a perfect baozi filling.

But so what if it was a baozi filling? A baozi filling wrapped in a pastry skin, as long as it was paired properly, with precise control over the thickness of the pastry skin, not leaking during steaming, no oil seeping out, and the dough skin being slightly hard but mixed with the meat filling to chew—it had a unique flavor, and it was delicious!

This snack should be made this way!

Huang Shengli's filling was excellent, but Qin Huai's dough didn't drag him down either; the combination of the strong was what made a good snack.

"Too delicious, how can there be such delicious food in this world! It's simply a baozi... ah no, a dumpling... also not right, a pastry... even less so, anyway, it's meat-filled, delicious!" Huang Anyao, who aspired to be an excellent food critic, discovered at this moment that his knowledge was still too narrow.

He couldn't find any snack to replace the description of the pastry.

None, absolutely none.

Baozi filling, pastry skin, superb technique, abstract styling.

No substitute, absolutely no substitute!

While the layman Huang Anyao was still sighing at how unique, peerless, and elegant this snack was, the experts like Huang Jia and the others had already begun to discuss the importance of the big spoon toss for the filling.

"Looking at this filling alone, the big spoon toss is indeed very important."

"Seems like it. If it weren't for that last move by the master, this filling would be loose, and it wouldn't be able to hold the juice when stewed later. If the meat filling can't lock in the juice, stewing would only dry out the filling as much as possible. That way, not only would it not be juicy enough, but the meat juice wouldn't be able to seep into half of the dough skin when steamed. This skin is already a bit dry, so eating it would definitely be dry."

"Listening to you, it seems that's the case. If you don't dry out the filling when stewing, it will definitely seep oil when put in the steamer. You don't even need to taste it; just looking at it, you know it's bound to fail."

"Qin Huai's recipe has something to it."

"Missing one step won't work. Which Lu cuisine master wrote this pastry recipe? To think of such a tricky method, isn't this making it hard for the chef?"

"I heard it's a recipe Qin Huai's customer got fifty or sixty years ago. Pushing it forward, this recipe might have been passed down from the Republic of China era."

"Back then, normal. I heard people mention before that back then, rich people would show off their wealth and compete, specifically making things hard for the cooks; there were all kinds of strange recipes."

"I've heard of it too."

The crowd in the Huang Ji kitchen gathered at the kitchen door, eating and discussing. Dong Shi, who talked the most, naturally wouldn't miss this chance to chat and actively participated.

While chatting, Dong Shi noticed someone who had been very silent.

"Brother Jun, why are your eyes red?" Dong Shi asked.

Wang Jun rubbed his eyes, pretending to be nonchalant, but his sad voice exposed him: "Nothing, just thought of when I first started dating Mianmian."

"Back then, Mianmian never disliked me; we often went out shopping and eating snacks together. Sob sob sob, if only I could have eaten the pastries with Mianmian back then, sob sob sob."

The bald man shed tears.

Everyone:...

Such a strange angle.

Dong Li silently pulled Dong Shi to the back.

Sorry, my younger brother talks too much and too fast, and doesn't know how to read the room yet, excuse us.

In the kitchen, Huang Shengli had already started a new lesson.

Zheng Siyuan had originally wanted to go back to practice tossing sand, but thinking that since he was already here, he would take a day off today to see how Qin Huai learned to cook.

Huang Shengli's teaching mode for stir-frying meat filling was brand new; he didn't demonstrate first, but let Qin Huai stir-fry it once first.

No restrictions, letting Qin Huai rely on his feel to stir-fry a portion he was most proficient in. It didn't have to be ordinary shredded meat or meat filling; it could be pastry filling, or stir-fried meat with green peppers; as long as Qin Huai wanted, a portion of scallion-fried lamb was also fine.

Qin Huai chose the meat filling he stir-fried the most—the filling for the Dream-Fulfilling Shaobing.

The Dream-Fulfilling Shaobing was probably the snack Qin Huai made that most intuitively let diners feel that his savory skills couldn't match his pastry skills.

Qin Huai felt he had learned a lot just now when Huang Shengli was stir-frying the filling.

He moved.

Stir-frying over high heat.

Attempted to toss the wok, failed, continued stir-frying over high heat.

Rendered out the oil, very good, the state of the meat filling was very good.

Continued to stir-fry until fragrant.

Almost at the critical point!

Qin Huai knew what he was doing and counted silently in his heart.

Three.

Still a little bit off.

Two.

The oil fragrance was just right.

One.

It's now, a beautiful flip... sorry, can't do it, adjust the heat.

Adjustment failed.

Attempted to remedy.

Remedy failed.

Flustered.

Stir-fried in a mess.

Meat filling taken out of the wok.

Failure.

Qin Huai:...

Tired, destroy it.

Zheng Siyuan almost couldn't hold it in; the corners of his mouth were harder to suppress than an AK.

Huang Shengli didn't even bother to suppress his laughter, stopped pretending, and said happily: "Discovered it, right? Stir-frying meat filling and stir-frying greens are not even on the same difficulty level."

"Stir-frying greens tests your understanding of high-heat stir-frying, your control over time and heat. If a problem occurs in a small place, it can be remedied. As long as you don't make big mistakes like being distracted, you will definitely get results after practicing for a while."

"But meat filling is different. Meat needs to consider many things; you can't just stir-fry it over high heat. Of course, you don't necessarily have to toss the wok during the stir-frying process."

"It's good that you have this awareness, but we haven't learned this step yet. Tossing the wok can help the meat filling in the wok heat up faster and better; you can still stir-fry a qualified meat filling without this step."

"Come, I'll demonstrate it for you once."

Huang Shengli started the wok, added oil, and cleanly and beautifully stir-fried a portion of ordinary meat filling without any fancy tricks or techniques.

Actually, it wasn't ordinary either.

The meat filling was very fragrant. It looked very tempting, making one want to taste a bite.

Sure enough, meat was much more attractive than greens.

Huang Shengli handed the stove to Qin Huai.

Qin Huai began his performance again.

A hearty and thorough failure.

Huang Shengli demonstrated again, Qin Huai failed again.

The two went back and forth like this; Qin Huai stir-fried once, Huang Shengli demonstrated once, achieving true hands-on teaching, with the master passing on knowledge in front of the disciple.

Clearly, Qin Huai wasn't very accustomed to this teaching mode.

It was too hands-on, putting him under a lot of pressure.

Before, when stir-frying greens, Qin Huai didn't have much psychological pressure about failing. After all, Huang Shengli only demonstrated once, and the rest was Qin Huai practicing by himself; if he failed, he failed. It was normal to fail during the practice process.

Huang Jia, Dong Shi, and Wang Jun had also told Qin Huai that failure was inevitable during the learning process. Because there was comparison, there was a reference, and there was a master watching from the side, the psychological pressure would be greater, and one would want to do better.

When a person wanted to achieve a goal far beyond their ability, failure was inevitable.

But Qin Huai actually hadn't had such great psychological pressure before.

Today, he did.

He suddenly understood what Huang Jia said: the master watching from the side, demonstrating for you over and over again, yet you couldn't do it well, that huge psychological pressure of wanting to improve yourself urgently, yet being unable to do so, feeling helpless, flustered, afraid of losing face, and afraid of disappointing the master.

Strange, Huang Shengli wasn't his master.

And Huang Shengli didn't criticize him; Huang Shengli was a famous teacher who advocated encouraging teaching.

But Qin Huai actually hoped Huang Shengli would scold him, criticize him severely; that way, he might feel better, and the pressure wouldn't be so great.

This kind of smiling while watching from the side, not saying anything, pointing out a few problems, and then demonstrating, was really too much pressure.

Qin Huai spent the whole afternoon nervously failing.

When the lesson ended, Qin Huai looked at the full bucket of meat filling and observed a minute of silence for the staff of Huang Ji in the evening.

With such a large bucket of meat filling, what ingredients could it be paired with to be finished?

His learning to cook really made everyone suffer.

"Good performance today, very good progress, continue tomorrow," Huang Shengli said happily, giving his concluding remarks. "Your arms must be sore from stir-frying meat filling all afternoon, go to the bone-setting shop to get a massage, eat more mangoes."

It seemed that not only did Gong Liang know what fruit Qin Huai liked, but Huang Shengli knew too.

"Master Huang, I want to ask for leave," Qin Huai said.

Huang Shengli was stunned, his astonishment not hidden in time.

Dong Shi, who was already preparing to start work, heard Qin Huai say this and hurriedly lowered his voice to complain to Dong Li: "See, I said the master couldn't use such a harsh move, he scared Qin Huai."

"What I fear most is the master teaching me hands-on over and over again, watching with a smile and not scolding me. When I first started learning to cook, I dreamed of this scene every night."

Dong Li:... Keep your voice down!

"Is... is there something..." Huang Shengli began to organize his language.

"Something happened back home. The customer who gave me the pastry recipe is my distant relative; he is over 90 years old, very old, and I need to go back temporarily the day after tomorrow."

"It won't take too long. I'll go back to Shanshi the day after tomorrow and come back the day after that. If things are resolved quickly, I might be able to come back the night after tomorrow."

"But there is one more thing I might need to trouble you with. Can you help me stir-fry another pot of pastry filling tomorrow? I want to make a batch of raw dough to bring back."

Hearing Qin Huai say this, Huang Shengli finally felt relieved and nodded readily, indicating it was a small matter.

"No need to be so rushed, going back and forth in one day is too tiring and hurts the body. Just come back the day after that, and I'll stir-fry more filling for you to bring back. I remember you have family and friends in Shanshi, share some with everyone. I'll let Anyao go buy some of our local specialties tomorrow, and you can bring them back together the day after tomorrow."

"Thank you, Master Huang!"

The next day, Huang Ji announced to regular customers and neighboring residents that Qin Huai would be resting for two days, and everyone accepted it well.

The chefs at Huang Ji didn't work all year round anyway; they all had rotating shifts. Qin Huai had just arrived, and everyone seemed overly enthusiastic. It was normal for the new Master Xiao Qin to be unaccustomed and tired, wanting to rest for two days.

Even Gong Liang didn't say anything, just silently added bricks and tiles when Huang Anyao bought local specialties, smuggling in private goods, adding 20 bolts of silk.

Yes, bolts.

A piece of trivia: under normal circumstances, one bolt of silk can make 15 tops.

Qin Huai was stunned when he saw the local specialties Huang Anyao bought for him; he almost thought he hadn't come to Gusu for exchange, but to do business, to stock up on goods.

Huang Anyao also felt a bit guilty, but there was no way around it; Uncle Gong gave too much.

In the end, Huang Shengli stepped in to make the final decision, letting Huang Anyao mail the things to Qin Huai at the Yunzhong residential area, while Qin Huai traveled light, only bringing 20 jin of crispy cakes.

The plane landed at noon.

Shanshi in this season was very cool, with clear autumn skies and pleasant temperatures, very suitable for wearing clothes of moderate thickness that could also look good in photos.

Theoretically speaking, in such a comfortable environment, even going to work wouldn't seem so unbearable.

That was theoretically speaking.

The residents of the Yunzhong residential area didn't think so.

The office workers in the office buildings near the Yunzhong residential area didn't think so.

Even the doctors in the Department of Neurology at the private hospital where Qu Jing worked didn't think so.

What was the use of good weather? Master Xiao Qin had been in Gusu for a week!

A week, a whole week! Do you know how everyone lived this week!

No fermented rice steamed buns, no Five-Diced Baozi, no Three-Diced Baozi, no Crab Shell Yellow, not even Chen Pi tea!

What kind of life was this!

Everyone was so worried that they even bought all the chicken cakes from the Yunzhong Canteen, buying bad-tasting snacks in the canteen every day to look at the objects and think of the person, only hoping that Master Xiao Qin could see everyone's determination and return soon.

Come back, what exactly is in Gusu!

This day, Master Xiao Qin returned.

But he returned secretly.

Chen Huihong came to the airport to pick up Qin Huai, driving her brother's Maybach, not her own Bentley, to avoid the license plate being recognized by neighbors.

Qin Huai was also fully armed—hat, mask, sunglasses, trench coat, scarf, gloves—wrapping himself into Qu Jing 2.0. Those who didn't know would think it was Qu Jing wearing men's clothes.

Qin Huai struggled into the car, took off his scarf, took off his mask, and let out a long sigh of relief.

"Phew, I'm dying of heat, it's really hard for Qu Jing to wrap herself so tightly every day."

"Sister Hong, your crispy cakes are in my suitcase. We'll go directly from the underground parking lot into the elevator later, and I'll give you the crispy cakes when we get to Luo Jun's house."

"Fine," Chen Huihong didn't mind. "Did you bring the other things? Ding Sheng cakes, fermented rice steamed buns, lard rice cakes, when will Master Xiao Zheng come back with you?"

Qin Huai: "..."

Chen Huihong was a bit disappointed.

"I didn't bring the other snacks, but I had Luo Jun prepare all the materials, and I can make them for you today."

"To avoid alerting the enemy, I'll stay at Luo Jun's house tonight, and tomorrow morning I'll have to trouble you, Sister Hong, to take me to the airport," underground worker Qin Huai said.

"No need to be so exaggerated," Chen Huihong felt Qin Huai was making a mountain out of a molehill. "Everyone knows you're going to stay in Gusu for a month, it's understandable."

Qin Huai paused: "Maybe more than a month."

Chen Huihong:?

"The situation has changed now. If nothing goes wrong, I might have to stay in Gusu until the New Year, then go directly back to my hometown in Qiu County, and return to the Yunzhong Canteen after the New Year."

Chen Huihong gripped the steering wheel, resisting the urge to slam on the brakes like in a TV drama and stop to question Qin Huai, trying hard to adjust her expression and squeezing a few words through her teeth.

"How long?!"

"Just a few months."

Chen Huihong wanted to go to Gusu to buy a house.

She finally understood why Qin Huai had to be so sneaky.

Chen Huihong hesitated, her mouth opening and closing for a long time, before slowly asking: "Does Huang Ji Restaurant support cross-province delivery?"

Qin Huai:?

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 161 =====