Chapter 168: Good Tongue

After finishing the crab roe shumai, Qin Huai realized he might have underestimated this dim sum a bit.

He silently ate two of the three crab roe shumai he had picked up, leaving one for Huang Anyao, who was begging everywhere, and then said:

"Master Zheng, can you demonstrate it for me again?"

"No problem!" Zheng Da was more than happy to.

He wasn't very good at speaking to begin with; his superb technology combined with his poor language would make his production process, which didn't look very powerful, seem even more ordinary. Qin Huai having this realization to just watch and not ask made Zheng Da too happy to be unhappy, so he immediately prepared the materials and started the demonstration.

Same process as before: peel the live shrimp, take the meat, mince it.

Take the crab meat.

Pour in Shaoxing wine, salt, and other seasonings, grab and stir evenly.

Just as Zheng Da was stirring the filling, Qin Huai asked: "Master Zheng, how do you control the degree of seasoning for this filling?"

Qin Huai knew that Zheng Da probably couldn't explain it clearly, because when he was making dim sum at the Qin family breakfast shop before, Qin Congwen had also asked him this question, and he couldn't explain it either.

Qin Huai knew clearly that seasoning the filling was a process that relied very much on feeling, just like the descriptions of the dosage of various seasonings in traditional Chinese recipes were basically "a small spoonful," "a little," "an appropriate amount," unlike the recipes found on the Internet now that could be accurate to the gram. These "a little" and "appropriate amount" were actually feelings.

In an ordinary family, if a child suddenly wanted to learn how to cook and asked their parents how much salt to put in braised pork, the parents would definitely say "a small half spoonful."

As for whether this small half spoonful was 1/3 of a spoonful or 1/4 of a spoonful, or accurate to other amounts, it depended on one's own improvisation.

The taste of cooking is tasted out.

Some people have no talent in this regard and may have to try many times to feel what that "a little" is. But some people are naturally very sensitive and only need to do it once, taste the flavor with their tongue, and can roughly judge whether a seasoning is put too much or too little. The next time they do it, they can adjust it themselves, and over time, they will adjust a set of their own stable tastes.

Masters like Huang Shengli who can explain clearly, break it down, analyze it, and accurately point out where the problem is, are actually still a minority.

There aren't many famous masters these days.

Of course, masters like Zheng Da who can't explain at all are an even smaller minority.

Although most normal masters might not be able to explain clearly, they can still say something.

However, Qin Huai had said before that he could actually understand Zheng Da's teaching mode, especially that "you can feel it, right? You know this feeling, right?"

Qin Huai didn't know if the third person watching could feel it, but he really could.

Zheng Da's answer was also within Qin Huai's expectations.

"This is... is... actually this is to start from... how to control this seasoning... seasoning is actually... let's put it this way... actually..."

It could be heard that Zheng Da really wanted to give some precise guidance in language, but his ability was limited; this track didn't suit him.

After stammering about this and that for a long time, Zheng Da finally chose to answer in the way he was most familiar with.

"You have to find the feeling."

"It's normal not to be accurate when you first do it. This kind of delicate seasoning can't be taught; you can only roughly see a standard range of amounts. After you do it yourself and steam the shumai and taste the flavor, you will understand where the problem is."

"Usually, the simpler the ingredients and the fewer types of seasonings, the higher the difficulty of seasoning. As long as any seasoning has a slight problem, it will affect the final taste. At this time, the chef needs a sensitive tongue."

After Zheng Da finished speaking his standard answer, he still said some useful things. These useful words encouraged him, and even before Qin Huai could react, Zheng Da happily continued to say.

"Sigh, actually, Xiao Qin, you were still delayed."

"Just now you asked me how my master taught me and my senior brother back then. I mentioned a little bit and didn't finish. For a chef, the most important thing isn't strength and comprehension; the most important thing is actually the tongue."

"Strength can be practiced if it's not enough, and comprehension can be piled up by quantity if it's not good. Comprehension is something that can't be explained clearly; a blockhead also has a day of enlightenment, and a brilliant person also has a time when they are stuck by an inexplicable bottleneck. But the tongue is really very important. If a chef doesn't have a sensitive tongue that can taste food, it's very difficult to go further."

"Don't look at me being clumsy when I tell you the problem. Sometimes it's not that I can't explain it clearly, but that these things are inherently very difficult to explain clearly."

"Many things aren't relied on by saying, but by tasting."

"Why did my master take me and my senior brother as apprentices back then? It was because we both had a good tongue. You can't imagine how my master conducted the audition: ten plates of boiled shrimp, one of which wasn't boiled, but added a little bit of seasoning that normal people find very difficult to taste."

"Eat one plate after another, you can drink water in between, and say which plate added seasoning to advance."

"The second round was the sauce for boiled shrimp, 10 portions of sauce, one of which had a different formula from the other 9, but the difference wasn't big. Each person can only taste each portion twice, and those who say it correctly advance."

"This is the screening of the threshold. You can't imagine how exciting it was at that time. Sigh, it's just that the times are different. If there was a similar cooking competition now, the first round would be to let each chef taste the flavor, and those with bad tongues would be eliminated. Then compare other fundamentals, compare knife skills, compare each classification, and finally decide the chef with the strongest comprehensive strength, it would definitely be exciting!"

Zheng Da said this in high spirits. Although the topic drifted further and further, Qin Huai listened with relish.

"Then what is the standard for judging a good tongue?" Qin Huai asked curiously.

"There is no standard." Zheng Da said, "A good tongue is a good tongue. You give him a dish, and without saying anything, he can taste the reason for it himself."

"Now there are many types of seasonings. A few years ago, decades ago, some people, for the sake of not passing on unique secret recipes, deliberately mixed seasonings together and crushed them. But this situation can only prevent ordinary competitors. Powerful chefs can taste what's in the dish after one bite, and after eating a few more times, they can even guess the ratio seven or eight out of ten."

"I remember my master told us back then that the real secret recipe isn't how good the combination of ingredients is, but the technique, the cooking skill; that's the unique skill that others can't steal."

"Then how is my tongue?" Qin Huai asked.

"No need to say." Zheng Da said directly.

"You definitely have a good tongue."

Is that so?

Qin Huai still had some doubts. According to the game system rating, his food tasting was advanced.

Qin Huai knew that advanced was already a very good level. His advanced seasoning was enough to cope with the vast majority of dim sum, including some high-difficulty dim sum, but this advanced wasn't the highest rating.

Above advanced, there was master level. Master level upgrade required a full one million experience. Allowing upgrades meant that there were other levels above master level.

Looking at it this way, it felt like advanced didn't seem that advanced.

Seeing that Qin Huai didn't seem to believe his words, Zheng Da smiled and didn't speak.

Zheng Da didn't have much contact with Qin Huai. In terms of frequency and time, his relationship with Qin Huai was far inferior to Zheng Siyuan and Huang Shengli. But Zheng Da considered himself to know Qin Huai relatively well, and had always supported Huang Shengli's idea of taking Qin Huai to see the world, and at the same time letting the world see Qin Huai.

Zheng Da felt that Qin Huai, as a genius, was really not genius enough.

Zheng Da had been a genius with self-knowledge since he was a child.

He had a talent for cooking and did well in business. It was because he knew too well that he was a genius that he had pride, which was why he left the state-run restaurant in anger and went into business when they didn't recognize him as a pastry chef and let Huang Shengli be the master chef but not him.

A normal person who looks at people with their nostrils facing the sky must at least be used to being surrounded by stars and far surpassing their peers.

Qin Huai was just the opposite.

He was clearly also a genius, even a very rare one with outstanding talent among geniuses, and he had been far ahead of others and surrounded by stars since he was a child, but he seemed to have no self-knowledge at all.

Some children are naturally sensitive and inferior, and because of their growing environment, they always anticipate the worst plans. Even if their strength is good, they still feel they can't do it, and often give up before things start.

But Qin Huai's personality wasn't like that.

Huang Shengli didn't understand, but Zheng Da understood a little.

He also had a period like this once. At that time, when he first worked at the state-run restaurant, he found that even if his level was far ahead of his peers, it was impossible to reach his master's height.

At that time, he was very terrified, very uneasy, even internally consumed, anxious, and blamed himself, feeling that he was just so-so, not a genius at all, just an ordinary mediocre person.

Zheng Da felt that Qin Huai's situation was a bit different from his at that time. He had always felt that he was very good, but suddenly encountered a hurdle that was difficult to cross, and for a while, he couldn't accept it, so his emotions collapsed briefly.

And Qin Huai's mentality and state were obviously much better than his at that time. Qin Huai was like someone who had encountered a hurdle that couldn't be crossed before discovering he was a genius. For many years after, he had been unable to cross it. He was used to having a high mountain in front of him, so he had a very wrong perception of himself.

Zheng Da really wanted to ask Qin Huai if he had a master secretly behind his back.

Who is that master? Tell me his name, and I'll go battle him. How do you teach apprentices? How can you hit an apprentice's confidence like this? Isn't this misleading the children!

Do you know how to teach apprentices? If you don't know, change people; I'll teach, I know!

Zheng Da chatted about some interesting nonsense while his topic wandered infinitely, all the while making crab roe shumai.

While Zheng Da was making the crab roe shumai, Qin Huai ate the one that had been set aside for Huang Anyao.

He was a little hungry.

Qin Huai felt that watching the production process while tasting the results was more conducive to learning.

Moreover, since Huang Anyao could catch the second batch, he no longer went around sending WeChat messages begging; instead, he changed to sending WeChat messages to repeatedly confirm when the crab roe shumai would be out of the pot, and whether he could catch them at their most delicious point.

After the two batches of crab roe shumai were finished, the afternoon's teaching also drew to a close.

Qin Huai did not have time to try it himself; since he was going to make crab roe shumai, the entire process of preparing the ingredients had to be done by the chef himself. Qin Huai did not often make dim sum with shrimp filling, and crab meat and crab roe were even more of a blind spot in his knowledge. If one is not familiar with the ingredients, one must have more contact with them.

Amidst a long string of nonsense, the content related to teaching that Zheng Da repeatedly emphasized was that when making crab roe shumai, the chef must prepare the ingredients by hand from start to finish.

The preparation process was not troublesome; it was nothing more than extracting shrimp meat, extracting crab meat, and extracting crab roe.

Only by preparing the ingredients by hand could one get familiar with the ingredients in the shortest possible time, establish a connection, and season them better.

Qin Huai felt that what Zheng Da said made a lot of sense.

He even felt that Zheng Da's teaching level was actually quite decent.

A teacher's personal level is set here; whether they can teach is the teacher's business, and whether one can learn is the student's ability.

Huang Shengli had teaching materials with detailed explanations, while Zheng Da had teaching materials without explanations; both were teaching materials, and as long as the student had enough comprehension, they could learn from either.

"Thank you, Master Zheng. You've worked hard today. I'll have to trouble you to come earlier tomorrow afternoon. I'll go back today to digest and master everything, and start making the crab roe shumai tomorrow after lunch. If there's anything wrong during the process, I'll have to trouble you to point it out in time," Qin Huai said, giving his post-class remarks.

"No trouble, no trouble at all," Zheng Da said cheerfully. "If there's anything you don't understand when you go back, ask me anytime. If there's anything uncomfortable about the house, tell me anytime too. Next time you're missing furniture, don't tell Gong Liang, just tell me. I rented this house, so I'll get it fully equipped for you."

Qin Huai happily got off work. Although he hadn't lifted a finger all afternoon and had even eaten six crab roe shumai, he still felt Zheng Da had worked hard.

After getting off work, Qin Huai went to the bone-setting shop for his routine session before finally going home to rest.

While Qin Huai was getting his bones set, Gong Liang finally received the news that Zheng Da had made two batches of crab roe shumai this afternoon to teach Qin Huai.

Gong Liang felt as if the sky had collapsed.

The longevity noodles in the morning had made him beam with joy and let his guard down, thinking that what he had eaten in the morning was a big catch, but he hadn't expected there to be an even bigger one in the afternoon.

A miscalculation!

Zheng Da's heart is truly dark!

Making a feint to the east while attacking in the west, playing tactics and military strategy with him!

Aren't they childhood friends? Isn't he an angel investor? Everyone in the Huang Ji kitchen had basically eaten it, yet he, as an original shareholder of Huang Ji, hadn't eaten any!

He hadn't eaten crab roe shumai for a whole year!

Zheng Da is really not a good person; he clearly knew that he liked eating this crab roe shumai the most, yet when he rarely cooked, he didn't call him.

Gong Liang felt like contacting Qin Huai to beat around the bush, hinting and suggesting the fact that he hadn't eaten crab roe shumai for a whole year.

He would also take the opportunity to reveal his glorious record of eating crab roe shumai made by Master Jing for a whole month, proving that he was the most authoritative connoisseur of crab roe shumai, and that no one understood it better than him.

No one!

If Qin Huai needed a gourmet to sit at the kitchen door and help him provide feedback while eating some of the crab roe shumai Zheng Da made during the teaching process, he, Gong Liang, would definitely be the best candidate.

Although he couldn't speak or write about it.

But he could eat.

He could tell whether it was delicious or not just by tasting it!

Gong Liang felt like sending a message to Qin Huai.

But after thinking about it, he held back.

As a gold-medal salesman, Gong Liang understood the principle of knowing when to stop, not being overly pestering, and doing different things based on different relationships.

His relationship with Qin Huai hadn't reached the point where he could be pestering.

Assistant Xiao Qin was already a very good person; he had even let him sit at the kitchen door to eat longevity noodles. Such a good relationship couldn't be ruined by his eagerness for quick success. He would just have to endure it.

Gong Liang felt that based on his understanding of Zheng Da, since he had made so many crab roe shumai today, he definitely wouldn't make them tomorrow.

Not eating them this time was because he had underestimated the enemy; next time, he would definitely sit at the kitchen door and eat!

Then, on the afternoon of the second day, Gong Liang received news that Qin Huai had made a batch of crab roe shumai, and Zheng Da had made another batch.

According to informed sources, Qin Huai's crab roe shumai had flipped to a certain extent, which was normal. If Qin Huai had succeeded on his first try without flipping, Gong Liang would have had to consider buying the house next to the one Qin Huai rented and moving in.

However, Zheng Da's crab roe shumai performed normally.

Everyone who had eaten them said they were good.

This news made Gong Liang unable to sit still.

No, why wasn't Zheng Da following the routine?

I don't care who you are, don't get off Zheng Da's back; could you please make crab roe shumai for two more days?

On the third day, after Gong Liang finished his lunch at Huang Ji, he didn't leave. After the guests had mostly left, he brought a small stool and consciously sat at the kitchen door.

Everyone at Huang Ji:...

This day had finally come.

It wasn't enough to just bring a small stool and sit inside the kitchen.

Today, Qin Huai went first, and then Zheng Da.

After yesterday's flip, Qin Huai had a further understanding of the difficulty of seasoning crab roe shumai.

His flip yesterday wasn't an ordinary one.

It was a super big flip.

Let's put it this way: if the crab roe shumai made yesterday were given to Qin Luo to eat, she would definitely widen her eyes and loudly question who on earth made this?!

This is absolutely not my brother's craftsmanship; who is slandering my brother's reputation? Stand out, I, Qin Luo, will fight him to the end!

It was fortunate that the crab roe shumai weren't made at the Cloud Canteen, otherwise it would have been truly embarrassing.

Qin Huai also finally understood why the vast majority of chefs would rather use the second method, which was several times more troublesome, and would absolutely never touch the first one.

It was too difficult.

This flip was truly a severe one.

Those weren't shumai for humans to eat.

When Qin Huai ate the shumai he made yesterday, he even had the thought that if it really didn't work out, he should just add some pepper powder.

Although it was lazy and opportunistic, and would also mask the original flavor of the shrimp and crab meat, adding some pepper powder at least wouldn't make it taste so terrible.

Spices are truly a great invention.

Qin Huai also deeply realized why Zheng Da said he must have a good tongue.

It was indeed a good tongue.

One bite and he could identify at least 10 small problems and 8 big problems.

What he was eating wasn't shumai at all; he was eating problems.

He was eating a notebook of wrong answers.

Qin Huai quietly glanced at the task target at the kitchen door.

Why did Gong Liang come?

Why did he come at such a critical moment?

If he makes crab roe shumai later and it flips as badly as yesterday, wouldn't Gong Liang's favorability drop to zero after one bite?

The Fall of Assistant Xiao Qin.

Qin Huai took a deep breath.

He had to go all out today.

Set a small goal.

This time, he would only identify 6 small problems and 5 big problems, okay?

Tomorrow, my friend and I are going to the amusement park, so there's a high probability I won't be able to update. Also, I'm going out later today, so I don't have time to write tomorrow's update.

Let me ask for leave first.

(End of chapter)