Chapter 213

One major failure won't defeat Qin Huai, but four will.

For four consecutive days, Qin Huai had historic, major failures.

It made him feel that he had already solved several obvious major problems, but after changing the ratio of ingredients, new major problems would emerge.

This recipe for the hundred-fruit filling is like a program that keeps having bugs; you know it can run in theory, but after fixing one bug, there's a new one.

Qin Huai realized this was not a simple recipe.

There are simply too many ingredients in this hundred-fruit filling, so many that even if he used the exhaustive method to test it, he would likely be testing until next year.

Every time Zheng Siyuan tastes the tangyuan, it's like he's going to the execution ground; he has to build himself up mentally before he dares to eat the boiled tangyuan.

As for Zheng Da, he went into seclusion at home, saying he decided to focus on closed-door research for a few days and would give Qin Huai a surprise once he had results.

Zheng Siyuan guessed that his father likely called someone for help and requested outside assistance, but Jiang Weijin's hundred-fruit filling recipe is a bit too strange, and the outside help couldn't figure it out for a while.

Zheng Da is in seclusion looking for outside help, and Qin Huai is looking for outside help at Huang Ji.

Tan Weian was pulled into the hundred-fruit filling research squad by Qin Huai.

When Tan Weian first received the invitation, he was very flattered. His culinary skills, placed among the younger generation of Zhi Wei Ju, could only be considered passable; placed together with Qin Huai and Zheng Siyuan, he was directly set off as a mediocrity.

Now two geniuses shining with golden light sent him a team invitation, so Tan Weian naturally accepted decisively.

Zheng Siyuan's guess on the first day of trial-making the hundred-fruit filling was correct; Tan Weian really does know how to make hundred-fruit filling.

Zhi Wei Ju is full of talent, and there are quite a few master chefs who know how to make hundred-fruit filling; hundred-fruit mooncakes are also very popular every Mid-Autumn Festival. Tan Weian has stayed at Zhi Wei Ju for so many years and has learned a bit of skill from other master chefs.

Tan Weian's hundred-fruit filling was picked up from Master Zhou, the number one master chef at Zhi Wei Ju.

From the first day Tan Weian came to Huang Ji, Qin Huai discovered that because of his family background, his theoretical knowledge is very rich, and he has many very good recipes on hand, but his technique is limited and he can't make them.

Tan Weian's hundred-fruit filling has no problems in theory.

The problem is incompatibility.

Tan Weian admits that the hundred-fruit filling recipe is flexible; except for a few basic and important candied fruits and nuts, the rest can be changed to a certain extent according to the quality and price of the nuts, but that is also only to a certain extent.

Tan Weian's recipe only has nine items including candied fruits and nuts, while Qin Huai has a long list more than him.

This type of question can't be solved with a formula!

The teacher who set the question isn't following the routine.

On the third day of joining the hundred-fruit filling research squad, Tan Weian suspected that Qin Huai and Zheng Siyuan pulled him into this squad just to let him taste more.

It tastes too bad.

Every time it's a different kind of bad.

These candied fruits and nuts taste quite good when eaten alone, so why are they so bad when combined together?

Tan Weian even wanted to say that he is currently on a diet and can't eat such high-calorie things, and applied to pull in another person specifically for tasting.

He thinks Huang Anyao is not bad.

Although the young proprietor doesn't know how to cook and doesn't necessarily know how to eat, he knows how to comment, and his comments come in sets, which is very suitable for this bitter chore.

"Still not right." Qin Huai took a light bite of the tangyuan and savored the filling carefully. "It's not as sweet as before now, but do you guys feel that after reducing the sugar, the filling is even worse than the last one?"

Zheng Siyuan and Tan Weian nodded in unison.

Under normal circumstances, trial-making gets better and better; it's rare for them to have a situation where it gets worse the more they make it.

This is something that only happens to beginners.

Tan Weian looked at himself, looked at Qin Huai, and looked at Zheng Siyuan, feeling that the three of them couldn't possibly be associated with beginners.

If he were a beginner, wouldn't all these years have been in vain?

Looking at the hundred-fruit filling tangyuan in the bowl that he only dared to take a small bite of, Tan Weian felt that all his years had also been in vain.

Grandfather, grandson has failed you; such a terrible snack was ultimately made by me.

"We have successively changed the proportions of many ingredients. At first, we used dried apricots, dried peaches, walnuts, olives, crushed peanuts, and sesame seeds as the main ingredients, and the rest as supplements, but found that the sesame flavor was too aggressive. In the second attempt, we increased the proportion of preserved fruit, but the sweetness went up and it became even more cloying."

"Then we tried changing a few main ingredients, but no matter how we changed it, the flavor would appear very cluttered. Either it was mixed together and you couldn't make sense of it, only feeling the obvious sweetness, or some individual ingredients were too overpowering."

"Since there are so many ingredients in this recipe, each ingredient must have its role, and mixing them together should be able to exert its effect."

"But..."

"There are too many." Zheng Siyuan took over. "Whether it's cooking or making snacks, the biggest taboo in the past was adding too many ingredients to one thing; being greedy for more leads to poor digestion. But this filling goes against the grain. If the recipe hadn't been written by Master personally, I would have suspected there was a problem with the recipe."

"Then... is it possible that there really is a problem with the recipe?" Tan Weian spoke boldly. "It's not that I don't believe in Master Huang's craftsmanship. First of all, I must emphasize that I personally respect and admire Master Huang very much. Any chef who can be on the famous chef list is a senior I respect, not to mention Master Huang's ranking is so high."

"But, Master Huang is a savory chef after all."

"And this recipe is from decades ago. After so many years, Master Huang might not remember it all. Maybe he remembered it wrong and there aren't that many ingredients?"

"I've wanted to say since two days ago that although the hundred-fruit filling is called hundred-fruit filling, many times the name just represents meaning and blessings, not that there are really a hundred kinds of ingredients. 'Hundred' is a very auspicious number, symbolizing abundance and wealth. We have many master chefs at Zhi Wei Ju who know how to make hundred-fruit filling, and there has never been a hundred-fruit filling with so many ingredients."

Tan Weian looked at Qin Huai and Zheng Siyuan with eager eyes, hoping that the two could stop the loss in time, pull back from the brink, change their minds, return to the right path, and stop engaging in heresy.

He has a proper hundred-fruit filling recipe here; let's just make a proper one!

Zheng Siyuan and Qin Huai pondered for a moment.

"Makes sense." Qin Huai nodded. "So many years have passed, it's indeed impossible for Master Huang to remember every recipe. But since he was able to write it down, it shows that these are all things he is sure exist, so there are only more ingredients in the original recipe, not fewer."

"Indeed." Zheng Siyuan agreed very much. "If the original recipe had more ingredients, it means our general direction was wrong. We can't even handle the existing ingredients; if we add more, it will only be worse."

"I was thinking after I went home yesterday that with so many nuts and preserved fruits mixed together, not to mention the cluttered flavor, many of the nuts have similar flavors and you can't taste them at all."

"If you can't taste them, what is the point of adding so many ingredients?"

"So I've been pondering whether Master's recipe is meant to let various ingredients reach a clever balance, presenting the effect of 'great straightness looks crooked, great skill looks clumsy, great eloquence looks stuttering'."

Tan Weian:?

Aren't we discussing culinary arts? Why did someone seem to mention the "Laozi"?

Has discussing culinary arts already risen to this height?

Qin Huai clapped his hands: "I think it must be this direction. Let's... ah, time is up, I have to go practice heat control. We'll try again tomorrow."

Tan Weian also wanted to slip away: "I have to go..."

"You go ahead, I'll try again." Zheng Siyuan nodded. After being baptized by Guo'er, Zheng Siyuan now has a high acceptance of all kinds of strange snack recipes, not to mention that this hundred-fruit filling recipe is still his Master's recipe.

Now Zheng Siyuan, like Qin Huai, firmly believes that there is no problem with the recipe itself, and that the filling they made has problems because of them.

Tan Weian:...

Are all the pastry chefs at Huang Ji so stubborn?

How can there be someone in this world who is more stubborn than his junior brother?

Setting aside the facts... there's no need to set aside the facts; the facts are now served in the bowl. Do Qin Huai and Zheng Siyuan really believe in this strange recipe so much?

Is this the gap between him and a genius?

A genius can see something from this recipe, but he can't see anything at all.

Tan Weian didn't understand; he could only say: "I'll go cut the nuts and preserved fruits."

Huang Shengli led Qin Huai to practice heat control as usual.

Qin Huai is still practicing stir-frying meat, all kinds of stir-fried meat. Because he has to set aside part of his time in the afternoon to practice the hundred-fruit filling, there is less stir-fried meat, and there is also less stir-fried meat in the staff meals for Huang Ji employees in the evening.

What followed was a lot of terrible hundred-fruit filling tangyuan.

Logically speaking, such terrible tangyuan would make even a pig spit twice if fed to it as swill. But the people at Huang Ji, from chefs to waiters, always have those who are not afraid of death, wanting to taste how terrible it is every day.

Yesterday's tangyuan were even in short supply, not enough for everyone to taste.

So much so that very outrageous gossip spread, saying that Qin Huai has been researching tangyuan during this time and they are very delicious, attracting everyone at Huang Ji to compete to taste them.

Many diners are looking forward to Huang Ji launching new tangyuan soon, to taste Master Qin's latest masterpiece.

These diners include Gong Liang.

Yes, Gong Liang still hasn't eaten the hundred-fruit filling tangyuan made by Qin Huai. Every night when Qin Huai goes home to practice, he specifically picks out the hundred-fruit filling tangyuan and sends the Four Joys Tangyuan, which only has three tangyuan due to cutting corners, to the neighbor.

It's too terrible, so terrible that it's not worth tasting.

Gong Liang didn't really remember what the hundred-fruit filling tangyuan tasted like; this taste is a beautiful memory for him, and Qin Huai was very afraid that one tangyuan would directly shatter Gong Liang's memory.

That would really be a sin.

Qin Huai is stir-frying meat.

In the past few days, his heat control has improved just like the previous period, not much, but steadily improving.

Xu Cheng is still in Gusu and hasn't left; looking at this posture, he won't give up until he has eaten all the snacks Qin Huai can make.

Now there are many people queuing at Huang Ji, and sometimes the surrounding area starts to have traffic jams from 10 o'clock. Xu Cheng basically doesn't come to eat snacks at noon; he always comes at night to sit in a private room and have private cooking. Qin Huai has to make a few snacks separately after finishing his daily practice before leaving.

While Qin Huai was thinking about which snacks to make later, he was also thinking about how to keep so many ingredients in a perfect balance, while still stir-frying meat. Once he got distracted, he failed.

"Thinking about the hundred-fruit filling?" Huang Shengli asked with a smile. "Getting distracted while stir-frying is not a good habit."

"Sorry, Master Huang, I won't do it next time." Qin Huai quickly admitted his mistake.

Huang Shengli waved his hand: "I don't mean to blame you. It's normal to be absent-minded when the hundred-fruit filling has turned out like this these past few days."

Qin Huai felt that Huang Shengli's attack power had increased recently.

"Master Huang, did Master Jing's hundred-fruit filling really use so many ingredients back then?" Qin Huai asked.

Huang Shengli said affirmatively: "It did. I prepared the ingredients for Master. I was also very surprised at that time, so I have a deep impression. I remember I seemed to have asked Master the same question, but too many years have passed, and I can't remember Master's answer clearly, but it must have been a reasonable answer."

"Then is Master Jing's hundred-fruit filling really as delicious as Mr. Gong and his wife said?" Qin Huai continued to ask.

"Although Gong Liang is full of nonsense all day long and is best at blowing up a 1-point thing into 11 points, he didn't blow it up that exaggeratedly when it comes to my Master's craftsmanship."

"When I was young, I once thought my Master was omnipotent. He was proficient in both savory and pastry cooking and was a master of Huaiyang and Su-style cuisine. Although he didn't make many dishes and snacks often, and even only made them once, I know he was actually very good at other cuisines."

"He was actually capable of Cantonese, Sichuan, Hunan, Shandong, and Anhui cuisines, and I believe Master must have been very proficient in Shandong cuisine, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to master the Shandong cuisine secret technique of the great spoon flip. It's just that due to regional factors, he only made Su-style and Huaiyang cuisine in Gusu."

"The hundred-fruit filling tangyuan might just be one of the many snacks Master was proficient in. He didn't care about it and only made it when he occasionally thought of it, but it must have been delicious."

"Xiao Qin, if you feel you can't make the hundred-fruit filling from the recipe, don't be discouraged; even geniuses will encounter mountains they can't climb over."

"When your Master Zheng and I were young, we both thought we were geniuses, but facts proved that there are still many high mountains in front of us that are difficult to climb."

"Sometimes it's good to suffer some setbacks; don't be stubborn."

"Your Master Zheng called the boss of Zhi Wei Ju yesterday to bridge the gap and find Master Zhou to ask for outside help. He gave the recipe over, but was scolded back by Master Zhou, telling him not to use such inexplicable things to fool and embarrass him."

"Don't be too hard on yourself; let your Master Zheng study at home for a few days."

Qin Huai understood; Huang Shengli meant for him not to be hard on himself, just be hard on Zheng Da.

Qin Huai continued to stir-fry meat.

The next day, when Qin Huai was practicing the hundred-fruit filling, he took the initiative to suggest stopping practicing this outrageous recipe and try Tan Weian's reliable recipe.

Hearing Qin Huai say this, Tan Weian almost wept with joy, thinking Qin Huai had finally figured it out.

Zheng Siyuan didn't know why, but he still followed suit.

Tan Weian's recipe is indeed a good recipe; the hundred-fruit filling made has no problems, the taste is normal and delicious, and it would definitely be good if used to make mooncakes.

The only drawback is that it's a bit strange when wrapped in tangyuan and needs to be changed.

Tan Weian, who finally ate the hundred-fruit filling tangyuan with a normal taste, had tears falling down and said excitedly: "Now are we just researching how to change this recipe?"

Great, the hundred-fruit filling research squad is finally going to do real work!

This is normal research!

Qin Huai ate the hundred-fruit filling tangyuan that was still passable: "It seems our level is not a problem; the hundred-fruit filling is delicious, and it can also be delicious when wrapped in tangyuan."

"Siyuan, let's use this recipe as a reference and ponder Master Jing's recipe according to its matching logic."

Zheng Siyuan nodded: "I think it's possible."

Tan Weian:...

You guys are really %*@! /&!

Tired, destroy it, Tan Weian wanted to quit the team.

He couldn't take this bitterness anymore; could he send his dear junior brother Guli to eat for two days?

Junior brother, it's not that senior brother is avoiding responsibility; it's mainly that senior brother wants to lose weight and quit sweets during this time.

(End of chapter)