Chapter 322: Sea Cucumber

Because he had to eat the double-crab buns made by Zheng Siyuan in the afternoon and practice crab roe paste at the same time, Qin Huai moved the time for practicing knife skills to noon.

Noon was the time for Cao Guixiang to watch TV. As an old lady who slept little, Cao Guixiang didn't have the habit of taking a nap. The online class at noon didn't delay Cao Guixiang's TV watching either. Zhang Chu also made a wooden mobile phone stand for Cao Guixiang, allowing Cao Guixiang to watch TV while scanning the mobile phone screen with the corner of her eye, entertainment and teaching both not delayed.

Because of the camera angle, Cao Guixiang was on camera in profile, and could also see Zhang Chu sitting next to Cao Guixiang, cracking melon seeds while watching TV.

Qin Huai was still cutting radishes.

Radishes were ingredients very suitable for practicing knife skills—cheap and low cost. In Cao Guixiang's words, the beginning time for every beginner practicing knife skills was the time of cutting radishes until they wanted to vomit. When they didn't need to cut radishes and started cutting other ingredients, they would actually be a bit reluctant, because they had already developed feelings for cutting radishes.

Qin Huai currently hadn't developed any feelings for radishes.

On the contrary, An Youyou and radish cakes had developed deep feelings. Besides money, the thing An Youyou couldn't lose now was the title of "Sister Radish Cake."

Zheng Siyuan was kneading dough.

Not the dough for double-crab buns, but the dough for three-ding buns and fermented rice steamed buns.

Ever since Master Xiao Zheng made a brilliant appearance, the three-ding buns and fermented rice steamed buns of Yunzhong Canteen were basically handed over to Zheng Siyuan. The fickle Master Qin had many snacks that needed to be made and didn't have much time to spare for these two "old loves."

Master Xiao Zheng liked it.

Zheng Siyuan originally liked to make only a few types of snacks year after year. Previously, the ones he made the most were crispy cakes, victory cakes, and fresh meat mooncakes; these three were the trump card snacks of his pastry shop. Now, the three snacks he made the most had changed to three-ding buns, fermented rice steamed buns, and fresh meat mooncakes, with crispy cakes and victory cakes ranking behind.

"Xiao Qin, I thought about that double-crab bun of yours all day today, but I couldn't think of any clues." Cao Guixiang suddenly popped out with such a sentence without beginning or end while watching TV. "Using fresh crab roe and sea cucumber to make buns is a bit too inconsistent with our philosophy of cooking."

Qin Huai didn't expect Cao Guixiang to talk about philosophy, feeling a bit surprised, and looked up at the mobile phone screen: "What do you mean?"

"This ingredient pairing is very magical." Cao Guixiang said. "In the words of the 'Suiyuan Shidan': 'Whenever a thing is cooked, it must be assisted.' I don't remember the long string of words behind it, but the general meaning is that light dishes should be paired with light ingredients, strong dishes should be paired with strong ingredients, and soft dishes should be paired with soft ingredients."

"You said before that before Master Huang taught you how to make crab roe shumai, he 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 are suitable for pairing with which ingredients to have a philosophy of cooking, to have ideas, to have a clearer direction for seasoning, and to make good dishes."

"Food with too strong a flavor is usually only suitable for eating alone. It's not that beef and mutton can only be cooked alone; Yuan Mei felt that these strong-flavored foods have prominent advantages but also many disadvantages, and need to be harmonized with the five flavors and carefully prepared to retain the deliciousness and remove the disadvantages. In this case, where would there be leisure to consider what ingredients they should be paired with? Pairing ingredients means having to give up a part."

"However, this is just Yuan Mei's personal opinion. He disliked sea cucumber paired with soft-shelled turtle, and crab powder paired with shark fin. But crab powder shark fin itself is a famous dish, and those who love to eat it are like crucian carp crossing the river, countless. It can be seen that there is no absolute 'can' or 'cannot' in ingredient pairing; it mainly depends on how the chef operates specifically."

"But crab roe paired with sea cucumber, and used to make bun filling, I have really never heard of it."

"I can also be considered a chef who is very good at cooking sea cucumber dishes. Sea cucumber itself is very difficult to cook. It has no taste itself, has a lot of mud and sand, and has a heavy fishy smell. It cannot be simmered in clear soup and made into a dish alone, and the process of handling it is extremely troublesome."

"It needs to be soaked in clear water to remove mud and sand. To remove its fishy smell, you usually have to put in a lot of effort, such as rolling and soaking it three times in boiling meat broth, and then simmering it until it is thoroughly cooked with chicken broth and meat broth. Not to mention that sea cucumber is difficult to cook until soft; I usually simmer it a day in advance when making sea cucumber dishes during festivals. Even if making cold-mixed sea cucumber, it must be cold-mixed with strong-flavored sauce."

"With such difficult-to-handle fishy ingredients, paired with fresh crab roe, I really can't imagine what kind of magical pairing this is."

"The chef who created this snack recipe must be a seasoning master. Ordinary chefs would find handling one thing enough to give them a headache, let alone now it's 1+1>2."

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

Qin Huai knew that the seasoning difficulty of double-crab buns was very high; he had already heard it from many people. Whether it was Huang Shengli, Zheng Da, or Zheng Siyuan, when they learned that Qin Huai wanted to learn double-crab buns, the first thing they emphasized to him was that double-crab buns were very difficult to make, the seasoning difficulty was extremely high, a miss was as good as a mile, and a slight carelessness would lead to a crash on the spot.

But what Qin Huai was best at from beginning to end was seasoning, and seasoning was also the skill he upgraded to master level the fastest. After upgrading to master-level seasoning, Qin Huai had many more insights into seasoning. Plus, he was born with a good tongue, so Qin Huai was actually quite confident in himself before hearing Cao Guixiang say this.

Although he hadn't eaten double-crab buns and hadn't made double-crab buns, just simply looked at the recipe given to him by Old Man Wang, Qin Huai felt he could do it.

Don't ask; asking is confidence.

Hearing Cao Guixiang say this, Qin Huai's confidence weakened a bit.

"Does five-ding bun count?" Qin Huai asked.

Cao Guixiang shook her head: "What kind of sea cucumber dish is that? That can only be considered a dish that uses sea cucumber. Sea cucumber is neither the protagonist nor the main ingredient; it is used to assist."

Qin Huai:...

Cao Guixiang showed an inquisitive expression, staring at the mobile phone screen at Qin Huai, and asked very curiously: "Scared?"

Qin Huai shook his head: "Although you and others have made double-crab buns sound very scary, I haven't even tried it. If I get scared first, it would be a bit shameful."

"You have to let me make it once first, know how high its difficulty is, and whether my current level can do it, before being afraid, right?"

Cao Guixiang laughed until the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes came out: "It's just a pity that I retired decades ago. Otherwise, if I had met you decades earlier, I would definitely have taken you as an apprentice, let you learn both savory and pastry dishes; you are really too much to my taste! If my second senior brother met you, he would also definitely take you as an apprentice."

Qin Huai just took this sentence as Cao Guixiang's highest praise for him, smiled, and didn't speak.

"Alright, you are a pastry chef after all. You've practiced knife skills for an hour today, so let's practice until here." Cao Guixiang turned off the TV directly, startling Zhang Chu on the side, his eyes wide open, his face full of "Wife, you don't watch TV, but I still want to watch."

Qin Huai:?

"Since you want to make double-crab buns, sea cucumber should have been bought, right?" Cao Guixiang asked.

Qin Huai nodded: "Bought, bought quite a lot. But it's not sea cucumber of particularly good quality. Zheng Siyuan said that double-crab buns don't have very high requirements for sea cucumber quality."

"Normal. Sea cucumber doesn't have much taste anyway; more of it is to provide a soft and waxy texture. The focus of double-crab buns must still be on the crab roe."

"For the next time, we won't practice knife skills. I will take you to know and familiarize yourself with this ingredient, sea cucumber."

"Although I have retired for decades, during the time I was still a chef, what I made most every day was sea cucumber dishes and shark fin dishes. Sometimes I really don't understand what is so delicious about these two dishes. What gives them taste has never been the ingredients themselves, but the various high-quality broths I simmered. These two ingredients are expensive and troublesome to handle, but customers at that time just liked to eat them, and the more expensive, the more they loved to eat them. It really makes people helpless."

"At that time, big dishes in the restaurant had to be booked in advance. Sometimes when I looked at the booking menu, it was all yellow-braised shark fin, crab roe shark fin, three-shred shark fin, casserole shark fin, clear-stewed shark fin, thick soup shark fin, sea-braised shark fin, scallion-braised sea cucumber, cold-mixed sea cucumber, braised big sea cucumber, chicken-shred sea cucumber soup—I had a headache. Clearly, I was also good at chicken, duck, fish, and meat; my firewood-bundle duck and Wanfu meat were not bad either, but no customers ordered them."

Cao Guixiang's string of dish names made Qin Huai stupid. After listening, Qin Huai only had one thought in his heart:

Sure enough, high-end "Versailles" only requires simple dish naming.

These dishes sound expensive just by hearing them.

Zhang Chu on the side was hungry just listening. With no TV to watch, Zhang Chu wanted to eat something good: "Guixiang, are you free these two days? If you are free, make a chicken-shred sea cucumber soup. I haven't eaten it for a long time. Isn't Xiao Qin also going to make sea cucumber snacks? Teach him while you make it."

Zhang Chu still had some wit when it came to eating.

Cao Guixiang didn't care either and nodded: "Okay, call the children over this weekend, and I'll make a good meal."

Qin Huai wanted to go back to Qu County for the weekend just listening.

Cao Guixiang had already said she would teach Qin Huai to know sea cucumber, so Qin Huai stopped practicing knife skills after cutting the last radish in his hand and turned to get the sea cucumber.

A portion of the sea cucumber had already been handled by Zheng Siyuan yesterday. As Cao Guixiang said, sea cucumber was a very difficult ingredient to handle. It required long-term soaking in clear water to spit out sand, and various methods to remove the fishy smell. During the cooking process, time had to be used to overcome its disadvantage of being difficult to soften, and finally, you would get an ingredient that had no taste and tasted unique and very soft and waxy.

Sea cucumber had never belonged to home-style dishes, because it was really too tiring to do it at home.

Cao Guixiang let Qin Huai first compare the unprocessed sea cucumber with the sea cucumber handled by Zheng Siyuan, and then explained to Qin Huai in detail the characteristics of sea cucumber, and its ingredient pairing and cooking methods under normal circumstances. Simply put, it was piling up materials and spending time to gnaw down this hard bone.

Cao Guixiang talked for more than 20 minutes just on the explanation, step-by-step and very detailed, allowing Qin Huai to fully understand what a creative thing it was to use sea cucumber as the main ingredient for buns.

Then Cao Guixiang affirmed Zheng Siyuan's handling, saying that the sea cucumber handled by Zheng Siyuan was very beautiful and standard.

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

Finally, Cao Guixiang let Qin Huai try it himself.

It didn't matter if he messed it up; it was cheap sea cucumber anyway, and the cost wasn't high. If it really didn't work, he could still use mustard and chicken juice to make cold-mixed sea cucumber, which was edible.

Master Cao had nothing but recipes here.

Qin Huai felt that he had returned to the time when he had just learned crab roe shumai.

Because he didn't understand and didn't know the ingredients, he couldn't learn to make snacks as soon as he started, but had to start from the most basic familiarization with ingredient handling.

Just like when learning crab roe shumai, he had a very careful and patient master on his side, who corrected him in time when he had problems, with simple corrections without any blame.

Even if this problem was very common-sense, in the mouth of this careful and patient master, it would become a problem that everyone would make, and it was normal for you to have this problem. We just need to change it if we have this problem once, remember it if it appears twice, and if it appears three times, it shows that this problem was discovered correctly, and you are just not good at this aspect, so we will learn and correct it more.

Although Cao Guixiang said she had never taken an apprentice and didn't dare to take an apprentice for fear of misleading others, Qin Huai felt that if Cao Guixiang were a master, she would definitely be a very good master.

A very good master, just like Huang Shengli.

By the time Qin Huai finished learning about sea cucumber, it was already 2:46 PM.

It wasn't that Qin Huai had completely learned it, but that it was time for Cao Guixiang to go out and chat with her good sisters in the park.

"Xiao Qin, come to Qu County after you finish practicing radishes. Don't forget to make a double-crab bun for your Master Cao and Grandpa Zhang. I am really too curious about what this bun tastes like." Cao Guixiang got up to take her canvas bag, saying while walking.

"Definitely. It's just that at the speed I practice dishes, I might not have learned double-crab buns by then." Qin Huai smiled bitterly.

"If you haven't learned it, it's even better. Make more for your Grandpa Zhang. If he buys the wrong vegetables next time, let him eat the double-crab buns you make every morning."

"The ones that aren't learned well must be especially bad."

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

"Make it well. If you have any problems with seasoning, feel free to ask me on WeChat. Although I don't know, your Master Cao still has a level of seasoning, maybe I can give some ideas." After speaking, Cao Guixiang hung up the video call and went out to stroll in the park.

Qin Huai also put away the sea cucumber he had just handled, preparing to make cold-mixed sea cucumber according to the recipe given by Cao Guixiang later, and washed his hands to watch Zheng Siyuan make double-crab buns.

Zheng Siyuan's dough was already kneaded, and he was handling the sea cucumber.

He was frying the sea cucumber.

This magical way of handling ingredients surprised Qin Huai. Although he didn't know much about the ingredient sea cucumber, he had just taken an emergency class for more than an hour.

Cao Guixiang didn't talk about this part.

The sea cucumber Cao Guixiang talked about was either braised, simmered in high-quality broth, or cold-mixed. The main cooking methods were braising, simmering, and stewing.

What kind of new model is this frying?

This snack is too creative.

The most critical thing is that the recipe given by Old Man Wang didn't say to fry the sea cucumber.

Zheng Siyuan wouldn't have made a decision that violated his ancestors, right?

Qin Huai walked over in shock and asked: "Why... why fry the sea cucumber?"

Although it was just deep-frying the shredded sea cucumber for a few seconds, this was also very contrary to the ancestors. Is there such a way to fry sea cucumber?

"Won't sea cucumber turn into a pool of water if fried?" Qin Huai asked weakly.

"So I only deep-fry it for a few seconds." Zheng Siyuan said. "If it's double-crab buns made with fresh crab roe, you don't need to deep-fry it, but if it's made with crab roe paste, you need to."

"I know you have the recipe for double-crab buns, and I've also seen that recipe; it doesn't have this step. But this deep-frying was actually discovered by my grandmaster by accident. Adding this step will make the texture different, and the pairing with crab roe paste will also be better."

"You'll know when you eat it later."

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

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

Zheng Siyuan was silent.

"It was my dad."

"It is said that a batch of old customers sent a lot of sea cucumber. In that era, it was difficult to see sea cucumber in non-coastal areas. My dad, as a pastry chef, had very few times to make and touch sea cucumber."

"He was young at that time, a newborn calf not afraid of tigers, daring to question authority."

"It's common sense that sea cucumber cannot be fried; no chef would fry sea cucumber for customers to eat. My dad just didn't believe in evil, feeling that it couldn't be fried for too long, and it wouldn't be bad to deep-fry it for a few seconds to make the skin of the sea cucumber crispier. He even tried wrapping it in starch and frying it."

"Anyway, just... discovered it like this."

Qin Huai:...

As expected of you, Master Zheng.

"So sometimes my dad says I'm too rigid and don't know how to innovate; I never pay attention to him."

"He is just too good at innovating, which is why he became what he is now."

"Sometimes I don't understand how he innovates. He not only fries sea cucumber, but also fries bird's nest, and even wrapped shark fin in starch and fried it."

"My mom said he was just following the trend of loving fried chicken at that time, so he wanted to throw everything into the oil pan and fry it."

Qin Huai:...

6.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 323 =====