Chapter 346: Knife skills intermediate

Qin Huai couldn't stop eating.

In his opinion, whether it was Mei Cai Meicai Kourou, Chai Ba duck, scallion-stewed sea cucumber, or stir-fried yam, they were all rice dishes.

Yes, as long as it is made by Cao Guixiang, it is a rice dish.

Among them, stir-fried yam is the cleanest and the most reasonable combination.

Just as Cao Guixiang said, yam itself has a sticky feeling and belongs to the congenital thickening holy body. Thickening yam will be easier than other dishes, and at the same time it will be more difficult.

It is easy because no matter how you thicken it, the yam out of the pot must have a thickening effect. The difficulty is how to thicken thinly to achieve the effect you want, how to make the dish look better, and while making it more appetizing, change its texture and taste to make it reach the effect the chef wants.

Cao Guixiang did it.

When Qin Huai ate Mei Cai Meicai Kourou, he felt that the pig didn't die in vain.

When eating Chai Ba duck, he felt that the duck didn't die in vain.

When eating scallion-stewed sea cucumber, he felt that the sea cucumber could stay on this plate and it was considered to have died in its place.

When eating stir-fried yam, he deeply felt that if he could cut the yam slices thinner when cutting, it would be better.

If the yam slices were thinner, the texture when eaten should be crispier. Perhaps when chewing the yam, he could eat a feeling closer to crisp, which is the feeling of refreshment, which is the effect pursued by thickening thinly.

Qin Huai found that when he eats dishes, he is no longer just sighing at how delicious a dish is, how rice-friendly it is, eating it until he can't stop, originally eating eight or nine points full is enough, now he wants to eat fifteen points full.

He has been able to start analyzing how delicious this dish is, why it is so delicious. Where is the chef who cooks the dish powerful, where is the mistake, where is the ingenious work.

Before, Qin Huai felt that it was more delicious to have Huang Anyao explain the dishes when eating good dishes. Now Qin Huai doesn't need Huang Anyao to explain, he explains it to himself in his heart.

Qin Huai didn't even realize that when he was eating, it looked like wolfing down, big mouthfuls, eating anything fragrant. In fact, every bite was chewed slowly, and there was a pause due to thinking between the dish entering the mouth and starting to chew.

This is tasting.

Cao Guixiang saw all this in her eyes, smiled and ate without speaking, just occasionally picked up two chopsticks of dishes for Qin Huai, and then warned her husband.

"Why eat so much late at night? One bowl of rice is enough. If you eat too much, you will have indigestion and stomach pain."

Zhang Chu:...

So wife, will love disappear?

After Zhang Chu, who successfully ate a bowl and a half of rice, finished washing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen, Cao Guixiang and Qin Huai put on their aprons again and entered the kitchen to work.

Cao Guixiang hung soup, Qin Huai cut radish.

The soup in the kitchen had been hung since the afternoon. For all the big dishes that Cao Guixiang made that needed high soup, the production time of high soup would not be less than 16 hours. With such a long production time, the chef certainly couldn't stare at the side all the time.

In fact, as long as someone stares at the side during the stage of hanging soup at the beginning and the stage of finishing at the end, there will be no problem checking it at a fixed point at other times.

The high soup at this time does not need to be stared at.

Therefore, Cao Guixiang was hanging high soup in name, but actually staring at Qin Huai.

Apprentice Xiao Qin was a little nervous.

Online classes and offline teaching are definitely different. In online classes, Cao Guixiang would only fish for law enforcement from time to time. If there was a problem with offline teaching, she would really go up and break it directly.

Before, when Qin Huai practiced holding the knife in Cao Guixiang's house, as long as Cao Guixiang moved her hand, Qin Huai would subconsciously stop, waiting for Cao Guixiang to come and break his hand, and it almost formed muscle memory.

Apprentice Xiao Qin focused all his attention on cutting radish.

Compared with the last time he cut radish in Cao Guixiang's house, Qin Huai's knife skills had made very obvious progress.

Everyone always says that it is easy from 1~100, but it is difficult from 0~1. Qin Huai feels that both are difficult. He has already gone from 0~1, and is now struggling from 1~10.

Zhang Chu watched secretly from outside, he actually didn't understand, but it didn't prevent him from commenting in a low voice: "Xiao Qin's radish cutting is okay now, it has a look. Radish slices are radish slices, radish shreds are radish shreds."

"Should I make a few more cutting boards for him?"

Apprentice Xiao Qin focused all his attention on cutting radish, while observing with the corner of his eye whether Master Cao would rush up at any time and break his hand.

Master Cao didn't.

Master Cao was pretending to hang soup.

Unknowingly, one radish after another was cut, the large basket used to hold radish shreds was full, Zhang Chu dragged the basket out and changed a new basket back.

Qin Huai became more and more relaxed, and the action of cutting radish became faster and faster.

How to say it, Qin Huai is actually the first time to cut radish with such full attention.

Before, when practicing in Cao Guixiang's house, because he couldn't hold the knife correctly, Qin Huai had to divide a lot of attention to Cao Guixiang, because as long as Cao Guixiang moved, he knew he had a problem again.

In the first few days, Qin Huai even felt that he couldn't hold the knife. Every day, his first reaction when he got the kitchen knife was to repeatedly adjust the action of holding the knife, feeling that this was not right and that was not right. Anyway, as long as his hand touched the kitchen knife, he felt strange.

Under these circumstances, the pressure of practicing knife skills can be imagined.

Fortunately, Cao Guixiang is not the kind of critical strict master. Even if Qin Huai made many basic mistakes, a mistake appeared repeatedly. Even if it was corrected for him in the last second, it appeared again in the next second, Cao Guixiang would not show displeasure and dislike, but would only break it with sharp eyes and quick hands, and tell him what it should be like after breaking it.

At that time, Qin Huai was cutting radish in Cao Guixiang's house, which was truly laying the foundation.

Later, in online classes, the master was not by his side and no one was breaking it by hand, and Qin Huai could not fully concentrate. Because Master Cao loves to chat about some gossip and likes to fish for law enforcement, Qin Huai also had to be careful when chatting, paying attention to the content of the gossip while not being overly invested in the content of the gossip.

This directly led to Qin Huai rarely having the opportunity to devote himself to cutting vegetables so wholeheartedly, just cutting vegetables, without worrying that his bad knife-holding posture would be corrected by the master on the side, without worrying that his mistake would make the master on the side disappointed, and without being overly relaxed and chatting while cutting vegetables, just like daily work, relaxed and happy.

He was just cutting vegetables.

Very simple cutting vegetables.

Qin Huai held the knife in his hand, the knife cut quickly, the speed was getting faster and faster, the action was standard, clean and neat, making a neat cutting sound.

The kitchen was very quiet, the high soup in the pot was not boiling, and the roar of the range hood did not seem very obvious at this moment.

Cao Guixiang didn't speak, didn't make a sound, and even controlled her breathing to a state that could not be detected, watching Qin Huai cut radish quietly, and handed radish to Qin Huai. 【3

Zhang Chu had washed these radishes clean that afternoon; they were all piled up in the kitchen, and whatever couldn't fit in the kitchen was in the storage room.

To allow Qin Huai to cut the radishes better, Zhang Chu had bought a two-day supply all at once.

Qin Huai cut basket after basket.

Time ticked away second by second, and the radishes turned into shredded radish one by one.

Zhang Chu went from secretly peeking through the kitchen crack outside the kitchen at the beginning to pulling up a stool and sitting directly at the kitchen entrance, waiting for the baskets to fill up while scrolling on his phone, not even daring to turn on the sound while scrolling.

He had made a slightly loud noise when dragging the baskets half an hour ago and had been glared at fiercely by Cao Guixiang.

Although Zhang Chu was not a chef, he was an excellent carpenter who had also apprenticed under a master to learn his craft in his earlier years, so he could tell that Qin Huai's state at this very moment was excellent.

He was in the state of "epiphany" commonly used in fantasy novels.

Commonly known as "the feeling has arrived."

Considering that Qin Huai was a "feeling-based" master who had relied on his intuition for years to practice techniques for making pastries, his "feeling arriving" was super-doubled.

Therefore, Zhang Chu was extremely cautious when dragging and changing the baskets, terrified that a loud noise would disturb Qin Huai and make him a sinner through the ages. He didn't want to end up unable to eat a single pastry that Qin Huai brought back, or be forbidden from eating tomorrow's big meal and sent out to go fishing instead.

Qin Huai was completely unaware of this; he didn't even know how many radishes he had cut. Anyway, if there were radishes, he cut them; if there were radishes, he cut them.

Unknowingly, the radishes in the kitchen were all cut.

The moon outside the window was even brighter.

Cao Guixiang's feet were sore from standing, but she didn't sit down, only leaning against the edge of the stove, occasionally taking a truly light-footed look at the soup she was simmering. Zhang Chu was sleepy; he covered his mouth and let out a silent yawn, wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes with his index finger, and silently scrolled through videos.

The hour hand of the wall clock had passed 12, and the second hand ticked slowly along.

Zhang Chu became increasingly sleepy, and his silent yawns became more frequent. He didn't even notice that the short video of the "dyd air force collection" on his phone had already replayed 17 times. Because he had already fallen asleep in the same posture as when one gets sleepy in class, his head bobbing as he drifted off.

The baskets in the kitchen were about to be full again.

Qin Huai finished cutting the radishes at hand and reached out to touch the next one.

He touched it, eh, no radishes.

Qin Huai turned his head and discovered that Cao Guixiang was already leaning against the refrigerator, dozing off.

He turned his head again and discovered that Zhang Chu was sitting on a chair, sleeping so soundly he was almost snoring.

Qin Huai:...

Was he... wearing out an old man and an old woman?

Qin Huai didn't know what to do for a moment; he didn't know whether he should pat Cao Guixiang first to wake Master Cao up, or call out to Zhang Chu first to wake Grandpa Zhang up.

Between waking up Master Cao and Grandpa Zhang, Qin Huai chose to pick up the last radish on the floor, which was also the last radish in the kitchen.

Since things had come to this, he might as well cut this radish first.

Qin Huai cut the radish with a fast knife.

He didn't know what had happened to him just now; he just felt like he had been cutting radishes, cutting radishes, not thinking about anything, and not needing to think about anything, just needing to keep cutting radishes. The radishes were cut very smoothly, and the shredded radish came out very beautifully.

He felt that he had a very good "feel" for cutting radishes today; both the knife and the radishes were more obedient than before, and the shredded radish he cut was more uniform, more compliant, finer, and neater.

Soon, the last radish was finished.

Qin Huai yawned, feeling a bit unsatisfied, rotated his slightly sore neck, moved his shoulders, and twisted his waist, discovering that he had indeed cut radishes for a very long time, causing many parts of his body to start aching and even stiffening.

Qin Huai took out his phone and simultaneously reached out toward Cao Guixiang, preparing to wake Master Cao with a light pat.

Qin Huai pressed his phone on with his left hand, glanced at the time, paused, and his right hand stopped in mid-air without patting Cao Guixiang.

It was now 2:47 AM.

Qin Huai vaguely remembered that he should have entered the kitchen around 9 o'clock.

That meant he had been cutting radishes in the kitchen for nearly 6 hours.

Qin Huai looked at the floor in a daze and discovered that there were actually a few more things in the kitchen, a few cardboard boxes that didn't belong in the kitchen. This meant he might have cut all the radishes in the kitchen, and Zhang Chu had gone to the storage room to move a few more boxes of radishes over, only he hadn't noticed.

How could he not have noticed?

No, he couldn't say he didn't notice; Qin Huai felt that he had an impression of someone walking back and forth in the kitchen, but he hadn't cared at all at that time; all he had in his heart at that time was cutting radishes.

What exactly happened to him during these 6 hours?

The game system had cheated for him, letting him enter a state of epiphany.

Did the game system have this cheat?

Qin Huai was still in a daze when a "duang" sound came from outside the kitchen.

Zhang Chu had been too engrossed in dozing off; his hand loosened, his phone fell to the ground and collided violently with the wooden floor, and at the same time, he pitched forward, his head knocking against the kitchen door.

"Ouch." Zhang Chu let out a wail.

Qin Huai hurriedly opened the door to check the situation.

Cao Guixiang also woke up.

Cao Guixiang hadn't expected that she would one day fall asleep in the kitchen while watching someone else cut radishes. She was a bit dazed for the first second after waking up, but after hearing the commotion outside, she immediately took action to go out and check the situation.

With just one glance, Cao Guixiang guessed what had happened and looked at Zhang Chu with a speechless expression.

Her face was full of, "If you're sleepy, go back to your room to sleep; don't be a hindrance and a failure out here."

Zhang Chu covered his head and looked at his wife with full repentance.

Qin Huai half-knelt on the ground to check the injury on Zhang Chu's forehead; it wasn't very serious, just a little red and swollen from knocking against the kitchen door. If he was unlucky, it might swell into a small bump, but it wasn't a big problem.

"Master Cao, this is my fault. It's almost 3 o'clock now, and I don't know what happened to me today, cutting radishes until this hour." Qin Huai apologized first, "I caused you and Grandpa Zhang to fall asleep waiting for me to cut radishes; otherwise, Grandpa Zhang wouldn't have been sleepy outside and knocked his head on the door."

Zhang Chu waved his hands repeatedly: "My fault, my fault."

"It has nothing to do with you, Xiao Qin. Grandpa Zhang and I were willing to wait on the side. It's already 3 o'clock; your hands must be sore. Soak your wrists in hot water for five minutes when you shower later, or your hands will be uncomfortable tomorrow."

"It's so late, hurry up and shower. Grandpa Zhang and I aren't in a hurry; elderly people sleep less. Your Grandpa Zhang often wakes up at 3 o'clock and can't fall back asleep, playing on his phone in the middle of the night. This hour is exactly when he's most awake, right Old Zhang?"

"Right, right, right." Zhang Chu nodded repeatedly for the sake of breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Qin Huai:...

He even felt a little sympathy for Zhang Chu. How about this: if there's any chicken soup left tomorrow, he would specifically make a bowl of chicken noodle soup for Zhang Chu to nourish him.

The time was indeed very late, so Qin Huai didn't dawdle, taking his pajamas into the bathroom to shower.

Zhang Chu covered his head and asked his wife with some confusion: "Did Xiao Qin have an epiphany just now? When I was learning carpentry from my master back in the day, I would occasionally have this state, but it wouldn't be as exaggerated as Xiao Qin's. Mainly because our carpentry is hard labor; the body really can't take it if you work for 6 hours straight without stopping."

"But doesn't this situation usually only appear when one's technique is decent? Xiao Qin's knife skills... are they okay now?"

Cao Guixiang shook her head: "Still far from it, but calling him back this time was the right thing to do."

"It's just that he might have to stay a few more days to finish learning the next stage of knife skills before going back."

"Tomorrow, you go buy more radishes. No, don't buy radishes. Buy yams; it's just right for practicing thickening."

"Alright." Zhang Chu nodded.

On the other side, when Qin Huai took his pajamas into the bathroom, he was still savoring the feeling of cutting radishes just now: the unprecedented, fully focused immersion, the unprecedented high efficiency, the unprecedented feeling.

That state of selflessness, after experiencing it and savoring it carefully, was truly wonderful.

Qin Huai closed the bathroom door.

Since he was already in the bathroom, he might as well open the game panel and take a look; Qin Huai felt that his knife skills should have leveled up.

Player Name: Qin Huai

Unlocked Collection: 7/12

Skills:

Dough Leavening (Advanced): Your dough leavening technique has already defeated 96% of pastry chefs in the country. (41009/100000)

Filling Preparation (Master Level): Your filling preparation technique has already defeated 98% of excellent pastry chefs in the country. (59637/1000000)

Finger Techniques (Intermediate): You have finally started to shape your pastries. (9337/10000)

Oil-based Pastry (Intermediate): The fried dough sticks you make are not bad. (2171/10000)

Knife Skills (Intermediate): Still need to work hard. (99/10000)

Heat Control (Intermediate): Still need to work hard. (9511/10000)

Food Tasting (Advanced): Fine, you're quite the eater. (Cannot be upgraded)

Management (Intermediate): You're decent at doing business; you won't lose money. (1999/10000)

Lying (Master Level): Saying what people want to hear to people, and what ghosts want to hear to ghosts—that's you, right! (496137/1000000)

Sure enough, knife skills, leveled up.

Never going on blind dates again (gritting teeth)

(End of chapter)