Chapter 428

After the meal at Zhao Chengan's home was finished, Qin Huai started the apprentice mode.

A true apprentice mode.

Master Zhou didn't limit Qin Huai's working hours, as long as he arrived at the shop before ten o'clock in the morning. At the same time, he didn't limit Qin Huai's off-work time. As long as Qin Huai wanted, working until 10 o'clock in the evening wasn't a problem. Master Zhou could accompany him here, and it wasn't that there were no personal disciples at Zhi Wei Ju who worked until 10 o'clock in the evening.

At this moment, Qin Huai truly understood the flexibility and freedom of Zhi Wei Ju.

Flexible work, free off-work, as for how many hours you work specifically every day, it depends entirely on your heart, and your heart is seen by the master.

Qin Huai is the kind of apprentice who can have a lot of heart.

Apprentice Xiao Qin goes to work between 9:15~9:45 every morning and gets off work between 9:35~10:15 every evening. Except for resting for 1~2 hours in the afternoon to run to chat with Zhao Chengan about gossip, the rest of the time is basically following Master Zhou to practice finger techniques.

Even the time for the morning meeting wasn't let go. The 45 minutes of the morning meeting was meal time, so he couldn't make dim sum, but he could cultivate his aesthetics for dim sum, look at more good-looking dim sum, and say where the good-looking points of these good-looking dim sum were.

Master Zhou's finger technique teaching is a comprehensive teaching from consciousness to technology.

Technology must be taught. Finger techniques are very dependent on basic skills. The most critical thing is to be steady, fast, and know how to match colors and adjust colors.

This point can be seen just by looking at the assorted fruit that Master Zhou made that day. If you want to make dim sum lifelike and indistinguishable from the real thing, you have to do the details well. Grape leaves not only need to be shaped like them but also need to be spiritually similar. Besides needing appropriate thickness and reasonable curves, the patterns, colors, and even the small black spots and small spots that might appear on the leaves must be noticed.

For these dim sum that roll finger techniques to the extreme, details determine success or failure.

If you want to make dim sum so detailed, besides learning to reasonably apply various tools, including but not limited to small clips, small tweezers, needles, handles, spoons, and a series of tools that dim sum masters might customize, steady hands are also very important.

Fast hands are equally important.

Making a dough fruit for three hours, no matter how beautiful it is, you can't be an excellent dim sum master.

*Too slow, which guest can wait. *

Fortunately, Qin Huai doesn't need to practice these basic things. Even if Qin Huai hasn't deliberately practiced finger techniques, his advanced finger techniques are here. Whether it is steady hands or the use of tools, Qin Huai's foundation is considered not bad.

This is why Zhao Chengan told Qin Huai before that his finger techniques couldn't be practiced in a short while and that he had to spend time practicing slowly.

Qin Huai is not zero-based; he has a foundation and looks not bad at first glance. If he wants to go further and challenge high difficulty, he has to spend time practicing slowly.

For students like Qin Huai, Master Zhou has another way of teaching.

"Come, look at these few jade green vegetables. Don't stop your hand movements; continue to make your hedgehog buns, just look with your eyes. Which of these four jade green vegetables do you think is made the best? Why? Where do the others have problems?" Master Zhou placed a plate of just-steamed jade green vegetables in front of Qin Huai.

The so-called jade green vegetables are very small and exquisite dim sum made from water-milled powder and rice flour, which are a type of inlaid powder cake dim sum, and belong to the same category as the assorted fruit platter.

Compared to the assorted fruit platter, the difficulty coefficient of jade cabbage is much smaller, because the latter looks like it is fake, and there is no such high requirement for being indistinguishable from the real thing. It only needs to be good-looking, exquisite, and like a small hand-held toy for children to play with.

This type of dim sum has similar requirements for finger techniques as dough fruit, but there are no requirements for taste. The raw materials are usually simple water-milled powder and rice flour. It also doesn't need to be colored with fruit juice or vegetable juice like dough fruit. The colors of this type of dim sum are usually very bright, and at the same time, the taste is not very good; it is just the taste of ordinary steamed flour dough.

It mainly plays a role in styling, looking good on the table.

Qin Huai was using small tweezers to clip thorns for the fat hedgehog in his hand, looking at the jade cabbage in the dining plate in the direction Master Zhou pointed. The 4 jade cabbages were different in size and style, some were slightly greener and looked like tender cabbage, and some were very deep green and looked more like jade cabbage.

There was also one where the color ratio wasn't adjusted well, and the gradient from the green leaves to the white vegetable stems wasn't brushed well, looking like it was brushed halfway and ran out of ink. The wrinkles of the leaves were also very stiff, where they should have opened they didn't, and where they should have closed they didn't. At first glance, it looked like the gift that came with buying 3 and getting 1 free.

Qin Huai only glanced at it and knew that the ugliest one must have been made by Su Gan.

It could only be said that Su Gan wasn't wronged for being scolded every day. Among the apprentices, he was considered excellent, but if he wanted to be Master Zhou's personal disciple, buddy, there was still a long way to go.

Qin Huai looked at the fat hedgehog in his hand with the corner of his eye, slightly slowed down his hand movements, continued to clip thorns one by one, and examined the other three jade cabbages.

Jade cabbage is a dim sum without a standard answer.

You can make it look more like cabbage in real life, with slightly richer color layers, irregular leaves, not necessarily good-looking but definitely very characteristic.

You can also make it look very fake, fake just like the jade cabbage made of jade that would be exhibited in a museum. The leaf part is surprisingly green, and the gradient part doesn't seem to be handled well, and the color difference between white and green is very large, but it is very good-looking, giving people a small and exquisite feeling.

"Master Zhou, I think this one is the best." Qin Huai stretched out his finger and pointed to the fake one in the plate, which Zhao Chengan made at a glance.

In Master Zhou's words, Zhao Chengan's dim sum has a lot of craftsmanship, follows the book, does whatever others teach, and has no ideas of his own. But this craftsmanship is placed on this kind of dim sum that is purely for styling, which is simply a super bonus item, the kind that adds wings to a tiger.

At least that's what Qin Huai thinks.

For things like styling, if there is a copy, you must copy it.

Obviously, Master Zhou is not very satisfied with Qin Huai's aesthetics.

"You think Old San did better, then can you distinguish which of the remaining two was made by Zhou Yan and which was made by Wang Jiayi?" Master Zhou asked.

Hearing Master Zhou ask this, Qin Huai stopped his movements, stared at the other two jade cabbages that were considered top-quality for a long time, and finally pointed to one that was very green in color, and the gradient part was done especially well, looking no different from a reduced version of green vegetables at first glance. If you have to say where there is a problem, it is probably that the details of the leaves are not handled well, and each leaf is a bit similar, really not completely real jade cabbage.

"This jade cabbage should be made by Sister Yan." Qin Huai said, "Sister Yan handles colors much better than Brother Jiayi, but her finger technique technology is not as good as Brother Jiayi's, and she is not as bold as Brother Jiayi. When it comes to such detailed places, Sister Yan would rather use the safest way to make it exactly the same than easily try things she hasn't done before."

"As for Brother Jiayi's, its details are very in place, but the color is far inferior to Sister Yan's. His cabbage is a bit too green, and he deliberately made a short leaf that looked like it had been broken by someone, and also dotted yellow and black spots on the leaves. This is obviously Brother Jiayi's style."

"As for Su Gan's, I won't say it. With Su Gan's level, it's a bit difficult for him to make jade cabbage."

Hearing Qin Huai's such precise comments, Master Zhou was both gratified and helpless, and asked with a tone of a bit of confusion: "You talk about these comments and principles very clearly, and you also understand the styles of several of them very clearly, but how can you like Old San's jade cabbage?"

Master Zhou was just short of engraving: *Is this your aesthetic? Do you like this kind of dim sum that has no soul and is all craftsmanship? * on his face.

"Brother Chengan's dim sum is very exquisite." Qin Huai said, "I know Brother Chengan's dim sum has a lot of craftsmanship and no soul of his own, but in this kind of dim sum, I think Brother Chengan's dim sum is better-looking. Can't find obvious shortcomings, and can't pick out mistakes; isn't this a good-looking dim sum?"

"This is a good-looking dim sum, but it shouldn't be a dim sum made by a dim sum master with pursuits." Master Zhou said earnestly, pointing to all the hedgehog buns Qin Huai just made, "Just like the hedgehog buns you just made. Good-looking? These hedgehog buns are definitely good-looking. From the eyes to the whole to every thorn tip pinched out, you can't pick out any problems, but don't you think these hedgehog buns look like dim sum made on an assembly line?"