Chapter 350 Birthday Meal (4)
While marinating the chicken, Xia Mubing diced all the other vegetables into small square cubes of different colors and similar sizes, which looked decent.
Then Jiang Feng witnessed the birth of summer-style saffron chicken with his own eyes.
Xia Mubing mixed the chicken and black pepper and put it into the pot and stir-fried. Because it was a large piece of chicken, it made it more difficult for Xia Mubing to turn the spoon during stir-frying.
When the chicken was fried until it was about half done, Xia Mubing turned off the heat, changed to a pan, spread a thin layer of oil on the bottom of the pan, and fried the chicken over low heat.
The chicken needs to be fried. Zhang Guanghang told him this step before, and he didn't forget it.
Let the chicken fry by itself in the pan. Under the support of low fire, the oil-rich surface begins to sizzle, oil seeps from the inside out, the color becomes thicker, and the aroma from the ingredients begins to overpower the seasoning. The taste of the ingredients.
Xia Mubing turned to the already cooked pork belly, doing two things at once, starting two dishes at the same time.
The preparation of palace Wanfu pork is cumbersome and complex, not only because of its various production processes, but also because it requires very high knife skills.
As a typical palace dish, Palace Wanfu Pork fully embodies the advantages and disadvantages of palace cuisine. First of all, the name should be nice, and it should make people feel rich and lovable, and make people want to eat this dish. When the founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang was not yet prosperous, he could name a dish of rotten vegetable leaves stewed with tofu called Pearl Jade White Jade Soup, let alone the last emperor who said he was extravagant and extravagant.
Choosing a good name is only the first step, choosing expensive materials is the second step. Whatever is rare is used, and whatever is precious is used. Palace cuisine has very strict requirements on the origin, texture, part, and size of the ingredients. Even the salt used in cooking has to be carefully selected from thousands of kilograms of refined salt. The selected ones, not to mention the bowls, chopsticks and plates, must be fine treasures worth thousands of gold. As for whether the ivory on the chopsticks will irritate the mouth is not something ordinary people can care about.
In the Qing Dynasty, a certain emperor wanted to eat folk snacks, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs gave a budget of 90,000 taels of silver. This may not be groundless.
The Palace Wanfu Pork is one of the masterpieces. Xia Mubing has tried his best in selecting the ingredients. He is not an imperial chef and cannot let all the rare treasures in the world be placed in front of him for him to choose from. The market is so big and so many pigs are slaughtered in one day. Being able to select the best pork belly from dozens of pigs is the limit of what he can do.
Xia Mubing glanced at the chicken frying in the pot next to her and started to slice the meat.
To make the imperial pork belly, you must first cut the pork belly into long strips and then roll it back into chunks. This way, the meat can be shaped into a beautiful flower shape. The process is roughly the same as peeling an apple. A master of apple peeling can peel out a long, uniform and uninterrupted strip of apple peel in one go. A master of cooking can also naturally cut a piece of pork belly into a long, uniform and uninterrupted strip of pork belly.
Turning the knife every time you cut into a corner is a test for the chef.
Xia Mubing prepared 4 pieces of pork belly. It took more than 10 minutes just to cut the meat. In the middle, he also went to the pot next to him to turn the chicken over. It can be said that he used two tasks to the extreme.
After cutting the meat, it’s time to cook it, but instead of cooking the meat, it’s time to cook the sauce. Jiang Feng watched Xia Mubing add various sauces such as rice wine, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, sugar, green onions, ginger slices, star anise, and Sichuan peppercorns into the pot and stir-fry. Zhiwanfu Pork is a dish with strong taste.
After frying the sauce, Xia Mubing turned off the heat next door, changed the pot, put the chicken and the beef soup borrowed from somewhere into the pot and simmered over medium heat, put the lid on, and let everything go.
Then Xia Mubing started to fry the Wanfu pork. The frying time was very short, only a few dozen seconds, so that the meat could be slightly shaped and the skin should be fried until crispy. After that, he put the shaped Wanfu pork skin side down into a tic-tac-shape shape into the bowl, poured the fried sauce and stock into the bowl, and steamed it in the pot.
Most of them have been taken care of, and only the miscellaneous soldiers are left.
Xia Mubing turned his attention to the diced vegetables he had chopped before.
Zhang Guanghang bought butter, but he never uses butter in cooking. But since you bought it, you can't waste it. Xia Mubing kept frying the remaining vegetables in butter, and then threw all the half-cooked vegetables into a pot with beef soup and stewed them with the chicken. .
Don't tell me, it really has a bit of a French feel to it.
The vegetables are taken care of, and all that's left are lemons and apples.
Xia Mubing stared at the apple and fell into deep thought.
In fact, he can cook with apples, but the dish he knows has nothing to do with French cuisine.
No matter what, we’ll talk about it later.
Xia Mubing began to cut the apples.
Jiang Feng's eyes became moist.
What a familiar step. Xia Mubing deserves to be Chen Qiusheng's apprentice, and Chen Qiusheng deserves to be the second stall owner of Tai Feng Restaurant back then. The recipe of crispy apples is from the same lineage, exactly the same!
"Xiaohang, there seems to be someone in the front hall. Go and see if there are any guests." At the critical moment when the apples were about to be fried, Xia Mubing called Zhang Guanghang out to see the people.
No wonder Zhang Guanghang had no impression of crispy apples. He had never seen how they were made.
By the time Zhang Guanghang came back from the front hall, the crispy apples had already been fried and plated.
"Master, Mr. Chu ordered some crispy cakes, fried in oil and double crispy, braised shark's fin and Su-made elbow." Zhang Guanghang said.
"There are no shark fins today, you go... you go and sit next to me, and I'll tell him." Xia Mubing always remembered the birthday gift for children who didn't have to work on their birthdays.
With that said, Xia Mubing put the crispy apples that had just come out of the pot into a white porcelain plate and walked out. Jiang Feng quickly followed him.
"Hey, Master Xia, why did you come out?" There were three middle-aged men sitting in the front hall. One of them got up quickly when he saw Xia Mubing coming out, "But there is something I haven't taken. Just ask your apprentice to come out and get it."
"There are no shark fins today, so we can't make braised shark fins. Boss Chu, you'd better change the dish." Xia Mubing said.
Boss Chu suddenly looked embarrassed and said, "Can't we make braised shark's fin? Master Xia, can you think of a way? Today the three of us are inviting a big boss from the south to dinner, and the braised shark's fin is the highlight."
"There's nothing I can do if I don't have the ingredients. You guys can change the dish." Xia Mubing said and was about to go in, but suddenly remembered something, "But there is still some leftover from the fresh pork belly I just bought in the morning, otherwise I'll replace it with Palace Wanfu Meat?”
Boss Chu suddenly turned from worry to joy: "Today there is actually Wanfu Pork, which is really troublesome for Master Xia. What kind of braised shark's fin is needed when there is Wanfu Pork!"
"By the way, I heard that Boss Chu, you often do business with foreigners?" Xia Mubing asked.
"What, Master Xia wants to get some foreign ingredients?" Boss Chu became interested.
"Why don't you use that thing? I wonder if Boss Chu can speak French?"
"French? Master Xia wants to learn French? I don't know French, but I can speak a few words in English. We usually bring translators when we talk business, so I just say hello." Boss Chu suddenly remembered that Zhang Guanghang seemed to be from France. People, "Master Xia, did your apprentice say something that you couldn't understand? Do you need me to help you find a French translator?"
Xia Mubing thought for a while: "No, English is fine. Do you know how to say happy birthday in English?"
Boss Chu was stunned and suddenly realized: "It turns out that today is your apprentice's birthday! Let me tell you, why did you think of making Wanfu Pork today? How do you say happy birthday? Let me think about it. It seems...Happy. What’s so good about Happy?”
"Happy birthday, right?" Another middle-aged man said secretly.
"Yes, yes, that's it!" Boss Chu began to think about it after the fact.
"Happy what? Speak slower." Xia Mubing frowned.
“Happybirthday.”
"Happy...doctor?"
"Almost, Happybirthday."
"Happy... is Bo dead?"
"Yes, yes, that's about it. Just hurry up when you get older."
"Okay." Xia Mubing muttered silently as he walked back to the kitchen.
Zhang Guanghang was still sitting on the small chair. When he saw Xia Mubing come in and pointed to the pot where the chicken was stewed, he said, "Master, I just looked at the pot and the beef soup was already cooked, so I turned off the heat. ”
Xia Mubing nodded, walked to the pot and took off the lid. Surprisingly, it looked pretty good. Put it on a plate, sprinkle the fried crispy apples on top, and cut two slices of lemon and stick them on the edge of the plate. The lemon is used and the saffron chicken is complete.
He is older now and has limited memory for a while, so he has to race against time.
"Xiaohang, the saffron chicken is ready, come here and try it." Xia Mubing waved to Zhang Guanghang.
Zhang Guanghang obediently stepped forward to get the chopsticks.
There are only spoons and chopsticks in Fenyuan. No matter which national dish you eat, you can only use spoons and chopsticks.
Zhang Guanghang picked up a piece of crispy apple.
"Happy...Dr. Happy!" Xia Mubing seized the opportunity.
Zhang Guanghang was stunned.
Seeing him like this, Xia Mubing thought she had made a mistake and blushed: "I just said it casually, you keep eating, keep eating."
After that, I went to see the Wanfu pork in the steamer.
Zhang Guanghang looked at Xia Mubing and stuffed a large piece of crispy apple into his mouth.
Cheeks slightly bulging, chew slowly, bite by bite.
"Merci." (Thank you)
“Grand-père.”
Thick fog covered Jiang Feng's eyes.
“jet’aime.”(End of Chapter)