Chapter 846 Grandmaster (3) (Additional update for JUJUUUU leader!)
Making stock is different from stir-frying and chopping. It is a long process that requires time and patience.
Starting from the fifteenth day, the boys who originally lined up in the Jiang family's small yard waiting to get food every day disappeared and only came every morning to deliver fresh ingredients. Only the three little carrot heads of the Jiang family remained the same as before. They stood outside the window and watched Jiang Chengde quietly in the kitchen every day, rain or shine. They just watched and didn't even dare to speak in a low voice. They watched quietly every day.
Jiang Feng, like them, watched quietly in the kitchen every day.
Watch Jiang Chengde process a whole chicken, large pieces of pork bones, dried shrimps, scallops, mushrooms, bamboo shoots and ham.
Watch him make soup and add firewood.
In this era without gas stoves, making a good pot of soup is not as convenient as it was later.
Making soup stock takes time, ranging from six hours to more than ten or twenty hours. Jiang Feng and the others only need to adjust the fire to make soup, set an alarm clock, and wait until the time is almost up before going to the pot to watch. During the long hours in between, they can deal with other ingredients or simply go outside to rest. There is no need to wait all the time. Watching over the pot takes time and effort.
But Jiang Chengde couldn't.
Because he burns wood.
In the age of wood-burning, it is particularly difficult to control the heat. An excellent chef cannot only be excellent himself, but also have an excellent wood-burning partner. It is best to have a tacit understanding with the chef who cooks, so that he can make truly perfect meals. of dishes.
This is also the reason why Jiang Chengde must have his own son burn the firewood when cooking in Tai Feng Tower.
Jiang Chengde made the soup for seven days. He used the same ingredients every day and took about the same amount of time. From the morning until the sky turned completely dark, it took more than ten hours to make a pot of soup.
Then the soup was not used for cooking, but for cooking noodles. Once a large pot was cooked, the Jiang family had enough soup stock to cook noodles for seven days.
When Jiang Feng felt like he was leaving, the first thing he did was to make a pot of broth and cook some noodles.
Delicious food often only requires the simplest cooking method. A bowl of broth and a handful of noodles are enough, and there is no need to add eggs.
Jiang Feng could feel that the seven days Jiang Chengde spent in the soup were different from the previous fourteen days.
In the previous fourteen days, every seven days, Jiang Chengde worked hard to replicate the state from beginner to master, step by step, and become stronger step by step. But this time for seven days, Jiang Chengde felt more like he was exploring and trying.
He went all out and cooked every pot of soup carefully. He cooked seven pots in seven days, as if he was looking for the limit of his current cooking skills.
In this way, Jiang Feng looked forward to what Jiang Chengde would do on the twenty-second day.
On the twenty-second day, Jiang Chengde began to practice spoon turning.
On the twenty-fifth day, Jiang Chengde began to practice thickening.
On the twenty-eighth day, Jiang Chengde began to practice bombing.
On the thirty-first day, Jiang Chengde began to practice braising.
On the thirty-fourth day, Jiang Chengde began to practice stewing.
On the thirty-seventh day, Jiang Chengde began to practice steaming.
On the 40th day, Jiang Chengde began to practice Qiang.
……
On the 61st day, Jiang Chengde began to practice sugar sinking on the bottom of oil.
On the sixty-fourth day, Jiang Chengde began to practice the big spoon turn.
Unknowingly, Jiang Feng had stayed in this memory for more than two months.
But he didn't think this time was very long, or even thought it was short. These two months had been an eye-opener for him.
He watched with his own eyes as Jiang Chengde was teaching and showing off his skills, explaining all the cooking techniques he could imagine, knew and didn't know over and over again in front of him, just like he had done before. The tasks are generally displayed in full.
Ordinary, difficult and unique ones.
Going up one level at a time, it becomes more and more difficult day by day.
Jiang Feng was a little frightened when he saw it, and for the first time he understood why both the old man and Peng Changping admired Jiang Chengde so much.
He is an encyclopedia of Chinese food. He understands all techniques and is familiar with all techniques. This is the real combination of the strengths of hundreds of schools of thought. He only needs to master them all.
And he's getting it right now.
Jiang Chengde is enlightening and Jiang Feng is learning.
He follows Jiang Chengde every day now, staring at him all the time, watching him chop vegetables, watch him cook, watch him burn firewood, and watch him wash dishes. Jiang Chengde was still the only one who could enter the kitchen, and everyone else could only wait outside, waiting quietly without making any noise.
They have all reached this point. Even if they don't understand what Jiang Chengde is doing, they all realize that Jiang Chengde is doing something unprecedented and great.
There was a long queue in the yard again. Jiang Feng felt that there were more servants than at the beginning, from one row to two rows. From early morning, when the moon hung on the willow branches, plates of dishes kept coming from the kitchen, people There is a constant flow of people coming and going, but it is extremely quiet.
The Big Turning Spoon is the last technique Jiang Chengde practices.
The basic skills last in a seven-day cycle, and the technical skills last in a three-day cycle. When the sixty-sixth day was over, Jiang Feng thought that on the sixty-seventh day Jiang Chengde would start to master it, or start practicing something new that he could not think of, but Jiang Chengde chose to stop.
For more than two months, he has never stopped for a day. He practices in the kitchen from morning to night every day, working tirelessly around the boiler and stove, as if a robot can only practice and cook dishes one after another. Fragrant and exquisite dishes are born from his hands.
Now he started to stop cooking.
Just when Jiang Feng felt that he was about to master it, become a master, and truly begin to write his own chapter in cooking, Jiang Chengde suddenly stopped.
He still stayed in the kitchen every day, but no longer held a kitchen knife or a spatula. He just moved a small stool and sat quietly in the kitchen, staring at the stove as if thinking or in a daze.
He sat there for three days.
Jiang Chengde has not cooked once in the past three days, and has not even cooked breakfast. Jiang Huiqin cooks all the Jiang family's meals. While Jiang Huiqin was cooking, Jiang Chengde sat in the kitchen and watched, watching Jiang Huiqin cooking without saying a word, making no comments or doing anything, even though sometimes the dishes Jiang Huiqin cooked were really not good.
All the boys in the yard disappeared. The older ones like Jiang Weijin and Jiang Weiming still went to work in Tai Feng Building as usual every day. Jiang Chengde obviously didn't cook, but everyone still didn't dare to disturb him.
It was not that there was no one to disturb him. On the afternoon of the third day after Jiang Chengde stopped cooking, Boss Lu came to visit him. He did not mention that Jiang Chengde should go back to work. He just brought some supplements such as bird's nest and cordyceps and made a meal. The deputy came to care about Jiang Chengde's physical condition.
Jiang Chengde didn't see him and still stayed in the kitchen. It was Jiang Huiqin who came forward to tell Boss Lu that her brother was thinking about something and it had reached a critical moment, and asked Boss Lu not to go in and disturb Jiang Chengde.
Jiang Chengde is just like Wang Yangming sitting in his yard checking bamboos every day, looking at the boiler every day, just like the Wang family looked at Wang Yangming back then. No one can understand what he is doing.
Maybe Jiang Chengde himself doesn't quite understand.
But Jiang Feng understood a little bit.
Jiang Chengde is now a master of cooking. He has mastered almost all Chinese cooking techniques and has gone through them all from beginning to end in the past two months. He is now looking for a path of his own, a path that requires transcending these techniques and truly understanding and mastering them.
Master, very accomplished.
Grandmaster, establish a sect.
Jiang Chengde is undergoing the transformation from master to grandmaster.
This transformation lasted for more than ten days.
Since Jiang Chengde sat in the kitchen every day in a daze, he didn't have the time pattern to remember how many days had passed like before when practicing dishes. Jiang Feng later couldn't even remember when Jiang Chengde was seventeen in the kitchen. Staying for days or staying for eighteen days.
Jiang Chengde was in a daze, and so was Jiang Feng.
He was reminiscing, recalling, thinking and understanding what he had seen Jiang Chengde display in the previous two months.
This was an unreserved display of cooking skills by a master who was about to become a master. After watching it for two months, Jiang Feng felt that he could recall it for two years, and maybe even two years without being able to fully recall it.
On the eighteenth or nineteenth day, it was the first time Jiang Chengde got up in the morning and came out of the room without going into the kitchen and sitting in a daze.
"Huiqin." Jiang Chengde had not spoken to his family for so long that he would not react at all when he suddenly called Jiang Huiqin's name.
"Brother!" Jiang Huiqin looked very happy.
Jiang Chengde handed a note to the general: "Go and buy the food I want on the note. No need to bother Boss Lu, just one portion."
"Okay!" Jiang Huiqin took the note, jumped like a rabbit and ran away with the basket.
Jiang Huiqin was very efficient in grocery shopping. She bought the ingredients Jiang Chengde wanted in just over half an hour. Jiang Feng was stunned when he saw the ingredients. He knew these ingredients so well.
This is the ingredient for Jiang’s ginseng soup.
Jiang Chengde wants to make Jiang's ginseng soup.
In the past two months, Jiang Chengde has cooked many dishes, some easy and some difficult. He even made Cannonball and Buddha Jumping Over the Wall, but he did not make Jiang's Ginseng Soup. Jiang Feng didn't think much about it at all. Even if he thought about it, he would think that the reason why Jiang Chengde didn't do it was that the time required for Jiang's ginseng soup was too long and it was not necessary.
But now when he saw the ingredients Jiang Huiqin bought, Jiang Feng suddenly understood.
It's not that there is no need, it's because Jiang Chengde deliberately didn't make it. He just wanted to save Jiang's ginseng soup until the end.
Jiang Feng followed Jiang Chengde into the kitchen and watched as he began to make soup, process sea cucumbers, and start stewing.
The steps are so familiar, yet a little strange at the same time.
Jiang Chengde's approach was somewhat different from Jiang Hengzhong's, and also somewhat different from what Peng Changping entrusted to Jiang Feng.
They are all different. Everyone makes Jiang's ginseng soup differently.
It's not a difference in technique or habits, it's an obvious difference that can be felt intuitively.
Everyone has their own place in Jiang's ginseng soup.
Jiang Feng watched Jiang Chengde cooking quietly.
Just like before, from morning to night.
But it was a little different from before. Jiang Feng looked distracted for the first time.
If there was a camera that could record Jiang Feng's distracted state and show it to him, Jiang Feng would find that his distracted state was very similar to Jiang Chengde's distracted state while sitting in the kitchen every day for more than ten days.
In addition, the two people look somewhat similar, which makes them even more similar.
The aroma started to fill the kitchen.
Jiang Feng's thoughts drifted further and further along with the scent.
When the dishes were ready, Jiang Huiqin walked into the kitchen at some point and stood next to Jiang Chengde.
Jiang Huiqin did not dare to speak or disturb as before.
"Huiqin, come and try it." Jiang Huiqin didn't dare to speak, but Jiang Chengde spoke first.
Jiang Huiqin stepped forward, hesitated for a moment, and scooped half a spoonful of ginseng soup with a small spoon.
Blow on it and put it into your mouth.
Jiang Huiqin's eyes lit up.
"Is it different from before?" Jiang Chengde asked with a smile. This was the first time Jiang Feng saw Jiang Chengde smile in more than two months.
Jiang Huiqin nodded wildly, her face full of surprise and excitement. She swallowed the hot ginseng soup in her mouth and said impatiently: "Really, brother, you are so awesome! It's different. It's different from what you did before."< br>
“It’s really different!”
"That's good." Jiang Chengde looked very calm.
"I'll cook tonight. You go to Tai Feng Building and tell Boss Lu, and I'll go back tomorrow."
Jiang Feng left his memory. (End of chapter)