The Gourmet Customizer

Chapter 265: Chapter 131: New Style Crispy Dish, and the Wild Blade Technique

Su Chen had a peculiar trait: once he made a decision, he wouldn’t change it unless it was truly impossible to carry out.

Since he had already chosen a dish, he would work on it until he was completely satisfied.

The dish was called *sūcài*, also known as *sūguō*.

It existed deep in the memory of everyone from Lu Province. It’s possible that a true native of Lu Province had never tried the famous local dish, Nine-Turned Pork Intestines, but there wasn’t a single person from Lu Province who hadn’t eaten sūcài!

In Su Chen’s mind, this was what constituted true gourmet food.

Su Chen didn’t even have to cook it; he knew just by looking at the recipe’s steps.

If he followed the recipe exactly, the dish would be B Level at best.

The reason was quite simple.

This savory, jumbled stew, ultimately served cold as a platter—just how delicious could it possibly be?

But this dish had another exceptional quality: it had no fixed recipe.

When people from Jinan added water to their sūguō, people from Zibo would immediately get worked up: "Who adds water to sūguō? Do you even know how to cook? That’s just a random hodgepodge stew!"

When a Boshan sūguō included Spanish mackerel, people from other regions would get anxious: "That’s a braised fish pot, not a proper sūguō! If you don’t know how to make it, don’t just wing it! And even if you do, don’t you dare go around telling people it’s Lu Cuisine! We can’t afford that embarrassment!"

If Wang Erma at one end of the village made his sūguō with a layer of peanuts, Widow Zhang at the other end would get anxious: "If you don’t know how to cook, then get lost! Who puts peanuts in sūcài?"

In their first year of marriage, a husband might see his wife add Sichuan peppercorns and star anise to the pot and start a fight on the spot: "Who told you to add that stuff? Can you even call this sūcài anymore?! If you dare put that in again, this marriage is over!"

Yes, this dish was just that dramatic.

As the saying goes, it was a dish for the rich and poor alike.

During the holidays, every household in Lu Province would make a pot. It didn’t matter if they added water or not, or if they added this or that; every family had its own way of doing things.

This led to the tradition of "a thousand mothers, a thousand flavors."

With the rise of the internet in recent years, anyone who dared to post a video of their homemade sūguō would soon find themselves collectively attacked by other people from Lu Province.

The whole spectacle was reminiscent of "the great tofu pudding debate."

"Let’s start with the first round of improvements."

Su Chen summoned all the ingredients, made a list, and selected a few items the company didn’t have before leaving the practice room.

He gave the list to Bai Xiaobo to purchase, with a special instruction that Fang Chang could just deliver the meat.

Back in the practice room, Su Chen began to break down the ingredients.

The sūcài recipe in the famous cookbook was the creation of Jinan chef Mr. Liu Yongqing from the 1920s. The current method used by the renowned Jinan chef Li Jianguo was a continuation of this lineage.

It started with a base of pork bones, with other ingredients layered on top, each layer sprinkled with shredded ginger and scallions.

Su Chen had watched Li Jianguo’s video; the master chef would season the sūcài twice.

During the second seasoning, he would add sesame oil to the pot.

However, the sūcài in the famous cookbook was seasoned three times. The sesame oil was added last, and white sugar was added during the second seasoning.

’I don’t think so,’ Su Chen thought. ’For a one-pot dish like this, it’s best to season it only once. At most, you could pre-season the ingredients before cooking.’

’Once everything is in the pot, you should avoid lifting the lid again.’

This was a rather esoteric concept. Opening the lid would supposedly release the "pot’s qi," and without this essence, the dish wouldn’t be as fragrant.

Whether this "pot’s qi" actually existed was still a matter of debate.

But the immediate task was to find a way to upgrade the sūcài to A Level. The key to moving from B to A was to maximize the characteristics of the ingredients, highlight their natural flavors, and avoid combining incompatible components.

The main ingredients in the famous cookbook were pork belly, kelp, Spanish mackerel, eggs, fresh lotus root, and cabbage.

These ingredients were mostly fine, but Su Chen decided to eliminate the pork belly and replace it with deboned pig’s trotters and deboned front pork hock.

After all, pork belly was simply too fatty. Once the lid was on the pot, it wouldn’t be opened again, which could easily cause the other ingredients to absorb an excessive amount of grease.

Then, he would add pan-fried tofu. This ingredient was loved by all ages, absorbed sauces well while having excellent flavor and texture, making it perfect for a grand dish like this.

And finally...

"I wonder what the dish will be like if I add this. If the rating is high enough, it shouldn’t matter if I completely subvert the traditional way of making sūcài, right?"

Once he made up his mind, Su Chen began summoning the ingredients according to his first-draft plan.

...

While Su Chen was shuttling back and forth between reality and the practice room, Ling Shuyu not only finished up her own side projects but also took care of Su Chen’s share of the work during the handover.

"Director Li, it is what it is. If you can help, please do. If you can’t, then tell me what it would take for you to help."

Li Mingtao’s mind took a moment to catch up. After a brief pause, he finally understood. "So this is non-negotiable..."

"Correct. This matter is crucial to the development of Delicious." Ling Shuyu’s tone was neither servile nor overbearing, yet it carried a subtle threat: ’If you don’t make this happen, there will be consequences.’

Although Li Mingtao didn’t know exactly what those consequences would be, he had been threatened by Ling Shuyu once before back at Xinghui. He knew very well that the woman before him was not to be trifled with.

"President Ling, since you’ve put it that way, I’ll be frank with you." Li Mingtao stood up and closed the door.

It seemed as if he were about to say something that couldn’t be overheard.

"I have indeed heard about this matter. And, to be honest, it’s not just my boss who has his eye on this project. There’s someone else, too."

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