The Gourmet Customizer

Chapter 269: Chapter 131: New-style Tender Dish, and Wild Blade Technique

Cui Yufen nodded as well. "He’s about right. It must weigh forty-something pounds."

Seeing such a bold preparation method, the Jiang Brothers, chefs of Huaiyang Cuisine, clicked their tongues in amazement. ’No wonder people from Lu Province grow so big.’

’They sure eat a lot!’

’If we made a pot of this back in Yangzhou on New Year’s Day, we probably wouldn’t be able to finish it even after the Lantern Festival!’

When Su Chen placed the large vat on the stove, the men all crowded around to watch.

Liu Fu smacked his lips a few times. "Uncle-Master."

He had now come to terms with his new status. "You didn’t arrange the ingredients this way just for looks, did you?"

From this angle, looking down from the top, the ingredients inside the stainless steel vat were arranged in a truly fascinating way.

Around the very edge was a solid ring of pork skin.

Inside that was a ring of wheat gluten.

These two ingredients formed a tight wrap around the contents. Just inside them were the pig’s trotters and pork hocks, and at the very center were the chicken and mackerel fillets.

Aesthetically, the arrangement was stunning. All the ingredients were stood on end, which was very unusual.

But Liu Fu didn’t understand.

Being a shrewd man, he wouldn’t say anything that might cause offense. "Old Wu," he said, "do you think there’s a particular reason for layering the ingredients this way?"

’Just toss the question to Old Wu, heheh!’

Old Wu scratched his head. He wasn’t stupid. ’If Eldest Brother doesn’t want to say it, I’m not going to say it either.’ "I think it’s arranged just fine," he said. "It’s different from how I’d do it, but since Uncle-Master is doing it this way, he must have his reasons. Right, Shi Qi?"

Shi Qi: ???

"I’ve never eaten it, so I wouldn’t know!"

Jeez.

Liu Fu gave his martial brothers a long, hard look.

’I can’t say if their cooking has improved on this Jingzhou trip, but they’ve all gotten a lot smarter!’

Su Chen thought for a moment but decided not to answer his martial nephews’ question.

He honestly didn’t know how to explain it.

This arrangement method was something he had perfected through repeated trial and error in his practice room. Only by layering it this specific way could he elevate the dish from B Level to A Level.

It was, one could say, a qualitative leap!

As for the outer layer of pork skin, that was the key ingredient in his improved version of the dish. Without it, the whole thing would be pointless.

But Su Chen didn’t want to elaborate on the details just yet.

"All of you, stop asking. You’ll understand once you taste it."

His martial nephews didn’t quite grasp the meaning behind his words, but they all nodded in agreement anyway.

Whether it was good or not, they would know once they tasted it. There was no point in arguing about it now.

In fact, they could easily end up eating their words.

Once all the ingredients were in place, about a foot of empty space remained at the top of the large vat.

Su Chen then began to add the seasonings.

Dark soy sauce, fine salt, and Sichuan peppercorns.

There were very few types of seasonings, but the quantity was immense. He grabbed each one and simply dumped it in with gusto.

After adding the seasonings, he broke off all the napa cabbage leaves, trimmed the leafy green parts with a knife, and kept only the thick white stalks.

He laid these stalks in layers on top until the remaining space in the vat was completely filled.

"Done!"

Su Chen took a large stone from the cabinet.

Aunt Fang had used it for pickling vegetables back when the restaurant was on the verge of closing.

After the pickles were gone, she couldn’t bring herself to throw the stone away. Now, it was finally being put to use.

First, he placed a plate, slightly smaller in diameter than the vat, over the napa cabbage. Then, he set the large stone directly on top of the plate.

Liu Fu spoke in a strange tone, "Well, I’ve seen it all now. What’s the stone for? Normally, you just put a plate on top and that’s it!"

The others knew this as well.

The main purpose of the plate was to keep the contents from bubbling up and pushing off the lid during the slow simmer, but the stone was baffling.

Su Chen paid them no mind and repeated his mantra, "I just have a feeling this is how it should be done. Didn’t I just tell Second Sister? This dish is a new experiment of mine. We’ll have to taste it to know how it turns out."

Liu Fu frowned, trying to imagine the final flavor of the dish.

He couldn’t.

The pork bones at the bottom would guarantee a solid base flavor, and the addition of soy sauce and salt basically determined the taste profile.

Salty and savory.

To Liu Fu, the pig’s trotters and pork hocks in the middle seemed a bit redundant. The two were quite similar; if it were him, he would have swapped the hocks for pork belly.

The addition of the chicken wasn’t hard to understand. Chicken would taste fine when cooked, and it would also add a savory depth to the entire pot.

That’s why it was completely understandable that he didn’t add any chicken bouillon or stock.

In any case, Liu Fu felt he could understand adding just about any ingredient to the pot, because this kind of slow-cooked stew was usually made with whatever you had on hand at home.

You just toss in whatever the family likes to eat.

If someone really loved Wanzi, there’d be nothing wrong with tossing some of those in, too.

But the one thing he couldn’t understand was the purpose of the stone. It looked like it had to weigh at least twenty-something pounds. He just didn’t get it!

With everything in place, Su Chen finally placed a small pot lid on top of the stone.

This left a gap of about an inch around the rim of the vat.

He turned on the flame.

The flame had to be low at first; it was a process of gradually increasing the temperature.

"Alright. Watching all this must have made everyone hungry. Sorry for the long wait... I was originally going to make noodles."

"It’s no problem," Cui Yufen said with a wide smile. "They all ate so much this morning, they’re in no rush to eat again, even with the wait."

Ever since giving Su Chen that red envelope with ten thousand yuan, the more Cui Yufen looked at him, the more she liked what she saw.

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