Life is a Game

Three hundred and fortieth chapters birthday meal (four)

Taking advantage of the time between marinating the chicken, Xia Mubing diced the rest of the vegetables into small square cubes of different colors and similar sizes, which looked decent.

Then Jiang Feng witnessed the birth of Xia Fu Luo Chicken.

Xia Mubing mixed the chicken and black pepper into the pot and stir-fried. Since it was a large piece of chicken, it made Xia Mubing a lot more difficult to turn the spoon during the stir-fry.

When the chicken was fried until it was about half-cooked, Xia Mubing turned off the heat, changed a pan, spread a thin layer of oil on the bottom of the pan, and fried the chicken on low heat.

The chicken needs to be fried. Zhang Guanghang told him about this step before, but he never forgot.

Let the chicken fry in the pan by itself, under the blessing of low heat, the fat-rich surface begins to sizzle, oil seeps from the inside out, the color becomes thicker, and the aroma from the ingredients themselves begins to be seasoned The taste of ingredients.

Xia Mubing turned to deal with the cooked pork belly, working on two dishes at the same time.

The preparation of palace Wanfu meat is cumbersome and complicated, not only because of its various production processes, but also because of its very high requirements for knife skills.

As a typical court dish, Palace Wanfu Pork fully embodies the advantages and disadvantages of court dishes. First of all, the name should be nice, and it should make people feel rich and pleasing, and want to eat this dish. The founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang ate a stewed tofu with rotten leaves when he was in his fortune, and it could be named Pearl Jade White Jade Soup, let alone those last emperors who said they were extravagant.

Picking a good name is only the first step, and choosing expensive materials is the second step. Use what is rare and what is precious. Palace cuisine has very strict requirements on the origin, texture, location, and size of ingredients. Even the salt used in cooking must be carefully selected from tens of thousands of catties of refined salt. The selected ones, not to mention the bowls, chopsticks, and dishes, must be high-quality treasures worth thousands of dollars. As for whether the ivory inlaid on the chopsticks will bite the mouth, it is not something ordinary people can care about.

In the Qing Dynasty, a certain emperor wanted to eat folk snacks. The budget of 90,000 taels of silver given by the Ministry of Internal Affairs may not be groundless.

Palace Wanfu meat is one of the masterpieces. Xia Mubing has done his best in selecting materials. He is not an imperial chef, so he can't let all the rare treasures in the world be placed in front of him for him to choose. The vegetable market is so big and so many pigs are slaughtered in one day, and being able to pick out the best pork belly from dozens of pigs is already the limit of what he can do.

Xia Mubing glanced at the chicken frying in the pan next to him, and began to lower his head to slice the meat.

To make palace Wanfu meat, the pork belly must first be cut into long strips from a block, and then rolled back into a block, so that the meat can be shaped into a beautiful flower. The process is similar to that of peeling an apple. A skilled apple peeler can cut a long strip of uniform, thick and uninterrupted apple peel in one go, and a master chef can naturally cut a piece of pork belly into long strips of uniform thickness and uninterrupted thickness.

Turning the knife every time it cuts to the corner is a test for the chef.

Xia Mubing prepared 4 pieces of pork belly, and it took more than 10 minutes to cut the meat. Halfway through, he went to the pot next to him to flip the chicken. It can be said that he used two tasks to the extreme.

After cutting the meat, it's time to cook, but it's not the meat that's cooking, but the sauce. Jiang Feng watched Xia Mubing pour rice wine, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, sugar, scallion, ginger slices, star anise, pepper and other sauces into the pot and stir fry. The final color was so deep that it was easy to see Knowing Wanfu Pork is a heavy-tasting dish.

After frying the sauce, Xia Mubing turned off the fire next door, changed the pot, put the chicken and the beef soup borrowed from somewhere into the pot and simmered slowly, put the lid on the pot, and let everything happen.

Then Xia Mubing started to fry the Wanfu pork. The frying time was very short, only a few tens of seconds, so that the meat could be shaped and the skin crispy. After that, he put the shaped Wanfu meat skin side down into a well-shaped bowl, poured the fried sauce and broth into the bowl, and steamed it in a pan.

The big heads are all solved, and the rest are only miscellaneous soldiers.

Xia Mubing turned his attention to the diced vegetables he had chopped up earlier.

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 with butter, and then threw all the half-cooked vegetables into the pot with beef broth and stewed them with chicken .

Not to mention, it really has the meaning of French cuisine.

The vegetables are done, and all that's left are lemons and apples.

Xia Mubing stared at the apple and fell into thought.

In fact, if you want to cook with apples, he can, but the dish he knows seems to have nothing to do with French cuisine.

Never mind, let's talk about it.

Xia Mubing began to slice the apples.

Jiang Feng's eyes were moist.

What a familiar procedure, Xia Mubing is indeed Chen Qiusheng's apprentice, and Chen Qiusheng is indeed the second-tier head of Taifeng Building back then. The method of crispy apples is almost in the same vein, exactly!

"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 deep-fried, Xia Mubing called Zhang Guanghang out to see people.

No wonder Zhang Guanghang didn't have the slightest impression of crispy apples, he didn't even see how he saw them or how they were made when he co-authored them.

When Zhang Guanghang came back from the front hall, the crispy apples had already been fried and put on a plate.

"Master, Mr. Chu ordered a crispy crisp, braised shark's fin and Suzao elbow." Zhang Guanghang said.

"There's no shark's fin today, you go...you go and sit next to me, and I'll tell him." Xia Mubing always remembered the birthday gift for a child who didn't have to work on his birthday.

With that said, Xia Mubing put the freshly baked crispy apples into a white porcelain plate, and walked out like that. Jiang Feng hurriedly followed behind him.

"Yo, 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 came out, "But there is something missing, just let your apprentice come out and get it."

"There is no shark's fin today, so I can't cook braised shark's fin. Boss Chu, you'd better change the dish." Xia Mubing said.

Boss Chu immediately showed embarrassment, and said, "Can't make braised shark's fin? Master Xia, can you think of a way? Today is the three of us inviting a big boss from the south to dinner, and the braised shark's fin is the highlight."

"I can't do anything without the ingredients. You can change the dish." Xia Mubing said as he was about to go in, when he suddenly remembered something, "But there is still some fresh pork belly I bought this morning, or I can replace it with Wanfu in the palace. Meat?"

Boss Chu suddenly turned from worry to joy: "There is Wanfu meat today, which is really troublesome to Master Xia. What do you need braised shark's fin with Wanfu meat?"

"By the way, I heard that Boss Chu, you often do business with foreigners?" Xia Mubing asked.

"Why, Master Xia wants to get some foreign ingredients?" Boss Chu became interested.

"Why can'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 know a few sentences in English. We usually have a translator when we talk about business, so I'll just say hello." Boss Chu suddenly remembered that Zhang Guanghang seemed to be from France. People, "Master Xia, what did your apprentice say that you couldn't understand? Do you want me to find a French translator for you?"

Xia Mubing thought for a while: "No, English is fine too. Do you know how to say happy birthday in English?"

Boss Chu was taken aback, and suddenly realized: "So today is your apprentice's birthday! Let me tell you, why did you think of making Wanfu meat today? How about a happy birthday? Let me think about it. It seems to be...Happy. ..Happy, what's the deal?"

"Happy birthday, right?" Another middle-aged man kept his secret.

"That's right, that's it!" Boss Chu began to second-guess.

"Happy what? You speak slowly." Xia Mubing frowned.

"Happy birthday."

"Happy...doctor?"

"Almost, Happy birthday."

"Happy... is Bo dead?"

"Yes, yes, that's about it. When you get old, just say hurry up."

"Okay." Xia Mubing muttered silently as he walked back to the kitchen.

Zhang Guanghang was still sitting on the small chair, and when Xia Mubing came in, he pointed to the pot of stewed chicken and said, "Master, I just looked at the pot, and the beef soup has boiled dry, so I turned off the fire. "

Xia Mubing nodded, walked to the pot and uncovered it, and it looked surprisingly good. Put it on a plate, sprinkle the fried crispy apples on top, cut two slices of lemon and stick it on the edge of the plate to use the lemon, and the saffron chicken is complete.

Now that he is old and has a limited memory, he must race against time.

"Xiaohang, the saffron chicken is ready, come and taste 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 what kind of national food 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 moment.

Zhang Guanghang was stunned.

Seeing him like this, Xia Mubing thought he had made a mistake, and blushed, "I'll just talk about it casually, you keep eating, keep eating."

After talking, let's go 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.

The cheeks are slightly puffed up, chewing slowly, bite by bite.

"Merci." (thank you)