The first thing I did was to find out

Chapter 78: Guidance from a Master (Thanks to the leader Xingchen Yiranzai Shangtiejia for the reward!)
With the guidance of a famous teacher, Qin Huai felt that his skills in making soup improved by leaps and bounds.

Of course, it feels like a huge step forward on just the first day.

On the second day, they retreated another nine hundred miles.

But a famous teacher is a famous teacher.

Compared with Zheng Da's abstract teaching and his picky attitude that looks down on the talents of 99% of white-kitchen chefs, Huang Shengli's teaching method is obviously encouraging.

It may be that many years of teaching have tempered his temper, or it may be that due to rheumatism and back problems he no longer works on the front line and has begun to enjoy his retirement life so he is very open-minded about everything. Even if Qin Huai makes rapid progress and then regresses, Huang Shengli can always find something encouraging.

"That's great, Xiao Qin, don't be discouraged."

"Although your beef soup today is obviously not as good as yesterday's, this is more telling. Now think about it carefully, why is it that with exactly the same operation, yesterday's beef soup looked fine, but today's beef soup is so obviously bad?" Huang Shengli asked, sitting and drinking tea leisurely.

From his camera, he can clearly see him sitting in the corner of the kitchen near the door, cool and in control of the overall situation. There is a small table next to him, on which are brewed tea and some of his favorite food, one of which is a plate of fresh meat mooncakes that are obviously made by Zheng Siyuan.

The Huang's Restaurant opened by Huang Shengli is very famous in Gusu. A quick search on Qinhuai on the Internet yielded rave reviews. Both its ranking scores on review websites and its share of shares on major software are far ahead. It can be seen that there is basically no cheating involved, and it is all based on real strength.

Because this year's negative reviews are obviously much more than before. Many people commented that the taste of the restaurant is not as good as before, not as good as the online hype.

Although some enthusiastic old customers explained that it was because the head chef, Master Huang, was old and in poor health, and that the current chef was his eldest apprentice who had not yet mastered his cooking skills, it was still obvious that the famous Huang's Restaurant had been on a downward trend since the beginning of this year.

When Qin Huai saw the online comments, he was a little worried about Huang Shengli. After all, his own business was starting to go downhill, and no one would be in a good mood. He even thought about whether he should spend less time asking Huang Shengli questions to avoid annoying him.

Then Qin Huai will find out that he is wrong and Huang Shengli doesn't care at all.

Every day, he happily instructed his apprentices to move a chair and sit at the door of the back kitchen. He would instruct the apprentices in the kitchen to do this and that on the spot to see if they made any mistakes or were lazy. At the same time, he would video-call Qin Huai to teach him how to cook soup, and he enjoyed giving instructions.

Qin Huai even heard one of Huang Shengli's disciples whispering in a place where he couldn't see: "Is the one in the video the master's last disciple? Didn't we agree before that I am the last disciple?"

Qin Huai could only draw one conclusion from this - Huang Shengli really loved being a master.

He was able to persist as a master for so many years and take in so many apprentices. He never got tired of it nor despised the fact that his apprentices were not as talented or had not learned the essential skills. Even during the transition period when he was preparing to retire, when they were unable to take over his shift, he did not get angry but sat happily in the kitchen all day long. It was all because of his love for teaching.

If Huang Shengli had not been a chef but a teacher, he would probably have been a famous teacher with many students all over the world.

The teaching of famous teachers continues.

Facing Huang Shengli's question, Qin Huai thought about it carefully and answered: "I feel that today's beef seems to be cut differently from yesterday's."

“Maybe I didn’t cut it properly?”

Huang Shengli nodded. "I told you, Xiao Qin, you are actually very talented, but no one has ever taught you before. You see, as soon as I asked you, I discovered the biggest reason why you didn't cook this pot of beef soup well today. You are not familiar enough with beef as an ingredient."

"Of course, insufficient skills are also a big reason, but improvement is always a process."

"Have you noticed that today's beef is much fresher than yesterday's? That's right. The process of making beef soup is to wash and cut the beef into pieces, soak it to remove the blood, and then blanch it in cold water before stewing it."

"But when faced with ingredients in different states, the processing methods need to be slightly changed."

"Just like you knead dough normally. I remember you told me that when you were selling breakfast at your breakfast shop, you couldn't get up in the morning, so you kneaded the dough the night before. But now you get up a little earlier in the morning, and the cafeteria doesn't open that early, so you can knead and make it right after you get up in the morning."

"You must know that the two different ways of preparing food will definitely require slight adjustments in making the same buns. Of course, if you knead the dough in advance, the buns you make will definitely not be as delicious as freshly made ones."

"It's the same with our Hong An. You can't just stick to a formula when cooking. You can't memorize a method and apply it to every situation. If you try to stick to a formula when your skills are not mature enough, the probability of failure will be very high."

"I have a document here about how to handle various ingredients and how to deal with different situations. I'll send it to you now." "You have time to study it today. Cook the beef soup tomorrow and we'll see how it goes tomorrow."

Master Huang took another sip of tea with a smile on his face. The senior apprentice who had acted as a teaching model yesterday saw that he had finished speaking and quietly leaned over to show half of his face in the camera.

"Master, why don't you make these fried eel paste dishes? They're for the engagement banquet. I heard they specially booked our restaurant. I'm afraid..."

Master Huang immediately put down his teacup and stood up: "I'll do that. Xiao Qin, I have something else to do. I've sent the document over. You can study it carefully. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me on WeChat."

"You should still practice making the soup stock as usual. Don't feel any psychological burden and practice boldly. You have to believe in yourself. Your seasoning is still very good, and you are very talented. You have to trust your feelings. When you don't know what to do and no one asks, just follow your feelings. I am very optimistic about you."

Master Huang hung up the phone.

Qin Huai nodded at the screen of the phone that had hung up the call and began to read the document.

At table number 9, Ouyang, who had seriously skipped work, was holding the beef soup. He looked a little disgusted, but adhering to the principle of not wasting food, he still drank it in small sips.

"Luoluo, you said your brother made good snacks, why did he think of making soup?" Ouyang was really puzzled. He pointed at Qin Huai, who was oblivious to the outside world and focused on the documents on his phone, "He is still taking online classes."

“You can actually learn to cook online these days!”

Ouyang didn’t understand. He could only take another sip of beef soup and continued to complain: “Besides, the teaching of this online course is not very good. After a day of class, the soup I made is even more unpalatable.”

Qin Luo was also drinking beef soup, which she had cried for, and she had to finish it even though it didn't taste good.

"You don't understand. My brother said this is laying the foundation." Qin Luo felt that he understood.

She felt that she really understood it this time. The online course teacher Qin Huai found taught very well and she could understand every word!
"Teacher Huang said that it is better to have problems when you are laying the foundation, so that you can correct them in time. If there are no problems, it will be difficult to correct them after you have practiced the basics. It's just like me. My math scores still have a lot of room for improvement, but my English is already difficult to improve."

Ouyang:?
Are you sure this is the same?
No wonder you failed the Chinese high school entrance examination.

However, Ouyang felt that what Qin Luo said made sense, but it made him suffer.

Alas, I thought it would be a wonderful thing to come here every day to try the dishes and drink the soup, but it turned out to be a chore.

Sir, if the soup doesn't taste good and I get fat from drinking it, can it be considered a work injury?

Ouyang looked at Qin Huai in the kitchen with a worried look on his face, hoping that Qin Huai could quickly complete the basics so that he could drink delicious soup.

It was obvious that Qin Huai could not hear Ouyang's thoughts.

The document sent by Huang Shengli was very detailed, and could even be searched directly by the name of the ingredient. After studying the beef, Qin Huai felt that he had gained new insights.

He's okay again!
The advantage is mine!

Qin Huai decided to work overtime to cook another pot of beef soup.

Anyway, soup can be cooked at the same time, stock and beef broth can be cooked at the same time, practice more.

You have to listen to Master Huang and Master Zheng as well.

As for what constructive suggestions Master Zheng made...

Master Zheng suggested that Qin Huai listen more to Master Huang and practice more.

(End of this chapter)