Siheyuan: Fatty’s Counterattack

In the blink of an eye, it’s early summer.

The January period has arrived, and Mr. Lu is about to leave for Jinan Mansion.

Today, as usual, he came to Qili Pavilion at around 2 p.m.

The fat man made tea and said to him with some reluctance and guilt: "Master, I am leaving tomorrow. Why are you still coming to the kitchen?"

Mr. Lu smiled and said: "When doing things, you must start and finish. If you say one month, it will be one month."

The fat man sighed: "Why don't we stop cooking today and I'll accompany you to Wangfujing for a nice walk?"

Mr. Lu waved his hand: "What's there to do? Today I'm going to give you a test. It's your graduation test and a summary of this month."

When the fat man heard that he was going to take an exam, Lima also became serious: "You can take the exam as you like, I will never embarrass the master!"

Mr. Lu made the fat man amused: "What is shameful or not? As the saying goes, the master leads you in. Cultivation depends on the individual; as long as you use your heart, it will be good."

After the old man rested for a while, the fat man stood in front of the chopping board calmly and said, "Master, please give me a question."

"Well, as for the braised technique, I taught you a red stew. Today you make me a white stew, three diced stews."

Braised Sanding. The fat man carefully reviewed the characteristics and methods of this dish in his mind, and soon he had an idea.

After Mr. Lu finished asking the questions, he started to drink tea with all his attention, just to see what the fat man would do in the first step.

The fat man thought for a while, first took five or six shrimps, then took a piece of pork belly, leaving only the lean part, and finally cut off a third of the pork belly;

At this time, Mr. Lu spoke: "Why did you choose these three materials?"

The fat man replied: "Master, your manuscript says that there is no fixed combination of braised sardines, and you can choose any material. But after careful consideration, I found that there are certain rules."

"Oh, tell me what's the pattern?"

"The first is that the color combination must be reasonable, such as the three ingredients you used in the example: sea cucumber, shrimp, and pork belly; the second is that the compatibility must be good, and the ingredients must be able to blend with each other to form a complex taste, rather than competing for each other's taste."

Mr. Lu nodded with satisfaction: "The third thing is that sea cucumbers are too expensive, and you can't bear to part with them!"

The fat man laughed loudly: "Yes, I have to consider the cost."

The old man smiled and shook his head, stopped talking, and watched how the fat man handled the ingredients.

Braised tripe, as the name suggests, requires cutting all three ingredients into cubes.

The so-called Ding is four-square and equal in size. This is called Ding.

For the dish of Braised Sanding, the first thing to consider is the chef's knife skills.

The first thing this dish requires is uniform size. Being able to cut all the ingredients into dices of about one and a half centimeters, including the bamboo shoots and carrots used for side dishes, is the key to this dish.

Don't cut it too big, and don't cut it into pieces, otherwise it will affect the appearance of the finished dish.

Secondly, there is the technique of boiling water. This aspect was not written in the old man’s manuscript, and it does not need to be written. If a fat man doesn’t understand how to boil water, then he shouldn’t open this restaurant;

After the water boiled, the fat man cooked some rice wine into the pot and added some salt. Then add the shrimps to the pot first, and then add the remaining tripe strips and pork belly to the pot after the shrimps are blanched for a while.

The old man nodded, there was nothing wrong with this step; just iron it once, but don't iron it for too long.

After the ingredients and side dishes are blanched, it’s time to cook.

The main oils used in Shandong cuisine are scallion oil, pepper oil, and peanut oil; after all, people all over the country later knew about 4S pressed peanut oil...

To make this dish, you need to use scallion oil in a hot pot, which is made from peanut oil and scallions; then sauté the ingredients until fragrant. When the oil is hot, remove it from the fire. Do not over-fry it, and then add broth to the pot.

The accent of an opera singer, the soup of a chef. After so many years, Fatty's skill in making soup stock has long been perfected, and Mr. Lu taught him some tips on how to make soup stock himself. It can be said that the high-grade clear soup that Fatty makes now is the best in the entire capital!

The third requirement for this dish is cleanliness. What do you mean? That is, the ingredients must be handled cleanly, the cooked soup must be clean, and even the side dishes on the plate must be clean.

Therefore, the ingredients that were just fried in the pot must be cleaned before seasoning can begin.

The seasoning is also very simple, just salt and some rice wine. When Mr. Lu saw Fatty cooking this dish, he had a good grasp of the amount of rice wine, and he was quite satisfied.

It seems that he has studied his manuscript carefully and did not just go over it and get through it. Otherwise, he would definitely not be able to discover these details.

Rice wine is added twice before and after this dish, which is very important. Use the evaporation of alcohol to take away the odor of the ingredients and let the aroma of rice wine blend into the taste.

Nowadays, there is also a kind of cooking wine on the market. It is a kind of wine specially used for cooking, which is made of rice wine as the base wine and blended with some spices and condiments.

However, it has not become popular yet, but compared to rice wine, cooking wine has great advantages when used for cooking, both in terms of price and taste. It is only a matter of time before it replaces rice wine.

The last requirement for the Braised Sanding dish is: be quick!

The dish needs to be served quickly. According to kitchen standards, the time from preparation to cooking should not exceed 5 minutes. It is a dish that is particularly suitable for preparation in densely populated places such as near universities, residential areas, and hospitals.

Finally, after the fat man has finished thickening the soup, he scoops up the soup with a spoon and sees that it has become smooth. Now it is ready to be served.

Before taking it out of the pan, drizzle a little scallion oil on it to ensure a bright color, and it's done. The next step is to ask Mr. Lu to rate this dish.

Just like the last time when the fat man was tested to make sweet and sour carp, the old man watched it first, and commented while watching: "This meat is just right, with a layer of gravy powder, and the white powder is shining through, it is very beautiful; and this shrimp, it doesn't look like that The gray color after a serious illness is actually bright and very full; as for the belly strips, not to mention, they are curved and slightly layered, and the black and white color scheme makes the whole dish richer in color. Okay, okay, the appearance is okay Full marks.”

After receiving the teacher's praise, the fat man was overjoyed. He quickly took the spoon and chopsticks and asked the teacher to taste them.

The old man tasted the soup first: "It's very good. The characteristic of this dish is that the soup is fresh and fragrant. It has a characteristic of Shandong cuisine, which is fresh, crisp and tender. I don't think anyone will dare to say this about this dish in the future. Shandong cuisine is all dark."

After saying that, the master and apprentice laughed together.

In the common people's inherent impression, Shandong cuisine is all dark, such as sea cucumbers roasted with green onions, sweet and sour carps, pork belly, nine-turn large intestine, Sixi meatballs...all are added with soy sauce, so the color is dark. !