Free Web NovelChapter 592: Chapter 585: Enigmatic Aesthetics
The two chatted casually, but their hands never stopped working.
Fu Yu, having finished frying the salted fish, moved on to making fish ball soup.
The fish ball soup sold in the shop now is an improved version of mackerel fish ball soup.
Vinegar and pepper are added to the soup, making it spicy, sour, and fresh. One bowl will make you sweat, and after one, you’ll want another.
Zhao Meng, however, said that initially, the fish ball soup sold in the shop was made with eel and included fish floss and pea sprouts.
It was quite troublesome to make, but whether in terms of taste or the tenderness of the fish balls, it was much better than mackerel.
The difficulty of this dish lies in the mixing of the fish balls and the proportion of ingredients.
Zhao Meng carefully explained the proportions of the ingredients, briefly mentioned the mixing technique, and then handed over the task of cooking the soup to Fu Yu.
Cooking dishes that involve simmering soups was never his forte.
Instead, Fu Yu excelled more in controlling the heat and proportions of ingredients.
Zhao Meng didn’t say it out loud, but he knew very well.
Physical work was Fu Yu’s strong suit. Since obtaining the system-enhanced stamina, and the rapid improvements in hand speed and knife speed, Fu Yu had never worried about the chopping station again.
He picked out the fine fish bones, smashed the fish with the back of a knife, and chopped it into fish paste before putting it in a container.
And during this simple process of smashing and chopping, people watching from afar couldn’t see anything remarkable.
But standing next to Fu Yu, ready to assist at any time, Zhang Jinyu widened his eyes suddenly.
What had he just seen?
As a kitchen helper, Zhang Jinyu often handled the task of smashing the fish paste.
Even though fish is indeed more delicate than pork, smashing it with the back of a knife requires several attempts, and chopping it into fish paste is even more laborious.
But in Fu Yu’s hands, the fish seemed to turn into rotten wood. With just a smash with the back of the knife, it turned into mush.
When chopping the fish paste, whether due to preconceived notions or not, Zhang Jinyu felt Fu Yu was just going through the motions to show others.
The fish meat was already smashed into a paste; chopping it further made no difference.
But as soon as he thought about it, Zhang Jinyu felt he was probably overthinking.
Did Fu Yu need to do that?
Most likely, it was Fu Yu’s hand speed that was too fast for him to see clearly for a moment.
Yes, that must be it.
Otherwise, who would believe a simple knife could turn fish into mush in one go?
There’s no magic trick this amazing, right?
Completely unaware, his amazing knife skills inadvertently amazed his little partner.
Fu Yu busily prepared the dish with agile movements.
The chopped fish paste was mixed with fine salt, rice wine, and MSG.
As clear water was slowly poured in, he stirred vigorously with chopsticks in one direction, picked out small pieces of fish paste, and put them into cold water until they floated to the surface, then added starch to mix.
Though this operation seemed simple, doing it properly was quite challenging.
It not only tested the cook’s hand speed but also required strict control over the proportions of water, fish paste, and starch.
Whether the fish balls would have a bouncy texture depended on this critical step.
Mix minced meat with fine salt, rice wine, MSG, soy sauce, and chopped onions and ginger to make the stuffing.
Put half a pot of clear water on low heat.
Fu Yu grabbed a handful of fish paste with his left hand, placed the stuffing in his left palm with his right hand, then squeezed it with his left hand, letting a fish ball stuffed in the center emerge between his thumb and forefinger, and scooped it into the pot of water with a spoon.
If the water in the pot started to boil, add some cold water to prevent it from boiling, and when the fish balls floated to the surface, retrieve them all.
Add fresh soup, salt to the pot, bring it to a boil, add the fish balls and rice wine, skim off the froth, add a few pea sprouts and MSG, and serve the soup in a bowl when it boils.
The advantage of fish ball soup is that it doesn’t lose its flavor over time.
Once Fu Yu finished simmering it, he put it directly into a steamer to keep warm.
He just waited for customers to arrive, and then the servers could take and serve it on the table.
Cooking fish ball soup is quite a hassle, even for someone with Fu Yu’s fast hand speed, it took over half an hour to finish.
During this time, Zhao Meng had already quickly completed two classic dishes: spicy crayfish and spicy stir-fried juvenile fish.
"Chef Zhao, how are the butterfly shrimp paired with sea cucumber?"
Fu Yu, looking at the order slip posted on the kitchen wall, asked with interest.
Zhao Meng casually replied: "It’s butterfly shrimp made with shrimp broth, paired with braised sea cucumber with scallions. It’s not unique in flavor, but the presentation is beautiful. This dish used to be the showstopper at grand banquet tables, though it’s not as popular now."
Making shrimp into butterfly shapes requires high attention to detail.
The time spent making a few decorative shrimp could be better used to cook two more dishes of braised sea cucumber with scallions.
It used to look chic and elegant, but now it doesn’t quite set the stage as it used to.
With various unique presentation forms coming one after another, what used to be a showstopper has been overshadowed and lacks distinctiveness.
Seeing Fu Yu was interested, Zhao Meng put down the task of stir-frying snails and first cooked ten shrimp in their juice, then taught Fu Yu hands-on how to make shrimp into vivid butterfly shapes.
This trick mainly relies on fixing it with toothpicks.
Remove the head, shell, and veins from the shrimp, leaving only the shrimp meat and tail.
Trim the oversized sides of the shrimp, leaving a thin layer of shrimp meat in the middle.
Bend the shrimp meat, position the bright red tail upwards, and pair it with a cucumber-carved butterfly body, using syrup to fix black sesame seeds as butterfly eyes.
Though Zhao Meng hadn’t made it in years and his technique was rusty, the final outcome was still quite good.
"There, this is how you do it."
Zhao Meng displayed the finished shrimp to Fu Yu.
Fu Yu felt he learned the technique visually, but as for doing it himself...
"Understand now? Alright, the rest of the shrimp are yours!"
Zhao Meng happily passed the task along.
He hated such detailed work; he could cook two more dishes with that time.
Completely ignoring that Fu Yu, who had just been assigned the task, gladly took on the shrimp sculpting task.
While making the first butterfly shrimp, his technique was a bit rusty, but the more he made, the quicker and better he got.
When the last butterfly shrimp was placed on the plate, its look and shape were truly lifelike.
Fu Yu had just finished the butterfly shrimp when a server came to inform him that the customer in private room 104 had arrived.
The back kitchen immediately placed the prepared dishes one by one on the serving counter.
Fu Yu also prepared the braised sea cucumber with scallions.
Once done, the sea cucumber was neatly laid in the center of a white round porcelain plate, surrounded by a circle of butterfly shrimp, and on top of the sea cucumber, per Zhao Meng’s instructions, were three red cherries.
He didn’t realize it before, but now seeing the entire presentation arrangement, it indeed felt like a rustic style popular over a decade ago.
Back then, it was quite a mysterious aesthetic!
