Chapter 109: Skills of Chef Yu
Translator: Xiong Guoqi Editor: DesTheSloth
He took out some salt and scattered it into a clean glass container, and then he put the prawns inside and poured a drop of oil onto the salt. Afterward, the white prawns inside started to throw up silt and sand from their mouth. This marvelous move simply made the prawns much cleaner.
The Phoenix-Tail Prawns wasn’t originally a dish for displaying culinary skills. But in the hands of the two chefs, it nevertheless had the visual effects of the splendid performance.
Yuan Zhou meticulously brushed down each of the shrimps, placing them into a glass basin filled with clear water after cleaning.
His upright back and the flexible actions of his wrists gave an aesthetic feeling every time Yuan Zhou put the shrimps into the basin, giving the impression to all the people watching at the side the comfort the shrimps were in.
On the other hand, the audience of Meng Meng’s live broadcast increased.
[Boohoo. I wanna become a shrimp just to accept Boss Yuan’s brushing.], from Little Chivalrous Swordsman.
[I just want to eat it. I feel the shrimp will be very delicious judging by the way Boss Yuan prepares it.], from I’m A Foodie.
[That’s right. I think Chef Yu is also an excellent chef now. Of course, Boss Yuan still outclasses him a little.], from Amisa.
[Who wants to form a team again to go to Boss Yuan’s restaurant together?], from Irritable Me.
Instead of replying these messages, Meng Meng was attentively watching the two chefs respectively displaying their astounding culinary skills.
“It feels like this young man indeed has some true capabilities,” the customers on the sides whispered to each other.
“Yes, absolutely. But the dish of Phoenix-Tail Prawns cooked by Chef Yu is one of a kind. I didn’t even manage to eat such genuine prawns when I went to Jin’ling City.” of course, some of them still trusted Chef Yu more as they had already savored his dish before.
“Yet, I’m looking forward to the works from that new-comer chef. Look at the shrimps he is cooking now.” Some others became quite interested in Yuan Zhou’s skills.
The audience of the live broadcast and the audience at the side were all the same, they were just looking forward to eating. However, the latter could only go to Yuan Zhou’s restaurant to eat while the former would be able to taste it in a little while.
Chef Yu had been busy preparing other ingredients, like boiling the green peas and other vegetables. About 10 minutes later, he began to fish out the white prawns that had been throwing up silt and sand.
He took out a pair of bamboo chopsticks and stirred the water clockwise until it formed a small whirlpool. Then he changed to another pair of bamboo chopsticks to fish out the white prawns from the whirlpool. With careful actions, he managed to keep the white prawns away from the oil; therefore, the white prawns that were fished out didn’t have any bit of oil on them. After washing and cleaning them again, Chef Yu prepared to deal with the prawns.
Nevertheless, the way Chef Yu processed the prawns was totally different from that of Yuan Zhou. While pinching the tail of a prawn with one hand, he pinched a piece of shell in the middle of the tail with his thumb and forefinger of the other hand and pulled backward. An intact shrimp line was then peeled off. Subsequently, the head of the prawns was removed.
The technique was quick and sharp. All the prawns were quickly dealt with well. Only then did Chef Yu begin to show his knife skills. As the white prawns were originally not big, it was difficult to deal with them on the chopping board. Therefore, Chef Yu directly processed the prawns one by one after leaving them on his hand and using a cooking knife with a narrow back.
Basically, he could finish processing a prawn with two sharp and clean slices, one slice for dividing the tail and the other for picking out the prawn meat. Moreover, the blade was chopped vertically from the top-down, resulting in the prawn having the same thickness of both sides.
Such meticulous handling of the prawn meat and other vegetables gave him the well-deserved title of Head Chef. Now all remaining was to savor the taste of the Phoenix-Tail Prawns.
On the other hand, Yuan Zhou was the same as usual. He pressed down a shrimp with one hand and cut open the back with the knife with the other hand, not hurting the shrimp line and taking it out completely. With another slice, he opened the dorsal section. The shrimp line was very thin this time; hence he straightforwardly picked it out with the knife.
After cutting open the back, along the central line, the shell became easier to peel off. Yuan Zhou had always feared that the knife might hurt the shrimp meat; therefore he usually peeled off the shell manually.
With only the shell on the tail left, the shrimps were neatly laid out on a white plate as usual. Although the meat quality was not as good as that provided by the system, the shrimps were, nevertheless, quite fresh. Yuan Zhou used a few skills and got the shell of the tails to stand upright.
Then he cracked an egg with one hand while scattering salt with the other, making the egg white wrap precisely around the salt particles and immediately wrap around shrimp meat the instant it was dropped.
In contrast, the means by which Chef Yu processed the prawns was different. He pulled the prawn meat out of the shell and directly put it in the glass basin, not seeming to prepare to use egg whites. Instead, he used cornstarch. He then added a few grains of salt and cooking rice wine to marinate and allow the flavors to immerse themselves into the prawns.
After finish marinating, both chefs started to sculpt, both taking the same actions without any prior consultation. As the skills of Chef Yu did not lie in his sculpting abilities, he just made a rabbit out of a tomato and matched it with a real flower.
Yuan Zhou nevertheless had much to show to the customers. He picked up the knife and chose a crisp and tender radish. Since radishes were mainly used for making flower garnishes in the restaurant, the restaurant didn’t usually use good ones, only the normal radishes. In this situation, Yuan Zhou would choose the middle part of a radish to sculpt.
Yuan Zhou had already learned the sculpting skills by heart. In his hands, a shape of a flower gradually came into existence from the original dark purple radish. What’s more, he even sculpted a string of flowers along the remaining part of the radish.
There laid gently on the plate were the soft and tender flower petals, which were as thin as cicada's wings which even carried a slight feel of silk.
After filtering off the water, Yuan Zhou fished out a boiled chestnut and first peeled off the outmost brown hard shell, leaving only the brown soft shell outside. After peeling it all off, the chestnuts were still boiling hot. At that time, Yuan Zhou again peeled off the complete soft shell and then pounded the chestnut into the sauce. While pounding the chestnuts, he added some boiling broth into the sauce.
On the other side, Chef Yu began to fry the peeled prawns in the frying pan filled with hot oil, bringing about strong fragrance.
The translucent flower garnishes of Yuan Zhou’s work and the fragrance of the fried prawns cooked by Chef Yu immediately attracted all people on the site, causing them to salivate.
“I’m so hungry. When exactly can we eat?” a young man couldn’t help asking.
“It’s supposed to be ready any minute. The Phoenix-Tail Prawns dish doesn’t need much time. It was merely because both chefs have such terrific culinary skills that we are all hungry just by watching.” After swallowing the saliva, another person analyzed calmly.
Of all people on site, only Wang Shuyuan remained seated in the chair, staying as still as a mountain. He mainly fixated his attention on Yuan Zhou, whom he had only seen once. Yuan Zhou acted like he was working on a great piece of art while cooking. His wholeheartedness was revealed in every detail.
Taking the used kitchen stove, for example, Chef Yu obvious was used to the junior chefs helping him tidy up while Yuan Zhou put everything back whenever he finished using it. As a result, despite the various steps and procedures, every motion of Yuan Zhou was natural as he left everything in a clean and orderly fashion.
Soon, Yuan Zhou likewise started to scatter the pea starch on the shrimps and fry them in oil. Surprisingly, there was strong fragrance filled in the whole room when Chef Yu fried the prawns but there was no fragrance of any sort when Yuan Zhou did the same.
The remaining actions of the two people were basically the same. These include frying in oil, stir-frying and tray loading. Soon, their dishes were both ready for eating.
At that time, the general manager who had stayed at the side announced, “Now the masterpieces of the two chefs are both ready. Wow, the fragrance itself is making me hungry, so I won’t hold up everybody from savoring. Little Wu, go to carry the two dishes here and split them into small plates.
“Great words, general manager. I’m indeed hungry and will have to eat something else later. Otherwise, I won’t be able to go back home.” Somebody followed up with some joking words.
“Absolutely. General manager, you must offer some discounts. It’s all because your head chef does a great job, making me hungry again not long after lunch,” another person said while smiling.
While they were leisurely joking over there, Meng Meng also started to speak in a low voice to her audiences, “Oh no, Meng Meng is so hungry. Are you all hungry?”
…….