Chapter 197: Attraction of Spiced Beans
Translator: Xiong Guoqi Editor: DesTheSloth
Having chosen all the ingredients, Yuan Zhou put on the face mask and carried a small stone mill out from the cabinet, preparing to grind the Five Spice Powder.
Yuan Zhou preferred grinding these ingredients by hand, believing that only in that way could the fragrance of the ingredients be best utilized and the quintessence be distilled.
The stone mill then emitted a sound of "Zhi Ya, Zhi Ya". Yuan Zhou had a good command of moving on to the next sequence. As the powder slowly came out from the mill, the fragrance of the Five Spice Powder also became more and more fragrant.
Yuan Zhou stopped after he had gotten a small bowl of the Five Spice Powder.
He then took out the box that contained the Faba beans, opened the cover and poured the beans out of it. Afterward, he started to add water to the beans and stirred them with a transparent stick that looked like a crystal.
This way, it could avoid damaging the skin of the beans to the utmost extent and then he wash them clean with the centrifugal force of the whirling water.
At last, Yuan Zhou reached out his hands to wash the tiny parts of the beans one by one and added water to wash them again before pouring them all into the thin bamboo woven strips to be filtered.
Subsequently, he put all the flavorings into a big copper pot and added water until the faba beans were submerged by a length of a finger. Following that, he boiled the beans with high heat and turned the flame down to simmer them for one hour until they became soft. Then, the dish of Spiced Beans was ready.
During the process, the fragrance of the Five Spice Powder slowly diffused into the beans and brought about an abundant aroma.
The fragrance of the spiced beans could not be contained. Without the system’s support, the aroma basically aroused everyone’s appetite.
"This guy always makes tasty dishes whenever I’m not there." Wu Hai ran downstairs swiftly and arrived at the entrance of Yuan Zhou’s restaurant.
Wu Hai went up to knock on the door with a sound of "Peng Peng", disregarding that the door was still closed.
Others beside him nevertheless started to make a commotion, "Boss Yuan is so hateful. Every time he cooks delicious dishes, the door was always closed. Whoever eats alone has no girlfriend."
"Come on. The way you talk indicates as if he could get a girlfriend if he doesn’t eat alone. But, it’s truly so fragrant though."
"Exactly. I almost starved to death due to the fragrance." A customer patted his belly helplessly.
"Knock the door with greater strength. I think Boss Yuan hasn’t heard us yet." Another one directly instigated Wu Hai to knock the door even more heavily as if to smash it.
"Aren’t you guys curious what fragrance it is?" suddenly, a person asked.
After a short while of silence, Wu Hai said spitefully," We’ll know that after the door is opened."
"You are right. Then you continue." Then the person made a gesture of "please continue."
"Aren’t you guys going to knock on the door with me?" Wu Hai looked at other customers waiting in line behind and said helplessly.
"Wu Hai, you are tougher than us. You do it," all the customers said so one after another.
"I won’t. Xiaoyun is coming," Wu Hai stopped and watched Mu Xiaoyun walk up to him.
"What’s the matter?" When Mu Xiaoyun saw all the customers outside the door looking at her, she felt a little puzzled.
"Never mind. Your boss should open the door now," Wu Hai said primly.
"Um. Just wait another five minutes," Mu Xiaoyun nodded. She had already gotten used to the scene that the customers all waited at the door every day.
Sometimes, one minute went by too fast, and sometimes it went by too slowly, making people suffer. Like right now.
During those five minutes, the customers just stood there while smelling the fragrance of the Spiced Beans, which let everybody drool quickly.
Finally, five minutes passed and the door was opened following a sound of "Hua La".
At that time, the positioning of these customers was clearly seen. Just after Mu Xiaoyun, Wu Hai crowded in the restaurant flexibly and occupied the middle position of the long curved table.
The one that waited after Wu Hai was the one who had felt curious about what tasty dishes Yuan Zhou cooked just now. Wearing a suit, he didn’t do any worse in grabbing a seat and got seated in the wake of Wu Hai.
The customers all liked sitting at the long curved table exactly facing the kitchen so they could watch the whole cooking process, which was fairly spectacular.
They acted unhurriedly but swiftly with a quick and neat manner, without any wasted movements. If anybody ordered the dish of Phoenix-Tail Prawns, they could even watch Yuan Zhou sculpt the radish flowers on site. With his fingers flying up and down, the flowers of the phoenix tree would come into being soon.
The marvelous process was almost as good as watching Teppanyaki being made.
Therefore, the seat right in front of Yuan Zhou was always the first to be grabbed, then the seats at both sides of the long curved table, and the two seats at the small table at the door in the end.
"Serve me with one serving of the new dish." Wu Hai was always like that, never asking about the price before ordering the dish.
"Ok, 148 RMB in all. Please wait a moment." Yuan Zhou nodded.
After Wu Hai handed the money over, Yuan Zhou turned around and went to carry the dish to him.
In a little while, Yuan Zhou straightforwardly carried a strange stuff on the table.
It was a #-shaped frame. Inside of it hung a fish-mouth-alike bag, swaying slightly due to the motion of placing it down. The bag was thin and appeared to be semitransparent, with the dark green faba beans contained inside.
The entire frame was placed in a dark brown plate. With the emerald green frame and the brown plate, the dish was like a piece of refreshing artwork.
"What’s this?" Wu Hai tried to smell the flavor, but nothing leaked out. He then poked the bag with the chopsticks and then asked.
"Spiced Beans. 148 RMB for each serving," Yuan Zhou said in detail.
"Spiced Beans? How to eat it?" For the first time, the big foodie of Wu Hai encountered a dish that he didn’t know how to eat and hence asked with interest.
"Use the chopsticks to pick it up directly," Yuan Zhou took a glance at Wu Hai. The mere glance contained many things, of which the most was probably the word "stupid".
"Bullshit. I mean where should I reach out with the chopsticks?" Wu Hai obviously read out the meaning that Yuan Zhou wanted to express in his eyes and then said quickly.
"Just pick the beans up from the fish mouth. This bag is also eatable," Yuan Zhou added.
"Well, that’s interesting." Wu Hai took the chopsticks and prepared to pick up the beans.
The end of the chopsticks prepared by Yuan Zhou this time wasn’t so pointed for fear it would puncture the bag, which appeared quite soft.
The chopsticks went into the fish mouth easily, but how to take the beans out became a little difficult, as the fish mouth was not really wide.
After quite a while, Wu Hai managed to pick one up and then his former complaining mood vanished instantly as what came along with the faba bean was the fragrance that had attracted the customers for so long. He couldn’t wait to stuff the bean into the mouth and started to eat.
The skin of the faba beans was originally not tasty and moreover carried slight astringent taste. However, the one in his mouth didn’t have such a feeling at all.
The instant he stuffed the bean into his mouth, he felt that the skin was very thin and the flesh was soft with a slight hint of a sweet and soft texture. Along with the chewing, the fragrant taste constantly stimulated his taste buds.
After eating up the first one, Wu Hai couldn’t wait to reach out the chopsticks again and pick up the second bean. This time, the faba bean nevertheless carried a hint of stiffness in its soft texture and sweetness in its savory texture. The more he chewed, the more fragrant it became. It made people unable to resist the temptation to eat another one.
People tended to make mistakes when they were hurried. Like right now, Wu Hai was unable to pick up the third bean not matter how hard he tried. He was just a few steps away from ripping open the fish mouth, which would be uninteresting.
"What kind of blo*dy bag is this! It simply makes me unable to pick up the beans. Do you know how eager I am to eat a bean?" Wu Hai grumbled bluntly.
"Be patient. Delicious foods are never easily achieved," standing at the side, Yuan Zhou said calmly.
"Isn’t it easily achieved with such a price? Are you saying that on purpose?" Looking at the floppy bag, Wu Hai felt rather speechless.
"It naturally has its own use. You'll know it after eating." Yuan Zhou didn't really like to explain these things.
"I feel that Boss Yuan is right. He has decent reasons to fill the beans like that," the man wearing the suit beside him suddenly uttered.
...