Chapter 167: Chapter 167: What’s in the Husband and Wife Lung Slice!
Shen Hai’s Taste of Yore Sichuan Restaurant had its reopening.
Although this Sichuan restaurant hadn’t been explosively popular before, it still attracted a fair number of diners.
The previous head chef at the restaurant had quite impressive skills.
However, due to special circumstances, a new head chef would be starting the following week.
This change didn’t require much promotion, and Shen Hai had assured Jiang Feng that he would never reveal Jiang Feng’s role as the head chef in his restaurant.
Shen Hai was a man of his word, not prone to petty schemes.
On the reopening day, both the servers and the kitchen helpers arrived.
In reality, there wasn’t much need for assistance; it was a small restaurant, and Jiang Feng could handle it all by himself.
Before opening for business, Jiang Feng had already completed all the prep work for the dishes.
The most time-consuming part of cooking was the preparation; the actual cooking didn’t take much time.
Meanwhile, some of Jiang Feng’s fans were still out searching for where he might have set up his food truck.
Jiang Feng, however, had secretly become the head chef of a Sichuan restaurant.
After 11:30 AM, the Taste of Yore Sichuan Restaurant opened for business.
Soon, the first group of customers walked in.
With only three patrons, the restaurant was still quite empty, though, given the time, this was understandable.
The three found a table, picked up the menu, and when the server came by, they ordered, "One serving of mapo tofu, one serving of fish-fragrant shredded pork, and a serving of Fuqi Feipian, plus three bowls of rice. We’ll just have tea to drink."
"Alright."
The server took the order to the kitchen.
The proprietress, Zhu Hong, personally handled the cash register, and Shen Hai was also in the restaurant, looking for ways to lend a hand.
Being a small establishment, they hadn’t hired many employees, so the couple did much of the work themselves.
Running a restaurant was by no means easy.
In the kitchen, Jiang Feng saw the order and immediately got busy.
Fish-fragrant shredded pork, of course, was his signature dish, one that Jiang Feng had featured since his earliest days with the food truck.
The venue had changed from a humble food truck to the kitchen of an authentic Sichuan restaurant, but the flavor remained the same.
Soon, aromatic scents wafted from the kitchen, but they were all captured by the exhaust hood and didn’t spread to the main dining area.
In no time, a beautifully prepared dish of fish-fragrant shredded pork was brought out from the kitchen to their table.
The three customers were chatting over tea.
As soon as the fish-fragrant shredded pork was placed on the table, their attention was instantly captured.
The dish glistened with a thick sauce, steaming gently, with each shred of pork distinct and gleaming with oil.
Their appetites were immediately stimulated.
"It smells so good!"
"This looks great!"
The three of them picked up their chopsticks and took a bite.
As soon as they did, they felt the hot sauce coursing through their mouths. Their mouths began to water, the saliva mixing with the sauce, filling their mouths with a delicious aroma.
The shredded pork had a pleasant chewiness, and with each bite, a burst of sauce would gush out, an indescribably satisfying sensation.
Swallowing it down brought pure contentment.
"So delicious!"
"This restaurant is pretty good. When we first came in and it was empty, I thought it wasn’t going to be much!"
The three exclaimed.
At this very moment, Jiang Feng was already in the kitchen, busy preparing the mapo tofu.
Mapo tofu was one of Sichuan’s most common dishes. Any Sichuan native who was good at cooking could make it.
But making it truly tasty was not easy.
Jiang Feng first took a piece of beef, then deftly chopped it into mince. His knife skills were steady, and soon the finely minced beef was ready.
He then heated the wok, boiled some water, placed a piece of tender tofu in his palm, and cut it into small cubes with three horizontal and four vertical slices. He added a bit of salt to the water to remove any beany taste from the tofu before boiling it for a while and then scooping it out.
Then, he stir-fried the minced beef topping and set it aside for later use.
Next, he added chili bean paste (doubanjiang) and chopped fermented black beans to the wok, along with various seasonings, then added the tofu and poured in beef bone broth.
Because he had added chili powder, the broth in the wok was a vibrant red and bubbled continuously, looking spicy and appetizing.
Then he continued to add ingredients and thicken the sauce.
Mapo tofu needed to be thickened three times, continuously reducing the sauce to draw water out of the tofu, making it flavorful and delicious.
The final thickening incorporated the minced beef topping, ensuring the beef was evenly distributed on the surface of the tofu.
After sprinkling green garlic sprouts and Sichuan pepper powder, and reducing the sauce to a thick consistency, the mapo tofu was ready.
In the wok, the bright red, thick broth, rich with various seasonings, surrounded tender cubes of tofu. Small bubbles constantly formed around them, as if they were soaking in a red hot spring.
Dots of green from the garlic sprouts adorned the surface.
The presentation was very appealing.
When the sauce had thickened nicely, he poured the mapo tofu from the wok into a dish, and it was done.
Soon, the tofu was brought to the table.
The patrons were eating the fish-fragrant shredded pork with their rice.
The shredded pork was particularly good with rice; even though it was the only dish served so far, they had already eaten half of it.
When they saw the mapo tofu, their eyes were once again drawn to it.
The tender tofu was drenched in the red sauce, surrounded by minced beef and green garlic sprouts, with an enticing fragrance wafting from the dish.
One of the customers picked up a piece of tofu and put it in his mouth.
The tofu had a springy texture as soon as it entered his mouth.
Then came the heat.
The tofu was still steaming hot.
Only after that did the various flavors start to emerge.
Tofu isn’t actually that easy to infuse with flavor, but the magic of this mapo tofu lay in the beef granules clinging to the tofu.
Beef is quite absorbent of flavors.
So the whole dish was aromatic.
"PHEW! PHEW! Delicious!"
The customer’s mouth was scalded by the tofu, so he hastily blew on it a couple of times.
The tofu was both tender and smooth; no wonder it was a food particularly beloved by men.
The texture was indeed pleasant.
"This place is quite good! How come I’ve never heard of it before?"
"The mapo tofu is great too, so tasty!"
The three people exclaimed briefly before continuing to eat heartily.
They asked the server for a spoon, scooping the tofu onto their rice and eating it together.
With each bite, there was rice, tofu, tiny bits of beef, and the flavors of chili, chili bean paste, and garlic shoots.
The rice itself became much more appetizing.
Shen Hai and Zhu Hong quietly observed the customers from a distance.
Seeing the expressions on the customers’ faces, they finally let go of their worries and secretly rejoiced.
It truly was a blessing in disguise.
The head chef of the restaurant had been hospitalized, and they had been worried about how to handle the business.
Then Jiang Feng happened to want to cook Sichuan cuisine for a week and applied for a job at their restaurant.
Wasn’t that lucky!
Who would have thought that this little Sichuan restaurant would have a master chef in charge?
In the kitchen, Jiang Feng started to work on another dish—Fuqi Feipian.
Just as there are no wives in "wife cakes," there are neither married couples nor actual lung slices in Fuqi Feipian.
The ingredients used were beef heart, beef tongue, beef, and beef tripe.
This was a cold dish, similar to marinated beef.
It didn’t need to be cooked to order; instead, the ingredients were blanched in advance to remove any gamey taste and then marinated in spices.
When serving, the marinated ingredients were sliced thinly and mixed thoroughly in the sauce.
And just like that, the Fuqi Feipian was made.
The sauce was Jiang Feng’s secret blend.
It included minced garlic, sesame seeds, a few bird’s eye chilies, Sichuan pepper powder, sesame oil, Sichuan pepper oil, soy sauce, and vinegar, among other things. Finally, the original broth from the cooked beef offal was poured in.
He stirred the sauce until it was evenly mixed. It had a variety of flavors, with a layer of sesame seeds floating on the surface.
The sliced meat was stirred into it, ensuring the sauce coated each piece.
It was hard for it not to be delicious.
After finishing the three dishes, Jiang Feng took a break in the kitchen, waiting for more orders.
With three dishes down and his task of cooking 100 more, Jiang Feng hoped business at the Taste of Yore Sichuan Restaurant would pick up.
He didn’t need to worry too much.
The location of the Sichuan restaurant was excellent.
As long as the restaurant was open, it wouldn’t be short of customers.
Completing 100 dishes was definitely achievable.
Sure enough, as it neared 12:00 PM, customers began to arrive one after another.
They had no idea that today’s head chef was a true master.
They just ordered as they usually would.
As orders came in one by one, Jiang Feng got busy.
The Fuqi Feipian ordered by the first group was quickly served to their table.
After just one bite, the sauce was so stimulating they couldn’t stop salivating.
Even after swallowing the meat, their mouths kept watering.
The sauce was just too delicious.
In fact, the stimulation of saliva had less to do with Jiang Feng’s seasoning blend and was mostly due to the bird’s eye chilies.
The spiciness of the bird’s eye chilies greatly induced salivation, creating an irresistible craving for more.
After a few slices of Fuqi Feipian, the spiciness became more pronounced in their mouths.
The trio exclaimed in satisfaction, and each ordered a cold Coke to counteract the spiciness that seemed to penetrate deep into their tongues.
They ate a few slices of Fuqi Feipian, following each with a gulp of cold Coke.
The carbonation tingled the tongue, seeming to alleviate the spiciness somewhat, making the sensation all the more pleasant.
"So refreshing!"
"I really think this place is good! Why isn’t it more popular?"
"Yeah, the taste is really great!"
Even after finishing their meal, they still longed for more.
For such excellent food, they were not stingy with their praise.
It was just a pity that the restaurant didn’t seem to be very popular, operating at a normal level of business.
The three of them had other matters to attend to, so they rested briefly before leaving the restaurant.
They didn’t know that this restaurant was now at the start of a new beginning.
The change in taste was entirely due to a change of personnel in the kitchen.