According to Jun Qianyu’s teaching, Ning Xi made a gesture of resignation, and finally pretended to be gracious and difficult to accept, and was invited to Yu Mansion.
Although the imperial court in this era advocates food, in the final analysis, chef is also a profession of serving people, and is not really regarded by others, but Yu Qinglin is really a person who loves food, not only makes people treat Ningxi with courtesy , also met Ning Xi in person and told her the main purpose of inviting her over.
It turned out to be for the birthday of his father-in-law, the current Minister of Officials, Mr. Fan in half a month.
Yu Qinglin once obtained an ancient book, which recorded many famous dishes in the past, but unfortunately only got the name and did not know the method.
Yu Qinglin invited many highly skilled chefs back to help him restore the recipes in the book, and indeed made many delicious dishes, but there are also some of them. Just from the name of the dishes, I can’t think of what ingredients should be used to cook them. What is even more unknown.
For example, this “Jade Palm Offers Longevity” is one of them.
Although Mr. Fan and Yu Qinglin are related to Weng’s son-in-law, in fact, Yu Qinglin’s original wife, the eldest daughter of Mr. Fan, has passed away due to illness for many years. Well, it’s been years without much contact.
Now that Yu Qinglin is in trouble, he needs the support of Mr. Fan urgently, so he thinks that he has to please the father-in-law as soon as possible.
Master Fan is also a person who loves food, so Yu Qinglin wanted to start with the food and serve him an unprecedented delicious food. After thinking about it, he thought of this “Jade Palm Offers Longevity”.
This time I invited Ning Xi to come here because I wanted to ask her to help me learn how to make this dish.
Ningxi has been immersed in food for more than 20 years in her past life, and she is thoroughly familiar with all the ancient and modern Chinese and foreign food. She naturally knows this “Jade Palm Offers Longevity”, but she hesitates to say it or not. .
Because the main ingredient used in this dish is bear’s paw.
The bear paw is cooked and placed on a plate, then the fish paste is seasoned into a peach shape, steamed on the upper tray, and placed around the large plate.
This dish really has the best of both fish and bear’s paw, it’s really novel and delicious.
But people of this era still don’t know that bear paws can be eaten. Once she spreads the practice of this dish, will it lead to the wild hunting and killing of bears in the world like later generations, and put this kind of tongue on the tip of the tongue? Delicious, turned into sin on the tongue?
Seeing her hesitation, Yu Qinglin hurriedly said: “Miss Ning, don’t worry, you can stay and discuss with the chef in my house slowly. In addition, the recipes in the kitchen of my house can be read by Miss Ning.”
His bait can be considered very big. As long as chefs are not curious about recipes they have never seen before, he believes that this bargaining chip can definitely keep Ning Xi, and in return, she is talking to his mansion. When the chef communicated, I was too embarrassed to hide too much.
Ning Xi just wanted to find a way to stay, and even agreed.
When I arrived at the back kitchen, Ningxi was very knowledgeable and was a little shocked. The abundance of ingredients in the kitchen of Yufu was truly breathtaking. There are all kinds of ingredients that can be eaten here, as long as they grow on the ground, and some ingredients that Ningxi knows, but have never seen in this world, can be found here. And they are all classified and neatly stacked, some fresh meat, and ice cubes next to them to ensure freshness.
A rough estimate, the ingredients for this big room alone, I’m afraid I won’t be able to get it without a few hundred taels of silver. If Yu Qinglin is not corrupt, she won’t believe it.
There are more than a dozen chefs in the kitchen, most of them are concentrating on studying how to cook, sometimes frowning, sometimes suddenly realizing, and one or two arguing because of some different views, arguing with blushing necks, in short, academic The atmosphere was so strong that no one noticed that Ning Xi walked in.
For a moment, Ning Xi even thought that he had returned to the time when he learned to cook in his previous life, surrounded by brothers and sisters who were obsessed with cooking. Every day, everyone was like this, completely immersed in the harmony of various flavors, occasionally They would also quarrel over different opinions on a small issue, but after the quarrel, in a blink of an eye, everyone could laugh and scold together again, but unfortunately, since I left that culinary academy, I have never encountered such a thing again. Like-minded friends.
Ning Xi thought, when she has enough money, she will also build a kitchen like this, attract a group of friends, and study cooking skills like this every day. I’d love to stay in Yu Qinglin’s kitchen!
Ning Xi saw a male chef in blue clothes was cutting a pork belly. After cutting, he took a piece and put it in his mouth. He frowned and muttered to himself, “Why doesn’t it work every time? In this way, it’s too hard to chew?”
Ning Xi walked over and said, “I dare to ask this master, do you cook the pork belly before adding the salt or do you put the salt first and then cook it?”
The man in blue replied casually, “Of course you have to salt it first.” After he finished speaking, he looked up at Ning Xi and said impatiently, “Which lady are you or the maid in the lady’s house? Go and go. Go, this is not a place for your little girls to play, tell the steward what your master wants to eat, and the steward will arrange it.”
Ning Xi ignored him and said to himself: “The pork belly must be boiled first before adding salt, otherwise it will shrink as hard as beef tendon, and naturally it will not be able to chew.”
The man in blue sneered: “What do you know, little girl?”
Ning Xi said: “Of course I understand, I still have a way to soften your boiled pork belly!”
“You’re arrogant. Since it’s already boiled, how could it be soft.” The man in blue naturally didn’t believe it.
“Then let’s make a bet to see if I can do it, but if I can do it, Ningxi has a request.”
“If you can really do it, you can just mention what you want.” The man in blue thought, the request of these little girls is nothing more than wanting to eat something delicious, and he will do it for her.
Ningxi brought his boiled pork belly, cut it into finger-like long and thin long pieces with a knife, put it in a bowl, added some fresh soup that had just boiled the pork belly, put it in a cage and steamed it .
After steaming for about a quarter of an hour and taking it out, the blue-clothed man’s eyes widened. He saw that the pork belly pieces in the bowl had more than doubled in thickness. Ning Xi smiled and said, “Please taste it!”
The man in blue tasted it and admired it greatly: “I didn’t expect the girl to be a master!”
Ning Xi hurriedly said, “I don’t dare, I just happen to know some tricks.”
The man in blue said: “Since you have successfully made the hard-boiled pork belly soft, then I can’t break my promise. If you have any requests, just ask them.”
Ning Xi clasped his fists and said, “Actually, there are no requirements. It’s just that Ning Xi arrived at the first time. I hope this eldest brother will take care of him in the future.”
The man in blue was shocked: “So you are also the chef invited by Mr. Yu?” In fact, Ning Xi has performed well in two cooking competitions, and he is already well-known in Guangzhou city, and he usually goes out from time to time. Someone would recognize her and come up to talk to her, but all of them, the chefs who were invited by Yu Qinglinyan to the house, all have high self-esteem, and they didn’t watch the preliminary and semi-finals that they thought were simple, so they didn’t know Ningxi. .
Ning Xi said: “The little girl took part in the cooking competition and was lucky enough to make it to the finals. She was invited by Master Yu to study in the mansion for a few days.”
Although the man in blue has a high self-esteem, he is still willing to help those who have helped him in cooking, so he patted his chest and said, “No problem, just come and ask me if you don’t understand anything. It is.”
Someone took it. Ning Xi quickly got to know the surroundings of Yufu’s kitchen. As expected, the man in blue knew everything he could say. He told Ning Xi that he even made it clear which place there were guards patrolling at that time.
Ning Xi looked for an opportunity and left the mark Jun Qianyu told her in many hidden places. After that, there was nothing else to do, so she could only wait for the news obediently.
With nothing to do, Ning Xi checked the ingredients in the kitchen, and suddenly found something that looked very much like bear meat, so he asked the man in blue, “Is this bear meat?”
The man in blue nodded: “Exactly.”
Ning Xi pretended to be surprised and said, “I didn’t expect that you can even eat bear meat, but I don’t know how it tastes?”
The man in blue said: “It is extremely rough and fishy, and it is extremely difficult to eat. I have tried many ways to make it delicious.”
“So that’s it, is there a bear’s paw?”
“Bear’s paw?” The man in blue thought for a while and said, “It smells bad, and it has been thrown away long ago.”
“Oh!” Ning Xi nodded and stopped asking. She decided not to tell the practice of bear paws. Since everyone here thinks that bear paws and bear meat are not delicious, no one will take risks to hunt bears in the future, so she can be regarded as doing something for environmental protection. Made a small contribution.
Of course there’s no guarantee someone will discover the deliciousness of bear paws in the future, but that’s none of her business.
The next day after marking, a well-dressed maid came to the kitchen and appointed the new female cook to make a steamed egg custard for the two ladies. Ningxi had nothing to do, so he made the egg custard. , was about to be sent over, when the maid came again in person.
This time, this maid changed her previous attitude and said to Ning Xi very affectionately: “So the girl is Ningxi girl who won the highest score in both the preliminary and semi-finals of the cooking competition. It’s really disrespectful. .” Then he shook Ning Xi’s hand, “Our second wife is very happy to hear that we can eat Miss Ning’s craftsmanship!”
A wad of paper slipped into Ning Xi’s palm. Ning Xi was startled and pretended to be nothing. While politely saying a few words to her, she hid the note in her sleeve while no one was paying attention.