Setting Up Stalls – Chapter 187

Temporary Mission

The head chef was alright, just that like many head chefs who have been famous for a long time, he was somewhat overly self-confident and arrogant, which led to him being somewhat unable to listen to other people’s opinions. He didn’t even ask much, and directly classified the dishes Sun Miao and Su Ruixi ate as having been made by an assistant chef, clearly not feeling that two young little girls could book him.

Subsequently, he also didn’t feel that what Sun Miao said made sense.

But Yuan Xiangyi understood Sun Miao. Although the time they had spent together was not long, she had a very good grasp of Sun Miao’s personality. Sun Miao was already trying very hard to say some good words, but still couldn’t go against her conscience to praise everything as good. And her saying some parts were tough and some were salty was absolutely not a lie, but was truly how she felt.

Yuan Xiangyi also trusted Sun Miao’s tongue; for someone who is a head chef, the appraisal of fine food is most basic.

Maybe one cannot taste the good or bad in the dishes one makes oneself, but one can definitely taste whether the dishes others make are good or bad.

Before Yuan Xiangyi came, she was determined to get this chef, but with this matter having occurred, it was no longer so urgent. The main reason was that she still had a head chef at home; Jiang Ping was there. Even if she wanted to expand her business and hire more head chefs, she had truly had enough of the harm brought by an obstinate and self-opinionated head chef.

It was better to stick with her own family’s one mu and three-tenths of land¹ and Jiang Ping, Yuan Xiangyi thought, and her attitude toward the head chef also became a little colder.

Sun Miao and Su Ruixi did not know about these things; they returned to the hotel. The matter of eating Lu cuisine quickly passed. In the evening, the two of them cuddled for a while, then fell asleep. In her sleep, Sun Miao was pulled into the system space.

【Ding——Now issuing a temporary mission.】Sun Miao was stunned, and subconsciously started to call out a halt: “No, wait a moment, why is there a temporary mission?”

The system answered her: 【Because this evening when you were leaving the restaurant, that head chef’s completely indifferent attitude toward the Host made us greatly furious. However, this temporary mission can be autonomously chosen to be accepted or not. Does the Host want to accept?】

Hearing that she could choose autonomously, Sun Miao then breathed a sigh of relief, but she still decided to ask first: “What kind of mission is it?”

【Produce ten portions of Braised Abalone in Original Shell, and obtain the unanimous praise of the customers, with a selling price of 588 yuan per portion. The stall location will be: Under the second street lamp to the west of the entrance of the hotel the Host is checked into.】

“……” Sun Miao was silent for a moment: “No, that restaurant’s head chef slighted me, and then you want me to set up a stall at the hotel entrance to sell? Isn’t that a bit too excessive?”

The system also felt this was indeed a problem, but it still didn’t change the stall location, instead directly ignoring it and turning to continue speaking: 【The time to learn Braised Abalone in Original Shell is 8 months. Host, please consider, do you want to learn?】

Regarding this point, Sun Miao had nothing to be conflicted about: “I want to!”

This was a famous dish of Lu cuisine; it would be a waste not to learn it. And it could be seen that Su Ruixi actually quite liked to eat this, it was just that the dish in the evening was indeed somewhat salty. After eating it, she drank several mouthfuls of water and then no longer moved her chopsticks. Her expression clearly showed that she wanted to eat it yet felt it wasn’t that delicious, leaving only regret.

If Sun Miao learned it, she could make it for Su Ruixi to eat.

Besides, even without mentioning Su Ruixi, just Sun Miao herself, she actually also really wanted to learn.

The system’s selection of a person was not completely random; Sun Miao was indeed a person who liked to cook. In her original world, even without the system, Sun Miao had also embarked on the food business. She had always really liked to cook, and also liked to see others show happy expressions after eating the dishes she made.

With such a famous dish right in front of Sun Miao, and her being able to learn the most delicious method under the system’s guidance, then what reason did Sun Miao have to give up?

【Okay.】

In the system’s completely flat vocal tone, Sun Miao surprisingly heard a hint of gratification.

The following period of time was arduous and long learning. Actually, the production process for Braised Abalone in Original Shell is not difficult; the difficult part is mainly the selection of the raw material, the abalone.

This is a dish from Qindao, so the abalone selected is also the local nine-hole abalone². The characteristic of the nine-hole abalone is that its size is not large, but the abalone meat is extremely fresh and tender, and the meat quality is also firmer and chewier. This way, after being cooked, it can still retain two different mouthfeels: soft and tender, and resiliently chewy.

And Braised Abalone in Original Shell also requires the abalone to be as large as possible; this requires selecting individual specimens on the basis of the nine-hole abalone.

The system provided all high-quality abalone; Sun Miao spent a whole month just learning to pick abalone. The system was really a bit mean; it gave many varieties of abalone. After learning, as long as an abalone was in Sun Miao’s hands, she could clearly recognize its place of origin and its variety.

The main ingredients for Braised Abalone in Original Shell, besides abalone, also require the use of ham and winter bamboo shoots.

Within this, there are also great particularities.

The ham, naturally, goes without saying; that is the nationally famous Jinhua ham³. The system, by the way, taught Sun Miao the entire production method for Jinhua ham. Sun Miao sincerely felt she had profited from learning this one dish, as it also came with a bonus Jinhua ham production tutorial. It was just that in reality, Sun Miao would probably choose to directly purchase a ready-made substitute.

After all, ham production only requires the sedimentation of time, and Sun Miao had to set up a stall to sell in less than two days; how could she have time to wait for Jinhua ham?

The system, on the other hand, didn’t care at all; using ready-made was just using ready-made, just like when she had made duck blood and vermicelli soup before and directly used ready-made fried tofu puffs.

However, the Jinhua ham one made oneself would definitely taste better than a purchased one. Sun Miao decided that once she returned home, she would make it for Su Ruixi to eat.

Learning the preparation methods for these minor ingredients took Sun Miao three months; the remaining five months were all spent learning the production.

First was slicing; the main ingredients here—abalone, ham, and winter bamboo shoots—all needed to be sliced. This thing, abalone, is truly not easy to slice; it cannot be sliced when raw. It must first be boiled in clear water until cooked. A cooked abalone is not that soft, but is very resilient. The system’s requirements for Sun Miao were very high, wanting every single slice to be cut to a uniform thickness.

The problem is, an abalone does not grow in a shape of uniform thickness.

Sun Miao cut on the cutting board until she was numb, only then finally reaching the system’s requirement. The ham also had a completely identical requirement; every single slice had to be the same. The shape the ham was cut into also had its particularities; it had to be cut into a comb shape. Before slicing, one first made several horizontal cuts on the top of the square ham, and only after this was it sliced.

After being sliced, they were placed and arranged neatly in a bowl. Upholding the principle of ham slices on the outer side and abalone slices on the inner side, they were placed very neatly. At the same time, shiitake mushroom slices were also squeezed in wherever one could see a seam to stick a needle⁴. Then, refined salt, MSG, cooking wine, and clear soup were added, and it was placed on a steamer to be steamed until cooked. The clear soup here was also not a bowl of plain boiled water, but a well-stewed large bone broth.

The stewed soup was clear enough to see the bottom, without the slightest hint of grease or meaty/fishy smell visible; only this could be called a clear soup.

After it was steamed, the soup juice in the bowl was then forced out and set aside for later use.

Afterwards, heat oil in a wok, stir-fry the previously prepared bok choy hearts until cooked, and set them aside. Finally, take the previously poured-out soup juice, additionally supplement it with clear soup and scallion-ginger water, and thicken it with a water-starch slurry.

Next, all that was left was plating. The bowl of just-steamed abalone slices was inverted onto a large platter; the top layer of ham was layered tier upon tier, while the abalone slices were right underneath. The bok choy hearts were fished out and arranged in a circle around the edge. Finally, the thickened sauce was drizzled on top, and only then was it considered complete.

But during the taste test, Sun Miao very keenly discovered that this dish could indeed easily become salty with one careless mistake.

Whether it was the Jinhua ham or the abalone, they themselves carried a bit of salty flavor. During steaming, refined salt and MSG were added, which would further give it more flavor. At the very end, it was thickened again. After these several rounds, as long as one process was not grasped firmly, it would easily cause the entire dish to become salty. Sun Miao swallowed a mouthful of saliva, ate one or two bites, and then started to remake it.

It was also fortunate she had the system space; otherwise, the waste of these materials would have made her heart ache.

By the sixth month in the system space, Sun Miao could already make it presentably. Compared to that slightly salty bowl of Braised Abalone in Original Shell she ate in reality, what she made already had surpassed it and was not inferior. By the seventh month, she could already instantly kill⁵ the one that head chef made.

But for the system, it was still not enough.

The flavor she made could already satisfy 99% of the virtual customers, but there would still be people who would publish “not delicious” comments. Sun Miao thought for a long time; she tasted and tasted, changed and changed, and only then finally made it well.

Wanting to make one of your own dishes palatable to all people is actually very difficult. Customers are old and young, male and female, and their own preferences for flavors may be different. Coupled with the vastness of the region, this leads to people from all over the country having different dietary habits. The Jiang-Zhe-Hu⁶ area is often considered to be a food desert, with nothing good to eat.

But in reality, it is just because the flavors there are lighter and also lean toward being sweet; for people from many places, the flavors are truly too strange.

But similarly, take a person who doesn’t eat spicy food and throw them into provinces like Chuan-Yun-Gui⁷ where spicy food is more prevalent, then for them, that is a thorough and complete food region⁸.

So, wanting to make a dish that everyone likes to eat is in itself a false proposition.

On this false proposition, how to achieve the extreme was the difficult problem the system gave to Sun Miao. The system’s direct help for Sun Miao became less and less. It would no longer, as before, directly manipulate Sun Miao’s body, letting her remember that feeling of being manipulated and letting her experience the answer given by the system.

But intangibly, the system had long ago told Sun Miao how to achieve this point.

That was——to endow a food with completely different mouthfeels and flavors.

As early as the time of the beef pancakes, the system had taught Sun Miao this way. The chicken soup base for the wontons was also the same principle. It was light upon the first taste, and after eating two mouthfuls, the salty flavor slowly grew richer, and at the very end, it returned to its original simplicity⁹. The mouthfeels of soft and tender and crispy were also together; this one side was crispy, and the more one ate toward the inside, the more soft and tender it became, and then when biting into the last few mouthfuls, it restored its crispiness again.

In a situation without the system’s help, Sun Miao perfectly replicated this point, and fused the two different characteristics of flavor and mouthfeel together.

【Correct. As a chef, you must go and control the experience the diner obtains, and not let the diner come to be picky with you.】

Sun Miao took a deep breath. In the eighth month, this Braised Abalone in Original Shell was finally considered truly well made.

After she woke up, the system still gave her one day of rest time; she only needed to go set up the stall on the second day. Facing Sun Miao’s predicament of not having a food cart, this time the system let Sun Miao go buy the things for setting up a stall herself, including a folding table… Anyway, she was only selling ten portions; in one noon or so, she should be able to sell out.

When Sun Miao opened her eyes and saw Su Ruixi beside her, she couldn’t hold back and still cuddled over.

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