The Female Supporting Role Shows Out

Chapter 27

Translator: NovelMultiverse | Editor: NovelMultiverse

When Lin Dan arrived, Chef Qiu was standing at the back door looking out. When he saw the carriage, he immediately came forward and said, "Master, be careful when you get out of the car. No, don't jump, I'll help you down."

But before he could finish speaking, Lin Dan had already lifted the curtain of the car and leaped out of the carriage quickly before striding into the door. "I heard that Yan's Restaurant has launched another signature dish called Braised Fish Head?"

"That's right. It's a dish made with the silver carp head without bones. It was well-received by diners as soon as it was launched. I wanted to ask a friend to get takeout of that dish, but Yan's restaurant refused to sell any takeouts and only allowed dine-ins. I suppose this is their tactic to guard against us. Master, I heard that the fish head has no bones at all, it is soft and tender after stewing for a long time and is very delicious. How do you think they do it? What kind of cutting technique can be used to remove all the bones from the fish head? It must be really a delicate technique." Chef Qiu exclaimed.

"It's nothing delicate." Lin Dan explained briefly, "There are two ways to remove fish bones, one is removing it raw and the other is removing after the meat is cooked. As the fish head has less meat and more bones, it may seem impossible to be removed, but the flesh can actually be easily removed after boiling in water for a long time."

The question that had been boggling Chef Qiu for the whole night had been solved after Lin Dan had explained to him. In terms of cooking skills, he had never met anyone more knowledgeable and wiser than Lin Dan. Yan's Restaurant had introduced three new dishes – Squirrel Mandarin Fish, Grilled Black Ginseng with Scallion, and Crab Stuffed Lionhead. Initially, the Squirrel Mandarin Fish was selling very well and took away all the regular diners of the Qiaoyuan Restaurant, which almost made Chef Qiu shut the restaurant down. But since Lin Dan introduced the Golden Lion Fish, the regular diners had returned in the afternoon. They were looking forward to Lin Dan's visit to the store to teach her apprentice, so they could seize the chance to try some of her cooking.

In order to help Qiaoyuan Restaurant, Lin Dan would prepare dishes for five tables of diners each time. But these dishes had managed to attract some of the pickiest food connoisseurs in the capital. These people were refusing to patronize other restaurants even if they were dying of hunger and would rather wait in the restaurant.

Seeing that the squirrel mandarin fish could not impress their diners, Imperial Chef Yan developed another new dish called Grilled Black Ginseng with Scallions. The dish was made by simmering the entire black ginseng in a thick sauce to create a unique taste with a soft but chewy texture.

But it had seemed as though Lin Dan was determined to get into their way. The next day, she also came up with a dish called Sauce-stuffed Black Ginseng. This dish was a display of her superb culinary skills with its exquisite seasoning and was even better than Yan's Braised Black Ginseng on multiple levels. "Stuffing" is a unique cooking method. It is done by sandwiching, stuffing, or pouring a food ingredient into another ingredient to make a dish. Some of the common stuffed dishes include stuffed bean curd, stuffed eggplant, stuffed bitter gourd, and so on. But this was the first time Chef Qiu had seen stuffed black ginseng.

The "sauce" did not refer to any other sauce, but shrimp paste. It was made with shrimp roe, which was stir-fried in soy sauce, cooking wine, fine salt, and other seasonings before sealing it in a jar for fermentation. After the fermentation was completed, it was kneaded into a strip and stuffed into the black ginseng. Then, it was simmered in the milky pork broth, before being added to the braised soup. It was simmered on high heat to reduce the soup before simmering slowly in low heat to ensure that the saltiness and freshness of the shrimp paste were completely fused into the black ginseng. When serving the dish on the table for the guests, the server had to cut the black ginseng with a knife into inch-long pieces so that the guests could share their food.