A Mouthful of Sky-high Fried Rice, Lao Tang Apprenticed on the Spot

  Chapter 38 [Tofu Feast]

  Familiar colorful fog space, familiar wooden monument.

  Li Yi once again returned to the dream space.

  Everything around him was the same as it was before he left last night.

  The only difference may be that the colored fog behind the wooden tablet has thinned a little.

  Looking at the vague shape of the monument behind the fog, he was a little curious.

  Is that tablet the same as this wooden tablet, hiding countless magical skills?

   After thinking for a moment, he collected his thoughts.

  It's useless to think so much. With the fog wall blocking him, he can't even see clearly, let alone go to check.

   Let’s learn all the things in front of us first!

   Turning the ring, he pricked his finger with ease and touched the wooden monument.

  The next moment, his eyes blurred, and he appeared in a large, steaming kitchen.

   Noisy voices swept around Li Yi in an instant.

   "Add firewood! The soy milk needs to be boiled so that the brine can melt!"

   "Hurry up! The more you are afraid of being scalded, the slower you move! You need to be quick to peel off the bean skin!"

   "The ten boards of tofu are going to be sent to the palace, so be careful on the way, if it breaks, I'll ask you!"

  Looking at the unfamiliar big kitchen, Li Yi couldn't help being stunned.

  Why isn't he in the imperial dining room?

   Without making a sound, he went out directly to the eaves outside the door.

   There are usually water tanks filled with water outside the kitchen to prevent fires.

   After taking a photo at the water tank, he immediately recognized his identity.

   "Old Wang?"

  Looking at the familiar yet unfamiliar face in the water, Li Yi was a little surprised.

  Familiarity is because Li Yi recognized him. His name is Wang Kui. He is a full-time tofu chef in the imperial dining room. He was nicknamed the Tofu King.

   The strangeness was because in Li Yi's impression, Wang Kui was about the same age as his master Fried Rice King Song Yushan.

  Twice before he came to learn how to cook, when he saw Wang Kui, he had to call him Master Wang.

  But Wang Kui in front of him is just a seventeen or eighteen-year-old pupil.

   Lifting his head, Li Yi looked around and guessed where he was.

  Since it is Wang Kui when he was young, he should be in the tofu workshop of Wang Kui's family in Shou County, Huainan now.

  Shou County is located in the Huainan area of ​​Hui Province, in the area of ​​Bagong Mountain.

  The area here is small, but it is the birthplace of a special ingredient, tofu.

  During the Western Han Dynasty, the Huainan area was ruled by Liu An, the king of Huainan.

  More than 2,000 years ago, Liu Anya was fond of Taoism, and wanted the art of immortality, so she spared no expense to recruit alchemists. Among them, there were eight well-known people, known as "Eight Dukes".

  Liu An took the eight of them to the Beishan Mountain to make furnaces and refine elixir for longevity.

  They took the clear water from the three springs of "Pearl", "Daquan" and "Ma Pao" in the mountains to grind soybean juice, and then used soybean juice to cultivate Danmiao.

  But unexpectedly, the alchemy failed, the soybean juice and the brine combined to become a white and tender thing.

   Liu An asked a local farmer to try it, and it turned out to be delicious.

  So he named it tofu, and an ingredient known as "Oriental Borneo" was born.

  Li Yi remembered that he once heard from Wang Kui that his family originally ran a local tofu shop in Shou County.

  Because he likes tofu and likes to study dishes made with tofu.

  So his family sent him to learn how to cook, who would have thought that he would learn how to cook.

  His culinary skills quickly surpassed his master, so he began to study new dishes.

   Later, his reputation spread to the capital.

  Because Empress Xiaoxian prayed for blessings and was vegetarian, the palace ordered him to be summoned to the palace to cook a tofu feast for the queen.

  His culinary skills are exquisite and won the queen's favor.

  His title of Tofu King was also bestowed by Empress Xiaoxian Chun.

   After confirming his identity and time, Li Yi roughly understood.

  He came in this time, probably to learn how to make tofu.

  In this case, let’s learn!

  So, in the blink of an eye, twenty-four years have passed.

  When Li Yi returned to the colorful fog space again, he took a long time to recover.

  Wang Kui (March 19th, Kangxi 53rd year to April 4th, Qianlong 56th year)

  Male, native of Shou County, Hui Province, learned to cook at sixteen, entered the palace by order in the twelfth year of Qianlong, and cooked a tofu banquet for Empress Xiaoxianchun, and was awarded the No. 1 Tofu King, and died well.

  Looking at the new inscription on the wooden tablet, Li Yi let out a sigh of relief.

   This time I actually stayed in it for more than 20 years...

  Recalling the experience in the dream space, Li Yi still has lingering fears.

  He didn't expect that he would stay in the dream space for so long this time.

  In the second year after entering the school, he learned the master's specialty dishes.

  But he didn't receive the task and returned to the colorful fog space.

  After several verifications, he vaguely guessed that he should have learned how to make Wang Kui's tofu feast before returning to reality.

  But he has never eaten Wang Kui's tofu banquet, and many dishes are designed by Wang Kui himself, so he has nowhere to learn.

  So, he could only use the most stupid way to solve this problem.

  That is to use time to learn how to make all tofu dishes, and rely on one's own strength to reproduce Wang Kui's tofu feast.

  Since you want to learn, start from scratch.

   Grinding tofu, peeling off the skin of tofu, pressing dried tofu, sauce tofu... He started to learn from the most basic craft.

  As the saying goes, there are three hardships in the world: punting, blacksmithing, and grinding tofu.

  In order to learn how to make the best tofu, he sleeps at three o'clock every day and wakes up at five o'clock every day. After untold hardships, he finally made the ideal tofu.

  Following that, he collected all the methods of making tofu and learned them one by one. Every day he opened his eyes to be tofu, and closed his eyes to be tofu.

   After more than 20 years of study, he finally mastered all the methods of making tofu dishes, and successfully returned to the colorful fog space.

   Standing up, he looked back at the metal plate behind him, only to see that there was an extra piece of information in the column of his personal specialties.

  Li Yi

  Personal Occupation: 【Chef】

  Personal specialties: [Supreme Emperor Fried Rice], [Unrivaled Beef Noodles in the World], [Tofu Feast]

  Looking at the three words [Tofu Banquet], Li Yi still felt a little palpitated.

   This [Tofu Banquet] is much more difficult to learn than the first two.

  However, if you pay, you will gain. Today, he knows the ingredient of tofu so well.

  He has mastered dozens of methods of making tofu in different materials and states, as well as cooking methods of hundreds of tofu dishes.

  Even if only tofu is used, he can make a table of various and delicious banquets.

  Looking past the wooden monument, he noticed that the concentration of the fog wall was a little weaker than when he entered last time.

  He came to the fog wall and tried to press it hard.

   This time, he pressed his hand to the depth of his elbow before he could get any more.

  Obviously, the gold content of [Tofu Banquet] is much higher than that of [Supreme Emperor Fried Rice] and [Tianxia Beef Noodles].

  Because the value of the ingredients used in those two meals is not low.

  The ingredients used in the tofu banquet are all very cheap tofu.

   This naturally requires higher skills for chefs.

  Withdrawing his hand, Li Yi didn't explore any more.

   Twenty-four years of dream time made him very tired, and he directly returned to reality.

  Boom!

   There was a muffled sound.

   There was a stone mill the size of a washbasin at his feet.

   This is what he brought out when he entered the dream space this time.

   This is a stone mill carved out of a whole piece of sesame black granite, which he spent a lot of money to order in the dream space.

  This stone mill has high hardness, good wear resistance, and fine texture. The tofu produced is also white as jade and crystal clear.

  Being mentally exhausted, he didn't bother to touch the stone mill, so he simply put it by his feet.

  It was still dark outside the window, almost the same as when he just fell asleep.

  But the phone time told him that twenty-four hours had actually passed, a whole day and night.

   There are more than a dozen missed calls and dozens of messages in the mobile phone.

   Before Li Yi could look at it, he fell into a deep sleep.

  What he doesn't know is that there are countless netizens on the Internet who are eagerly discussing the latest issue of "Challenge the Limits" that has just been aired.

   And Li Yi is the core of the topic everyone is talking about.

  (end of this chapter)