A gourmet master who started by visiting restaurants

It was obvious at first glance that Cheng Wanwan planned to cook fish fillet porridge.

Yu Wei knew at a glance that Cheng Wanwan was taking care of herself.

The water in the casserole is boiling, and Cheng Wanwan is still preparing some other ingredients, such as winter vegetables.

This winter vegetable can be said to be Chaoshan people's favorite porridge preparation, but in fact, Chaoshan does not originally produce winter vegetables, and they are all shipped from Tianjin.

Cheng Wanwan added peanut oil to the washed rice, stirred it evenly with a spoon, and then scooped a spoonful into the pot.

The boiling water suddenly became quiet.

Tens of seconds later, the water boiled again, and Cheng Wanwan scooped up the second spoonful of rice and put it down, repeating this process until all the washed rice was put into the pot.

"Wanwan, this porridge needs to be cooked longer. After all, the rice has not been soaked." Lu Zhen reminded.

Of course Yu Wei, who was standing aside, knew why it had to be cooked longer.

It is difficult to cook rice that has not been soaked in water to a dense state in a short time. This is related to the eating habits in eastern Guangdong.

To be precise, it is the eating habits of people here in Yangcheng, who pay attention to the state of porridge without rice.

This is completely different from Chaoshan porridge. Although Chaoshan porridge also boils the rice grains into blossoms, the basic shape of the rice grains is still there.

As for the porridge base here in Yangcheng, it is so dense that after one bite, the rice grains and rice soup have completely merged together.

Yu Wei just saw that Cheng Wanwan not only used Siamese fragrant rice, but also added some extra glutinous rice.

Because Siamese fragrant rice has a very good aroma but lacks a dense texture when cooked, glutinous rice is needed to supplement this texture at this time.

To cook the porridge base, it must be cooked over medium-high heat throughout the process. Only in a casserole that is evenly heated can the aroma of the rice grains be brought out.

Cooking porridge also takes time. Cheng Wanwan was also processing other ingredients while looking at the porridge.

Because this porridge needs to be stirred multiple times, otherwise it will easily stick to the pan when cooked over high heat.

Cheng Wanwan put some soaked scallops into a casserole and cooked them with uncooked rice. The scallops are a seafood that is very resistant to cooking. You can still taste the fresh flavor of the scallops when you eat them. It can be said that every household in Yangcheng loves this. Scallops are not expensive and can provide a good umami flavor. They are very common in porridge and soup.

Next, it was Yu Wei's turn.

Because Cheng Wanwan's porridge takes about two hours to cook.

Yu Wei soaked the chilled chicken wings in cold water and added salt to the water.

This can soak out excess blood and dirt.

After the chicken wings are soaked, it’s time to start cooking the Swiss sauce.

In fact, the so-called Swiss juice is not produced in Switzerland, but is an authentic Chinese delicacy.

In 1860, Yangcheng was already a city port for foreign trade, and naturally it had exchanges with foreigners.

Xu Laogao, the founder of Swiss Juice, was originally a Chinese who studied Western food. Later, he tried to use Chinese ingredients and Western methods to make a sweet marinade. The foreigners who tasted it thought it tasted good and praised him " sweet.”

Because of communication barriers at that time, the Chinese people asked some compradors who could speak foreign languages, and the compradors heard "swiss."

Everyone thought that foreigners meant that this sweet brine was a specialty of Switzerland, so the restaurant simply called this sweet brine Swiss juice.

The thing made with this brine is called Swiss juice xx.

However, the biggest focus of Swiss juice is the Western method.

Yu Wei heats up the oil in a pan, adds peeled ginger, cut into large pieces of carrots, celery, and onions into the pan and stir-fries until fragrant.

Then put the chicken rack and pork bones into the pot and slowly fry the surface until fragrant.

The chicken rack and pork bones are both raw and not blanched because this method is Western-style.

Many old-school Cantonese cuisine recipes actually absorbed Western food recipes and then converted them into Cantonese cuisine.

Just when Yu Wei was about to pour the cooking wine on top, he couldn't find the cooking wine.

"Fourth Master, do you have any cooking wine at home?"

Lu Zhen thought for a while and took out a bottle of Huadiao from the cabinet next to him.

"We don't have that kind of ordinary cooking wine anymore. Let's use Huadiao. This thing is authentic."

It is true that the quality of cooking wine nowadays is uneven, and many of them have no real cooking wine effect.

As for the flower carvings, using them directly for cooking... would be a bit of a waste of resources.

"This...is a bit much. This flower sculpture is not cheap."

Yu Wei looked at the wine in antique packaging and was a little hesitant to use it.

"What are you afraid of? This wine only costs a few hundred yuan. I just buy it for cooking. I don't need to pay for it anyway. I don't like drinking rice wine. I can just use it for cooking."

However, Yangcheng people are really not used to drinking rice wine. Most of them drink white wine, rice wine or beer.

Yu Wei didn't know much about wine culture. Seeing what Lu Zhendu said, he poured a circle of flower sculptures down the side of the pot.

I have to say that the aroma of rice wine is indeed fragrant, especially after it collides with high temperature.

Then Yu Wei poured in boiling water and turned up the heat to bring to a boil.

This method is actually the method of making Western-style soup stock.

Unlike Chinese stock, Western stock will add a lot of ingredients, such as onions, carrots, parsley and the like to increase the flavor.

But next is the Chinese spices.

Yu Wei took out a small bag, packed all the cinnamon bark, star anise, grass fruit, bay leaves, and white peppercorns together, and put them into the pot.

Then add light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, soy sauce paste and borneol sugar.

Light soy sauce is used to enhance the freshness, dark soy sauce is used to enhance the color, soy sauce paste is used to increase the flavor, and the last borneol sugar is responsible for the main sweetness.

"Fortunately, there is soy sauce paste available in this market, otherwise the Swiss sauce would have been a bit undercooked."

Yu Wei couldn't help but sigh.

Soy sauce paste is actually a type of soy sauce. It is a paste-like seasoning made from black beans. It is produced in western Guangdong and is very rare in other places.

It is very similar to dark soy sauce. It is also salty and light, easily soluble in water, brown in color, and the cooked sauce has a strong aroma.

At this time, Lu Zhen also took out a bottle from the cabinet at the back.

"I also have soy sauce paste here. I used to like the pot of sweet brine your grandpa made. I also made Swiss sauce myself, but it doesn't taste like the one your grandpa made."

When Yu Wei heard this, he sighed silently. It seemed that Fourth Master did have deep feelings for his grandfather.

Yu Wei patted his chest and said, "I learned my Swiss sauce from my grandpa's recipe, and it's definitely not very different."

Lu Zhen heard this and nodded vigorously.

"Hopefully."

After all the ingredients were added, Yu Wei closed the lid, then turned down the heat and simmered.

This Swiss sauce needs to be cooked for another two hours to develop its flavor.

Looking at Cheng Wanwan who was cooking porridge on the other side, she had to stir the pot of porridge from time to time, because only in this way could the pot be prevented from getting stuck.