“Darn!” Luo Xiu silently cried in his heart and reacted almost immediately.
My current knife skills and the knife skills of the former Luo Xiu are too different.
In the next second, he was greeted by… Ye Weiling’s “Lolita Bite”!
“Arrhhhh—“
A huge roar echoed out from the Nine Gates Restaurant: “Ye Weiling, you are a tiger….. a female tiger!”
“Tiger? What is a tiger?”
The people outside of the restaurant heard the roar of pain, and all of them just smiled, ignored it, while shaking their head.
Regarding the two siblings in the Nine Gates Restaurants, the neighbours were used to hearing them argue with each other… If there ever comes a day when these two siblings did not argue, it means that there is a serious problem!
“Humph, now admit it!”
Ye Weiling gave her brother a ‘death stare’ as she berated him, “You actually had these superb knife skills, but you have never ever used them… as well, are you a kitchen Xiuzhen practicer?”
“You evil brother, you naughty brother, you had been lying to me all these while?”
At this moment, Ye Weiling resembled a dragon queen as she furiously bellowed and confront her brother.
“Arhh…, it is just too much effort when to use my superb knife skills all the time. Is there a problem?”
Luo Xiu just shrugged his shoulders. Looking at the livid expression on his sister’s face, he suddenly revealed his row of white teeth, “Actually, using these knife skills is very tiring….”
“Tiring, my foot! You have laze around for 16 years! For these 16 years, every day I was worried and scared!”
“Stop –“
Luo Xiu immediately held out his palm, with all five fingers stretched out: “5 years… only for 5 years ok? You had depended on me only after Dad had passed away!”
“Ok, then we count it as 5 years!”
Ye Weiling’s eyes suddenly turn red and moist, and her voice quivered: “5 years! You rascal! For 5 years you have lied to me! Did you know what I was most worried about in these 5 years?”
“It is you!”
“Everyday, I was worried that you would be unhappy, worried that you will give up on yourself and do something stupid!”
Luo Xiu just suddenly moved forward and hugged his sister. “Ok, ok! There is no need to say anything else. Everything is all right now.”
Sometimes, a hug is the best way to resolve conflicts!
“Wah…..”
Two steam of hot tears suddenly flowed out from Ye Weiling’s eyes.
Bam! Boom! Bam!
One after another, blows were landed on Luo Xiu’s body. Gradually, the blows become softer and softer, while Ye Weiling’s sobs become louder and louder.
It was as if she was releasing all her frustrations, worries and anxiety of the last 5 years in a big bawl.
“Do not worry. I promise that in the future, no one will be able to bully us!”
Luo Xiu gently patted Ye Weiling on her bad, and his eyes shown a grim determination: “From now on, I will protect you for life!”
“Wahhh!”
Ye Weiling broke down into tears again. But this time, she cried because she was touched.
“Lady, the number of tears you released was too little!”
Luo Xiu let go of his sister and teased her.
“Who cares?”
Although Ye Weiling did not know how to measure the number of tears, she could tell that Luo Xiu was teasing her, and she hit him again for good measure. Then she wiped away her tears and proclaim with a sinister smile, “You must pay me back! You must reimburse me for worrying about you in the last 5 years!”
“Ok, then first….. we have a tasty meal?”
Luo Xiu pointed at the kitchen and the Deeson Fruit that he had prepared.
Ye Weiling raised her neck, and seemed a bit snobbish as she remarked. “We discuss this again later. I still do not know if the food you made is tasty or not!”
Luo Xiu just chuckled, “There is no such thing as ‘Not Tasty’ in my vocabulary!”
“Shuaaa..!”
Luo Xiu picked up an iron wok.
This wok is similar to the wok that he used as a chef on Earth.
But this wok is quite deep.
How to start the fire?
The wok was placed on a large stove that was similar in shape to the gas stove on Earth. But this is where the similarity ends, because there is no gas connected to the stove to fuel the fire.
Instead, on the stove, there were a lot of oily and sticky-like substances.
“Burning Liquid!”
This is a type of fuel in this world. Just a small piece of [Burning Liquid] could be used to provide fire on the stove for a whole day. Even if water is accidentally spilled on it, it would not stop burning.
“Pai!”
Using a stone to ignite the [Burning Liquid], a blazing red flame instantly burst out of the stove, and gave Luo Xiu a fright.
This fire is really big and fierce!
This type of fire is not inferior in heat to that of a natural gas stove blue fire.
“This means that it should be very quick to heat up any food!”
Luo Xiu added some water to the wok. Looking at the clear and cool water, Luo Xiu sighed again. Even the water in this world is so different from the water on Earth.
This cool and crystal clear water should be much purer, natural, and contains more nutrients than the natural spring water on Earth.
“You are cooking it?” Ye Weiling enquired.
Luo Xiu shook his head: “No, it needs to be scalded-cook!”
Cook and scalded-cook have two different meaning.
Cook is to add water to the ingredients, turn on the heat and boil it.
As for scalded-cook, it means to boil the water, and immerse the ingredients in the boiling water.
Luo Xiu wanted to use scalded-cook to melt away the starch content that had leaked out of the Deeson Fruit. As well, by straining the Deeson Fruit, it would soften the Deeson Fruit, making it easy to bite.
If he cooked the Deeson fruit with water, it would become boiled potatoes and not French fries.
As a master chef, he demanded the utmost perfection in making even the simplest food like French fries.
This is the difference between a chef and master chef.
In Luo Xiu’s hands, even the most simple ingredients and the easiest way of cooking would yield the ideal taste.
This is what the Michelin guide had said about the food that Luo Xiu prepared, “a perfect dish, coming from a perfectionist.”
“Must be so troublesome?”
After listening to Luo Xiu’s explanation, Ye Weiling could not help but frown, “In the past, didn’t we just cut it and roast the Deeson Fruit?”
Luo Xiu’s new way of cooking the Deeson Fruit had puzzled Ye Weiling.
In the entire Snow Moon City, nobody ever used the Deeson Fruit as an ingredient. This common ingredient is only used by the commoners who did not know how to cook, and just roast them.
This is the most simple preparation step.
This is the first time that Ye Weiling has seen someone who took so much effort to prepare the food before they cook it.
“Erh, you may not understand even if I tried to explain it. You must use the scalded-cook method so as to remove the white colour juice creeping out of the Deeson Fruit. Only then may you guarantee that the Deeson Fruit stripe that we fried will be crispy and tender!”
The starch content must be melt away using the scalded-cook method.
Also, as the Deeson Fruit is softer than a potato, you will need to take extra steps to prepare the ingredient before frying the Deeson Fruit.
And that is to bake it!
You will need to bake the Deeson Fruit until the outside is golden colour, then and only then can you fry it!
On Earth, because the La Bonnotte potatoes were so soft, they must be baked before they could be used. Of course, the normal and harder potatoes do not require this step.
In no time at all, the water was boiled.
Luo Xiu poured the boiling water into a clean bowl. Then he dumped the Deeson Fruit into the boiling water and proceeded to scald them.
— About 40 mins later. —Shua!
Luo Xiu gently picked up the Deeson Fruit stripes from the water.
Then he wiped dry each stripe of Deeson Fruit. The starch content had already been dissolved in the water.
Then he found a BBQ net, and place it on top of the fire in the stove. He placed the stripes of Deeson Fruit on top of the BBQ net. Then he began to turn them over repeatedly. Looking at his action, it looks like he was frying them.
Other than using his hands to turn them over, he also brushes the potato with vegetable oil.
Although this world does not have any salt, MSG etc, it does have a wide variety of vegetable oil. This is because this world substitute spices with extracts from plants and animals, and vegetable oil are easily extracted from plants.
Layer by layer, the surface of each stripe of the Deeson Fruit was brushed by a shiny layer of vegetable oil. After baking it for a short while, the countless stripes of Deeson fruit begin to turn into golden-yellow colour.
Luo Xiu movements were very smooth, like flowing water, without a shred of wasted movement. He looked very absorbed in his task.
Any residue water on the surface of the stripes of Deeson Fruit was evaporated, but this did not affect the moisture content of each stripe.
Of course, this skill required great precision and control.
“When did my brother…. becomes so good?”
Ye Weiling was surprised at the various steps involved in the cooking of this dish. This is the first time that she has seen someone being so careful about cooking a Deeson Fruit.
“All right, now we can fry the stripes!”
Luo Xiu quickly found a type of cooking oil that greatly resembled the olive oil on Earth – [Bi Duan Oil].
[Bi Duan] is a type of fruit that is unique to this world. It is derived from a type of tree named [Bi Duan Wood].
This world has very strange naming conventions. For example, all the trees in this world are not called trees, they are called wood.
Commercial – Olive Oil [1] Buy now! Olive oil is one of the healthiest oil on Earth. The oil is extracted by squeezing the olive fruit, without using any heating and chemical treatment. This allows the olive oil to retain the natural nutrients of the olive fruit.Olive oil was also known in the West as “Liquid Gold”, “Queen of Vegetable oil”, “Mediterranean Nectar” because it is beneficial to health and beauty, and is considered ideal for the purposes of cooking.
In his past life, Luo Xiu loves to use olive oil to cook.
But the [Bi Duan oil] in this world seemed to be superior to that of olive oil. Just by spreading some of the oil on other ingredients will release a pleasant smell that is unique to this oil. The other ingredients were coated with a tantalizing smell when [Bi Duan oil] is used to fry other ingredients.
Luo Xiu could not help to marvel at the quality of the ingredients in this world.
Such a good quality oil is actually used for ….. greasing?
“Chi La!” The sound of the oil bubbling as it turned hot continuously crept out from the wok.
Luo Xiu immediately lowered the intensity of the fire. With a smaller fire, it is easier to control the food and ensure that the fries are not over burnt.
He dropped the stripes of the Deeson Fruit into the hot oil.
Very quickly, the stripes of the Deeson Fruit were fried until it turned golden brown. the mouth-watering scent of the fried Deeson Fruit filled the entire room.
“Grrr….” Ye Weiling’s stomach rumbled in hunger.
Ye Weiling could not help licking her lips in anticipation. The delectable smell whetted her appetite.
“Yi? The smell is totally different from the smell when we baked the Deeson Fruit. How come the Deeson Fruit smells so good?”
Ye Weiling swallowed her saliva, and could not resist the temptation anymore. She walked toward Luo Xiu, and ask, “Brother, is the food ready yet? Is it ready yet?”
Luo Xiu turned around, and with a mischievous smile, he asked his sister, “Didn’t you say you will not eat anything I cook?”