Huang Tao smiled as he took the down jacket and helped Xuanxuan put it on: "Come on, let Dad put this on you first. I’ll take you to the audience seats, then we’ll go."

"Mm-hmm~"

Xuanxuan nodded like a little chick pecking at grain, obediently putting on the jacket.

Then she held her dad’s big hand, stood in line with the other kids, and followed the two teachers to loop around to the right side passage, arriving at the audience seats.

The performance on the stage was still ongoing, but Xuanxuan had no interest in watching.

She looked up, her eyes curved into crescents, and said to her dad, "Dad, I’m here, you go ahead and get busy..."

"Mm, okay!"

Huang Tao reached out and ruffled her hair, gently reminding her, "Now you sit here nicely with the other kids and watch the performance. When it’s over, I’ll probably be done too, and you can come over to eat."

"Xuanxuan’s daddy, Xuanxuan’s daddy..."

As soon as he finished speaking and before Xuanxuan could respond, all the kids around started shouting in unison, "We want to eat too, we want to eat too!"

Just hearing about food made them drool!

"Okay, got it!"

Huang Tao nodded with a smile, "After you finish watching the show, come on over together."

The kids nodded vigorously: "Mm-hmm, thanks, Xuanxuan’s daddy~"

"You’re welcome!"

After saying a few words to Xuanxuan, Huang Tao left with Ye Wen and a few other mothers, under the eager gazes of the children.

Returning to the food area of class (4).

The parents of other classes had already started getting busy.

There were also a few food stalls from some classes with no one in front of them, probably because their children were currently performing.

They’re off to watch the show!

Huang Tao, too, washed his hands and got ready to start making wontons and soup dumplings.

Making soup dumplings, huh!

It’s actually quite similar to making pan-fried buns, and pork jelly is indispensable.

Of course.

You can also skip the pork jelly and directly add water to the stuffing, for example, the pepper water needed for the meat filling is the best choice for beating the meat filling.

The meat filling made this way not only tastes delicious but also has a tender texture, offering an excellent mouthfeel.

But...

This technique has a high technical requirement and a high level of difficulty.

For Huang Tao, the level of difficulty is just too high.

That’s right!

He doesn’t possess the skill to completely wrap thin meat filling inside a bun.

Don’t ask why.

The answer is, possessing the skill for making soup dumplings that way requires very expensive redemption points.

He can’t afford it!

So he has to honestly choose the method of adding pork jelly!

And making pork jelly is the most time-consuming part of preparing soup dumplings.

Therefore, when he was preparing the pork jelly for the pan-fried buns yesterday, he made a bit extra and stored it in the fridge.

He brought it with him when he came to the kindergarten this morning and asked Ye to help put it in the kitchen fridge!

He lifted the wet cloth covering the dough and took a look...

The dough for the wontons had just about finished resting, but the dough for the soup dumplings needed to rest once more.

After all, the dough for soup dumplings requires three rounds of kneading and resting!

The concept of three rounds of kneading and resting is quite straightforward!

It refers to the process of kneading, slapping, and resting.

Specifically, the dough should be kneaded three times, slapped three times, and rested three times.

Through this process, the dough becomes stretchy and smooth, preventing the soup from leaking out and the casing from falling off.

This is the secret of the soup dumpling!

In short, without a good dough, no matter how great the filling is, you can’t make delicious dumplings.

He kneaded the soup dumpling dough again, covered it with a damp cloth, and let it rest once more. Then it would be ready for rolling into the dumpling skins.

In the meantime, he decided to work on the wonton skins and filling.

This "wonton" dish is popular all over the country, but it has different names in different regions.

In Jiangsu and Zhejiang, it’s called wonton; in Sichuan, it’s called chaoshou; in the Hubei area, it’s called dumplings or buns; in Fujian, it’s called "bianrou" or "rouyan"; in the southern Anhui region, especially in Anhui, it’s mostly referred to as "bofu."

In Guangzhou, wonton is called yuntun, a name derived from the English "wonton."

Moreover, the types of wontons vary greatly.

Common ones include fresh meat wontons, the grander upgraded shrimp wontons, shrimp and meat wontons, three-flavor wontons, as well as light vegetable and meat wontons, appetizing red oil wontons, and fried wontons.

In short, the variety and preparation of wontons...

It’s simply astonishing!

The wontons Huang Tao was going to make today were the luxurious and upgraded three-flavored wontons.

For this purpose!

He even specially asked Ye and the others to prepare shrimp for the dish.

Next, he began preparing the minced meat needed for both the wontons and the soup dumplings.

He placed the cleaned meat prepared by Ye and a few other parents on the chopping board.

First, he sliced the meat, then cut it into strips, and finally diced it.

"Chop chop chop~"

He held a cleaver in each hand, rhythmically chopping the meat into fine pieces.

Not far away opposite him, Lin Weiliang watched Huang Tao’s chopping technique, and his expression changed slightly.

It seemed like he really had some skills!

The technique was indeed impressive, like someone who had trained for a few years.

Even though it was the first time seeing Huang Tao’s meat chopping skills.

With just one look.

As an insider, he could tell that Huang Tao’s skills were higher than he had initially imagined!

This made him have to take it seriously!

Focused on chopping the meat, Huang Tao didn’t notice Lin Weiliang openly observing him. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

He continued chopping the meat into a minced consistency, stopping just before it turned to paste.

Otherwise, the unique tender texture of the meat filling would be lost.

He transferred the minced meat into two large bowls.

For the meat filling used in the wontons, Huang Tao added a bit of cooking wine, poured some oyster sauce, and sprinkled a spoonful of salt and some pepper.

He started mixing!

While stirring, he added the pre-cooled pepper water into the meat filling.

Once the meat filling was thoroughly mixed, he proceeded to the next step.

He separated a portion of the meat filling, placing it into another dish.

Then he chopped the cleaned shrimp into pieces.

He also chopped some scallions and ginger.

All set.

He began mixing the wonton filling.

He cracked a few eggs into one bowl of meat filling, mixed them, then added the chopped shrimp, scallions, and ginger, mixing in the seasoning again.

Started flavoring!

Once the flavoring was done, he covered the bowls with plastic wrap and asked Ye Wen to quickly take them to the back kitchen’s refrigerator for a bit of chilling.

This is to let the meat filling marinate and absorb flavors more thoroughly.

The texture will be much better as well when eaten!

Additionally, once the filling has a base flavor, it will be much easier to mix later.

Next, it’s time to roll out the wonton wrappers...

He took out the rested dough and kneaded them into smooth balls.

He pressed the dough into round discs and then used a rolling pin to roll them into large circles.

The more he rolled, the thinner they became.

When it was about three millimeters thick...

He stopped.

He evenly rolled the large disc around the rolling pin, then used a kitchen knife to cut through the rolled dough.

"Cut through"!

In fact, it’s more like slicing!

Following the length of the rolling pin, he sliced the dough from one end to the other, instantly turning the large rolled disc into evenly sized long strips.

He sorted these strips neatly.

Huang Tao, holding a kitchen knife, cut them into square wrappers according to the required width for wonton skins.

Then he picked out all the irregular pieces, leaving the ones needed for wrapping wontons.

Repeat this process!

In no time, all the wonton skins were ready!

Next, it’s time to wrap the wonton wrappers.

Under Huang Tao’s instructions, Ye Wen tirelessly ran to the kitchen again, retrieving the chilled meat filling and aspic.

Start wrapping wontons!

Huang Tao took a piece of wonton skin, laid it in his hand, placed some meat filling in the center of the wrapper, and then used the method of folding it into an ingot, pinching the middle of the wrapper tightly, and then pinching the two lower corners together.

A perfect ingot wonton was crafted under his skillful hands.

The speed was so fast that Teacher Ye and a group of parents had become accustomed to it as a matter of course!

He placed the wrapped wontons on a folding table covered with cling film.

Once the table was full, he instructed Teacher Ye to cover the top with another layer of cling film to prevent the wrappers from drying out.

He brought out another bowl of meat filling and used chopsticks to loosen it up.

The next step was seasoning.

A soup dumpling is all about the complementary texture and flavor to achieve perfection.

Texture can be achieved by mincing the filling finely.

But the flavor depends entirely on the recipe.

The system-redeemed recipe naturally had perfect and precise seasoning proportions.

Huang Tao, following the system’s experience, began to season the filling with precision, neither too much nor too little.

Scallion-ginger water, white sugar...

Every ingredient not only needed to be in the correct proportion but also had to be added in a specific order.

If the order was wrong!

The resulting steamed texture would have subtle differences, and the layers would become chaotic.

Of course.

For Huang Tao, this was not a problem!

After all, for the perfectionist Huang Tao, such a basic mistake was intolerable.

Furthermore, typical soup dumpling shops would add some seafood soy sauce and white pepper.

Seafood soy sauce is used to enhance umami.

White pepper is used to mask the meaty odor.

Huang Tao did not add these two ingredients.

Because they simply weren’t necessary.

To meet the standard for the filling, the inherent umami was already sufficient.

Adding more would be superfluous.

Moreover, a suitable amount of scallion-ginger water was enough to eliminate any odor, while adding white pepper would become too much!

He turned over the container with the white pig skin aspic, with the lively aspic bouncing a few times before landing on the cutting board.

"Swish!"

He took up a knife and started chopping.

The complete blocks of pig skin aspic were quickly chopped under the rhythm of two knives.

Then, the chopped aspic was mixed evenly into the meat filling.

Set it aside.

Begin rolling the wrappers for the soup dumplings.

He took a piece of dough, kneaded it into a long shape, and then pinched off appropriately sized pieces.

If someone used a scale to measure these pieces, they would be amazed to find that the size and weight of the pieces Huang Tao pinched off varied by no more than two grams.

Huang Tao picked up a rolling pin and began rolling these pieces into pastry skins.

Rolling soup dumpling skins is quite intricate.

Because when steamed, the aspic in the dumplings melts into soup.

If the skin is too thick, it heats unevenly inside and out, affecting the texture greatly.

If the skin is too thin, it will break easily when picked up with chopsticks, failing to lock in the aroma.

So the dough needs strength and a certain elasticity.

This, for Huang Tao, was also no challenge.

With one hand rolling and the other turning the dough piece...

The dough piece immediately transformed into a clear, translucent round.

After rolling, he tossed it casually, stacking each piece of skin neatly one on top of the other.

Neatly arranged, perfectly aligned, as if meticulously arranged, seamlessly.

Moreover, each skin was almost the same size, indistinguishable to the naked eye.

It’s practically astonishing!

All the parents and teachers present watched as the skins continually flew from Huang Tao’s hands, swirling gently in the air...

And they landed steadily on the skins in front.

Neatly stacking up one layer.

If they didn’t know Huang Tao was a chef, they might have thought he was performing a stunt...

Teacher Ye and several parents could no longer contain themselves.

One by one, they expressed their admiration:

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, this rolling technique is impressive! Look closely; each skin is the same size, stacked without any inconsistency! If I hadn’t watched Boss Huang roll them, I’d think they were cut by a machine!"

"This craftsmanship, if placed among pastry chefs, must be top-tier!"

Although Lin Weiliang, across from him, didn’t want to admit it, he silently acknowledged it...

The Que Clan indeed!

This pastry skill is strong; at least there’s seven to eight years of foundation, and it’s inherently talented.

After all, for the average person to reach this level, it would take twenty or thirty years, and still might be uncertain!

Moreover, with such foundational skills, the culinary skills certainly won’t be lacking!

At this moment...

An idea popped into his mind.

But he thought it needed more observation.