Gourmet: From a Stall in Northern Europe-Chapter 196 - 147: Is Making Chinese Food Really This Easy? (Part 2)

The sauce for celery and dried bean curd is quite simple, emphasizing the freshness of the ingredients, mixing salt, sugar, chicken essence, white vinegar, a bit of soy sauce, sesame oil, and just the right amount of chili oil.

Sesame oil and sesame paste have been quite commonly used in Western cuisine lately; although many foreigners are allergic to peanuts and nuts, there seem to be few allergic to sesame.

He didn't think about those issues. Since he decided to cook Chinese cuisine, he can't remove its soul ingredients. A salad without sesame oil and sesame is soulless.

As long as most people can eat it, there's no need to worry about the minority.

The dressing for the mixed salad will be richer and heavier in taste, focusing on the sweet and sour flavor.

Lots of balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, and white sugar are needed, along with oyster sauce, chicken essence, sesame oil, and chili oil.

It looks similar to the condiments used for celery and dried bean curd, but the difference lies in the type and amount of vinegar used.

White vinegar has a fresh taste, while balsamic vinegar has a lingering aftertaste and a stronger acidity.

Place the fried peanuts in a separate bowl next to the mixed salad, allowing diners to add them themselves, thus avoiding peanut allergy issues.

Lucas continued to grate his vegetable shreds beside him, getting more enthusiastic about grating as the meal time approached.

"Old Lin, do you think these foreigners will end up unable to eat anything after finishing this?"

"Just these two salads, even before mixing, just the smell of vinegar makes my mouth water. No one in the world can resist the temptation of Northeastern mixed salad."

"And there's fried rice and fried noodles, which are globally recognized delicacies. Once these are served, would anyone really still want to eat oatmeal soaked in milk or Caesar salad with scrambled eggs?"

"Maybe not?"

Lin Chen shrugged, "Foreigners' stubbornness is as irrational as their confidence. We're just responsible for making good food, no need to worry about other things."

"Hurry up and finish grating the vegetables. I'll teach you how to make seaweed egg drop soup later."

Having finished preparing the sauces, Lin Chen washed his hands and took out two large bowls of beans, which were soybeans and red beans, soaked since yesterday afternoon.

Soybeans were put into the large soybean milk machine, adding water for automatic grinding, while the red beans were put in the pressure cooker, following the usual steps.

These two machines arrived yesterday, specially sourced by Old Wang from Shunfu Supermarket, claiming it's equipment used in their supermarket, urgently purchased from the manufacturer.

For such a large amount for the buffet, one pot would definitely not be enough, needing several rounds, fortunately, they're fully automatic with timers, requiring little attention.

At this time, four women returned from outside, seemingly having divided their areas.

"Chef, do you need us to help with anything?"

Lin Chen glanced at the remaining ingredients on the workstation, thought for a bit, and took two women into the cold storage, bringing out two large boxes of seafood.

"All these black tiger prawns need to be shelled, beheaded, and deveined; scallops need handling too, and the scallop meat on the shells shouldn't be wasted, along with these octopuses…"

His movements were brisk and fluid, hands grabbing the prawn heads, twisting left and right, gently pulling them out, peeling the shell from underneath, then pulling upwards to effortlessly remove the prawn shell.

Fresh prawns are easy to handle, they hardly stick to the shell, just removing the vein is a bit tricky.

Scallops are much simpler, prying them open with a tool, then just pulling out the whole scallop meat and using a sharp knife to cut off the scallop pillar.

"Now you can see this is a whole scallop; the black part behind is the stomach, cut it with scissors, then flip open the skirt, the obvious orange part is the liver, which can be eaten."

"Between the liver and skirt is a yellow layer, see it? This is the gills used for filtering impurities, remove them; there's another layer at the bottom, and that's it for processing."

Octopuses are even simpler, the two women have slaughtered live ducks themselves, so handling an octopus brain is nothing, this ordinary bloodless seafood hardly induces any terror in them.

While they were collaborating on their side, Jonathan and two others were still encircling the workstation rolling chocolate balls.

These things are rolled ahead and frozen, bake them for twelve minutes and cool for half an hour when needed, sprinkle with sea salt granules on the surface, resulting in delicious sea salt chocolate cookies, surely popular with guests.

Besides this flavor, they earlier prepared cranberry and coconut sugar cookies, all recipes developed using trendy healthy ingredients.

"What are they doing?"

Jonathan blinked curiously, "I can't figure it out at all."

"It doesn't look like Western cuisine, might be Asian?"

Helena rubbed her slightly swollen wrists and slightly calloused palms, suffering untold torments this entire night.

Compared to this, the tasks of a server were more relaxing and suited her; the kitchen was simply not a place for humans.

"I just saw him cooking rice; could he be making fried rice?"

Jonathan turned his head to look at the round machine quietly emitting white smoke on the other side, then at the two bizarrely shaped machines nearby, his face filled with confusion.

"Fried rice?!"

Lucinda's eyes brightened, "That's a good idea; many hotels serve fried rice at their buffets, but the taste isn't great. Chef Lin is from Great Xia, his fried rice must be delicious, right?"

"Wouldn't fried rice be too greasy for breakfast? What's in those other two machines then?"

"...You're the chef; we two servers can't possibly know! Please shut up! It's already five-thirty!"

"What! Quickly, go bake all the cookies, twelve per tray, four trays per flavor, bake three rounds consecutively, I've already set the time, just choose the cookie setting."

The kitchen's oven is also the most advanced kind, an intelligent oven with an onboard computer control, capable of setting the required mode, temperature, time, humidity for each project in advance, enabling automatic baking with a few simple taps when needed.

"Lin! Do you need the oven? I might need at least forty minutes."

Lin Chen was helping with seafood processing when he heard Jonathan's call and nonchalantly shook his head.

"I don't need the oven; take your time, there's also an oven under the stove; if you're pressed for time, turn that on too."

"Oh right, there's an oven underneath, almost forgot; my gosh, my brain!"

"Jonathan! Please pull yourself together, wake up; it's already morning!"

"Oh, I'm awake, awake, don't shout, don't shout, just quieter, I'm a chef too, give me some face, please."

Time quickly reached six-thirty.

The entire restaurant was filled with a strong sweet aroma, the lingering scent left behind after baking various desserts.

"Ring~"

The restaurant's door opened.

"Uh... smells so nice!"

Elise took a deep breath, a delighted smile appearing on her face, while Vanessa couldn't restrain her excitement, clenching her tiny fists.

Though not their first time entering, normally the watering of plants in the restaurant is rotated among on-duty staff.

But today, the restaurant's ambiance was exceptionally different.

Every table was neatly set with blue and white tablecloths and cutlery, instantly embodying that professional restaurant vibe.

"I wonder what delicious food Chef Lin will make today, can't wait~"

The two women approached the kitchen door, gently knocked on the open door.

"Chef, how are the preparations? Some guests have already called inquiring, eager to dine... eh?"

Expecting a bustling scene in the kitchen, they were surprised to find the new Head Chef on the left busy with a sweaty forehead, while over on the right, Chef Lin and Lucas were casually leaning with smiles and sipping coffee.

What's going on?

"Twenty minutes, I still need twenty minutes!"

"Alright, no rush, Chef, take your time; the meal is set to start at seven anyway, as for Chef Lin's side of things, looks like everything's ready?"

"We're doing Chinese cuisine, made on the spot, starting when guests arrive."

Lin Chen took small sips of fragrant coffee, nodding and smiling at the two, "Before starting the rush, how about a warm mocha, ladies?"