wavenovel Chapter 55 Tasting Dishes
Chapter 55 Tasting Dishes
The aunties weren't shy or timid, and they didn't feel offended.
They all gave me expectant looks, rolled up their sleeves, and went to the kitchen without hesitation.
Lu Yuan didn't expect that his aunts also had a competitive spirit.
Although they didn't know why Lu Yuan wanted them to taste the dishes, it wouldn't hurt to show off their skills.
Aunt Juping's cooking is quite simple; it's a home-style tofu dish.
In northern China, people rarely use fermented soybean paste or thicken sauces when cooking.
Therefore, her stir-fried tofu relies more on the charred aroma of dried chili peppers, giving it a simple spicy flavor.
Moreover, if you don't thicken it with cornstarch, there's plenty of sauce, which is great for mixing with rice.
Her homemade tofu dish is also very well-seasoned, with wood ear mushrooms, green peppers, and garlic sprouts adding a beautiful touch.
Lu Yuan took a bite; it was spicy, salty, and savory—a great dish to eat with rice.
Aunt Lianhua stir-fried a plate of pickled cabbage and shredded potatoes, which is also a typical home-style dish in northern China.
The key to this dish is its sour and spicy flavor. The pickled cabbage is first stir-fried in oil to remove the unpleasant sourness and bring out its aroma.
The combination of crispness and texture with shredded potatoes creates different layers of flavor, making it very delicious.
However, Aunt Lianhua made it a little differently, adding yellow millet, saying it was a recipe from her hometown.
Lu Yuan tried it and found it to be quite delicious, with a soft and chewy texture on top of the crisp potato shreds.
Aunt Yuhua stir-fried a common eggplant dish, which is also a dish that appears frequently on the dinner table of people in northern China.
A unique way to prepare this dish in northern China is to use tomatoes as a base flavor and then slowly simmer it to infuse the flavor.
These days, tomatoes have a great flavor; they even taste sweet when eaten raw.
Unlike tomatoes of later generations, which are so hard they can be used as concealed weapons.
Aunt Yuhua's method is very standard: first, sauté scallions and garlic in oil, then add tomatoes and stir-fry until they release their oil and sandy texture.
Then turn the heat down to low, add the eggplant, and cook it in the half-oil, half-grain red broth until it's done.
Sprinkle some minced raw garlic before taking it off the heat, and the aroma will immediately come out.
After watching the whole process, Lu Yuan knew without even tasting it that the dish was perfect.
The other three aunts were very diligent; they started preparing the ingredients as soon as they entered the kitchen, and it's only now that they're almost done.
Lu Yuan glanced at them and saw that the dishes they made were quite complicated, requiring them to be deep-fried first; they were definitely the hearty dishes among home-style dishes.
Aunt Shufang made a dish called braised egg bubbles, which is a relatively niche dish from northwestern Shanxi.
This dish requires frying eggs first, which is a very complicated process.
Egg bubbles are made by mixing flour, eggs, and water in a certain ratio to form a paste, then dividing it into small balls and frying them.
The most crucial part is using two chopsticks together to shape the flowing paste into small balls, which are then instantly placed into the pot to set.
As the small balls are heated in the oil, they gradually become hollow inside, turning into small golden bubbles.
The technique of frying egg bubbles is either perfect or a complete disaster. You either fry them into perfect bubbles or they turn out a mess.
It has a slightly crispy exterior and a fluffy, soft interior, with the aroma of eggs and wheat, and a slightly sweet taste.
When I was a child, resources were scarce and my mouth was always bland. These low-cost fried egg bubbles were a real treat for satisfying my cravings.
If you make fried egg bubbles at home, half of them will definitely be eaten up that day.
The children would sneak a bite every now and then, their mouths greasy from eating, but they would pretend they hadn't stolen anything.
The technique for making braised egg bubbles is relatively simple; it also involves frying tomatoes until they release their juices.
Next, add the wood ear mushrooms, glass noodles, bok choy, and egg bubbles.
Egg bubbles contain only flour and no starch. If you cook them for too long, the egg bubbles will fall apart.
Therefore, the only difficulty in braising is controlling the heat. The egg bubbles must be taken out of the pot just before they break apart, at which point the egg bubbles have the most flavor.
After taking a bite, Lu Yuan gave a heartfelt thumbs up.
For him, this is the taste of his childhood.
Aunt Caixia made a dish of braised water chestnuts with fried gluten, which she came up with on a whim after arriving in the kitchen.
Because Lu Yuan happened to be teaching the older women how to make liangpi (cold skin noodles) today, there were readily available ingredients to use.
Otherwise, starting from kneading the dough, then washing and frying the gluten, it would be dark by the time this dish is ready.
The deep-fried gluten in northern China requires the dough to be thoroughly washed to ensure the gluten has the best elasticity.
After frying, they come out in small, shriveled pieces with no hollow center.
In the Tianjin area, fried gluten is often made into large balls, which are then torn into smaller pieces when cooking.
The northern method ensures that each piece of gluten is intact, allowing you to fully experience the chewiness of the gluten when you eat it.
Aunt Caixia had a great grasp of the heat; the fried gluten turned out just right, a golden-brown color.
Fried gluten cannot be eaten directly. When they were young, Lu Yuan and his friends thought that fried gluten was like egg bubbles, and that it tasted best when it was freshly fried.
To my surprise, when I took a bite, it felt like biting into a shoe sole; it was impossible to chew.
Only after being simmered in broth for a period of time will the gluten become soft and tender yet still chewy, and full of flavor.
Aunt Caixia made this dish very properly, especially the amount of oil, which she controlled perfectly.
The problem with making this dish is that it's too oily and greasy, because the gluten will keep releasing oil while it's being braised.
If this dish is made well, it's even more fragrant than meat, and the rich broth coating rice is so delicious you could eat three big bowls of it.
Finally, the eldest of the group, Aunt Guifen, made her grand entrance. She was always one of the mainstays of the kitchen when the Lu family ate together during holidays.
The dish she made today was also the most difficult one in the entire meal: braised pork ribs.
"Jiaban" is the name used in northern China; in the Beijing area it's called "Songrou"; and in Xinjiang province it's called "Jiasha".
The methods used in northern China and Xinjiang are very similar: two layers of pure egg liquid are used to make a crepe, with meat filling sandwiched in the middle, then cut into diamond-shaped pieces and deep-fried.
The practice in the Beijing area is slightly different; they use bean curd skin instead of egg skin.
Lu Yuan personally felt that bean curd skin was not as good as egg skin, as egg skin was more fragrant and crispy after being fried.
The challenge of this dish lies in shaping the diamond-shaped cutting board before frying it in oil.
The difficulty in shaping lies in whether the meat filling can stick well between the two layers of egg skin.
There are two tricks to this. One is to make the minced meat sticky enough, which requires marinating and coating the minced meat with starch.
The second trick is to brush a thin layer of pea flour slurry onto both layers of egg crepe.
It's like the paste we used to put up couplets during Chinese New Year when we were kids.
When frying, the heat should not be too high, because the meat filling is not completely coated and it is easy to burn.
The perfect state is when the broth is golden yellow; if it turns brown, it means the heat is too high.
Aunt Guifen worked very quickly, scooping them all out with a large strainer by swiping it left and right a couple of times.
Then she shook it up and down twice to drain the excess oil. The clamp made a crisp clattering sound as it went up and down, which meant it was fried just right.
Aunt Guifen's skills are superb. Lu Yuan felt that even if he went up and fried them, he might not be able to do it as well as her.
At this moment, the sandwich is crispy, and if you pair it with a small dish of salt and pepper and chili powder, it becomes another famous dish: deep-fried sandwich!
Lu Yuan has a long-term plan for this dish; he intends to add it to all his restaurants once he has a sufficient staff.
This fried sandwich is a local specialty.
Moreover, these fried semi-finished products can be stored for a long time, whether they are re-fried to make deep-fried sandwiches or used directly in braised dishes or soups.
If customers find it delicious, they might want to take it home.
Lu Yuan will make another batch of gift boxes, which will include some special fried foods such as fried dough sticks. They will be very thoughtful to give as gifts during festivals.