Becoming the Villainess: I Dominate the Cultivation Realm with My Wok!-Chapter 125: Tomato Broth

Chen Muxue is contemplating what the restaurant should sell.

Stir-frying isn’t off the table, but she’d have to train a new chef from scratch, which seems a bit too troublesome.

She needs a convenient, quick, and easy-to-learn menu.

As Chen Muxue pondered, she paced around the kitchen, and after a while, her gaze landed on a jar.

It was hot pot base made in excess during a spicy crawfish preparation.

A hot pot shop! Fresh ingredients, knife skills, and service are all that’s needed; she just has to ensure the quality of the base!

There’s hot pot here too, but if you really dig into it, the hot pot here is just the original prototype: a copper pot, charcoal fire, clear water for blanching fresh lamb, dipped in sesame paste, and it’s truly savory with an aftertaste that lingers.

However, firstly, lamb isn’t cheap, and the freshness required for this copper pot method is very high, not something ordinary folks can afford.

Secondly, the taste is mild, and ordinary folks always feel something is missing, and they don’t dare to eat heartily, always feeling unsatisfied.

In contrast, modern hot pot offers a variety of flavors and countless ingredients to blanch, including the seldom-consumed offal of the time shining in hot pots, alongside ordinary vegetables and noodles which add a nice flavor.

Given Chen Muxue’s understanding of everyone’s culinary skills in this world, hot pot is bound to be a hit!

But first, she needs to add two non-spicy bases, as selling only spicy hot pot might be too much for everyone.

One option is a big bone broth base, which is quite simple; as long as the stench is removed and the simmering time is right, it’ll be fine.

The other one, Chen Muxue chose was the tomato base she always orders for her soup at Haidilao.

Wash the tomatoes, make a cross cut, and place them in a container with hot water. After ten minutes, peel the tomatoes.

This step not only removes the peel but softens the tomatoes for easy juicing later, since blenders are absent in this era, Chen Muxue has no choice but to manually mash them.

If it’s just for peeling, people usually suggest boiling water, but without Chen Muxue’s little finger to regulate the temperature, extra hot water is necessary, so simply for peeling, Chen Muxue recommends skewering the cross-cut tomato on a chopstick and roasting it over a stovetop flame for easy peeling.

Mash half of the tomatoes into a juice, and chop the remaining peeled tomatoes for later use.

Peel and wash the onion and ginger, dice them, and mash them into a paste together.

"Yuck, so sour!" Xiaohua, who somehow wandered into the kitchen, dipped her finger into some tomato juice and tasted it.

She puckered her tongue from the sourness.

"What’s the Sect Leader making?"

Chen Muxue smiled at her, "Tomato base, later this will be used to cook noodles for everyone."

Xiaohua’s chubby little face scrunched up, "Doesn’t taste good!"

Without further explanation, Chen Muxue took out a wok and forcefully called out, "Xiaohu!"

Xiaohu came trotting over to stoke the fire. He always felt on the brink of a breakthrough lately, so he handled the fire control with utmost care.

"Brother Xiaohu, this is so sour, it doesn’t taste good." Xiaohua looked at Xiaohu with big round eyes.

Xiaohu had already caught the scent of tomatoes and gave her a gentle smile, "You have to trust the Sect Leader."

Pour an appropriate amount of oil into the pot and heat it up, add the mashed onion paste and stir-fry over low heat for two minutes, then pour in the tomato juice, and cook for ten minutes.

The onion and tomato stew together creates a magical reaction, adding a few notes of deliciousness to the originally acidic tomato flavor.