I'm the Culinary God-Chapter 831 - 360: Mr. Chen, You’re Still Young—Take It Easy! [1000 Monthly Tickets Bonus]
Twenty minutes later, he lifted the lid, and a rich fragrance wafted from the pot.
Lin Xu took a deep breath and immediately said:
"With sauce like this, don’t even mention freshly fried fish chunks, even just tossing a spoonful into some boiled noodles would taste absolutely delicious."
Fermented bean aroma, soy aroma, fresh aroma, spice aroma...
Every kind of scent imaginable is here.
The sauce was already simmered, and Lin Xu took a small basin, placed a large sieve over it, and then poured the sauce evenly from the pot into the basin.
Because of the sugar, the sauce was slightly sticky.
But it didn’t matter; as it was poured into the basin, there was even a slight stringiness to it.
Once poured into the basin, the sediment was filtered out as well.
Dai Jianli opened his mouth, about to remind him, but then he saw Lin Xu pick up some Five-Spice Powder and add it to the basin.
He chuckled:
"I was thinking of reminding Brother Lin, but it seems I was worrying for nothing."
Xie Baomin folded his arms and asked:
"Why add the Five-Spice Powder now?"
Lin Xu replied:
"Because adding Five-Spice Powder too early can make it bitter, and if added when cooled, the aroma won’t come through. So the best time is now, using the residual warmth of the sauce to bring out the flavor of the Five-Spice Powder."
After speaking, he scooped in a small half spoon of oyster sauce and quickly stirred the mixture with chopsticks in the basin.
Oyster sauce is a seasoning that doesn’t need cooking; the best way is to add it with the Five-Spice Powder after taking it off the heat to enhance the sauce’s umami.
Mix the Five-Spice Powder and oyster sauce evenly, then chill it in the cold storage.
Once the temperature is thoroughly reduced, it becomes the exquisite sauce that gives Five-Spice Smoked Fish its soul. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦
At this point, Sun Minghao and the others were about to leave. Lin Xu wiped his hands and hurried out to see them downstairs and send them off.
Returning to the kitchen, it was time to fry the fish.
Fish shouldn’t be fried too early; otherwise, the sauce’s temperature won’t drop, and the fish can’t be soaked.
But if the fish cools too much, it won’t absorb the flavors easily.
This delicacy requires placing freshly fried fish chunks into the cold sauce so that the sauce is quickly absorbed into the fish under heat.
After soaking and removing, the fish’s exterior remains crispy, while the inside is infused with sauce.
This makes the smoked fish truly delicious.
He placed a large wok on the stove, poured in half a pot of cooking oil, and when the oil reached temperature, he picked out the scallion and ginger used for marinating the fish. Then he scattered the fish chunks into the oil and fried them over high heat.
There’s no real trick to frying these fish chunks; just fry them at sixty percent oil temperature.
Keep frying until the fish chunks float up and the surface turns a golden brown, then remove from the pot and place them on a tray.
At this point, the fish chunks shouldn’t be soaked in the sauce, as soaking too early spoils the flavor. It’s best to soak them when they’re most delicious, then take them out to eat immediately.
To achieve this, when it’s time to eat, re-fry the fish chunks, soak them in the sauce for a few minutes, and then serve immediately.
The fish chunks were undercooked on purpose, so the re-frying improves the flavor.
Once these chores were done, Dou Wenjing and the others arrived.
Lin Xu led them to a private room upstairs, ordered a pot of tea and some snacks, and got straight to the point:
"I’m planning to introduce some hot drinks at Ziqiang Shengjian. What do you think is the best way to go about it?"
There are three options for serving hot drinks: one is to set up a hot drink production center in the stuffing making workshop, prepare all hot drinks, pack them in disposable cups, seal them, and send them to each branch.
In the store, just use a rice cooker, keeping it in warm mode to heat the hot drinks.
This method has many advantages, such as convenience and speed, and the store doesn’t need extra staff.
But it also has apparent drawbacks, as it’s not upscale, and keeping the drinks heated in cups for too long isn’t good.
Most importantly, the production line for packing and sealing hot drinks is quite expensive and unsuitable for the store.
The second is to prepare all the hot drinks in the workshop, then deliver them to each store using insulated containers.
All the store needs is a water dispenser with heating capabilities and a bubble tea sealing machine to sell the hot drinks well.
The third option is making them in the store.
The store would need a blender, a sealing machine, a raw material washing machine, a steaming cabinet, etc., which requires a higher site demand and a dedicated person in charge.
After analysis, everyone chose the second option.
This approach of processing and delivering to the store can ensure the store’s efficiency and prevent store employees from leaving.
Even if someone else poaches them, it’s useless since the front-line employees don’t know the production techniques; they’re just cashiers.
As for those involved in the production, they’re entirely unseen, so there’s no chance to poach them even if one wanted to.
After choosing the method, Lin Xu asked:
"Next we need to discuss the selection of hot drink types. Firstly, there’s yam. It was because of yam that we decided to introduce hot drinks at Ziqiang Shengjian. Besides yam juice, do you have any suggestions?"
There actually was, Wang Ziqiang said:
"Soy milk, it’s always sold well in combination, we can make unsweetened soy milk in our workshop and deliver it to the store, where they can add sugar according to the customer’s preference..."
Just as he said this, Yang Lin interjected:
"Master, can warm soy milk dissolve the sugar?"
Dou Wenjing, having been in the store for quite a while, had some clarity on seasonings:
