From selling box lunches to becoming a famous Chinese chef

Feng Zhengming led his younger brothers and sisters to the kitchen.

Before stepping into the kitchen, Feng Yucheng had a lot of ideas in his mind.

But when he really stepped into the kitchen, he found that everything in front of him was completely different from what he had imagined.

The kitchen of Huiquanlou is very large, spacious and clean.

In the back kitchen, the water table and the stove are separated by a metal counter.

There are several freezers at the entrance.

Everyone in the kitchen is busy.

They all seemed to have their own jobs and completed their tasks conscientiously.

After finishing, they will pass the processed ingredients to others.

In Feng Yucheng's opinion, the kitchen is like an assembly line.

Every chef in the kitchen is considered a link in the assembly line.

Complete their respective tasks and then pass it on to the next link.

Feng Yucheng looked at it for a while and asked in surprise, "Big brother, do you usually cook like this? One person after another passes the food around like this? You look like factory workers, not like chefs at all."

Feng Zhengming laughed when he heard this: "What do you think a chef should be like?"

Feng Yucheng thought for a moment and said, "The chef should be able to make a dish himself."

Then Feng Yucheng started to use gestures, using both foreign and Chinese languages.

It expresses that he went to a restaurant abroad with his parents and saw how the chefs cooked.

Feng Zhengming laughed when he heard this.

"So you want to see those? Sure."

Then Feng Zhengming called to Gu Zhicheng, "Old Gu, what dish are you going to cook?"

Gu Zhicheng replied: "Oh, I have three stir-fried dishes here."

Feng Zhengming nodded: "Okay, show your skills to this brother who just came back from abroad."

Hearing this, Gu Zhicheng looked at Feng Zhengming.

I saw that besides Zhang Hongwei and Feng Shengnan whom I had met before, there was also a boy who was younger than Feng Shengnan.

Gu Zhicheng immediately guessed that it might be the child of Grandpa Feng’s eldest son who was studying abroad.

He nodded without hesitation and agreed: "Okay, then I'll show you."

The next moment, Gu Zhicheng started cutting and preparing the ingredients himself, including the sauce.

Everything is ready and Gu Zhicheng stands in front of the stove.

The first thing is to turn on the fire and fry the three main ingredients separately.

Then pour it out and prepare it, add chopped green onion and ginger to sauté, then add the three main ingredients, pour the sauce into the bowl and stir-fry over high heat until the sauce is reduced.

The whole process is done in one go, and finally the dish is drizzled with oil before being served on a plate.

This time Feng Yucheng's eyes widened.

Watch Gu Zhicheng cooking.

Feng Yucheng felt a little excited and thought the cooking process was very cool.

"Cool." Feng Yucheng praised, "Great."

Feng Zhengming smiled: "Are you satisfied now? What do you think of our cooking skills? Not bad, right?"

Under Feng Yucheng's admiring gaze, Feng Zhengming said calmly: "These are just very basic things."

Feng Yucheng became even more excited: "These are just the basics?"

Feng Zhengming nodded: "These are all skills that a chef must master, but mastering them does not mean that you can cook well."

Feng Shengnan couldn't help but say, "If you want to cook well, you need good knife skills, good spoon skills, and you also need to know how to season."

Zhang Hongwei also added: "It should be delicious and fragrant."

After hearing this, Feng Yucheng thought for a moment and asked, "Big brother, do you put rosemary in your dishes?"

Hearing Feng Yucheng's question, Feng Zhengming explained seriously: "Rosemary, basil leaves and the like are commonly used condiments in some Western dishes, but not often used in Chinese dishes.

But it’s not that we can’t use them, we also use a lot of seasonings that may not be common in Western cuisine.”

Zhang Hongwei said at this time: "Brother, try to cook a dish for your younger brother."

Feng Shengnan agreed immediately after hearing this: "Yes, brother, please cook a dish for us too."

Seeing that his younger brothers and sisters all wanted to take a look, Feng Zhengming smiled and nodded in agreement.

"Okay, Yucheng just came back today, so I'll make him a traditional Quancheng dish, stir-fried diced pork with soy sauce."

Zhang Hongwei asked curiously, "Isn't it fried chicken with soy sauce?"

Feng Zhengming walked over to pick a piece of meat and explained with a smile: "There are many kinds of stir-fried vegetables with soy sauce. Stir-fried diced chicken and stir-fried diced pork are both stir-fried vegetables with soy sauce."

Feng Zhengming chose a piece of meat with both fat and lean meat.

Remove the skin and slice the meat into thicker slices.

Then make cuts on the meat slices.

Then cut the meat slices into 1.2-inch cubes.

After cutting the meat into cubes, put them into a bowl, first put the meat into the bottom, and then coat the meat with starch.

Coat the surface of the diced meat with a thin layer of batter, then cover with oil and set aside.

Chop the onion, ginger and garlic into fine pieces and set aside.

In terms of ingredients, Feng Zhengming used diced bamboo shoots, green beans and walnut kernels.

Cut the winter bamboo shoots into small cubes, blanch them together with the green beans in water, then remove and set aside.

Then fry the walnut kernels in a pan until crispy.

After the walnut kernels were fried, Feng Zhengming began to diced the meat.

Put the diced meat into the pan and let it slowly spread out as the oil temperature rises. Let the diced meat stay in the hot oil for a little longer.

Let the fat on the diced meat release some of the oil.

When the diced meat is frying and removed from the pan, place the drained diced bamboo shoots and green beans in a metal strainer over the oil basin.

Just as you pour out the diced meat, rinse the side dishes with hot oil.

After finishing, put pepper oil, chopped green onion, ginger and garlic into the pot, with more chopped garlic.

After stir-frying until fragrant, add the sweet noodle sauce and quickly stir-fry the sauce in the pan to bring out the aroma of the sauce.

Then put the ingredients in the metal strainer into the pot.

Then add a spoonful of the sauce that has been mixed in advance.

Stir-fry quickly after putting it into the pan, and allow the starch in the sauce to gelatinize in the pan so that the sauce can wrap around the diced meat.

When the diced meat is fried until it is well-seasoned, add the fried walnut kernels into the pan and stir-fry evenly.

The dish is now ready to be served.

When this dish comes out of the pot, the aroma fills the kitchen.

There was almost no soup on the plate.

The sauce is wrapped in juice, and the juice is wrapped in vegetables.

Feng Zhengming completed the entire process alone, leaving his younger brothers and sisters a little stunned.

In particular, Feng Yucheng did not expect that his older brother could cook so elegantly.

When Feng Zhengming brought this dish to them.

The three younger brothers and sisters wanted to eat it just by looking at it.

Feng Zhengming smiled and said, "Okay, let's go upstairs first. You can eat this dish upstairs later."

The three younger brothers and sisters naturally agreed immediately and turned around and ran out of the kitchen together.

Feng Zhengming carried the plate of diced pork with sauce and gave some instructions to the kitchen staff before going upstairs with his younger brother and sister.

After they left, the other people in the kitchen quickly gathered together to chat.

"The chef has participated in a national cooking competition and his skills have not been lost at all. He makes the stir-fried diced pork with soy sauce to perfection." Gu Zhicheng heard the apprentices talking about this when they gathered together.

He immediately said, "Stir-fried pork cubes with soy sauce is a very traditional dish. If even this dish fails, how can the chef direct the kitchen?"

Cao Zhiguo said with a smile: "Hahaha, stir-fried diced pork with soy sauce is a piece of cake for the chef."

Feng Zhengming followed his younger brother and sister upstairs carrying the dishes.

When going upstairs, I met a customer who had booked a private room for tonight.

Seeing him personally bringing the dishes upstairs, I couldn't help but feel curious.

"Chef Feng actually serves the food himself?"

"Is this the stir-fried diced pork? Made by Chef Feng himself?"

"Who are you going to entertain? Do you want Chef Feng to serve the food himself?"

Feng Zhengming greeted the customers with a smile.

"Good evening everyone. This dish is not for others. It is for my family upstairs. So it is not very well made. I am sorry to bother the waiter to serve it."

All the customers who went upstairs together burst into laughter.

"Chef Feng, you are kidding me. Your stewed pork cubes are not good enough."

"Yes, no one in Quancheng makes the braised pork cubes better than you."

"Chef Feng, we also want to order a plate today. We'd like to trouble you to make one for us later."

When the customer asked for the stir-fried diced pork with soy sauce, he asked to make it himself.

Feng Zhengming did not refuse: "Okay, you order, I'll go down and make it for everyone later."

Then the customers joked, "Chef Feng is going to charge extra for making it himself, right?"

Someone immediately said, "It's worth the extra money, this is the braised pork cubes made by the top scholar in the country."

Feng Zhengming said with a smile: "No need to pay extra, stir-fried diced pork with soy sauce is a traditional dish in Shandong cuisine, and all Shandong cuisine chefs should be able to make it. If it is not done well, it will bring shame to our Shandong cuisine."

This statement was also recognized by customers.

A customer couldn't help but mutter.

"Nowadays, there are not many restaurants that can make traditional Shandong cuisine well."

Once this statement was made, it was recognized by many customers.

"That's right. Let's not talk about other places. How many restaurants are there in Quancheng? There are only a few that can make authentic dishes."

“I’m afraid that there will be too many fake dishes, and everyone will forget what traditional Shandong cuisine looks like.”

"So when I entertain guests, I must go to Huiquanlou because it is authentic and traditional."

"Hahaha, that's right, with Chef Feng here, I believe the taste of Huiquanlou will not change."

Feng Zhengming is very happy to be recognized by customers.

"Thank you for your recognition. We will also maintain Huiquan Building well."

After going upstairs, Feng Zhengming asked the waiter to send the customer to their private room.

He then carried the dishes into the room where his family was.

As soon as we entered the door, the three children were already waiting impatiently.

"Brother is here." Feng Shengnan shouted first.

Zhang Hongwei and Feng Yucheng looked eagerly at the dish in Feng Zhengming's hand.

Feng Zhengming put down the dish in his hand.

"Grandpa, uncle, I've made a plate of braised pork cubes for the kids. Everyone, eat first. I'll have the food served to you guys in a bit."

Look at Feng Zhengming putting down the plate of stir-fried diced pork.

Feng Guofeng looked at it carefully and soon exclaimed: "This is the authentic braised pork cubes. In the past, my father would ask Master Yan next door to help make this dish during festivals."

The eldest brother's words reminded Feng Suying and Feng Jiandong of the past.

Feng Jiandong said: "I still remember that during the Chinese New Year, I had a plate of diced pork with soy sauce, which was really delicious."

Feng Suying immediately said, "You were the one who ate the most back then, and you only picked out the diced meat from the plate, leaving my brother and I with only diced bamboo shoots and walnut kernels."

Feng Jiandong was asked to explain his childhood shortcomings by his sister.

"You can't blame me for that. Look at this plate. The diced meat, bamboo shoots, and walnut kernels are almost all the same color. Big brother and second sister, you always picked the wrong ones. You can only say that I have better eyesight."

Feng Guofeng laughed: "Hahaha, it's not that we couldn't find the diced meat at that time, we were just letting you go."

"Yes, we gave in to you at that time because you were the youngest in the family."

Hearing what his brother and sister said, Feng Jiandong suddenly felt a little embarrassed.

Then Feng Jiandong stood up and scooped a spoonful for his eldest brother and second sister.

"Today, as the younger brother, I will scoop a spoonful each for my elder brother and second sister.

Now that our family is better off, we eat diced meat with a spoon, and we want most of the spoon to be diced meat, with a little bit of diced bamboo shoots, a piece of walnut kernel, and a little bit of green beans. "

Feng Jiandong's words were also recognized by everyone present.

Grandpa Feng said with a smile: "What Jiandong said today is right. Now that our family's living conditions are better, we should eat well."

When grandpa spoke, everyone scooped up a spoonful.

Maybe stir-fried diced pork with soy sauce is not so delicious now.

But this spoonful of diced pork with sauce carries the memories of the whole family.

Feng Zhengming looked at the whole family.

He suddenly had some insights in his heart.

Perhaps, food is not all about showy fancy dishes.

Perhaps even the taste will have completely different subjective preferences among different people.

But there is one thing that may be everyone's impression of delicious food.

That is the taste in everyone’s memory.

The taste in everyone's memory may be different, but there is always a story behind the unforgettable taste in everyone's memory.

No chef can completely reproduce the taste in someone else's mind.

But as a chef, you should try to use different flavors to evoke the good memories of the past.

The taste may be sweet, salty, sour or bitter.

Or maybe it's the spicy taste that burns the tip of your tongue.

Let the tongue that was once numb numb.

Feng Zhengming suddenly understood why traditional dishes have become classics?
Because the taste of those traditional dishes is engraved in the memories of generations.

Therefore, a good chef must first be able to fully present the classic flavors of traditional dishes.

Only by presenting the old taste well, can you be qualified to innovate.

Feng Zhengming asked the whole family to enjoy this dish of stir-fried diced pork with soy sauce.

He quietly left the private room and went downstairs to prepare the rest of the dishes for his family.

Tonight he will either come up with something innovative, or work with the kitchen staff at Huiquanlou to make every traditional dish well so that the old flavors can be presented again.

After going downstairs and returning to the kitchen, Feng Zhengming immediately gathered everyone together and gave them some instructions.

"You are not allowed to do anything fancy tonight. You must strictly follow the traditional craftsmanship and do it neatly."

Hearing Feng Zhengming's instructions, everyone in the kitchen was somewhat surprised.

But soon everyone understood.

Since it is a traditional dish, it is indeed necessary to keep the original taste as much as possible.

Even the taste of old dishes has changed, so what else can be passed on?
In fact, in the kitchen of Huiquanlou, even if Feng Zhengming did not instruct them to do so, everyone in the kitchen would maintain the most traditional taste.

In the busy kitchen, dishes were soon served one by one.

The dishes Feng Zhengming served to his family tonight were almost entirely traditional classic Shandong cuisine. (End of this chapter)