From selling box lunches to becoming a famous Chinese chef

Under the guidance of Feng Zhengming, the last dish Xia Hui made was a modified Confucius Mansion dish, roasted mandarin fish in a flower basket.

In the past, the Confucius Mansion dish of "baked mandarin fish in a flower basket" was made by preparing the mandarin fish, making cuts on the fish body, adding some stuffing into the fish belly, then wrapping it in dough and baking it in the oven.

Feng Zhengming made some improvements based on this Confucius Mansion dish, and he wanted Xia Hui to show it to him today.

After the improvement, the mandarin fish is no longer gutted, but is cooked like the yellow croaker in soup, with the spine removed without gutting the fish, to ensure the fish body remains intact.

The next step is to undress the mandarin fish, which means scraping off the skin on the surface of the mandarin fish.

This step can also be regarded as a unique technique of Confucius cuisine.

Xia Hui also learned a lot while being with Feng Zhengming.

The water temperature needs to be controlled very well. If it is too hot, the fish will be easily scalded, but if the water temperature is not high enough, the fish skin cannot be removed.

Xia Hui carefully undressed the fish one by one, and then soaked them in the scallion, ginger and cooking wine prepared by Feng Zhengming.

Try to remove as much fishy smell as possible from the fish itself to ensure that the subsequent fish is odorless and tastes delicious.

After undressing, Xia Hui then put shrimps, ham, green beans, diced meat, scallops, sea cucumber, winter bamboo shoots and mushrooms into the pan and stir-fried them without adding heavy seasonings to ensure that the filling was clear.

Take out the mandarin fish, dry it, make cuts on the fish and stuff the cooled stuffing into the fish belly.

Finally, put chopped green onion and ginger slices on the fish, and wrap it with lard first.

Wrap with the prepared puff pastry.

The biggest improvement Feng Zhengming made to this dish was the dough on the outside.

He used Western-style puff pastry as the outermost wrapping.

This way, the crispy skin that wraps the fish can also be eaten.

Unlike this dish in the past, the dough wrapping was thrown away after baking.

The entire process of roasting the mandarin fish in a flower basket was completed independently by Xia Hui.

After wrapping the outer layer with puff pastry, Xia Hui also pinched a fish shape with her own hands and carved some patterns with a knife.

Then they are put into the oven one by one to be baked.

After baking for a certain period of time, Xia Hui followed Feng Zhengming's instructions and pulled it out and brushed a layer of egg liquid on the surface.

In this way, the final baked mandarin fish in a flower basket will have a completely golden crust.

It also exudes a milky aroma mixed with egg liquid and puff pastry.

After the dish was baked, Xia Hui carefully arranged and decorated it.

Then, together with the master and fellow apprentices, they went out to serve the grilled fish one by one.

Feng Zhengming came to the front of everyone in the hall and said, "This is a dish made by my apprentice. Thank you all for coming to her apprentice banquet today. Please give me some advice on this dish, the Confucius Mansion Eight Treasures Roasted Mandarin Fish in a Flower Basket."

When everyone saw the dish on the table, they were really shocked.

Especially Master Xia and Xia Hui's father Xia Zhennan.

They came here this time and were very happy for Xia Hui.

Neither her grandfather nor her father had ever imagined that Xia Hui would be able to become Feng Zhengming's apprentice.

This time even Xia Hui's mother came. She was so excited to see Xia Hui formally become his disciple that she shed tears.

Now seeing the Confucius Mansion dishes made by Xia Hui herself on the table, Xia Hui's mother was even more proud.

Master Xia looked at it carefully and said, "Xiaohui, your master should have taught you how to make the crispy crust on the outside, right?"

Xia Hui stepped forward and said, "Yes, Grandpa, my master taught me how to make this pastry."

Master Xia looked at Feng Zhengming again: "You are a really good master."

Feng Zhengming: "Thank you Master Xia for your praise. I have also made some attempts. I hope Master Xia will not blame me for changing your Confucius Mansion cuisine."

Master Xia laughed: "Hahaha, how could I blame you? You did a very good job on this."

In everyone's opinion, Feng Zhengming's reform is indeed very good.

In the past, the dough wrapping the mandarin fish in this dish was usually very ordinary dough, which would probably be thrown away after baking.

But Feng Zhengming’s is different. He uses Western-style puff pastry, and it’s puff pastry.

After baking, the puff pastry expands, making the whole fish more three-dimensional.

And everyone can see that the crispy crust on the outside is edible.

Feng Zhengming gently pushed Xia Hui and asked her to cut the dish for everyone.

Xia Hui walked forward and gently cut the puff pastry with a small knife.

The snapping sound when cutting was really very pleasant to everyone.

When the puff pastry was opened, steam immediately came out from inside, releasing the delicious flavor of the fish.

After Xia Hui cut the puff pastry, she then cut the fish belly inside.

Everyone immediately saw what was inside the fish's belly.

Xia Mingye, who was sitting at the same table with his parents, couldn't help but exclaimed: "Isn't this how to cook yellow croaker in soup?"

Feng Zhengming: "Yes, I combined the method of stuffing yellow croaker with soup. Without opening the belly, I asked Xia Hui to remove the fish spine and then stuffed the fried stuffing into the fish belly."

Master Xia smiled and said, "No wonder it's roasted mandarin fish with eight delicacies in a flower basket."

As the food was cut table by table, everyone could smell the rich aroma.

The freshness and fragrance of the mandarin fish mixed with the aroma of the stuffing really makes people look forward to this dish.

Xia Hui cut the food from each table one by one. After everything was cut, she smiled and invited everyone to taste it.

"Please enjoy the roasted mandarin fish in the Confucius Mansion's eight-treasure flower basket."

Master Yan immediately applauded: "Good."

After Master Yan shouted "good", everyone present applauded and cheered for Xia Hui.

Everyone sincerely applauded the master and disciple pair Feng Zhengming and Xia Hui.

Everyone can see that Feng Zhengming is indeed very satisfied with his disciple Xia Hui.

Moreover, Xia Hui did not embarrass her master and really put a lot of effort into making the dish.

This is the Confucius Mansion Eight Treasures Roasted Mandarin Fish in Flower Basket.

It not only retains the characteristics of Confucius Mansion cuisine, but also develops it on the basis of Confucius Mansion cuisine, making this dish more in line with some modern characteristics.

Under Feng Zhengming's guidance, Xia Hui truly improved and developed the traditional Confucius Mansion cuisine.

When everyone tasted this dish, they found that the taste was indeed richer after being improved.

Especially at the end, Feng Zhengming also poured some steamed fish soy sauce on it.

This makes the taste of this dish even more elevated.

Today's banquet to recruit disciples allowed everyone to once again appreciate Feng Zhengming's amazing cooking skills.

He always manages to come up with something new for traditional dishes.

The key is that his innovations retain the flavor that traditional dishes should have.

This is something that many chefs find difficult to do.

This just shows Feng Zhengming's absolute mastery of traditional craftsmanship techniques.

Only by truly mastering traditional techniques can we keep the traditional roots in innovation. Master Xia raised his glass to Master Yan: "Congratulations on having a great apprentice."

Master Yan raised his glass with a smile: "Congratulations on having a great granddaughter who is about to become a chef."

The two masters smiled at each other, clinked their glasses together, and drank the wine happily.

This Feng Zhengming's disciple-taking ceremony also allowed many people to see some of the harsh conditions for becoming Feng Zhengming's disciple.

Xia Hui has followed Feng Zhengming for many years, starting from his first dry rice shop.

Now he has mastered his own skills, so he can become Feng Zhengming's apprentice.

Of course, everyone knows that Xia Hui’s growth to where she is today over the years is inseparable from Feng Zhengming’s training.

Seeing this, everyone began to look forward to the five apprentices.

They started as apprentices following Feng Zhengming, and their future growth may be the same as Xia Hui's.

Of course, the training method is the same for Feng Zhengming, but whether they can grow up and officially become Feng Zhengming's apprentice depends on the efforts of each apprentice.

Feng Zhengming's way of training apprentices seems to be really good in the eyes of some other masters.

After Feng Zhengming sat down, Kong Xingli took the initiative to hold the wine glass and walked over to Feng Zhengming and had a drink with him.

"Congratulations, Junior Brother Feng, for receiving a talented disciple."

Feng Zhengming stood up and clinked glasses with Kong Xingli: "Thank you, Senior Brother Kong, for coming back to congratulate me."

Kong Xingli: "It's my duty to come back. After all, I am in Shanghai thanks to your help."

Feng Zhengming: "Hahaha, that's because you have good skills, Senior Brother Kong. I am just the icing on the cake."

Kong Xingli: "To be honest, I didn't know until I went to Shanghai that I really couldn't say that my craftsmanship was good. The competition in Shanghai is really fierce."

After a brief pause, Kong Xingli and Feng Zhengming clinked their glasses again and drank the wine in their glasses.

"If it weren't for your help, Zhengming, it wouldn't have been so easy for me to run the restaurant in Shanghai."

Kong Xingli was very self-aware and knew that he would not have achieved his current success in Shanghai relying solely on his own abilities.

This is not a question of whether the skills are good or not, but whether the skills can be used well.

You have skills, but Shanghai has never lacked skilled chefs.

Whether they are local chefs in Shanghai or those chefs who have gathered in Shanghai from all over the country, their cooking skills are really good.

It was only after Kong Xingli went there that he realized that there was almost no gap between him and others in terms of craftsmanship.

Although everyone learns different things and they belong to different local cuisines.

But when we arrived in Shanghai, everyone had to compete with each other.

At this time, publicity beyond craftsmanship becomes even more important.

And precisely because of Feng Zhengming's presence in this regard, Kong Xingli doesn't have to spend much time on publicity.

Even the investors who invested in Kong Xingli did not expect that with the help of Feng Zhengming's influence in Shanghai, Kong Xingli's restaurant could gain a foothold in Shanghai so quickly.

Kong Xingli is a grateful man, and he is aware of Feng Zhengming's help to his restaurant.

So this time, even if the restaurant might close down because of his departure, he had to rush back to Quancheng to congratulate them.

At this time, chefs from Beijing and other places who came to congratulate also gathered around.

Everyone congratulated Feng Zhengming and was very happy that he had successfully accepted a disciple.

"Feng Zhuangyuan, you can now be considered a true master chef."

"Yes, Feng Zhuangyuan has accepted a disciple, which means he is the master master."

"Master Feng Zhuangyuan seems to be more powerful than us?"

"Hahaha, that person is indeed better than us."

"When Feng Zhuangyuan is free, please come over to our place and give us some pointers."

"Yes, yes, go to our place and give us some pointers as well."

Feng Zhengming certainly knew the thoughts of the chefs from all over the country who had good connections, including several in Beijing, who came to congratulate him.

We have all seen the impact of the Qilu and Shanghai recommended guides in recent years.

More and more people are paying attention to recommended guidelines every year.

According to the annual recommended guide, go to various places in Qilu and Shanghai to eat at those restaurants and hotels.

No one expected that the recommended guidelines would have such an effect.

This time, everyone came together to congratulate Feng Zhengming for accepting a disciple. Another purpose was to hope that Feng Zhengming could go to their various places and make a recommendation guide for each place.

You can also help recommend good restaurants and hotels in various places.

This will bring some publicity to good restaurants and hotels everywhere, and help their business become better.

Knowing some of everyone's needs, Feng Zhengming clinked glasses with everyone and took the opportunity to explain some issues.

“I know everyone wants me to go to different places and make a recommended guide for your local area based on the characteristics of different regions and cuisines.

But I want to apologize to everyone now, I really don’t have that much energy to do it right now.

And this cannot be done by me alone, it requires everyone to work together and jointly maintain the standards of our recommended guidelines.”

Master Hou agreed: "Zhengming is right. The key is to be fair and just."

Huaiyang cuisine chef Zhang Quande: "Fairness and justice are indeed the key, and it is really difficult to guarantee."

Master chefs from other places also nodded in agreement.

Standards can be easily established, but how can they be maintained? How can the fairness of the review be ensured?
There are still many problems behind this that need to be solved.

This is not simply about setting a standard. Led by the top scholar Feng Zhengming, and by bringing together master chefs and chefs from various cuisines, fairness and justice can be guaranteed.

Just like Qi Lu’s restaurant recommendation guide this time, if Feng Zhengming and the masters hadn’t stood firmly on a neutral stance behind the scenes, it would have been a big success.

Feng Zhengming also secretly sent out a review team with hidden identities in advance.

It may be impossible to guarantee that the review process across the province will be absolutely fair and just.

If the recommended guidelines are extended to other parts of the country.

This fairness and justice is obviously even more impossible to guarantee.

The key point is that it is impossible for Feng Zhengming to supervise in all parts of the country at the same time.

As long as one reviewer shows selfishness, the other reviewers may also develop selfishness.

If there is selfishness, the fairness and impartiality of the evaluation results cannot be guaranteed.

Feng Zhengming looked at the crowd and said: "If we cannot guarantee the fairness and impartiality of the review, then there is no need to publish the recommendation guidelines at all."

After hearing Feng Zhengming's words, both Master Hou and others in Beijing, as well as the chefs from various local cuisines, fell into deep thought.

It is indeed somewhat difficult to implement the recommended guidelines across the country.

However, Feng Zhengming also gave everyone a suggestion.

“How about this, if you really want to try, we can start with small restaurants and food stalls. This way, no one will feel any pressure, and we won’t have to deal with favors between friends and fellow apprentices.

The criterion for judging small street restaurants and night market food stalls is whether the food is delicious. If local customers give their opinions as the standard, everyone should be convinced.”

After hearing what Feng Zhengming said, everyone present pondered it carefully and agreed that it was worth a try. (End of this chapter)