The first thing I did was to find out

Chapter 279 Broth
The car Qin Huai and Qin Luo were riding in was from a warm-hearted brother from the next village whom Qin Huai didn't know. The brother lived in the city and ran a rice noodle roll shop.

Originally, the eldest brother was going to go back to the city to do business on the fifth and sixth day of the New Year, but because the Qin family was giving away four-happiness dumplings and the next village was so close, so close that it was only an 8-minute walk away without driving, the eldest brother had to spend the New Year in the village to eat the four-happiness dumplings, and only then could he get the qualification to drive Qin Huai and Qin Luo to the city on the morning of the sixteenth.

The competition is very fierce.

I don’t know what happened in the morning, but many people from Qinjia Village and several nearby villages had to drive to the city for unknown reasons.

"Master Qin, you can just drop it off here, right?" The older brother parked the car in front of a well-known tea shop in the city.

"Yes, thank you Brother Liu. Let's add each other on WeChat. I'll let you know next time I go back to the village. Come to my house for snacks when you're free." Qin Huai said with a smile, exchanged WeChat with Brother Liu, and led Luo Luo into the tea shop.

Qin Luo didn't understand the situation and asked stupidly: "Brother, it turns out that Grandma Cao's family runs a tea shop."

"What kind of tea shop is this? We can't come here empty-handed when we eat. We have to bring something."

"Why don't you bring any fruit? There are still plenty of fruits at home, and grandpa and grandma can't finish them all." Qin Luo asked again.

"It's not sincere to buy too much fruit. If you go to the home of a master like Master Cao for a meal, you have to bring tea." After saying that, Qin Huai started looking around the store.

There was a middle-aged woman sitting behind the counter. When she saw Qin Huai and Qin Luo, two young people, come in, she didn't even raise her eyelids and continued playing with her mobile phone.

Qin Huai took a look around and found that although he had drunk a lot of tea in Huang’s kitchen, he didn’t understand tea at all and couldn’t understand how to read tea leaves.

What he knows best is actually hand-made lemon tea.

Professional matters should be left to professionals. Qin Huai made a video call to Tan Weian without any hesitation.

The video call was answered almost instantly. At that moment, Tan Weian was walking to work at Zhiweiju. When he saw Qin Huai asking for help, he asked about his general needs, picked out two cans of tea for Qin Huai remotely, and also helped Qin Huai bargain for a lower price.

Finally, he told Qin Huai that if he wanted to buy tea, he could contact him. He had a lot of resources, ranging from a few yuan per tael to tens of thousands of yuan per tael, and even auction-level tea. The supply was abundant and guaranteed.

Qin Huai was overjoyed, and said that next time he had such a need, he would contact Tan Weian as soon as possible, and by the way, asked Tan Weian to buy him two boxes of tea that the people in Zhiweiju often made for him when he was at Huang Ji.

Very necessary.

Every sip of tea I drank during the Chinese New Year at Qinhuai didn’t taste the same, it always felt weird.

After buying the tea, Qin Huai took Qin Luo to take a taxi to the community where Cao Guixiang lived.

Cao Guixiang lives in an old neighborhood. There is no shopping mall nearby and the location is not very prosperous, but it is a school district house, which makes it convenient for children to go to school. There are parks and vegetable markets, and you can feel the atmosphere of life just by being close to it.

The gate of the community basically does not check, the door for pedestrians is just open, and the security guard sits in the security booth playing with his mobile phone. The leisurely work is really enviable.

Qin Huai found Cao Guixiang's house according to the address. The door of the unit was also open. It was unknown whether it was left open on purpose during the day or it was simply broken. Qin Huai and Qin Luo walked to the door of Cao Guixiang's house, and Qin Huai raised his hand to knock on the door.

Before knocking on the door, Qin Huai asked Qin Luo: "Luoluo, do you know what you are going to do when you enter the door later?"

"I know. Say hello to Grandma Cao first, then Grandpa Zhang. The voice you say hello to Grandma Cao must be louder than that to Grandpa Zhang to show your importance and respect for Grandma Cao."

Qin Huai nodded with satisfaction and knocked on the door.

The person who opened the door was Zhang Chu.

"Xiao Qin is here. This is Luoluo, right? I remember the girl who quarreled with Zhang Zhiyun on the sixth day of the New Year. Zhang Zhiyun hasn't finished school yet, so his father went to the school to pick him up. Yunyun was so happy to hear that you were coming. He has been pestering his grandmother since yesterday, and insisted that her cook some of her signature dishes." Zhang Chu said with a smile.

"Hello, Grandpa Zhang." Qin Luochao greeted loudly and politely. It would have been more polite if she had a smile on her face instead of a confused and excited expression, but it was not entirely her fault.

It smells so good!

From the moment Qin Huai and Qin Luo entered the door, a wonderful, indescribable, soul-stirring, intoxicating fragrance penetrated their noses and hit their brains.

Not to mention Qin Luo, even Qin Huai found it difficult to describe the fragrance.

This is a smell I have never smelled before, but it is obviously the aroma of vegetables. Qinhuai feels that it smells a bit like the aroma of broth, a very mellow aroma of chicken broth and pork broth.

Qinhuai had cooked the broth before, and he had also smelled a lot of the aroma of the broth when he was in Huang's kitchen.

Not so rich.

Qin Huai and Qin Luo swallowed unconsciously almost at the same time.

After taking several deep breaths, Qin Huai came back to his senses and began to look at the decoration of Cao Guixiang's house.

The decoration is very simple and homely. Almost all the furniture in the house is wooden. The leather sofa looks quite old and the leather is a bit faded. The TV is not big and looks like it was bought many years ago. It is playing the news.

There were a few dolls on the sofa that were obviously taken from a claw machine. There were a few winter vacation homeworks of elementary school students hidden under the coffee table that had been there for who knows how many years. There were some CDs and discs on the TV cabinet.

There is a large family photo hanging on the wall. Judging from Zhang Zhiyun's age in the photo, it should have been taken three or four years ago. Zhang Zhiyun and Cao Guixiang's granddaughter Chang Qingqing stand in the center. The two children are smiling so happily that their teeth are almost showing. They look silly.

Qin Huai offered the tea, and Zhang Chu accepted it without even looking at it. He asked Qin Huai and Qin Luo to sit on the sofa for a while while he went to make tea.

Before the paper cups were taken out, Cao Guixiang's voice came from the kitchen: "Is that Xiao Qin? Xiao Qin, are you free to come to the kitchen and help me?"

"Yes!" Qin Huai said hurriedly, standing up and pushing the door into the kitchen.

As soon as he entered the kitchen, Qin Huai was shocked again.

The kitchen smells better.

But the fragrance is not the point, the food is.

Cao Guixiang's kitchen is slightly larger than that of ordinary people's kitchens, but it is only slightly larger, not as exaggerated as Zheng Da's kitchen.

In the limited space, Cao Guixiang made the best use of the kitchen.

There are three stoves in the kitchen, and there are three pots on the three stoves, and there is food in each pot.

On the kitchen counter, all the processed ingredients are neatly placed in small bowls. The seasonings are placed on a special seasoning rack, the knives are neatly arranged on the knife rack, the plates are placed on the storage rack, and the unprocessed vegetables are placed on the vegetable rack.

Just by looking at the kitchen, you can tell that the person responsible for cooking in this family must be a professional chef.

Cao Guixiang was pounding garlic. When she saw Qin Huai coming in, she motioned for him to close the kitchen door.

"Xiao Qin, I have to cook a lot of dishes today, and I can't handle three pots by myself. So just help me pass things when I ask you to." Cao Guixiang wore sleeves, her hair was tied up, and she wore a red apron. At first glance, she looked like an ordinary housewife.

If Qin Huai hadn't seen the still warm broth on the kitchen counter, Cao Guixiang would have been more ordinary.

Qin Huai couldn't take his eyes away. He wished he could rush over to taste the saltiness.

To be honest, he really wanted to borrow two bowls of chicken broth from Cao Guixiang to cook longevity noodles and try to see if he could make the noodles A-grade.

Cao Guixiang noticed that Qin Huai had been staring at the soup and asked, "Xiao Qin, can you hang the soup?"

"Not... well... a little bit." Qin Huai didn't know how to describe his soup-hanging skills.

It's not possible. Qin Huai actually did it before. When Huang Shengli was still giving him online lessons through video, Qin Huai did it every day.

But if you say so, compared with the broth that Qin Huai makes himself and the broth in the kitchen today... that thing may not be called broth, it's just soup.

Cao Guixiang smiled to show that she understood.

"The old branch secretary should have told you about me and your Grandpa Zhang, right?" Cao Guixiang lifted the lid of the second pot, leaned over to smell it and closed it again, then turned off the fire for the third pot.

Qin Huai had no idea what dish Cao Guixiang was cooking. He just thought it all looked great and smelled delicious, and he couldn’t see it with just his eyes.

"I did say that you and Grandpa Zhang were both educated youth from Peking. You didn't return to the city back then, so you have stayed with us for so many years. The old branch secretary also told me that you seemed to have worked in a very famous restaurant in Peking, called Yong... Yong..."

"Yongheju." Cao Guixiang said, picking up a spoon and scooping a small half spoonful from the stew pot of broth, and handed the spoon to Qin Huai, "Try it, this is chicken broth."

Qin Huai was flattered and took the spoon, taking a sip carefully.

fresh!
So fresh!
Old hens of Qinjia Village, I'm sorry, your deaths this year have been in vain because I cooked you into such ordinary chicken soup.

"Can you taste what I added to the soup?" asked Cao Guixiang.

Qin Huai took another light sip. He had made chicken broth before, and had seen Huang Shengli and Huang Jia make chicken broth. He knew exactly what ingredients should be added to a normal chicken broth.

Since Cao Guixiang asked this, there must be some unusual ingredients in this broth.

"Scallops, ham, mushrooms, pork bones..."

Qin Huai mentioned a few that you could taste and guess without tasting, but he was not very sure so he took a small sip, then another small sip.

Finished.

Just half a spoonful in total.

Qin Huai was so nervous that he was sweating a little.

"It seems there are... pigeons?"

"What else?" Cao Guixiang asked.

Seeing that he was right, Qin Huai became more confident: "There should be longan meat, but I don't know what the soup will taste like when cooked with longan meat. This is just my guess. I heard from Master Huang that some chicken soups need to be added with longan meat."

"Why did you guess longan pulp?"

"Because I've had a lot of Mr. Huang's chicken broth, and the taste is a little different from yours. Yours is obviously richer and more mellow. It must be because of the extra ingredients, so I guess it's the longan pulp."

Cao Guixiang smiled and nodded: "Yes, it's about the same. Xiao Qin, although your knife skills and fire skills are not very good, and your basic knowledge is not broad enough, but you are very smart."

Qin Huai thought that Cao Guixiang was praising himself, and that whatever Master Cao said was praising himself.

"My master is the descendant of Tan's cuisine." Cao Guixiang suddenly began to introduce herself. "Many of the great dishes of Tan's cuisine are made with broth, so the first thing you have to learn to cook Tan's cuisine is making the broth."

"Practicing hanging soup is actually practicing fire skills."

"If I want to cook a dish well, it's not enough to just have a good pot of soup. Knife skills are also very important. Knife skills are not just about chopping vegetables into small pieces or chopping them nicely, or chopping them into shredded meat, minced meat, or slicing them."

“Knife skills actually make the ingredients more suitable for the dish, allowing the ingredients to absorb better and be fully cooked.”

"So knife skills are the basic skills. Every chef starts by practicing knife skills. You have to learn how to cut vegetables before you can learn how to cook."

"Both white and red chefs need to practice knife skills. The process of practicing knife skills is the process of understanding the ingredients. Knowing yourself and the enemy will ensure victory in every battle. If a chef does not even know the ingredients well, how can he cook them well?"

Qin Huai nodded with deep feeling. In fact, he had never thought that knife skills were particularly important before, especially when it came to cooking with white meat.

But last time, Cao Guixiang just chopped some meat filling and made the four-happiness glutinous rice balls into A-grade. Qin Huai realized that it was not that knife skills were not important, but that he had never seen important knife skills.

Cao Guixiang went on to say, "You have a good tongue. Even though you haven't received any systematic training, don't have good basic skills, and haven't learned from a famous teacher since childhood, you can still guess the ingredients of the soup with your tongue, experience, and guesswork."

"If you were born forty years earlier and went to Yongheju to eat secretly like I did and were caught by my master, my master would definitely chase you home and accept you as his last disciple."

"If I were 30 years younger, I would definitely shamelessly introduce myself, brag about the history of our Tan family cuisine, and then take you in as my apprentice."

"But you don't need a master now. I, an old lady who has been retired for many years, don't have the time and energy to accept an apprentice."

"But I can at least help you out where I'm best."

"Your knife skills are really bad, just like an apprentice who just entered the kitchen to do odd jobs. The knife skills of the apprentices may be better than yours. In the past, many apprentices in Yongheju also helped cut vegetables at home since they were young."

"Didn't your Master Huang and Master Zheng think of teaching you some knife skills?"

Qin Huai felt that he needed to defend Huang Shengli and Zheng Da: "Maybe it's because I have too much to learn, and Master Huang and Master Zheng haven't had time to teach me knife skills yet."

"I heard that you are now running a community canteen in Shan City. I guess you don't have much time to stay here and practice your basic skills."

"But you are already a mature chef. You don't need to start from scratch like an apprentice."

"Your Master Huang took online classes with you before, right?"

Qin Huai nodded: "Yes, I will take online classes for a while, and then I will go to Gusu to exchange and learn offline teaching."

"Then it may have to be the other way around on my side. You have to study here for a few days before you can take online classes."

"I'll ask my husband Zhang to make you six cutting boards. Once you've cut up all six of them, your knife skills will be ready."

Qin Huai was stunned.

Master Cao was so proactive that Xiao Qin didn't know what to say for a moment. He could only open his mouth in amazement and say:
"what?"

Where Qin Huai couldn't see, Cao Guixiang turned her back and silently cursed herself in annoyance.

"Cao Guixiang, Cao Guixiang, didn't you finish composing the lyrics last night? How come you forgot everything today? What did you say just now?"

"Xiao Qin, don't you think you are an old lady with a mental disorder?"

Cao Guixiang regretted it for two seconds with a grimace in her eyes, and then she came up with a perfect way to remedy the situation.

Cao Guixiang walked to the innermost part and never opened the lid from beginning to end. She was in front of the braised shark's fin that had been simmering over low heat since early this morning and had been simmering for at least 9 hours.

Open the lid.

The fragrance is everywhere.

Cao Guixiang looked at Qin Huai with a smile, and said exactly the same words as when her master wanted to take her as his apprentice and looked at her with a smile.

"Our Tan family dishes are delicious."

"Are you interested in learning it?"

(End of this chapter)