The first thing I did was to find out

Chapter 343 Yellow croaker in soup
After quickly finishing the four-happiness dumplings, Apprentice Xiao Qin came to his loyal kitchen.

The kitchen was full of washed radishes, box after box with almost no space to put them. Cao Guixiang didn't even go into the kitchen, but stood at the kitchen door and looked.

"Once these radishes in the kitchen are cut and consolidated, we can cut the yams in the storage room." Cao Guixiang said.

Qin Huai understood that today was the day to cut vegetables and improve his knife skills.

I did the cutting in my dream last night, and after waking up I went straight into the kitchen to do it seamlessly, and the effect was better.

Without a moment's hesitation, Qin Huai picked up the kitchen knife and quickly cut the radish into shreds.

The speed was similar to that of cutting radishes last night. The knife fell quickly, accurately and ruthlessly, without any hesitation. The movements were clean and neat, and the knife made regular and rhythmic sounds on the chopping board.

The only difference was that this time Qin Huai was cutting the radish consciously. It was not like last night when he felt that his soul had reached a higher level. His body was cutting radishes, but his soul was in a wonderful state of cultivation in the sky.

Cao Guixiang moved a small chair and sat at the kitchen door, watching quietly, while Zhang Chu, who was very experienced, sat comfortably on the sofa and played with his mobile phone.

Of course, the phone is on silent mode.

The whole room was very quiet, with only the sound of cutting vegetables. The sunlight shone through the window onto the furniture on the floor, as well as onto Cao Guixiang's hair, making her face half bright and half dark.

Qin Huai was standing in the kitchen facing the window. The sunlight was all shining on him, making the shredded radish on the chopping board look particularly bright.

"Xiao Qin, don't cut the radish into shreds. Try cutting it into slices. The thinner the better." Cao Guixiang said.

"Okay." Qin Huai nodded and changed the knife.

Qin Huai knows how to cut radish slices. It is not difficult to cut radish slices, it is just the difference between shredding and slicing. Qin Huai used to cut only radish shreds, not radish slices, because he was not skilled enough. The slices he cut were not thin enough, not to mention as thin as a cicada's wing. If he wanted to let light in, he could only shine a flashlight through the slices.

Cutting into strips is relatively simpler and the requirements are not so high. As long as the thickness is the same, it is considered qualified. It is more suitable for practice.

Qin Huai started cutting radish slices.

The first knife.

A bit thick.

It was much thinner than the radish slices he had cut before, but Qin Huai knew very well that he could cut it thinner and more evenly than this one.

Without any hesitation, Qin Huai seamlessly connected the second knife.

It was a little thinner than the previous one, but still not the best he could do.

The third knife.

When I was cutting, the blade was a little off, it was a mistake.

The fourth knife.

This cut was a good one, with the radish slices being thinner and more even than before, but it could be better.

The fifth knife, the sixth knife...

Qin Huai cut quickly one after another, and no matter what went wrong, he continued cutting until he found the feel for it.

Finally, when a radish was about to be cut, Qin Huai cut out a piece of radish that he thought was the most beautiful piece of radish he could cut in his current condition.

Qin Huai put down the knife, picked up the slice of radish, and observed it carefully for a few seconds. He turned his head and glanced at Cao Guixiang, who was just looking at him without saying anything, smiling, without turning her head and holding the slice of radish up to the sunlight coming in through the window.

The sunlight shines on the radish slices, allowing the light to penetrate, but not completely.

Semi-transparent.

This is not a crystal clear slice of radish, but it is definitely the most beautiful slice of radish Qin Huai has ever cut since he practiced knife skills.

At least when Qin Huai held up this piece of radish, his eyes did not turn black, and he did not lament that his knife skills were really terrible. How did he cut these things?

Cao Guixiang smiled with satisfaction: "Do you think now that cutting translucent radish slices is not a very far-fetched thing?"

Qin Huai nodded embarrassedly.

"With your current level, if you practice for another 10 days, you will be able to cut the radish slices you want, as thin as a cicada's wing and translucent."

Qin Huai:......

Such familiar words, I seem to have heard them somewhere.

No, I think I said it somewhere.

Qin Huai opened his eyes wide in horror and looked at Cao Guixiang in disbelief, with a look on his face that said, "If all this is true, then I would rather die. Can you please cut me as well while cutting the radishes today?"

"I wouldn't..." Qin Huai didn't dare to face this terrible fact.

Cao Guixiang pursed her lips and gave Qin Huai a meaningful look. The corners of her mouth moved and she made a strange expression. Finally, she couldn't help laughing out loud: "Your Grandpa Zhang and I are really curious about you. What did you dream about this morning?"

"How could you talk in your sleep so loudly? We could hear it through the door."

Qin Huai:......

= ()
Tired, destroy yourself, someone come and cut yourself into radish slices.

He said that when he woke up, he could still hear the shouting, and it turned out that there was really a voice echoing in his ears.

"Okay, I won't bother you anymore. Continue cutting radishes. Remember to slice them quickly, otherwise we won't be able to have dinner on time tonight." Cao Guixiang said with a smile.

Qin Huai hurriedly continued cutting radishes.

This is crucial and must not be taken lightly. If the cutting is slow and Cao Guixiang’s cooking is affected, delaying the meal, Qin Huai will really be a sinner.

200 kilograms of radishes is not too much, but not too little either. At Qin Huai's previous speed, it would take almost an afternoon to cut 200 kilograms of radishes.

However, after his knife skills improved from beginner to intermediate level, Qin Huai's speed in cutting radishes became much faster. Cao Guixiang did not deliberately chat with Qin Huai to disturb him and distract him, so he became more efficient.

In the end, Qin Huai successfully cut all the radishes before 4 pm and left the kitchen to Cao Guixiang to cook.

Qin Huai watched from the side and took a rest at the same time.

Cao Guixiang was very considerate and prepared a hot towel to prevent Qin Huai's wrists and arms from being overwhelmed by the heavy cutting of vegetables for two consecutive days. Cao Guixiang was going to cook a big dinner in the evening.

Qin Huai had eaten most of the dishes before, such as steamed chicken with straw mushrooms, braised shark's fin, braised duck liver, two-color prawns, Tanfu beef, pork with preserved vegetables, and bamboo shoots in golden soup. Most of the ingredients for these dishes were prepared in advance. If it weren't for the arrival of Luzon yellow later than expected, Qin Huai would have been able to enjoy this feast last night. Many dishes had all the preparations done two days before.

There was only one dish that was freshly made starting with the main ingredients, and it was the only dish Qin Huai had never eaten.

Yellow croaker in soup.

Considering that Qin Huai definitely didn't know what stuffed yellow croaker soup was, Cao Guixiang gave a brief introduction to the dish while cooking, just like Huang Anyao.

To introduce the stuffed yellow croaker in soup in one sentence: This is a famous dish in the Manchu-Han Banquet, and it is also a standard Shandong cuisine dish.

Since it involves the Manchu-Han Banquet, the ingredients must be very luxurious. Cao Guixiang has told Qin Huai more than once that many famous dishes and delicious dishes may not be very difficult to make, but the processing of the ingredients must be very complicated and luxurious.

Cao Guixiang knows many top-notch dishes, but she rarely cooks them on weekdays. She only cooks them for her grandson and granddaughter as rewards during festivals or when Zhang Zhiyun and Chang Qingqing do particularly well in exams.

Cao Guixiang had to admit that these famous dishes must taste good and have a high upper limit. She was not unwilling to cook for her family because of the cost, but mainly because of the trouble. For example, it takes several days in advance to make the soup for these dishes.

If the family can eat these delicious dishes every day, the children will not be satisfied, then Zhang Zhiyun and Chang Qingqing will not study hard in order to eat something good. When they really want to reward the children, they will not be able to come up with suitable rewards.

Cao Guixiang, an expert in raising children, has her own unique way of raising children.

Qin Huai agreed with Cao Guixiang's idea. Although he didn't have any children, he had a sister. Qin Huai had also been following this policy with Qin Luo over the years. Delicious snacks couldn't be eaten every day. The quantity and quality must be controlled.

With Qin Luo's personality, if she eats too much good things for too long, it will be too easy for her to get them and become picky about food, so it is difficult for her to work hard to get some snacks.

Qin Huai watched Cao Guixiang use chopsticks to remove the internal organs of the yellow croaker.

The soup-stuffed yellow croaker needs to be more than two and a half kilograms of yellow croaker. In theory, the bigger the yellow croaker, the better. The main ingredient is yellow croaker, and the ingredients are shark fin, ham, sea cucumber, abalone, shrimp, scallops, and sea rice. This is a fully-equipped soup-stuffed yellow croaker. If you want to make a low-end version, just pick a few of the ingredients. In order to let Qinhuai eat the best at one time, Cao Guixiang used all the shark fins from Luzon yellow croaker.

It can be seen from the ingredients that the main feature of the yellow croaker in soup is freshness, pure freshness, and seafood freshness.

After removing the internal organs, the whole fish should be deboned.

When Qin Huai was at Huang Ji, Huang Shengli’s dishes were basically boneless. Whether it was braised silver carp head, roasted pig head or three-piece duck, it was a test of the chef’s boneless skills, or in other words, his knife skills.

At that time, Huang Shengli would not avoid Qin Huai when cooking. Of course, there was no need to avoid him because Qin Huai really couldn't understand him at that time.

At that time, Qin Huai's sword skills were only at the beginner level because the lowest rating in the game system was beginner level.

Now Qin Huai's swordsmanship has been greatly improved, and after a wonderful epiphany, he has been promoted to the intermediate level. So can Qin Huai understand Cao Guixiang's bone-removing technique?
The answer is that I don’t quite understand it.

For apprentice Xiao Qin, who is still trying hard to cut radish slices as thin as cicada wings and translucent, it is a bit too difficult to understand how Cao Guixiang removes the bones of the whole yellow croaker.

Cao Guixiang did not use any cool moves like thickening the sauce. Qin Huai felt that Cao Guixiang just used a small knife to reach into the fish's belly from the fish's mouth, turned it a few times, stood the fish up and bent it a few times. After hearing two clicks, the deboning was completed.

Simple and unpretentious, but like magic.

Seeing Qin Huai's face full of questions, Cao Guixiang couldn't help but explain with a smile: "These bone removals are no longer considered knife skills, but techniques."

"The methods and techniques for deboning fish, whole chicken, whole duck, and pigeon are all different and require practice. The chef needs to be careful enough to be gentle when necessary and heavy when necessary, and decisive when necessary. There must be no procrastination or hesitation."

"Of course, you can't practice these techniques with your current sword skills. If you want to practice these techniques, you need to have a certain foundation in sword skills. Your current sword skills can only be considered entry-level at best, and have not reached the required threshold."

Qin Huai:......

Intermediate knife skills are just the beginning, and they are worthy of being the most basic of the basic skills. He should just focus on cutting his radishes.

After processing the yellow croaker, Cao Guixiang simply pickled it. Qin Huai asked casually: "Master, how long does it take to pickle this fish?"

"It won't be long, just two hours." said Cao Guixiang.

Qin Huai: "? Aren't we going to have dinner at 6:30 today?"

Qin Huai remembered that Cao Guixiang had said that dinner would be served at 6:30 p.m. If it was too early, Zhang Zhiyun and Chang Qingqing would not be able to catch up because they were still in school. If it was too late, the two growing children would be so hungry that they would have to gnaw at the kitchen door.

"Yes, but the yellow croaker for soup needs to be marinated for two hours. Two hours is already very short. After marinating, it needs to be air-dried for 12 hours." Cao Guixiang said.

"Ah?" Qin Huai was confused.

Seeing Qin Huai's expression, Cao Guixiang couldn't help laughing again: "Okay, I won't tease you anymore. This is the yellow croaker soup we're going to eat tomorrow. I prepared the yellow croaker for today yesterday."

"Hong'an dishes are like this. The more famous and expensive they are, the more troublesome they are to make. Otherwise, I wouldn't be unwilling to make them. It's better to just cook some braised pork and stir-fry some vegetables with rice than to spend more than ten hours making such a dish."

"Of course I am happy to eat like this every day. If I do this every day, then why did I retire in the first place? I might as well go back to being a chef in a restaurant. If I work for two more years, maybe the restaurant will be mine."

Qin Huai discovered that Cao Guixiang really liked teasing children, and that his dear master had always been teasing him as if he were a child.

"But Master, I feel that every time I stay at your house, the food is delicious." Qin Huai whispered, "They are all delicious dishes. There are many ingredients that Grandpa Zhang has to go to the supplier to order."

"Of course, Xiao Qin, you must have eaten well when you were at home. Do you know how much Yunyun and Qingqing like you? During the time you were away, Yunyun and Qingqing asked me more than once: When will Brother Qin Huai come back? Will Brother Qin Huai come back to learn how to cut vegetables? Will Brother Qin Huai make buns, steamed buns and glutinous rice balls when he comes back to learn how to cut vegetables next time?"

"Those two little greedy guys finally found their chance. They haven't studied hard this semester, their test scores aren't good, and they can't eat good food. They've been counting on you to come back every day."

"Don't let anything slip at the dinner table today. I only cooked this one meal."

"Of course!" Qin Huai said he was the best at lying to children.

"But..." Qin Huai wanted to ask, taking off the hot towel on his wrist, "Master, why do you cook so many dishes?"

“It looks like real trouble.”

"Because I'm the master." Cao Guixiang said with a smile, "It's a common practice for a master to prove his level to his apprentice, show off his muscles, and cook a table of delicious food to trick his apprentice into coming. "

"Not to mention that now that I have succeeded in deceiving you, of course I have to make sure that my apprentice feels that he has not been deceived in vain."

"I am a very conscientious master. You didn't kowtow to me or offer me tea, and I won't give you red envelopes during festivals, but you should at least let your apprentice have a taste of the delicious food."

Cao Guixiang blinked.

"Don't let anything slip in front of Yunyun and Qingqing tonight. These two kids have had loud voices since they were little, and when they cry it's like an alarm clock. It hurts my ears to hear them at my age."

(End of this chapter)