In the 1970s, it started with contracting out communal dining.

"What!" Zhang Tieniu's eyes widened, clearly disbelieving.

He retorted almost immediately, "You didn't even taste it, so why do you say I'm not qualified!"

"Just for this!"

With a serious expression, Chen Wei picked out the shredded potatoes and carrots from the plate of hot and sour shredded vegetables that Zhang Tieniu had cooked and placed them in a large bowl next to him.

Extending my chopsticks, I gently pinched the carrot shreds, but they remained firm, while the potato shreds broke apart one by one.

Zhang Tieniu frowned, not understanding what it meant.

"So what? That's what potatoes and carrots look like when they're cooked!"

"Your shredded potatoes are overcooked, but the carrots aren't cooked through! This means you didn't accurately judge the cooking time of both vegetables and didn't get the timing right when to put them in the pan!"

It was Lin Jun who spoke up to explain.

Chen Wei gave him an approving look. Lin Jun had made great progress recently, which indeed made him very satisfied.

Then, he became serious again and turned to Zhang Tieniu, speaking slowly and deliberately.

"I know you're not convinced, but that's the truth."

"From the moment you started cutting the potatoes into shreds, you'd already lost! Every single step you took was wrong!"

"Wrong? But everyone eats it this way! Nobody ever says I'm wrong!"

Zhang Tieniu's voice suddenly rose, and he became somewhat agitated.

Chen Wei shook his head slightly and continued, "I don't care what your standards were when you were cooking in the army, but here, I require everyone to cook like a real chef, taking it very seriously! Every dish produced in our canteen must meet the standards!"

As he spoke, he pointed to the huge coal-fired stove behind Zhang Tieniu.

"You put the pot on the stove before the fire was hot enough, which made the pot not hot enough, and then you hurriedly added the oil."

"After the pan was heated, the oil temperature had already exceeded the proper range, which is why your shredded potatoes had a slightly burnt taste. It's because the oil temperature burned the outermost layer of the shredded potatoes as soon as they hit the pan. If this step is done wrong, it's pointless no matter how well you cook the rest!"

"this……"

Zhang Tieniu opened his mouth, but was speechless for a moment. If he was still very unconvinced just now, Chen Wei's words immediately calmed his agitated emotions.

Like a grenade about to explode, but suddenly doused with cold water, it went silent.

There was nothing he could do; Chef Chen's arguments were so logical and persuasive that he had no way to refute them.

"That's not all! Your shredded potatoes were already a bit burnt, but you didn't fix it. You added the shredded carrots a little too late. You must have noticed that while you were cooking, the shredded potatoes were fully cooked, but the shredded carrots and seaweed weren't! That's why you simmered it for a few extra seconds when you were reducing the sauce. Am I right?"

"...No...that's right..."

Zhang Tieniu stammered, clearly unwilling to admit it, but the facts were right in front of him: Chen Wei was absolutely right.

Zhang Tieniu had just noticed that the shredded carrots in the pot weren't fully cooked, so he simmered them for a little longer. But this was no big deal in the army!

He didn't notice any significant impact on the taste of the final product!

He added all the necessary ingredients—sweet and sour shredded vegetables, soy sauce, salt, and MSG—to this dish, without missing a single one. Isn't Chef Chen being a bit too strict?

"And your kelp strips! You should have soaked them and then drained them beforehand, but you skipped that step because you thought it was too much trouble. As a result, when you put the kelp strips into the pot, they brought in a lot of moisture. Look at your sauce!"

As he said this, Chen Wei casually picked up his chopsticks and scooped up a pinch of sauce from the bottom of the plate.

The sauce was so thin and watery that it was impossible to pick up; only a little bit stuck to the tip of the chopsticks.

"For the dish 'Hot and Sour Shredded Potatoes,' the shredded potatoes themselves contain a lot of starch, so when the dish is finished, the sauce should be able to cling to the tips of chopsticks to be considered acceptable. Take another look at yours."

After saying this, Chen Wei threw his chopsticks onto the stove. He had explained the reasoning clearly, and as for what Zhang Tieniu thought, that was none of his business.

Now, it's time for him to prepare lunch for everyone.

Just as Chen Wei turned around, Zhang Tieniu uttered a sentence in a deep voice, which immediately made Chen Wei's nerves tense up.

"Chef Chen, I agree with what you're saying. But we're cooking for a large group, serving one or two hundred people at a time. Do you really need to be so strict? I just don't believe you can perfectly cook one or two hundred servings of hot and sour shredded vegetables, meeting all the standards you mentioned earlier."

"Oh!"

Before Chen Wei could speak, Wu Xiaochun and Lin Jun, who were standing to the side, almost simultaneously let out a cold laugh.

"Zhang Tieniu, you're just making a fuss over nothing, fine. If you're bad at it, practice more. You're like a frog in a well, thinking others can't do it!"

Chen Wei did not stop Wu Xiaochun from making those sarcastic remarks.

Zhang Tieniu really needs to be taught a lesson.

He turned around with a serious expression and looked at Zhang Tieniu, speaking calmly.

"Being a chef is not just a profession, but an art, and a belief!"

"Whether you're cooking for one person, 100 people, or 1000 people, every dish you produce represents your dignity, your skill, your conscience, and your professional ethics! We may be just a small steel mill, but as long as this responsibility of cooking falls on my shoulders, I have an obligation to ensure that every dish I produce meets the highest standards."

Chen Wei rarely said such things. He felt that everyone had their own standards for these things, and there was no need to force it. He would just think about it in his heart and let it go.

But what Zhang Tieniu said today really angered Chen Wei.

If Zhang Tieniu's erroneous understanding is not corrected in time, then this employee will not need to be retained in the future.

With this kind of complacent attitude, he'd probably be worse off staying in the kitchen than Wu Xiaochun!

After saying this, Chen Wei turned and left, ignoring Zhang Tieniu completely.

But Zhang Tieniu on the other end was struck dumb, his face turning from red to white, and then from white to green.

No one had ever said such a thing to him. Back in the days in the mess hall, everyone would eat whatever was cooked.

So, throughout all the years he's mastered the art of cooking, no one has ever told him what the ethical standards of a chef should be.

"So every dish produced has to meet the highest standards...?"

Zhang Tieniu muttered to himself, savoring Chen Wei's two sentences twice before falling into a long silence.

He admitted that Chen Wei was right, but there was one thing Zhang Tieniu really didn't understand.

The chef in front of him looked younger than him. He didn't believe that this guy could cook for hundreds of people every day without making a single mistake.

Can he guarantee that every dish he cooks will be exactly the same?