Gourmet Style Beast Taming

Chapter 312: Zongzi

Translator: 549690339 |

“Wow! Such a big sea cucumber!”

Shen Qian carefully picked up the unusually high-quality, dark-brown sea cucumber, her face showing a surprised look, “Did this have to be exchanged with cooking contest points?”

“Correct, one point can redeem two kilograms.” Qin Lang nodded, his face broke into a candid smile, “Consider it a celebration of my attaining the Flame Heart Badge.”

Are these also ingredients needed for braised sea cucumber with scallions?” Zhou Tianhao stroked his chin, pointing at the bundle of long green leaves tied together beside him.

These leaves, each one as wide as a palm and almost the length of a forearm.

“What kind of leaf is this?” Shen Qian, attracted by Zhou Tianhao’s question, also noticed these slightly unusual ingredients.

“These are the leaves of broad-leaved Ruo bamboo. They don’t have much to do with the braised sea cucumber with scallions we’re going to make later. They are ingredients for another delicious dish.” Qin Lang explained with a smile, “You guys have definitely never tasted this dish.”

“Then I’m looking forward to it.” More anticipation appeared on Shen Qian’s face, “What is this dish called?”

“How about we play a guessing game?” Instead of answering directly, Qin Lang pointed at the bundle of Ruo bamboo leaves on the table, “If you guys can guess how it’s used in cooking, I’ll tell you what this dish is called.”

“Playing coy, huh.”

Shen Qian rolled her eyes, staring at the uncommonly seen type of green leaves, and suddenly remembered the Beggar’s Chicken she had tasted before.

Could it be…

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Her eyes lit up, about to speak, but Zhou Tianhao beside her was quicker.

These Ruo bamboo leaves should be used to wrap the ingredients, right? Somewhat like how Beggar’s Chicken is made?” Zhou Tianhao glanced around, “But you didn’t prepare any mud this time?”

“Brother Zhou’s guess is spot on. Indeed, it’s used to wrap the ingredients. But this time, we don’t need mud, just wrapping in Ruo bamboo leaves will do.”

Qin Lang finished cleaning the sea cucumbers and put them in a small pot. He then continued, “This is a staple food, called Zongzi.”

“It’s a staple?” Zhou Tianhao spoke surprisingly and then glanced at the unused rice cooker in the corner, “No wonder you didn’t cook any rice.”

Qin Lang didn’t say a word, just smiled a bit nostalgically.

When he was ordering ingredients, he suddenly realized that according to the time, it should be Dragon Boat Festival on Earth right now. On a whim, he planned to make an extra dish.

A Dragon Boat Festival without Zongzi has no soul.

But let’s deal with the sea cucumber first.

He filled two pots with water. Into one pot of cold water he put scallions and ginger to make scallion ginger water. After the water in the other pot boiled, he put in the sea cucumber to blanch it.

He started another pot of water, adding salt, soy sauce, ginger scallion water, cooking wine, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce and sugar, and added the blanched sea cucumber at the end. After the water boiled, he turned off the heat and covered the pot to simmer.

Shen Qian quietly watched Qin Lang’s smooth movements. As his cooking came to a pause, she finally asked curiously, “Are these steps intended to let the flavor penetrate into the sea cucumber?”

“Yes,” Qin Lang nodded slightly. “The taste of sea cucumber itself is quite light. The cooking method for dishes that don’t have much flavor themselves is usually to let the flavoring penetrate into the ingredients.”

He paused slightly, suddenly recalled a phrase his old mentor had said when teaching him to cook braised sea cucumber with scallions, and started laughing, “It’s called ‘bring out the flavor if there is, put in the flavor if there isn’t’.”

Upon hearing this, Shen Qian and Zhou Tianhao both fell into deep thought simultaneously.

This isn’t a hard concept to grasp. For ingredients that naturally have a strong flavor, the cooking process should aim to release the flavor. For ingredients with a bland taste, other flavors should be added through cooking.

Such a simple cooking principle, summarized into ten words, but it almost seems enlightening when spoken out loud.

“Gurgle!”

At this moment, Dan Bao’s voice rang out timely. The four types of auxiliary ingredients already perfectly adjusted by Fresh Full and handled by Thought Waves, flew in front of Qin Lang.

Minced green onion, ginger, finely chopped garlic, and cilantro stems, in a ratio of 4:2:1:!.

“Very well done.” Qin Lang glanced over the four kinds of side ingredients, gave Dan Bao a pat, turned his head, and instructed Spicy, “Sea cucumber, accelerating for half an hour.”

“Kachak!”

No problem!

Now that it was her turn to shine, Spicy perked up instantly, zoomed off to the pot she had just covered earlier and started to apply the cooking acceleration.

Meanwhile, Qin Lang turned around and started the next steps of cooking.

Put the pan on the stove, heat up the oil.

When small bubbles started to appear in the hot oil, indicating it’s about forty to fifty percent heated, he put in four or five fingertips-long sections of green onion, rolling them around with the spatula until they were fried to a golden color and set aside.

As the green onion sections were fried, the oil in the wok gradually heated up to sixty percent.

A flicker of seriousness appeared on Qin Lang’s face.

Braising with scallions is a common cooking method in Shandong cuisine.

The key to it is the preparation of the scallion oil.

To prepare good scallion oil, the quality of the ingredients is crucial, as well as the variety and combination.

The four side ingredients that Dan Bao just prepared would be used in this step.

After applying four different kinds of ingredients, the aroma of the scallion oil becomes more complex and layered.

After the appetizing task of frying the green onions was over, it was time to move on to the main dish.

Minced ginger, garlic, coriander root, and green onions were put into the heated oil in order, and continuously stir-fried over medium heat.

Under Qin Lang’s deft movements, the ingredients in the hot oil were gradually fried to a golden color, and a unique, rich aroma slowly wafted through the kitchen.

“This aroma…” Shen Qian took a whiff, a look of delight appearing on her face, “I can already imagine part of the flavor of this Braised Sea Cucumber with Scallions!”

Zhou Tianhao on the other side did not speak, but the same intoxicated look appeared on his face, along with an increasingly palpable anticipation.

“There’s still a way to go!” Qin Lang said with a smile, scooping out all the slightly scorched brownish side ingredients, and then took the resulting scallion oil and set it aside.

While Shen Qian and someone else were inspecting the scallion oil, he had already rapidly started on the subsequent steps.

Place a pot on the stove, heat water, add a little of the freshly prepared scallion oil and a bit of salt and sugar, add the Yuchoy Sum that had been prepared, boil it for two minutes then remove to place it on a plate.

Add a bit of the broth from stewing the sea cucumber to the pot, heat it up and add the fried golden green onions, stir-fry momentarily until the broth boils then take them all out together, letting the green onions soak in the broth to absorb the flavor.

Put scallion oil in the pot, after the oil is hot, add the well-stewed and flavorful sea cucumber, a moderate amount of cooking wine, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, and water, simmer over low heat for half an hour, then thicken the sauce and drizzle it evenly over the Yuchoy Sum.

Stir-fry the stewed green onions with the scallion oil, then drizzle the stir- fried scallion oil over the sea cucumber, placing the green onions orderly between the sea cucumbers as decoration.

Braised Sea Cucumber with Scallions, serve!

Looking at the two people and eight food spirits who were eagerly anticipated, Qin Lang laughed and served the finished Braised Sea Cucumber with Scallions on the table.

“Want to have a taste?”

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[Braised Sea Cucumber with Scallions]