Gourmet: From a Stall in Northern Europe

"Hm?"

As soon as he entered the kitchen, he saw Xiao Hei, the delivery man, eagerly standing by the workbench, watching, with no intention of leaving.

"What’s going on, waiting for a signature?"

"No, no," Daniel waved his hand repeatedly, "I’ve placed an order, waiting for the chef to make me something delicious, and I’ll watch how it’s done."

"???"

Lucas scratched his head, glanced at the clock on the wall, and confirmed it was a little past five in the morning.

It’s possible the delivery guy has been on the road since around three, and it’s normal to be hungry at this hour, but waiting for over an hour after making deliveries just for a bite to eat, at the expense of work, is it really worth it?

He’s not foolish; looking at Lin Chen’s progress, he knew it would take quite a while to see finished products. The dough wasn’t even kneaded yet, after which it would need to ferment, then be filled and steamed.

All in all, it wouldn’t take less than an hour.

However, it’s their business; he had no reason to interfere, so he went to wash and sanitize his hands, then put on an apron and hat to help Lin Chen handle the meat filling and weigh the ingredients.

Like Lucas, who assisted in setting up stalls under Lin Chen’s guidance, the favorable feedback points would be slightly reduced based on participation level.

After numerous experiments, Lin Chen pretty much knew this by heart.

For example, if the recipe was provided by him and Lucas completed the entire process by himself and sold it, the feedback points he would receive might only be about one-tenth.

If he also took part in the preparation and Lucas sold it, some feedback points would be lost based on Lucas’s level of participation.

If Lucas was only responsible for selling, it wouldn’t affect the calculation.

He only recently realized this; previously, Lucas’s involvement was in hand-making icy powder. Initially, he did it himself, and later entrusted it entirely to Lucas.

Back then, he was in Amiens setting up stalls, mainly selling customizable lunch boxes, and although he didn’t receive 100% positive feedback, the final settlement wasn’t affected. How would he know some feedback points were deducted?

It was only after coming here that he noticed something wasn’t right with the number of feedback points when Lucas became responsible for more items, and realized there was such a mechanism.

But it’s okay, today he’s primarily selling buns, not completing a challenge task, but a daily stall task.

As long as he completes two hundred positive feedbacks to receive the basic reward, there’s no extra reward for more, so letting others help make wontons doesn’t hurt.

"Beep beep—"

The dough mixer rang.

Lin Chen opened the barrier, reached in to test the dough’s texture, and then took the entire lump out, slightly shaped it, and placed it in the fermentation box with preset temperature and humidity.

Fresh ground beef uses a three-fat-to-seven-lean ratio; for the fat, it’s not beef fat but lard.

Beef fat contains a unique gamey smell, and if directly turned into ground beef for buns, it causes them to have a strong beefy taste and becomes greasy.

Lard is different; it has a low gamey smell and is full of aroma, mixed with the beef and ground together, you can’t even tell, which is one of the basic principles of making bun fillings.

Of course, in regions that accept or prefer this beefy flavor, beef fat might be used directly. How the filling ratio is adjusted depends on local diners’ tastes.

Add scallion and ginger spice water to the prepared beef to remove any gamey smell while stirring in one direction until sticky, adding little by little.

Once the meat feels sticky and makes obvious squelching sounds, it’s time for seasoning.

Sea salt, soy sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, white pepper powder, five-spice powder, mix evenly, then spread a bunch of chopped scallions on top, don’t move them for now.

The purpose of spreading scallions is simple: one is to serve as a barrier to prevent the ground beef from drying out, the other is to avoid the scallions being prematurely pickled and losing moisture.

It’s at least another forty minutes until the dough is fermented and rolled into wrappers, if scallions were mixed into the meat now, the marinating time would be too long, affecting the moisture content of the scallions and making the overall appearance less presentable.

Additionally, the scallions would release lots of water, causing liquid to accumulate at the bottom of the meat filling, affecting the state of the buns during wrapping.

By spreading the pre-measured scallions on the meat, most shortcomings can be avoided, just mix the filling together ten minutes before wrapping.

Ten to fifteen minutes is enough for the scallions to be salted, softened, and better adhere to the meat filling without releasing too much water, the timing is just right.

After preparing the bun filling, it’s time to start on the wonton wrappers and filling.

I made them just a few days ago, the memory is still fresh, they’re made just like dumpling wrappers but thinner, thin enough to be slightly translucent.

The filling uses pure lean pork, removing fascia and other things that affect the texture.

For convenience, he directly chose pork loin and pork leg meat mixed together, had it ground and vacuum-packed before delivery.

Daniel watched with great interest; he had never seen the entire Chinese food preparation process before.

Though he saw them preparing ingredients every day when delivering, preparation is one thing, and starting to cook is another.

Lucas idly glanced around, ultimately unable to resist, he went and fetched a bag of his most familiar icy powder seeds.

"Can I make some natural jelly as a drink? Like lemon tea?"

"Suit yourself."

Lemon tea, much like cola, is a common beverage for foreigners and tastes quite similar to iced black tea back home.

Lin doesn’t mind earning a bit more income; who would complain about making less? Besides, drinks are extremely profitable—just a few slices of lemon in a cup of tea, the cost is almost negligible with a profit margin dozens of times over.

Lucas’s constant rubbing of a cloth bag in the water attracted Daniel’s curiosity.

"What are you doing? Washing plant seeds?"

"Making natural jelly, which can either be a dessert or a drink. Today, it’s a drink. This is a unique technique from Great Xia."

"Huh??" Daniel looked puzzled, "Just rubbing it in a cloth bag and it turns into jelly?"

To be honest, he didn’t believe it. Isn’t jelly supposed to be made with jelly powder?

He doesn’t cook, but he’s often in kitchens when making deliveries, so he catches many food preparation processes.

Lower-tier buffets use jelly powder, full of coloring and syrup.

Higher-tier ones typically don’t sell jelly directly but turn it into mousse or jellies as desserts or sauces, mainly using gelatin powder.

Rubbing plant seeds in water?

That method sounds like something from jungle civilizations...

Regarding Great Xia, this mysterious oriental realm, he had little concept—guessing it’s probably similar to surrounding Southeast Asian countries.

Lucas rubbed for quite a while until the entire bucket of water turned a slightly yellowish color and thickened in texture, then covered it with a lid and moved it to cold storage for chilling.

Once out, he started boiling water—two large pots of it, adding tea leaves and ice, among other things.

Anyway, it was a process he had never seen before.

Meanwhile, Lin Chen’s side was more interesting; he unknowingly prepared a large piece of dough, shaped into small balls, and was rolling them thin using a pasta machine.

The pasta machine was originally for making pasta; since handmade pasta uses only durum wheat flour and eggs without adding water, it’s extremely hard and can’t be rolled out with a rolling pin—it must be pressed thin with a machine.

Lin Chen did it to save effort; wonton skins are just too thin, rolling by hand would consume too much time and energy—it’s simply unnecessary.

Noodles pressed out by machine certainly don’t have the texture of hand-rolled ones, but what he was making were bubble wontons, with skins so thin they were almost transparent, so texture wasn’t significant—machine speed was all that mattered.

As he worked busily, time passed swiftly—an hour flew by.

It was finally time for the final stage of making.

By now, it was six o’clock, and other staff were arriving at the restaurant to start preparing breakfast.

Both Lin Chen and Lucas were intensely curious that Jonathan hadn’t called Helena and Lucinda to help prepare ingredients.

As a rule, since Jonathan is making Western cuisine, with complex and labor-intensive processes, supplying food for hundreds on his own isn’t simple.

Similarly, Jonathan was curious about what Lin Chen would sell today.

Upon seeing Lin Chen pulling dough into strips and flattening each one, he suddenly realized.

Turns out it’s baozi!

Just like the delicate small bun he made for the chefs two nights ago for dinner.

He was curious about the baozi’s making process, thinking he might learn something and was keen to see how the multiple pleats were formed.

While Daniel didn’t know what Lin Chen was making, seeing another Head Chef watch with keen interest, he quickly leaned in closer, his eyes wide open, afraid to miss any exciting detail.

Lin Chen scooped a full spoon of filling onto the center of the dough, supporting it with his left palm, pinching the edge with his index and thumb, gently lifting, and then quickly moving the thumb back and forth.

With the dough rotating, in just a few blinks, a delicately shaped baozi appeared right before them.

This time he wasn’t making xiaolongbao but big meat buns, almost the size of an adult woman’s fist.

Before steaming, they appeared small; after steaming, they would expand by at least fifty percent.

Besides making some for himself, Lin Chen thought everyone else might like it too, so he decided to prepare breakfast for the whole kitchen staff.

As Lin Chen began wrapping baozi, Lucas helped with the wonton folding nearby.

Wonton skins piled like a small mountain, no need to pick them up, just dab some filling with chopstick tips, roll over the wonton skin lightly, which brings it down, then casually pinch the edges together to roughly seal.

If you must describe it, these wontons looked somewhat like mini paper-skinned siu mai.