Gourmet: From a Stall in Northern Europe

"Zha jiang mian? What’s that?"

"A type of noodle without soup, eaten mixed with sauce."

Initially, Lin told John to just consider it as mixed noodles, but upon reflection, foreigners seem to not understand what mixed noodles are. They don’t usually come across Chinese-style noodles; pasta is more common to them.

John nodded, somewhat understanding, but didn’t ask further questions. He figured he’d know what Zha jiang mian was once he got to taste it.

The dough was sent off to ferment first, while Lucas, Helena, and Elsa were already helping out by almost finishing washing the small greens and mushrooms in the sink.

After Lin Chen’s demonstration, it wasn’t too difficult. Just chop the greens into pieces the size of a pinky nail and dice the mushrooms into kernel-sized bits; it wasn’t very challenging.

The mushrooms grown here aren’t the same as domestic mushrooms, they’re flower mushrooms with cracked caps. Their mushroom flavor is a bit milder, but the texture is almost the same, which works out.

Lin Chen himself was responsible for making the sauce. The chopping and preparation needed a certain level of sword skills; otherwise, they would affect the taste of the final product, so he had to do it himself.

Fresh bamboo shoots weren’t available here, but there were chilled ones in vacuum-sealed packaging, soaked in water—the kind he’d been storing in the dry goods area for a while without a chance to use. Just perfect for now.

Tearing open the packaging, a simple rinse, then cutting all the tender bamboo shoots into small pieces half the size of a mung bean.

Tofu and flower mushrooms were diced the same way, and a bit of chopped scallion, ginger, and garlic were prepared as well.

Except for scallions, the other two were chopped as finely as possible.

His speed at chopping vegetables was extremely fast, the knife flickered like shadows, and the ingredients on the chopping board quickly shrunk in size, maintaining a very regular shape.

Watching him chop vegetables was almost like witnessing an art performance; John unknowingly became mesmerized, subconsciously swallowing.

Just by looking at these finely and delicately chopped ingredients, one seemed able to anticipate how delicious the finished dish would be.

After cutting all the ingredients, the next phase was to fry the toppings and prepare the marinade.

Since it was a vegetarian marinade, no meat broth was used; alternative methods had to be employed to extract a broth-like flavor.

Usually, the required marinade wasn’t the strong-flavored braised broth; rather, a broth derived from cooking meat with added soy sauce for color, finally thickened with a thin starch slurry to achieve a broth-like consistency.

Many techniques could be used to extract a meaty flavor from vegetables, such as using mushroom soaking water or boiling a few bean curds to extract a mild umami flavor.

If eggs were allowed, frying a few poached eggs and using their broth would also be great.

However, he didn’t plan to use eggs this time. If he was going to do it, he might as well make it fully vegetarian and kill two birds by completing the challenge task.

After the food truck upgrade, he received a prompt: the daily reward transaction count increased from one to two, meaning he could operate twice and receive rewards both times.

He had already received a regular reward in the morning; completing the long-overdue vegetarian challenge at noon could net him a Potion Fragment. Perfect!

Oil was heated in the pan; once hot, minced ginger and garlic were added for a quick stir-fry to release fragrance, followed by three spoons of doubanjiang for stir-frying, moving quickly, then adding diced bamboo shoots, tofu, and mushrooms for fast stir-frying.

Under high temperatures, the diced tofu and mushrooms emitted a faint aroma, and their colors began to change.

They didn’t need to be fried for long. As long as the tofu and bamboo shoots had a slightly browned surface, hot water could be introduced.

"Hula"

The clear hot water, once poured into the pan, was instantly dyed a pale yellow.

Aside from a thin layer of oil on the surface, there was more of the mushroom juice and the color from the Maillard reaction captured in the pan.

The chopped scallions and ginger played a crucial role, being one of the main sources of sweet and savory flavors.

Finally, a bit of light soy sauce was added to the broth for color, along with sea salt, white pepper, sugar, and MSG. Once the broth boiled, scallions were added until just cooked, finishing off by thickening with a glossy starch slurry—it’s done!

Since it was a test run, not much was cooked, perhaps just half a pot’s worth, meant as lunch for everyone. Otherwise, who knew how long they’d wait until freed up?

Cooking the noodles involved no particular techniques; simply adding some salt into the water and boiling them for a few minutes to the desired doneness, then cooling them to enhance their chewiness, and finally, pouring over the sauce.

Despite being called Zha jiang mian, the sauce wasn’t strong-tasting; the main attraction was the freshness of the ingredients.

This half-pot of sauce was enough for dozens of servings of noodles, with only three spoons of doubanjiang used in total.

"Here, eat up. If you like it spicy, there’s chili oil over there. Add it yourself."

John had never seen noodles like these before; they looked entirely different from what he had imagined initially.

Not only were they not delicate, they even appeared somewhat careless and thrown together.

The thick vegetable sauce coating the noodles also bore a strange yellow-brown hue, lacking in appetite appeal.

Luckily, the scallions within the sauce somewhat revived its look, barely making it acceptable.

Despite being puzzled, John still had great trust in Lin Chen’s culinary skills.

Some foods are just like that; they might not look appetizing, but their taste can be beyond imagination.

Having eaten spicy crawfish, he naturally knew the red oil on the table wasn’t spicy but purely fragrant. Since Lin Chen mentioned he could add it, of course, he was going to add it.

He even felt that by adding this chili oil, any noodles could become delicious. Perhaps this ingredient was the key.

He ladled three spoonfuls of spicy oil onto the noodles, holding a chopstick in each hand to start mixing.

Because the soy sauce paste had been thickened, it quickly adhered to the noodle’s surface, enveloping the noodles with the rich red oil, making it instantly look irresistible.

He wasn’t yet very skilled with chopsticks, but fortunately these noodles were long and thin, easy to pick up and eat; he opened his mouth wide and went straight in for a bite.

Unlike the spicy garlic flavored shard noodles he imagined from his Sunday meal, upon entry, the aroma of the spicy oil was overwhelmingly intense, accompanied by a distinct smell of scallions.

The noodles had a very soft texture, unlike the chewy shard noodles; they could be easily pinched and broken with the lips without needing to use teeth.

After a few bites, he surprisingly noticed a slight chewiness, presumably from being soaked in cold water.

When he was curious about the taste of the yellow sauce, gradually adapting to the aroma of the spicy oil, a faint sauce flavor silently emerged.

Although he didn’t know what ingredients contributed to that taste, it was unexpectedly quite nice.

The sauce was primarily savory and salty, with a faint sauce aroma. The small ingredient bits mixed in were hardly noticeable, and when eaten together with noodles, their flavor was almost undetectable--as if they had fully merged into the sauce.

Judging by his personal taste, this noodle dish definitely wasn’t as good as the shard noodles mixed with spicy garlic crawfish soup he had on Sunday; that dish was truly delicious.

But to be honest, this bowl of mixed noodles was actually quite good, a taste he had never experienced before.

The main thing was the noodles were fine and long, capable of fully absorbing the sauce and red oil flavors, unlike shard noodles, which are thick and only retain sauce on the surface, needing long soaking for the flavor to seep in.

Making a fresh spicy garlic crawfish mixed noodle dish takes at least ten minutes, whereas this one only takes three; in terms of time, there’s no comparison, so it’s normal for the taste not to match.

He understood this was just his taste, and maybe others would enjoy this lighter flavored mixed noodle?

Lin Chen didn’t ask him how he felt after eating; a simple glance told him it was just okay, otherwise John would’ve already been giving thumbs up in admiration.

He wasn’t surprised.

Vegetarian sauce truly couldn’t match meat sauce; that’s an undeniable fact, and with limited ingredients on hand, it was the best he could do.

This gourmet soy sauce noodle’s characteristic wasn’t to leave a stunning impression; it purely had the taste of home cooking, with a normally good level of deliciousness.

The reason he didn’t make the traditional Beijing-style soy sauce noodle was mainly because he worried it was too strong-flavored, and foreigners might not get used to it.

Not just foreigners; even many Great Xia People themselves aren’t accustomed to the heavy taste of fermented soybean paste soy sauce noodles.

He was just making it to share the burden from the mushroom vegetable bun; as long as there’s no mistake, it doesn’t need to be overwhelmingly impressive.

"When can I eat the bun? How long do I have to wait?"

John holding the takeaway box, was eating the noodles one bite at a time; he couldn’t slurp, picking up and biting whatever he could, just getting it into his mouth.

While eating, his gaze frequently turned towards the fermenting room where plump, white dough was waiting; clearly, his cravings hadn’t been satisfied.

"About half an hour perhaps, maybe an hour; do you want to wait?"

Lin Chen wasn’t sitting idle either; he continued to chop and prepare the ingredients needed for the stir-fry sauce, which had to be completed before hitting the stall, or he wouldn’t have time to make it fresh, nor did the food truck have spare stoves.

"Waiter, of course I’ll wait, I’m already here!"

John hadn’t given up, holding his lunch box and eventually went outside to find a seat to eat, incidentally getting some free iced cola.

Based on his observations these days, he concluded the more complex the procedure, and the longer the preparation time for food, the tastier it would be.

Although the bun was stuffed with vegetables, its preparation took over an hour, so the taste surely wouldn’t be bad.

Having come this far, if he missed this chance, who knew when he would get to taste it next; walking away was out of the question.

While chopping vegetables, Lin Chen started thinking about breakfast and lunch for the following day.

"Lunch can be snacks, perfect for the challenge task; easy and quick to prepare; as for breakfast..."

He glanced at the challenge task list; the breakfast series challenge task was still not activated, who knew when it would light up again, so he decided to just make something he wanted.

His gaze fell on the bowl of sauce next to him, and suddenly having a revelation, his eyes sparkled.

"Got it, delicious, simple, and nutritious breakfast!"