Gourmet: From a Stall in Northern Europe

At the beginning, you only need to mix all the ingredients into small clumps by hand, even if it’s just a few strands.

Once the ingredients are well mixed, drizzle a little cooking oil, clench your fist, and use the back of your four fingers to press back and forth evenly.

When the mixture is ready, use your fingers to slide along the edge of the bowl, lift the dough like folding a blanket, and continue pressing.

The pressed dough will further combine into a coarse dough; then cover it with plastic wrap and let it sit for ten minutes.

After ten minutes, lift the plastic wrap and repeat the pressing and folding steps. You need to press three times, letting it rest three times.

While making the dough for fried dough sticks, he finally received the message from the dinner guests, saying they would arrive before six, just as he expected.

By the third time, you can take the dough out of the bowl, rub some oil on the table, put the dough on it, press it large and flat, then roll it up like a towel, and tightly wrap it with plastic wrap to rest.

Let it rest at room temperature for five hours, refrigerate for eight hours.

Calculating the time, it’s just about ten o’clock after dinner, leaving some time for rest.

Then fry a batch to taste, and prepare the dough for fried dough sticks again, hopefully finishing just in time to get back to the hotel before midnight to wash up and sleep.

Perfect plan!

He wasn’t sure how many fried dough sticks this recipe would make at a time, but it didn’t matter. Re-frying them in the morning would make old fried dough sticks anyway; no need to finish them all in one night.

"No way, Old Lin, are you a robot? Don’t you need any rest?"

Lucas was sitting in the restaurant editing videos, watching him busy here and there without a break.

"Who in their right mind works non-stop from early morning till midnight? Are you on something, being so energetic all the time?"

"Yes, I took two bottles." Lin Chen earnestly held up two fingers.

"Get out of here."

Lucas rolled his eyes dramatically and turned back to continue editing his video.

Lin Chen shrugged. If the kid didn’t believe him, there was nothing he could do. Sometimes telling the truth just made people not believe.

Speaking of potions, he had saved up two Potion Fragments again, and after completing another challenge with fragment rewards, he could exchange for the remaining Stamina Potion.

With just the Strength Potion and Sensory Potion, his body was already strengthened to the point of not feeling tired after a whole day’s work; if he reinforced his stamina, wouldn’t he really become a robot that never gets tired?

He felt a bit excited about it.

At the same time, he was also curious whether there would be new potions appearing after exchanging all three types of potions.

But thinking about it carefully, for a normal person, the basic attributes of the human body seem to be just these. It’s not like they could turn him into a Genetic Warrior or something, which would be a bit surreal.

Perhaps when all three potions are exchanged, new rewards might pop up?

From initially setting up a stall up to now, it’s been less than two months, and his life has undergone a drastic transformation. The development and utilization of the food truck haven’t even reached half, at most only a third.

He thought of how Lucas mentioned at the beginning, when making videos, to introduce to the diners saying they would later travel around Europe with the food truck, setting up stalls everywhere. He had an inexplicable premonition that it might come true?

This was the feeling from his enhanced sixth sense, pretty much a certainty of future events.

Looking around, gazing at the restaurant’s décor.

"This buddy has only been in the job for a week and a half, haven’t even warmed the seat yet, how could I go off traveling the world? Can’t figure it out."

He was sure he had no intention of quitting, otherwise, he wouldn’t have worked at God’s Kiss for five years continuously, starting from washing dishes at the bottom.

If it’s not him resigning, could it be an external factor?

President Wang wouldn’t be planning to open hotels all over Europe, would he??

He thought it over and only this possibility came to mind.

If President Wang arranged for him to train employees in various hotels’ restaurants, wouldn’t that be a disguised form of traveling across countries?

"It seems I haven’t heard of other branches elsewhere, strange, forget it, things will eventually sort themselves out, why overthink it."

When making tomato soup base, without using high-tech means, to simmer a rich and non-acidic tomato soup requires boiling and concentrating a lot of fresh tomatoes.

Different types of tomatoes have differing richness in flavor. The round tomatoes here taste different from those domestically; it’s best to mix them with Roma tomatoes for boiling.

The goods hadn’t been delivered yet, so he took a few tomatoes from the back kitchen to test make first.

Ninety-five percent of the tomatoes are scored with a cross and blanched in boiling water for seven or eight seconds, then soaked in ice water to easily remove the tomato skins.

Use a blender or food processor to puree them, and mix with canned diced tomatoes and canned tomato puree.

Add a little vegetable oil to a pot and heat it, sauté minced garlic and onions until fragrant, then pour in the tomato puree, boil it and add a large amount of water to dilute it.

The leftover tomatoes from before were cut into small cubes or pieces and thrown in to cook together, enhancing the texture.

During the simmering, a little sea salt, soy sauce, oyster sauce, and MSG were added for seasoning.

He’s currently experimenting; he doesn’t have vegetable broth at hand and is using plain water to cook. Once formal and using vegetable broth, the taste will be even more savory.

As the pot of reddish tomato soup base slowly boils, the air fills with a rich tomato sweetness.

It looks like just a small pot of soup, but actually uses five round tomatoes and three plum tomatoes, plus half a can of tomato paste and diced tomatoes.

Condensing so many tomatoes into one pot of soup, it looks like it’ll make about three bowls or so, no wonder the tomato flavor is so intense.

Honestly, he prefers strong flavors; when dining out he’d always opt for spicy dishes and has never ordered tomato-flavored dishes before.

After the soup base in the pot simmered for about ten minutes, feeling it was about right, he scooped a spoonful to taste.

"Hoo~ Hoo~"

He blew on it hard a few times.

Condensing so many tomatoes into one pot of soup, the temperature is quite high; he’s not foolish.

Previously, when making tomato meat sauce or the sauce part of tomato meatballs, the method was very similar, except those almost exclusively used canned tomato products, which after cooking became incredibly thick.

The heat must not be too high, otherwise a paste-like liquid would splatter everywhere like a volcanic eruption, touching the skin would leave a blister.

Those are the lessons of blood and tears.

He tested the temperature with his lips, and when it felt okay, he sipped it into his mouth.

"Slurp~"

Entering the mouth is a rich tomato sweetness, unlike the thick canned taste of tomato meat sauce, but the fresh, natural tomato flavor, with a hint of barely noticeable tartness that one couldn’t discern without careful tasting.

Due to dilution with water, the soup’s texture isn’t very thick; it feels like two bowls of tomato egg soup condensed into one bowl. It’s quite tasty, inducing a sort of compulsive drinking.

If he used this soup to cook noodles and added two eggs, it would surely be a perfect bowl of tomato egg noodles.

At this moment, he finally understood why girls like ordering tomato-flavored dishes so much; it’s definitely a flavor girls would enjoy.

After finishing up, he sat to rest briefly in the restaurant. Dais Elsa and Helena gradually returned, everyone gathering in the restaurant to await the arrival of dinner guests.

This time the three pairs of guests were more normal, not making too many quirky requests, and the ingredients they brought were all normal, letting Jonathan and Lin Chen each do their thing.

However, to his surprise, all three pairs of guests unanimously wanted dishes with garlic vermicelli flavors or something like spicy crayfish; obviously, they were regulars coming back to relive classics.

While the two head chefs were busy preparing dinner, Daniel arrived on time, unloading ingredients from the car and openly grabbing a cup of Coke, meanwhile inquiring about the breakfast and lunch menu for the next day.

He’s almost figured out Lin Chen’s habits, which normally involve two orders a day: a smaller first one and a larger second one; so tomorrow morning undoubtedly he’d come again.

"Spicy hotpot!! It’s being made at noon, how unlucky!"

Delivery times are always before the restaurant opens, around five or six o’clock at the latest, and he can only hope for breakfast.

Even if he could afford to laze around and procrastinate, it’s impossible to delay for hours until noon unless he intends to quit.

"You want to eat spicy hotpot? It’s not impossible. Since the soup base will simmer overnight, it’ll be ready by morning; you come choose some ingredients and I’ll cook a packed portion for you."

"Great, praise God! Oh no, praise Lin, may God bless you!!"

The dinner preparation wasn’t difficult, rather it was overly simple, hardly needing assistance.

With the principle of not wasting wages in mind, he arranged Dais and Lucas to process the newly delivered boxes of tomatoes.

To prepare enough for selling for two hours, considering each pot of eight servings per round in ten minutes, at least a hundred bowls’ worth must be prepped, plus extras, making it certainly a hundred and twenty servings.

Converting that, at least over five hundred tomatoes are needed, each requiring peeling separately, which is quite a workload.

"Hey Lucas, where’s that pretty master of yours, she hasn’t been here the past couple of days? Haven’t seen Xiao Hei in a few days either."

After the two slaved away in the kitchen chopping tomatoes for over ten minutes, Dais felt she was about to fall asleep, quickly grabbing a topic to shift focus.

She remembered that very well-behaved little black cat distinctly, each time needing to pet it a few times upon seeing it.

"Her? She ran away, I suppose."

Lucas shrugged, "She came here to help the hotel shoot promo videos, and to film some segments for herself. With the kite festival over, she had no reason to stay any longer."

"A few days ago, I took Xiao Hei to get spayed, and since then it won’t have anything to do with me, unwilling to stay with me, only with my master, so the two of them went on a tour."

"Huh? Touring with a cat? Can the border allow that?"

European citizens can travel freely between countries without visas, but Jiang Shuqi is clearly a tourist with a cat, which seems off no matter how one thinks about it.