Gourmet: From a Stall in Northern Europe

The Great Xia people are so friendly!

He couldn’t help but exclaim sincerely in his heart.

Not only did they give him food for free, but they made sure he was full. Now, they were even letting him take some back for his sister to try, and ensuring she’d be full too.

This kind of hospitality can’t be found anywhere else in the world!

"Do you want it with soup or dry mixed? With soup might be hard to carry on the bus, plus soaking the ingredients in hot soup for too long can affect the taste. How about I make dry mixed for you, and separately pack the soup?"

"Sure, I have no opinions. Chef, do whatever you think is best. I want to try the original flavor of Great Xia without any modifications!"

At this moment, Daniel’s heart was full of longing and gratitude for this country, Great Xia. But traveling there soon was clearly unrealistic, so he could only try more Great Xia Cuisine.

Lin Chen nodded, lifted the net bag, shook it a couple of times to get rid of the excess soup, and then poured all of the cooked ingredients into the takeaway box.

Dry mixed also comes in flavors: numbing spicy, fragrant spicy, sweet spicy, sesame paste, etc.

Since this kid didn’t have any preferences, let’s add some of each. The more types of sauces, the tastier it gets.

First, use a brush to dip into the secret sweet bean sauce, and quickly brush it over the surface of the ingredients, giving them a light coat of the sauce.

Next is the numbing spicy sauce, made by cooking crushed Pixian Douban Sauce with soybean paste, sweet bean sauce, and Sichuan pepper.

Then, there’s Sichuan-style red oil. No need to brush it on; just let it drip naturally with a brush, circling it twice.

The sesame sauce is similar. The diluted 20% sesame paste appears smooth and pasty. One spoonful is enough.

These four sauces offer: one that’s mainly sweet, one that’s numbing spicy and salty, one that’s fragrant, while the sesame paste serves as a fusion, balancing some of the spicy and salty flavors.

Finally, add a bit of minced garlic, chopped scallions, and pickled mustard tuber bits, creating a bowl of visually appealing dry mixed mala soup.

"Mix it well before eating. Do you want to taste it now, or should I pack it for you directly?"

Seeing the bowl filled with over ten different kinds of ingredients, along with various sauces and condiments, Daniel touched his round belly again, knowing he was a bit full but couldn’t resist the craving to try.

Even without a reminder, he knew these boiled dishes were best eaten hot, as they lose flavor when cold and taste different when reheated.

Who knows when the next opportunity to eat this so-called mala soup will be, so without much hesitation, he reached out for it immediately.

"Taste it, right away! Please give me a fork, thank you!"

Not just Daniel, everyone present aside from Lucas saw this dish called mala soup for the first time, instantly attracted by its enticing appearance and unique DIY ingredient and flavor choice, staring intently at the plastic dining box in Daniel’s hand.

Lin Chen was just experimenting this time, mainly preparing various vegetables, some bean products, and different balls, all ready-made.

The only thing he needed to prepare was the tender beef slices, marinated overnight from last night, requiring little effort.

"Everyone, pick for yourselves. Take whatever you want to eat, it’s still early anyway. You need breakfast, no energy to work without eating."

He glanced at the time, just past six, far from seven.

Everyone had been waiting for his words, immediately surrounding the table full of ingredients and starting to pick and choose.

"Lucas, you have experience. What do you recommend?"

"Definitely the ones that soak up the soup," Lucas answered without hesitation. His tongs already held a bunch of napa cabbage, "Like leafy vegetables, fried bean products, feel free to grab them with eyes closed, you can’t go wrong."

"Other stuff depends on your taste, but it’s all delicious."

"If you can eat, I recommend taking a piece of instant noodle cake, vermicelli works too, that cylindrical rice cake is nice too, but it’s different in texture from the first two, try a few sticks."

"The advantage of mala soup is you can eat anything you want, no quantity restrictions, just try one or two, so convenient."

"No quantity restrictions? How do you calculate payment?"

Dais keenly noticed the core issue, being accustomed to charging more, her first reaction was about billing.

"By weight."

Lin Chen cast an appreciative glance at her and explained, "Pricing is based on weight, every 100 grams of vegetables is 2 euros, meat is 5 euros, staple foods are charged per portion."

"Like the instant noodle cake and vermicelli are individually portioned, if a customer orders, it adds 1 euro, rice cake is priced together with vegetables."

"So that’s how it is."

Dais realized, "So customers must choose separately for meat and vegetables, right? Using different bowls?"

"Exactly, since some customers are vegetarians, you can’t expect them to use a bowl that contained meat, right? It’s better to separate meat and vegetables, vegetables in plastic bowls, meat in metal bowls, convenient for customers to distinguish and us to bill."

Dais and Elsa simultaneously noted the prices in their minds, not complicated, just weigh separately for plastic and metal bowls, each staple food is 1 euro. It would require two people to serve customers, meaning two different scales.

"Here, I’ve picked, try your hand!"

Helena was quite straightforward, after all, it had nothing to do with her. She quickly selected what she wanted to eat and put the two bowls on the table.

Lucinda, not to be outdone, quickly followed by placing her bowl behind Helena’s.

Neither took much, but the variety was complete; they picked a little of almost everything.

Since they hadn’t eaten this before, they weren’t sure if it was enough. Their main idea was to eat first and then worry about the rest.

Jonathan was so busy that sweat was almost soaking his back, but he didn’t forget to pitifully call out.

"Pick some food for me too, just grab whatever you like. I really don’t have time, can’t step away."

Jonathan couldn’t complain about Helena and Lucinda ditching him to grab food, because he wanted to eat as well.

Moreover, the whole restaurant relied on them to keep it running, while he felt more like a tool, just responsible for cooking and nothing else.

The difficulty of cooking one portion versus several portions simultaneously is not a small difference. This involves controlling the doneness of different ingredients, plus the timing for each to go into the pot is entirely different, requiring the chef to precisely control the time.

In theory, using a timer is best, but when really busy, setting the timer for each dish only adds to the workload, which is counterproductive.

The chef’s internal timer is much more efficient.

So don’t be fooled by how simple cooking spicy hot pot looks; even with the same recipe, each restaurant’s flavor is different.

Cooking it well or poorly, besides the ratio of broth and sauce, the step of blanching vegetables is especially important.

In a well-run spicy hot pot restaurant, the chef handling the blanching would surely have many years of experience, without exception.

Although Lin Chen didn’t have experience in this field, his cooking skills are general, plus with enhanced senses, it’s not difficult for him to roughly manage the timing for each basket.

While he was busy blanching vegetables, Daniel already got his plastic fork, swallowing saliva while stirring the bowl filled with various ingredients covered in sauce.

The surface of these ingredients was completely covered in dark brown sauce, and a layer of red oil was clearly visible, shiny and emitting a rich aroma of sauce and chilies.

After mixing in the sesame paste put to the side, the whole bowl of sauce becomes sticky, and each stir produces that sticky sound, with the sauce color transforming from sauce-red to slightly pale.

Especially those emerald-green scallions and radish-like small cubes mixed in, making the overall appearance even more enticing.

He hesitated for a long time, finally choosing his first victim.

Long and thin bamboo shoots!

This thing is panda food; he had to taste what it’s all about!

The tender bamboo shoots were thicker than chopsticks, appearing smooth on the surface but actually having subtle bumps, with barely noticeable textures that held the thick sauce.

"Crunch."

Taking a bite, Daniel’s eyes lit up.

He had seen videos of pandas munching on bamboo, crunching constantly, and knew it was crisp, but didn’t expect it to be this uniquely crisp.

This yet-to-grow bamboo shoot baby is crisp and tender in the mouth, breaking at a gentle touch of the teeth, no need for effort.

Moreover, biting into it releases a noticeable salty and fragrant juice from the center with a faint plant aroma.

He couldn’t describe the crispness; it’s not like the crispy crunch of old tofu, but rather tender and elastic, like rolling up iceberg lettuce and blanching for a few seconds; crisp, tender, and juicy, completely surprising him.

The sauce coating it was a taste he had never had before, although smelling similar to spicy crawfish, once eaten, was entirely different.

The sauce mainly had a salty flavor, with strong oil and chili aroma and a mild numbness; the aftertaste was noticeably sweet, paired with sticky and fragrant sesame paste, instantly appetizing.

Just tasting the bamboo shoot tip made him feel reenergized!

Within seconds, he stuffed the whole shoot into his mouth, eager to find the next victim.

If the vegetables were so delicious, then wouldn’t the meat be out of this world?

Without hesitation, his gaze locked onto the thoroughly sauce-covered slices of beef, looking delicious.

The beef slices were cut very thin, yet large, and when picked up, were about a quarter of a palm in size, constantly trembling with the fork’s shake, looking very tender.

This was completely different from any beef slice he had seen in his twenty-plus years!

Everyone waiting for food was watching him eat with longing eyes, swallowing saliva as they watched.

That stuff looked truly mouth-watering!

Especially since they all knew Great Xia had unique meat marinating techniques and had tasted them, naturally knowing how tender the texture was.

Just imagining it made their mouths water uncontrollably.