The Female Supporting Role Shows Out

As the two princes were already enjoying the golden lionfish together, it was obviously unnecessary to prepare the same dish. Lin Dan ignored the waiter who kept hurrying her and picked up some fresh pig’s kidneys before slicing each piece of kidney beautifully in the shape of a wheat flower. She then quickly boiled the kidneys before adding the sesame sauce, peanut sauce, chili oil, vinegar, sugar, and other seasonings to make a thick sesame sauce before pouring it on the kidneys. She slowly explained, "You need to stir hard when making the sauce with water, oil, sesame, and peanut sauce so that the sauce will coat the kidneys well."

She picked up a piece of kidney and motioned everyone to observe carefully. The kidney was coated in a very thick sauce with high viscosity, and the observers could already imagine its deliciousness just by looking at the appearance of the sauce. Although it was a thick sauce, it was able to coat the kidneys well without having a single drop of sauce dripping down, which could greatly retain the taste and texture of the kidneys.

Chef Qiu looked at it carefully and quickly scribbled the technique of making this dish.

"You may serve this now." Lin Dan rinsed the pot and continued to make the next dish. As the two princes were distinguished guests and were already eating, she did not want them to wait for too long before serving the next dish. As such, she had decided to select a few simple and quick dishes to lay the whole dining table with food as soon as possible. In that way, it would look good at the restaurant and guests would also eat with satisfaction.

As many of the dry goods were not ready for use, Lin Dan decided to check the tank and found a few live sea cucumbers and abalone inside. She quickly took them out and cleaned it.

"Next, I'm going to make some sea cucumber salad. Does your restaurant have ice? Please get me some if you do." Lin Dan quickly handled the sea cucumber as she spoke.

"Yes, we do. Zhou Fu, go to the cellar and bring some ice cubes over!" Young Chef Qiu turned around and instructed the kitchen assistant. Since Lin Dan had started soaking black ginseng, these kitchen assistants had stopped working and stared at her eagerly. For them, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn some secrets from the top chef.

Zhou Fu ran to the cellar, fearing that Manager Lin had taught everyone else something while he was away, and he would miss a learning chance.

Lin Dan cut the live sea cucumbers open and removed the internal organs. She then cleaned them up before cutting them into strips and slowly explained, "Handling live sea cucumbers can also be troublesome because it’s difficult to control the heat while cooking. The meat texture becomes hard if the sea cucumber and may have a fishy smell if it is undercooked. But I have a trick to this right – test the water temperature with your finger when the water is about to boil. If your finger can only stay in the water for a while, and the skin burns and hurts when you remove the finger from the water, this means that the water is hot enough. The cooked sea cucumber strips will soften when placed in cold water which will affect the taste. At this time, boil the sea cucumber again and pour it into ice water to freeze it. The meat will constrict quickly, forming a unique taste that is soft on the outside and chewy on the inside, which is very suitable for creating a cold dish."

She put the boiled sea cucumbers in ice water for use later and prepared a pot to make the salad sauce. She added finely chopped fresh chili, shallots, garlic, light soy sauce, and vinegar into the sesame oil to make a light brown sauce. The sea cucumber salad was ready once the sauce was drizzled onto the sea cucumber strips.

Chef Qiu quickly picked up the chopsticks and took a bite. Tang Jiu also gave the dish a try under the cold stare of the old manager and his long and narrow eyes suddenly lit up. It was all because he found the taste of the sea cucumber salad to be absolutely perfect. The fishy and astringent taste of the sea cucumber was gone, and the freshness of the sea cucumbers filled his mouth. The sea cucumbers were also crunchy yet soft and chewy at the same time and it had a unique taste when the hot and sour cold sauce was drizzled on it.

Chef Qiu had regretted picking up that pair of chopsticks. If he had not tried this dish, he wouldn’t know how delicious this dish was and would not be heartbroken to see that dish being taken away by the waiter.

Tang Jiu's pair of eagle eyes stared at the waiter and made him so scared that he almost walked away while clinging onto the wall.

Lin Dan took the abalone and continued, "Live abalones do not taste good as dried abalones as they are less chewy. But there’s a way to make live abalones taste like dried abalone, which is by soaking it with sugar water. First, soak the live abalones in ice cubes and keep it in shape before soaking it in sugar water. It’s also easy to remove the black layer on the soaked abalones."

She took the abalone that was soaked in sugar water in her hand and brushed it lightly. The black layer that was usually difficult to remove had started to fall off. The white and tender abalone meat was exposed in the air and looked surprisingly good.

"Cook the clean abalones with their shells before removing it and it is ready to be served. Live abalones that are cooked with this method are soft and springy, and almost comparable to dried abalones. The dish I’m making now is called braised live abalone. It will be ready after adding an appropriate amount of salt, sugar, cooking wine, and broth before simmering for a while on low heat and thickening the sauce over high heat. Now, I will take up for you to try."

Lin Dan fished out an abalone and put it in a small dish by itself before letting the waiter serve the remaining abalones. Everyone swarmed up to have a taste, but they were all pushed away by Tang Jiu. He finished most of the abalone just with his brute strength and his face was full of contentment.

After making a few other meat dishes, Lin Dan boiled a clean lion's mane mushroom into the milky soymilk before removing it when it was half-cooked. She then poured it into the bone broth to continue cooking while adding different seasonings at times and the white soymilk gradually turned red. When the mushroom had softened, its surface would create irregular grooves that were similar to brain folding before it was carefully removed with a colander. The water that it produced was then thickened with cornstarch.

When the waiter came in to serve the next dish, he was surprised by what he saw and asked, "It’s been a long time since we have gotten monkey’s brains in the restaurant. Where did these monkey’s brains come from?"

"This dish is called the Braised Monkey’s Brain but is made with the lion’s mane mushroom. It is made by removing the strong smell with soymilk before stewing it in bone broth to add in the bone marrow taste and finally adding the meat broth to add a meaty flavor to it. When it has been boiled in all three soups, it can not only retain the freshness of the mushroom but also add a unique bone marrow and meaty taste to the monkey brain, which can make people mistake it for the real thing."

What Lin Dan said may sound simple, but it was actually difficult to make the dish. It all depended on the chef’s experience to know the kinds of ingredients to be added at the specific heat level, the time to change the soup, and the time to remove the mushroom from the soon. If one of the steps was done wrongly, the flavor may turn out differently; or if the chef had used too much force while cooking, the mushroom would be broken into pieces. This showed that every detail in making this dish was a test of the chef’s knowledge and skills.

Even if everyone at the scene had watched Lin Dan create the dish with their own eyes, they would not be able to recreate it. This was a common problem when learning from a top chef, as long as the chef did not make things clear, nobody would be able to master anything just by observing the steps. This was why there was a saying that goes, "there’s a universe within the kitchen spatula and real gold on the stove".

As always, Tang Jiu picked up the chopsticks and wanted to poke the mushroom, but Lin Dan stopped him immediately. She said helplessly, "Take it easy, sir. It wasn’t easy for me to make this into the shape of a monkey brain. How can the guests enjoy this if you make a hole in it?"

Tang Jiu put down his chopsticks with a grim expression, but the scent of the lion’s mane mushroom was still lingering on the tip of his nose. He could not help but sneak to the front hall and thought it would be better watching others enjoying the food if he could not have it. But soon, he realized that it was more excruciating to watch others eat.

However, he noticed that the empty front hall was already filled with diners, who were all attracted by the smell of delicacies that were served on the table of the two princes. When the waiter asked for their orders, they all pointed to the princes’ tables and urged, "Just get me the same dishes as Prince Cheng. I want it exactly the same and have it served to me as soon as possible!"

Different kinds of aroma filled the air and were making people’s mouth water.

That was not all, as Prince Cheng ate, he commented with an extremely loud voice, "Aw, this cold sea cucumber is extremely fresh! It is crunchy and smooth and tastes amazing! It’s not easy to create this dish with such texture, it becomes too hard if it’s overcooked, but would not be able to remove the unpleasant taste if it’s undercooked. This is just right, it’s perfectly done!" He raised his thumb as he spoke.

Prince Gong hurriedly took more food as Prince Cheng was speaking.

"Hey, is this dried abalone or live abalone? It tastes so fresh that I believe it is live abalone, yet it has a sticky and springy texture that makes me think it’s dried abalone! Darn, I really have no idea!” Prince Cheng smacks his lips as he ate.

The waiter bowed and replied, "Your highness, live abalone was used for this dish. We have created a slightly unique taste by cooking with a special technique."

Prince Cheng waved his hand time and again, "This is not just ‘slightly unique’, it’s very unique! I have eaten so many kinds of abalone dishes and this one tastes the best! It has perfectly combined the strengths of cooking with dried abalone and live abalone!"

Prince Gong remained silent and continued eating.

"Braised monkey brain?" After eating the last dish, Prince Cheng said satisfyingly: "Since disaster has occurred in the south, I’ve not eaten braised monkey brains for more than half a year. This is truly delicious and flavorful! All the red and greasy soup has entered the brain and the juice is oozing out just with one bite. It has a faint fishiness combined with a tinge of freshness and is absolutely amazing!"

He slapped the spoon that Prince Gong had stretched out away and took the whole dish into his arms.

The waiter explained carefully, "Your highness, this is not monkey brain but lion’s mane mushroom. Do you want to give it another try?”

"Huh? It was made with lion’s mane mushroom?" Prince Cheng was dumbfounded and tried it again and again, but he was unable to tell the difference. "Darn it! I’ve tried at least dozens or even hundreds of monkey brains, how is it possible that I can't tell the difference between the two? This is definitely made with the freshest monkey brains that have just been removed from live monkeys! You better not lie to me!"

"I’m telling the truth, your highness. This was indeed made with the lion’s mane mushroom." The waiter did not know whether to laugh or cry.

Prince Cheng stopped talking and slapped away his younger brother’s hand who wanted to steal some food from him again. He rushed to pick up the mushrooms and finished them up in a couple of mouthfuls before wiping his mouth and exclaimed, "I don’t care whether it was monkey brains or lion’s mane mushrooms, this is the taste that I love! To be able to make a vegetarian dish taste like a meat dish that has an extremely meaty and unique taste, the chef’s skills are really…"

Prince Cheng raised the thumb of his left hand, followed by the thumb of his right hand, and then brought the two thumbs together to express the meaning of "reaching the peak of perfection".

"This is even comparable with the chefs of the imperial kitchen!" Prince Gong praised sincerely.

As more diners were attracted by his table of food, the restaurant was starting to get lively with the increasing number of people, as if it had gone back to its most glorious time. The old manager was on the verge of tears as he saw the scene and thought that he must keep Manager Lin in this restaurant no matter what. He knew she would be the gem of the restaurant!