The Cheat Emperor of the Culinary World

With the repeated practice experience from teaching practical classes, Fu Yu was very proficient in dissecting raw chicken.

But dissecting a whole chicken after it’s been baked... to achieve perfection, Fu Yu still felt a bit insecure.

He couldn’t be sure how well the outcome would turn out.

He had done it before.

Back in the days at the music restaurant, he practiced dissecting braised chicken with Yao Shi and felt he did well at that time.

But back then, his culinary skills were quite average, and the so-called ”good” was just self-assessment.

Ultimately, he still lacked practical experience.

Now that there’s a task at hand, he could only bite the bullet and try to do it.

Fu Yu put on gloves and placed the whole chicken on a tray.

Dissecting a whole chicken typically involves using both hands and scissors.

Because tearing with hands gives the chicken meat a better texture than using a cleaver.

And using scissors makes it easy to snip the connective cartilage between the bones, facilitating the dissection.

However, Fu Yu casually picked up the kitchen knife.

In his opinion, the kitchen knife was much more useful than other scissors or boning knives.

Not only does it cut through anything effortlessly, but it also offers great flexibility in use.

Mainly because ever since mastering the knife skills, he got used to using the kitchen knife in the past half year.

With daily practice, he became quite adept at using it.

It wasn’t the first time Wang Yulong saw Fu Yu use a kitchen knife for dissection.

So he just glanced over and looked away, putting on gloves while saying, ”The technique for dissecting cooked chicken is a bit different from raw chicken. I’ll do it first, then you can give it a try once you learn it. No worries about making mistakes, the goal is just to make it easier for the customers to eat.”

Fu Yu nodded, feeling warm at Wang Yulong’s casual reminder.

In fact, Wang Yulong treated him quite well.

Regardless of whether it’s because of Liu Yunong, he still looked out for him.

On the side, when Liu Zhangpeng accidentally saw this scene, he suddenly had a revelation!

Only then did he realize!

He had been so foolish!

That’s why they say that old ginger is the spiciest!

In the beginning, he too had the intention to keep close to Fu Yu deliberately.

After all, Fu Yu was a disciple accepted by Liu Yunong, now personally learning cooking under her guidance.

In the future, Fu Yu would be the successor of Liu Family Cuisine.

Because during their time together, he found Fu Yu to be humble and very good-natured, which led him to slacken his attitude unconsciously.

Now, seeing the master clearly looking out for Fu Yu, he felt uneasy and inclined to oppose him.

Wasn’t this creating unnecessary trouble for himself?

Even his own master was deliberately befriending Fu Yu, which showed that Liu Yunong had a special focus on cultivating him.

To put it bluntly, Fu Yu was the legitimate heir to Liu Family Cuisine.

Having doubts about Fu Yu was no different from questioning Liu Yunong, the boss.

After all, they were the rightful mentor and disciple pair.

With this understanding, Liu Zhangpeng had an instant epiphany.

He should act more openly, be more generous, and present himself as a reliable friend, colleague, or even partner.

Wang Yulong placed the whole chicken on the chopping board, instructing, ”Make sure to keep the breast facing up, this way you can clearly see each part of the chicken, making it easier to cut.”

Saying this, Wang Yulong grabbed the left chicken leg and pulled it slightly, ”This makes it clear where the chicken leg connects to the body...”

Wang Yulong was quick and systematic in his chicken dissection.

The effects sought in dissecting cooked chicken differ from raw chicken.

With raw chicken, the focus is on a neat and complete appearance.

While dissecting a cooked chicken aims at disconnecting all joints.

First, remove the chicken legs, then the wings, segment the neck, remove the big and small breast meat, with each side of the carcass neatly divided into five pieces each.

The chicken bones connect the meat, the meat wraps around the skin, ensuring that each piece is perfectly sized for nibbling.

At first glance, it might seem difficult, but once the knack is grasped, you can handle the knife like a pro.

Fu Yu listened to Wang Yulong’s guidance while following along.

Shangshi Private Kitchen’s Sea Salt Chicken, besides its excellent flavor, also had another major selling point to attract customers.

The dissected chicken could be rearranged back to its original form and served in a whole on the table.

Therefore, the serving dish wasn’t a regular plate or a bowl, but a custom-made square wooden box.

The whole chicken was placed facing up in the wooden box, with no visible tears in the skin and no evident dissection marks.

This required the chef to accurately reassemble each piece of the dissected chicken, ensuring it wouldn’t fall or distort.

When he first saw this dish being prepared, Fu Yu secretly guessed that toothpicks or something similar were used to secure the chicken pieces during plating.

So he was quite amazed to see Wang Yulong using just the interlocking bones of the chicken to secure the pieces during plating.

Since seeing Liu Yunong’s personal attributes, he knew she had reached an advanced level in dissection skills.

Both her dissection technique and handling skills far exceeded the ordinary.

However, he didn’t expect she could apply this skill so flexibly.

She had skillfully utilized her understanding of the chicken bone distribution to accurately design a set of specialized interlocking techniques for plating.

Turning an already distinctive dish of private cuisine into an even more notable highlight.

Previously, Fu Yu had always thought that Shangshi Private Kitchen’s dishes were a bit too expensive.

But after working there longer and understanding more about the Liu Family Cuisine’s cooking methods, his mentality suddenly changed quite a bit.

The fact that the dishes were pricey yet still popular with customers signifies that the price was justified.

The Sea Salt Chicken Fu Yu cooked was mostly done under Wang Yulong’s direct guidance, so the final product turned out very well.

Being his first time reassembling a whole chicken, it was a bit slower, but in terms of flavor and presentation, it was perfect.

After checking, Wang Yulong sincerely praised, ”Xiaofu, you truly have a talent for cooking; this Sea Salt Chicken is done very well.”

Wang Yulong was never stingy with his compliments, but earning his praise wasn’t an easy feat.

Therefore, the kitchen staff who already had newfound respect for Fu Yu were even more impressed now.

Though it took a while, they eventually completed the five servings of Sea Salt Chicken ordered by customers.

As they watched the waitstaff take away the packaged dishes, everyone in the kitchen let out a sigh of relief.

It was getting late, and with the boss absent, Wang Yulong was in charge of the kitchen.

At his command, everyone quickly tidied up, changed clothes, and went home.

When Fu Yu took a cab back to Qianlima, it was already late at night.

After some simple washing up, he still persisted in flipping through a classic recipe book before going to sleep.

If before, his effort to learn cooking and improve his skills was purely for earning money,

Now, it has become a genuine passion from his heart.

They say habits form in 21 days, and Fu Yu felt that his relentless pursuit of cooking skills was the result of an unintentional habit.