The Cheat Emperor of the Culinary World

Fu Yu asked with a smile: ”So, how is it? Have you grasped the essence of this dish?”

Zhao Meng hadn’t tasted it, but just by looking at the presentation, he felt the dish was made authentically.

”Hmm, not bad!”

Receiving Zhao Meng’s praise, Fu Yu felt quite pleased, and his hands moved more swiftly and skillfully as he worked.

The white sauce with mashed potato and flower crab is considered a dessert dish, moderately priced, uniquely flavored, and quite popular among customers.

Wash the potatoes, peel them, cut into slices, steam until cooked, remove and place into a blender, add 50 grams each of milk and light cream, blend into a paste, and set aside.

Steam yam pieces and green peas.

Slaughter the crab, clean it, then chop each into 6 pieces.

Fu Yu began to prepare the white sauce.

Zhao Meng multitasked, flipping the pan while advising Fu Yu: ”Use butter for the white sauce! Other oils won’t integrate the flavors. Oh, and use the finely packaged flour, it’s smoother. Also, use the old brand second broth, the new one is a bit lacking.”

Fu Yu responded and started cooking.

Heat and melt the butter, then scoop it up and set it aside.

On low heat, lightly roast the fine flour until fragrant, then add the melted butter, mixing them into a roux.

Stir-fry diced bacon with a small amount of olive oil and drain.

Boil the second broth, add chopped onions and carrot slices, simmer for an hour, then strain.

Return the broth to the pot, add 150 grams of milk, 100 grams of light cream, and bacon bits, simmer for 10 minutes, season with salt and black pepper, then add the roux and mix well.

Looking at the pot of what could be considered perfect white sauce, Fu Yu felt quite amazed.

It’s said that mastering culinary arts is about understanding comprehensive principles.

In cooking, it’s the same.

Just like the process of making this white sauce, the steps Zhao Meng guided are almost identical to those recorded in classic old recipes.

This shows that current cooking techniques still closely resemble the old methods, even when modified or innovated, they fundamentally adhere to traditions.

Fu Yu added a suitable amount of olive oil to the frying pan, placed the crab pieces, and after browning them, poured in the white sauce to simmer for a while.

Then he added the mashed potatoes, yam pieces, and green peas, cooked them all together, and adjusted the taste with salt and black pepper before plating and serving.

”It smells so good!”

Zhang Jinyu sniffed, a look of longing on her face.

It was also Fu Yu’s first time making this dish. When Zhao Meng cooked it back then, he had been too busy running around helping out, and once the dish was ready, he was just relieved and hadn’t really paid much attention.

Now standing close by and smelling it, the dish indeed had a very rich aroma, the scent of cream mixed with the crab’s unique freshness, even Fu Yu felt a bit hungry.

He glanced at the clock on the wall, it was past twelve already. Once he was done with the tasks, he decided to casually fix himself something to fill his stomach first.

Once the idea came to him, he couldn’t suppress it.

So, while preparing the crossed bridge big abalone, Fu Yu intentionally served two extra bowls of fin soup during ingredient preparation.

The fin soup was the restaurant’s old stock, kept on low heat for years, ready to use anytime by scooping it out directly.

This old soup was made with high-quality ingredients.

Parboil ribs, old chicken, chicken feet, and shark bones, and wash them clean.

Fry the skin-on pork belly until fragrant.

Use bamboo skewers to string together several pieces of bamboo slats, lay them at the bottom of a large barrel.

Add water, bring it to a simmer, then layer in ribs, old chicken, shark bones, pork belly, and chicken feet in sequence to simmer.

The restaurant’s old soup was left with 60 pounds of fin soup after straining the solids.

This broth remains fresh for over a month without going bad.

Fu Yu instructed Zhang Jinyu to clean the abalone, while he, seizing the gap between cooking other dishes, poured the fin soup into a pot, added water, casually mixed some flour into a paste, and poured it through a skimmer, letting the paste drip through the holes into the soup pot.

As the broth boiled and slightly bubbled, he added chopped green onions and cilantro, along with salt and MSG, and a pot of steaming hot and fragrant fresh soup threads was ready.

Fu Yu picked up a few small bowls, filled them one by one, and set them aside to cool.

Then he continued to cook the crossed bridge big abalone with fin soup.

The cleaned abalone is wiped clean around the edges with a scrub sponge, and sliced into thin pieces.

This is a skilled task.

Anyone can slice abalone, but if you want it thin and neat, that really tests knife skills.

Fu Yu now performs cutting with complete ease.

A sharp kitchen knife slices horizontally through the abalone meat, neatly cutting down the soft abalone flesh.

Thin, uniformly thick abalone slices are arranged on a plate.

The abalone shells are blanched, cleaned, and kept for plate presentation.

The tomato is washed, cut into eight pieces, and placed on another plate.

The prepared wing broth is seasoned with salt and chicken powder, and served in a tall container, accompanying the abalone slices to the table.

This dish, once on the table, requires the server to assist the guest.

In front of the guests, the abalone slices and tomatoes are separated into bowls, the wing broth is brought back to a boil and poured into the bowls, and sprinkled with a bit of scallion.

Otherwise, if the abalone and tomatoes are overcooked, the taste will be affected.

The newly added dishes were finally cooked, and Fu Yu took advantage of the time while cooking the other dishes to distribute the cooled fresh noodle strips to Zhao Meng and the others.

Everyone was busy all morning and was already feeling hungry, so being able to eat a bowl of fresh noodle strips at this point was a blissful enjoyment.

Not looking to be full, just to pad the stomach a bit, they felt particularly comfortable.

Zhan Xin came over to serve the dishes and, fortunately, managed to get a bowl as well.

These fresh noodle strips are obviously a very ordinary food, but they taste exceptionally good at the moment.

The strips are chewy, paired with rich, fragrant broth, and one bite leaves a lingering fragrance in the mouth.

The bowl is not large, and there are not many strips, even for Zhan Xin, it’s gone in just three or four bites.

After finishing a small bowl of fresh noodle strips, Zhan Xin still felt unsatisfied, although it’s a very ordinary thing, eating it feels so special!

It was really delicious!

Lingering in taste.

She carried the tray out the door, couldn’t help smacking her lips twice, indeed, this broth is really fresh!

After taking just two steps, Zhan Xin heard Sun Qingning’s loud voice behind her: ”Xiaoqing! You’re finally here! Quick, Chef Fu left a special portion for you!”

Zhan Xin paused in her steps and looked back to see Fu Yu taking a moment in the middle of his busy work to personally hand a bowl of fresh noodle strips to Liu Yuqing.

The bowl is a small blue and white porcelain one, also not large, but the strips inside are piled high!

Liu Yuqing peeked inside and casually asked, ”Are these noodle strips?”

”Yes, made with old broth.” Fu Yu said with a smile, ”They’ve already cooled down, give them a try!”

No one in the shop doesn’t know that Fu Yu’s cooking is delicious, there’s a natural difference in talent when it comes to cooking, with the same ingredients, everyone finds Fu Yu’s dishes taste better.

So, whenever Fu Yu takes time to make something to eat, it always receives great praise.

Fu Yu is not stingy, whenever he makes food, he shares it with everyone, letting them all have a taste.

Of course, everyone can see that Fu Yu definitely cooks with a bit of personal bias.

Liu Yuqing likes to eat amber walnuts, which are so troublesome to make, yet every week, some fortunate staff in the kitchen get to eat it three or four times, each time made by Fu Yu himself, each walnut crisp and flavorful, remaining crunchy even after half a day.

Liu Yuqing doesn’t like eating fish fillets or meat segments, but even with a kitchen full of ingredients, it’s impossible to feast on big shrimp, crab, and similar seafood every day, nor have stews of soup, fried chicken, and baked scallops for each meal.

These are items from the shop, and occasionally, when there are leftover scraps, the kitchen staff shares and eats them, it’s no problem.

But that only happens when luck permits, when customers place an order.

So, like yesterday afternoon, when everyone gathered to eat leftover ingredients from stir-fry dishes earlier, and while making homemade dishes, Fu Yu used his convenient position as chef to specially prepare a big bowl of seafood noodles that would make anyone salivate just by looking at it for Liu Yuqing.

Sun Qingning and Zhang Jinyu stretched their necks to look over Liu Yuqing’s bowl, seeing the white crab meat and big chunks of scallops, even if they are scraps, they still looked pretty tempting.

Both yelled at Fu Yu: ”Playing favorites!”

Fu Yu replied with a grin: ”Didn’t Xiaoqing treat us to milk tea? It’s only normal to return a little special service when someone is generous with you!”

As evidence, Fu Yu pointed to Zhao Meng also holding a bowl of noodles beside him: ”Look, I got Zhao Chef a bowl too, there aren’t many ingredients, so that’s it. He’s our head, of course, he gets some special treatment too!”