THE GAME OF LIFE

Chapter 661: Chapter 659: Soup

May 1st is Labor Day, also the day when the whole nation takes a break and celebrates, when Taifeng Building earns several times the overtime pay, and when the Great Wall is as crowded as dumplings being dropped into a pot.

At the same time, it’s the day Zhang Chu brought his grandson, Zhang Zhiyuan, to Beiping to visit his wife’s eldest apprentice brother.

It’s a new month with no news from Sun Jikai.

It’s the significant date when Jiang Feng squatted in Yonghe House, eagerly awaiting the long-anticipated feast personally prepared by Peng Changping.

While squatting for the feast, Jiang Feng didn’t forget to practice making stock, even moving himself with his dedication.

Making stock is a long and difficult process. Even a slapdash effort is nearly impossible for an average cook, let alone the premium stock Jiang Feng aimed to create for Jiang’s Sea Cucumber Soup. The difficulty of such a stock could be described as hellish, as if riding an elevator straight down to the eighteenth level, and then considering digging down to a nineteenth.

Moreover, practicing stock is different from practicing other dishes, as quality matters over quantity. If Jiang Feng had previously been able to spend a day tirelessly making dozens of portions of stuffed orange crab, with stock he could only make one pot a day, a pot so good it felt like ten, and after finishing, he would look out the window and feel as if the sky had brightened already.

Of course, most of the time, by the time Jiang Feng finished making the stock, the sky had already darkened.

Before coming, Zhang Chu called Peng Changping, saying he and Zhang Zhiyuan would arrive in Beiping at two in the afternoon. Given this time frame, Jiang Feng would usually be in the backstage kitchen of Yonghe House, closely monitoring the soup pot, so this time he didn’t have to pick them up; Lu Sheng would send an assistant for that.

Since opportunities to enjoy a full table of dishes personally made by Peng Changping were rare, as soon as Lu Sheng learned of it, he immediately said he had long admired Zhang Chu, and since the wooden furniture at Yonghe House needed some repairs, he wanted to discuss this matter over the dinner table.

If Lu Sheng’s excuse for joining the meal was somewhat reasonable, Xu Cheng’s excuse was utterly nonsensical—he claimed he was interested in Cao Guixiang and wanted to take the opportunity to interview Xu Cheng at the dinner table.

No matter how nonsensical the reasons were, the outcome was the same. The original four-person gathering turned into a six-person dinner, but this did not stop Jiang Feng from practicing his stock as usual.

“Almost there, pay attention to the timing when you skim the stock next time. Like I said last time, you need to learn to control the temperature by feeling,” Master Peng glanced at the stock Jiang Feng was skimming and then went to check on the dish just finished by his disciple.

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In this period, Master Peng was very busy. When he went abroad years ago, he took only one apprentice with him, leaving the rest behind in China. Later, he took on two more apprentices in the US, and his apprentices in China had taken on many more disciples for him. Despite carrying the title of Master Peng’s disciples, many of them had never received a day of his guidance. Since Master Peng’s return, aside from the first few days when Lu Sheng and Xu Cheng took him around Beiping City to eat and explore, the rest of his time was spent rooted in Yonghe House, devotedly instructing his apprentices and Jiang Feng.

“Uncle… no, Jiang Feng, are you really not Master Peng’s newly accepted last disciple?” asked the lowest-ranking young chef at Yonghe House, who had to call everyone uncle or granduncle, and whose name Jiang Feng didn’t remember, in disbelief.

He was the first to start calling Jiang Feng as “Uncle Master,” which led to the rumor that Jiang Feng was Master Peng’s newest junior disciple. Perhaps because first impressions are hard to change, or maybe due to habit, this young chef still instinctively called Jiang Feng “Uncle Master” whenever he saw him.

Jiang Feng: Confidently, keep calling me “Uncle Master;” after all, I don’t lose anything from it.

“Of course not, Jiang Weiguo is my grandfather, Jiang Weiming is my granduncle. How could I possibly be Master Peng’s apprentice?” Jiang Feng said.

“Why not?” the young chef asked, puzzled.

Jiang Feng: …

“I’m going to skim the stock.”

The focus of skimming high stock is different from that of clear soup.

The emphasis of clear soup is on being as transparent as water.

The emphasis of high stock is on the savory taste. There’s no need for excessive skimming; removing impurities is enough. The priority is to better lock in the umami flavor and to make slight adjustments to the stock based on the different dishes it will accompany.

Jiang Feng has read the method of making high stock for the Jiang’s Sea Cucumber Soup recipe many times. The technique used by Jiang Hengzhong to prepare the stock, compared with Master Peng, was somewhat rough. Jiang Hengzhong prepared the stock by separately stewing chicken and pork broth, with only two simple skimmings in between, before mixing them and letting the sea cucumber stew in it for an entire night, relying on immense patience and energy.

Peng Changping was different; on the first day of teaching, he demonstrated the entire process of making Jiang’s Sea Cucumber Soup to Jiang Feng. Peng Changping believed that to learn a dish, one should first taste it. Compared to Jiang Hengzhong’s emphasis on time and patience, Peng Changping focused more on the fineness and completeness of the broth. On the first day, he stressed to Jiang Feng that since sea cucumber itself has little flavor, and if not handled properly, it could even have an off taste, the broth becomes the sole source of flavor for this dish—the perfection of the broth determines the dish’s upper limit.

Jiang’s Sea Cucumber Soup, if one removes the prefix “Jiang’s”, only leaves “Sea Cucumber Soup”. The sea cucumber is not the focal point, but the soup is.

It is the essence of the broth, the final reduction that contains all the deliciousness of a pot of broth, that truly forms the soul of the dish.

The Jiang’s Sea Cucumber Soup made by Jiang Hengzhong required spending an entire night just stewing the sea cucumber, while Peng Changping’s version of Jiang’s Sea Cucumber Soup could be produced in 6 hours if everything went smoothly.

Of course, Jiang Feng believed the main reason for such a huge difference in time was that Jiang Hengzhong, when he was alive, didn’t know that there existed such a miraculous kitchen tool as the pressure cooker.

Jiang Feng had tasted the dish—it was beyond mere words like tasty, delicious, or delicacy.

It was a flavor beyond the wildest dreams, and if the “immortal grass flavor” cabbage that Sir spoke of truly existed, then what Peng Changping made would be considered the “immortal soup flavor” sea cucumber soup.

No need for adjectives, just add an “immortal” to describe it.

Jiang Feng was preparing the final skimming of the soup.

Since the goal was to push the flavor of freshness to the extreme, every tiny detail became extremely important, especially the skimming. The amount of red and white minced meats, the part of the meat, the timing of adding it into the soup, the speed of stirring, the temperature, and the timing of skimming—it all had to be perfected. Peng Changping made it seem easy; it appeared as if you just put it in, watched, stirred, removed, and everything was done.

But for Jiang Feng, it became—put it in—wrong.

Look—did not monitor well.

Stir—the timing and the rate seemed a bit off.

Remove—it wasn’t the optimal time.

And everything went back to square one.

The reason why experts are experts is that they not only know all the potential pitfalls but also how to perfectly avoid them. Rookies are rookies because even if they know many pitfalls, they still step on them and even create entirely new pitfalls.

Jiang’s Sea Cucumber Soup was the most difficult dish Jiang Feng had learned since he started learning cooking by himself. The “chicken tofu” was certainly difficult, but when Jiang Feng practiced to improve his proficiency, he did so alone and did not seek Jiang Weiming’s guidance. Instructional videos are good, but after all, they are no match for face-to-face teaching.

One hundred percent difficulty, instructional videos could only reveal fifty percent, but face-to-face teaching could magnify it to two hundred percent.

Jiang Feng removed the minced meat, focusing on the removed minced meats and the chicken broth in the pot.

It seemed like another entirely new flop.

Noticing Jiang Feng’s actions, Peng Changping leaned in to look. “The temperature was too low during the skimming, this pot is ruined…”

Peng Changping was about to say to redo it when he suddenly remembered that Zhang Chu would arrive this afternoon, and he probably wouldn’t have time to guide Jiang Feng later as he had to prepare dinner.

“Deal with this pot on your own, and take a break to get ready for lunch,” Peng Changping said. “Are you going back this afternoon?”

“Not going back,” Jiang Feng shook his head. He was supposed to be firmly planted at Yonghe House for dinner that evening; how could he leave in the afternoon.

“Then help me out in the afternoon, and we will prepare dinner together,” Peng Changping nodded. “Since it’s the holidays, relax a little; you don’t need to come over tomorrow, just rest well at home.”

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