"Hmm." Shen Youwei tasted it and nodded again and again, "And how is this arranged like this? If it is fried, wouldn't the wild rice silk become messy? Why can it be so neat? This is amazing Already?!"
"This wild rice shreds are not fried, they are steamed." Li Niang smiled and said. "That's why the dishes are arranged so neatly, but doing so requires a lot of control over the heat. If the heat is not enough, it must be undercooked. If the heat is too high, the shredded wild rice will be too old, and may even be steamed and rotten. Of course, this is also related to the wild rice itself. You have to choose a slightly older wild rice and shred it, but it can’t be too old, otherwise, the wild rice will not be cooked. It’s delicious.”
"Waste rice itself is actually very delicious. In a sense, it can even be regarded as a river delicacy. But its umami taste, like other river delicacies, is restrained. So the more you chew it, the more fragrant it becomes. But how can we make it more delicious? How does its restrained umami flavor come out?"
Li Niang said this, and then she pointed to the silver-white silk between the wild rice silk, "This is the secret."
Facing Li Niang's words, Lin Bei and Shen Youwei looked at each other with confusion in their eyes. How could they know what this thing was?
"Uh, what is this, Li Niang?" Lin Bei touched his head and asked humbly like a primary school student.
Looking at Lin Bei's look, Li Niang smiled slightly, and then said, "In the famous Guangdong dish Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, there is an ingredient called fish maw."
"Yeah. I know that!" Shen Youwei nodded and said. "I have eaten the authentic Guangdong Buddha Jumping Over the Wall before. It takes dozens of hours to cook. There is fish maw in it, and it is very delicious!"
"Then do you know what fish maw is?" Li Niang asked.
This time, Shen Youwei shook her head.
"Fish maw is a fish maw!" Li Niang said. "But it's not an ordinary fish maw. Fish maw is the swim bladder of an eel, and it's the swim bladder of a specific type of eel."
"They removed the entire swim bladder of the eel. During this period, the swim bladder could not be broken. They had to ensure that the swim bladder was intact and without any damage. Then they dried the swim bladder at an appropriate temperature. After the swim bladder was dried, it became Fish maw. This process takes a long time and is very complicated. Therefore, fish maw is also recognized as one of the high-end ingredients." Li Niang explained.
"Yeah." Lin Bei and Shen Youwei nodded like two primary school students.
"Then what is this? Is it fish maw? But it doesn't look like it." Lin Bei couldn't help but said.
"Of course this is not fish maw." Li Niang said.
"Sharks, because of their own body structure, do not have excretory organs. Their excretory organ is their skin. Therefore, the flesh of sharks has a fishy smell that is difficult to remove, whether it is pickled, stir-fried, or eaten. It is difficult to remove the fishy smell by cooking, making it into dried fish, and other means, so shark meat is often not edible."
"Many fishermen, after catching a shark, mostly just cut off the shark's fins, which are shark fins. Shark fins are too much. No matter how delicious this kind of thing is, I will not do it."
"However, there are also a few small sharks whose meat is not so fishy and can be eaten. Among them is the cat shark. Nowadays, many chefs peel off the skin of the cat shark and use it for cooking. Very fresh and tender.”
"Is this shark skin?" Shen Youwei was stunned, "But it doesn't taste like it." She has also eaten shark skin, and the taste is completely different from this.
"This is the skin of an eel." Li Niang finally revealed the answer.
After Li Niang finished speaking, Shen Youwei and Lin Bei nodded.
"By the way, what is this pear lady? Is it a pigeon? Or a quail?" Lin Bei asked, pointing at the chicken-like creature in the soup.
"This is a chicken, a guinea fowl." Li Niang replied.
"I only recently learned about this chicken. It seems that it used to be from Africa. It was only introduced to our country in recent years. I bought it this time and tried it." Li Niang said, "It is bigger in size. It's small, and the texture of the meat is very tender, even a little too tender. It's even tenderer than the meat of yellow-feather chicken. This kind of chicken is actually not suitable for braised in braise or white-cut. I thought about it and took it. Try making chicken soup."
"This is my first time making this, you can try it and see how it tastes." Li Niang gestured towards Lin Bei and Shen Youwei.
Since Li Niang said so, Lin Bei and Shen Youwei quickly tasted the chicken soup.
Lin Bei first took a spoonful of chicken soup and tasted it. The unimaginable umami taste made his tongue cramp all of a sudden!
So fresh!
"It's so fresh! I feel an indescribable feeling after drinking it. It's as if my tongue has been stimulated to the extreme." Lin Bei couldn't help but said.
Shen Youwei picked up a piece of chicken with her chopsticks. Just as Li Niang said, the chicken was very tender. She tore a piece of chicken off the chicken stand with a slight force of her chopsticks.
After tasting it, Shen Youwei's eyes widened, "So tender! So tender! This meat feels like eating fish slippery! It feels like slightly harder jelly!"
Shen Youwei's eyes widened. She simply couldn't understand why eating chicken felt like this.
"The reason why this soup is so delicious is not only the flavor of the chicken itself, but also the addition of mountain delicacies." Li Niang said with a smile.
"Mountain treasure?" Lin Bei was a little confused.
He has always heard the word delicacies from mountains and seas. But he has never understood what delicacies are. Delicacies must refer to seafood, but what about delicacies from mountains and seas?
"Mountain delicacies refer to mushrooms!" Li Niang explained to Lin Bei. "There is another term for mushrooms, called chickens without feet. And the mushrooms I use are rare varieties cultivated by myself. They are usually available in the market. You can’t even buy it.”
"So...so amazing." Lin Bei and Shen Youwei looked at each other and were so shocked that they were speechless.
"And this fish." Li Niang took the initiative to pick up a spoon and open the belly of the fish.
"This fish is called black-shell squid. It is a common edible fish in the ocean. There are many types of squid, and the taste and meat of black-shell squid are particularly delicious."
"And this meat. This is just ordinary braised pork. It has been said recently that the price of meat will rise, so I bought some pork belly. Then I went to the suburbs to find wild wheat and brought it back to use for braised pork. This meat is made into Dongpo pork." Li Niang explained all the dishes.