"Wait a moment..." The boss raised his right hand.
"???"
"After I finish entertaining the guests, I will assess you after closing today."
"..., oh. Then let me be your assistant. Leave all the washing, chopping, dishes, etc. to me." Shi Ke also had no objection.
"Yeah. That's it. Yukihira, let's get to work."
"Dad, why did you agree so unclearly?" Xingping said softly when Shi Ke went to pick up the steel rod and returned to the kitchen.
"Haha... It's hard to find someone who looks like me. You have to figure it out, right?"
"Does it look like you?" Xingping stared with dead eyes.
"If I'm not mistaken, this guy is a homeless chef."
"What does that have to do with you?"
"A chef who always stays in one place and cooks his own food will never succeed. A wandering chef is a chef who has shown his skills all over the world. Do you understand? This is a gap in vision. Do you understand?"
"He is only fifteen years old. How many places has he been to?" Yukihira curled his lips disdainfully.
"You lost to me five hundred times, right?"
"It's 489 times!!! It's not even five hundred!" Xin Ping was very persistent.
"I'm afraid he has more than you. Victory is what a chef should have. However, the power that failure can bring to a chef is truly powerful. Every time you survive a failure, the chef's cooking skills will improve.
Your current strength is absolutely inseparable from your failures... Oh, why am I telling you this? Work hard and don't be lazy!"
"..." Xingping didn't say anything after listening, and he didn't know what he was thinking.
"Knock!" Shi Ke, who walked into the kitchen, leaned the steel rod against the wall and pointed at the ingredients that had been washed and set aside. "Boss, what do you want me to do? You seem to have already taken care of the ingredients.
Washing and chopping vegetables seems to be a dead end.”
"Well, just help us order the food. We both have our hands full."
"oh."
"Put that stick of yours in the warehouse at the back. It's not suitable for storage in the kitchen. Only kitchen utensils can be stored here." The boss pointed to the steel rod leaning against the corner.
"Uh...Boss, that's...a rolling pin." Shi Ke was so embarrassed.
"..." The boss and Yukihira looked at the steel rods, and then at the rolling pins in their shop, inexplicably feeling like a grandson meeting his grandpa.
"Then put it farther away. If it knocks over and hits something, you'll be in trouble."
"oh."
"I'll put it away. You go and order." Xin Ping said.
"I think it's better for me to do it."
"Don't worry, it won't be damaged."
"I'm not afraid of it being broken, I'm afraid of you being broken."
"What did you say?..." Xin Ping grabbed the steel rod and raised it, his face turned green.
"I'm afraid you'll show off your waist." Shi Ke's mouth twitched.
"How much does this... weigh?"
"Forty-three kilograms, maybe. Made of special steel, you probably can't lift it with your bare hands."
"Come on. You can't bear it. The gas tank isn't even that heavy!!"
"Hmm. You can take me to relax for a while."
"Dad, let me go there." Xingping said to the boss.
"Go and come back quickly. I'm a little busy."
Shi Ke followed Xingping to the back warehouse.
"Just put it here. Don't worry, no one will steal it. To be honest, I have never seen such a big rolling pin in my life. Is this... really a rolling pin? Tell the truth."
"Yes." Shi Ke played a stick trick with a steel rod, and the whistling wind suddenly picked up.
"Okay, stop playing around. Everything will be blown over by the wind." Soma Yukihira looked at the floating vegetable leaves and said, he was really calm.
"Oh. I'm sorry." Shi Ke wrapped the steel rod in a cloth and put it under the table in the corner.
"If you let it go, will it be okay?"
"That's better than hitting someone."
"Well, safety first. Hey..., I suddenly discovered that you are really easy to talk to."
"Oh... I'm Chinese and I'm easy to talk to, except at certain times of course."
"..., hello. Are you strong?"
"Yeah. I'm very strong. When it comes to fighting, I'll fight twenty or thirty, no problem at all."
"I'll go...who wants to fight with you?!"
"Then what do you want to compete with? I have nothing better than fighting."
"What about cooking skills? Aren't you a chef?"
"This is it. It's just entry level."
"..., holy shit! Are you here to destroy my brand?"
"No. Don't worry. If you're not satisfied, you can fire me."
"You said you are entry-level."
"Yeah. Entry level, that's what I think. Besides, there's no place to test my level."
"..., can I think you are pretending?"
"Whatever you think, my current cooking skills are still far from the delicious food I pursue."
"You... forget it, I'll know everything after I try your cooking tonight."
"Yeah. Stay tuned. Let's go back. After chatting for so long, your dad won't beat you, right?"
"..., eh? I forgot about it. Let's go quickly. Why don't you put down your knife? Such a big man will hit someone."
"..., that's not possible. If I lose a handful of them, all my plans will be ruined."
"That's true. Stop carrying the sword later and put it aside."
"I know, I'll find a place to hang the whole set. People will look at it, so I can't throw it away."
"Chuangzhen!! Are you taking such a long time to put something out? No one is ordering anymore." The boss called from the kitchen.
"Oh, here we come." The two of them returned to the restaurant together and started their formal work.
Time flies and one day passes.
"Please go slowly. Thank you for your patronage." The boss was sending the last customer away.
"Thank you for your hospitality~!" the guest responded sincerely.
"It's almost time to put out the charcoal stove... Soma?" The boss looked at Yukihira Soma who was in a daze while collecting the plates, and shook his head helplessly.
"Today's fried rice should be cooked three times more. I will graduate from junior high school in a few months, and then I can devote more energy to practicing cooking... I want to... surpass my dad as soon as possible...
, become the backbone of this restaurant!" Yukihira's expression became brighter and brighter as he thought about it.
"Boss, I've packed up everything from now on. Is it time for the exam?" Shi Ke washed his hands and left the kitchen.
"Uh! Okay." Xingping was woken up. Looking at his eager expression, he must have been thinking about it all day.
"Haha... You can use the ingredients in the kitchen as you like. The theme is home cooking. You can start." The boss said.
"Home-cooked food. Okay, no problem." Shi Ke rolled up his sleeves and picked up a bag of leftover flour from today.
"Pasta? You have the guts." The boss smiled.
"Are you going to make cakes?" Xingping suddenly appeared next to Shi Ke who was adding water to the flour in the basin.
"Hand-pulled noodles. Do you want to learn? I'll teach you." Shi Ke twisted his hand, and a small vortex appeared in the puddle in the middle of the flour pile.
"Handmade ramen. I've never seen it before. Japanese ramen is basically made directly. Is it different in China?"
"Of course." Shi Ke raised his hand, and a medium-sized piece of dough appeared in his hand. Looking at the basin again, the pile of flour was gone. The entire basin was as clean as new.
"..., is it kneaded? So fast?!"
"No. It's just a bunch. Why don't you go out and wait? Kneading dough and stuff like that is quite boring."
"Well. I'm out."
Shi Ke put the dough back into the basin and kneaded it vigorously. The entire dough deformed dizzyingly under his palms, from round to flat, and from flat to round. This process that should have been so boring actually happened.
An inexplicable sense of beauty.
"Knock!" Shi Ke placed a large bowl on top of the dough that was still spinning in the basin.
"Business in the store is so good, there aren't any vegetables left." Shi Ke looked at the place where vegetables were placed, and there were only onions, ginger, garlic and half a small pumpkin left.
"It doesn't matter. It's better to be lighter." Shi Ke thought for a while, chopped the remaining onions, ginger and garlic into fine pieces, added a little more oil, put them in the pot and stir-fried them in sequence, added some seasonings and water.
, cover the pot and simmer for a while.
After a while, open the lid of the pot and remove the slightly burnt residue. Keep the hot oil for later use.
Sitting in the restaurant, Yukihei and his son's noses twitched and their eyes lit up.
"fragrant!"
Shi Ke brought out the pot for cooking noodles in the store, filled it with two-thirds of the water, and boiled the water over high heat.
While waiting for the water to boil, Shi Ke took out the dough that had been awake for a while and said, "Hmm. The time is a little short, about the same."
He rolled the dough on a well-floured table into long, even strips, and then cut it into three equal portions. He picked up one of the sections and started ramen directly. His movements were extremely skillful, just like the ramen veteran who has been doing it for decades.
The master makes things happen.
One buckle, two buckles, three buckles. With the movement of Shi Ke's hands, the noodles were pulled through eight buckles. (The dough is not big, and if you pull it again, it will become a dragon's whisker noodles.) The noodles are so thin that they are almost as thin as a big one.
No. 1 sewing thread.
Shi Ke sprinkled the stretched dough plate with dry flour and started processing the other two doughs.
"Gulu gulu..." The water in the pot boiled, and Shi Ke just finished pulling the third portion of noodles.
Yukihira appeared next to him again, attracted by the technique of hand-pulling noodles, and he was still making gestures with his hands.
Without hesitation, put the noodles in the pot, skim off the noodles, add water and cook again. Boil until the water is slightly boiled. Remove the water and put it into the soup bowl that has been prepared. Sprinkle with chopped green onion and add the special onion, ginger and garlic to stir-fry.
Fragrant sesame oil and serve.
"Please have a taste of a bowl of homemade clear noodle soup."
"It looks very ordinary. Such a clear soup is very light. Doesn't Chinese cuisine pay great attention to the shocking taste?" Yukihira said as he looked at this bowl of plain noodles.
"Why are home-cooked dishes so fancy? Give it a try."
"Why don't you use a steel rod? I'm curious about how to use your rolling pin?"
“Home-cooked food, just plain.”
"I said……"
"Stop talking, eat your noodles, and you will know after you finish. If you keep talking nonsense, the noodles will be soaked." The boss interrupted Xingping's question.
"……,oh."
Chi Liu... Chi Liu..., the two father and son started eating.
Shi Ke was not idle either, he also made a bowl and started eating it.
For a foodie, just watching other people eat delicious food will make them want to die.
The three of them finished eating the noodles in a short while and looked at each other for a long time without speaking.
"Have I passed the test? Tell me something? Boss, Yukihira?"
"Your noodles... are very good. I have to admit, they are really good. I have never eaten noodles with such a texture. When I bite them off, they bounce lightly against my teeth. The seasonings in the noodle soup are very good.
There is less, but the ratio is very strange. It is said to be light and full of flavor, but it is rich but not at all the strong taste of ordinary Chinese food. The topping is fried onion, ginger and garlic in oil, but it does not have the greasy feeling that is common in Chinese food. How is this?
Did you do it?" Yukihira said.
"You've never had Chinese food, have you?"
"I've eaten it. Mapo tofu, stir-fried Qingjiang vegetables, twice-cooked pork, General Tso's chicken, etc., I've eaten them all, and even cooked them."
"Have you ever eaten authentic Chinese food? In a sense, the current General Tso's Chicken has been modified by some chefs according to the tastes of foreigners and has little to do with Chinese food. It has been made as heavy as possible. Now even
Sweet and spicy ones are out, oh my god.”
"...Dad, you are the one to evaluate. My evaluation always feels a bit ignorant." Xingping pushed the boss.
"You added pepper to the noodle soup to enhance the taste, but the real key to your noodle soup is not the soup, but the noodles themselves. Right?"
"Yeah." Shi Ke nodded.
"The noodles themselves? Aren't they just added with some sugar?" Yukihira said.
"You guessed wrong, I didn't add sugar." Shi Ke said.
"What's with the faint sweetness in the noodles? No sugar is used, what is it?"
"It's pumpkin. You kneaded pumpkin into the noodles. Soma, you didn't even taste it?" After the boss finished speaking, he looked at Yukihira with gloating.
Yukihira's face turned red like a cooked crab.
“The boss is awesome!! I’ve eaten all this!”
"Impossible, I watched him knead the dough, and no pumpkin was used in the whole process," Yukihira said.
"I knead it in before ramen. You can't see it when you're waiting outside. This way, the flavor of pumpkin can appear intermittently in the noodles. People can't help but be curious about the source of the sweetness and taste the noodles carefully many times.
.Eat and taste it with your heart, it will be more delicious.”
"In addition, you added pepper to the noodle soup, and the contrast between the two will make the noodle soup that is not too thick give an eye-catching feeling. It is a very good design, and you have passed the standard."
The boss said.
"This is not a design. It's just a reasonable use of seasonings. If you eat something light, then eat something strong, the taste will be stronger. It's common sense in life since ancient times." Shi Ke scratched the back of his head.
"But, how many chefs can take advantage of this in cooking? Very few. Therefore, you are excellent. You can be more modest. Yukihira, take him to your room to make a floor. You can officially go to work tomorrow
Already."
"Why are you staying in my room?"
"I find it too crowded. You are small and the place is quite empty."
"..."
"Crash!!" The store door that had just been closed was opened.