Cao Guixiang became interested and asked, "Which cuisine does your friend specialize in?"

"Huaiyang cuisine."

Cao Guixiang showed an enigmatic smile.

"Then he's going to have to practice a lot."

"Huh?" Qin Huai was taken aback.

"Huaiyang cuisine chefs often struggle with the type of thickening I mentioned. If it's a Shandong cuisine chef, they might be slightly better at it. Xiao Qin, you're not skilled at thickening, so you might not understand the intricacies and difficulties."

"This thickening technique is like the recipe I gave you for cold-dressed sea cucumber. It seems easy, but when you actually do it, you find it doesn't turn out well. If even one aspect isn't perfect, the final product will suffer greatly."

Qin Huai gave a bitter smile, "Isn't that deliberately making things difficult for us, Master Cao? I don't have friends who specialize in Shandong cuisine."

Cao Guixiang smiled with squinted eyes, "Who said you don't? I know a bit of Shandong cuisine too. Haven't you noticed your Knife Skills improving rapidly? I think in no time, maybe two weeks, you'll need to go back to Qiu County for me to check your progress."

"By then, you make the requests, and I'll handle the thickening. Sound good?"

"Just to be clear, when the Double Crab Bun is made, I want to be the first to eat it. I've never had a bun made with Crab Yellow Sauce and sea cucumber together. If I had known Gusu had such buns, I would have gone there to enjoy it when I was younger."

Zhang Chu quietly commented from the side, "Back when we were young, we were too poor to even afford a train ticket back to Beiping. We had to borrow stamps from the Party's secretary to send a letter, let alone play in Gusu."

Cao Guixiang rolled her eyes at her husband for spoiling the moment, "Focus on picking green beans properly, instead of thinking about fishing all day. I haven't seen you catch much fish. Yesterday, you went out in such big rain to fish, and now look, you've caught a cold. Stay home properly, and if you have nothing to do, make a couple more molds for Xiao Qin."

"Xiao Qin, you're getting used to the molds your Grandpa Zhang made for you, right?"

"Used to them, used to them," Qin Huai replied repeatedly. The craftsmanship of Zhang Chu is absolutely top-notch. "I've just been quite busy lately and haven't used them much."

"That's normal. You can't rush learning to cook; you need to take it step by step, making what you want to make first. Build a solid foundation, then explore Finger Skills, thickening, and flipping techniques. These are mere embellishments—having a solid foundation is the real deal."

"See? You got distracted again when we started talking about something substantial. Those last two carrot shreds weren't as good as before."

Qin Huai: ...

Qin Huai could only focus intently again on slicing carrots.

While Qin Huai was diligently slicing carrots, something unexpectedly went wrong for Zang Liang.

Indeed, Zang Liang's thickening skills were better than those of Zheng Siyuan and Tan Wei'an combined. After all, he was a bona fide meat Chef, formally trained, and had practiced since childhood, although his earlier words had a touch of bragging. Still, as a Huaiyang cuisine chef, his thickening skills were quite decent.

Thickening is a skill that must be honed diligently with a good foundation.

Zang Liang felt his thickening was adequate.

Though his movements might not be flashy or exaggerated, not quick or fancy enough like a TV show, everything else was alright.

This should meet the requirement, right?

A thin coat of thickening, thickening twice.

The purpose of thickening is to dilute the strong flavor of the Crab Yellow Sauce with starch water, providing a richer texture, so when used as bun filling, it doesn't seem out of place and can give better feedback after steaming.

Zang Liang felt his understanding of Crab Yellow Sauce shouldn't be off.

Yet Zheng Siyuan and Tan Wei'an both found it unsatisfactory.

Zheng Siyuan found it unsatisfactory because he had been making a lot of Crab Yellow Sauce recently. Since he could make the Crab Yellow Sauce version of Double Crab Bun himself, the more he made, the more he understood what kind of Crab Yellow Sauce he needed. He found it hard to articulate why Zang Liang's wasn't right, but he just knew it was wrong.

Tan Wei'an found it unsatisfactory because he understood snacks involving crab roe.

He had a sincere love for crab yellow snacks. From a chef's perspective, he acknowledged Zang Liang's skills, but from a diner's perspective, he found this wasn't right.

To which Zang Liang: ...

What, pastry chefs are like this now?

No reasons given; just an "I think" and I'm dismissed.

Zang Liang could only grab Qin Huai, who had just finished slicing carrots, to settle the dispute.

Qin Huai, very adeptly, came over holding a spoon.

Even though he hadn't made any Crab Yellow Sauce recently or researched Double Crab Bun beyond theoretical analysis and making cold-dressed sea cucumber, he had rich tasting experience.

Whether the Crab Yellow Sauce was right or not, he could tell in one bite.

If you ask him what was wrong, Qin Huai could only tell you: he felt it was wrong.

That's right, under Qin Huai's lead, the Double Crab Bun research team had become a faction driven entirely by feeling.

Typically, when researching snacks, if you feel something is amiss, you should point it out, explain, analyze, and discuss.

This is a normal process because during research, especially with many people involved, everyone has their own approach. Convincing others without logical argumentation is difficult.

During previous research at Huang Ji into the Four Happiness glutinous rice Mixed Fruit Filling, Zheng Siyuan and Zheng Da almost became estranged father and son due to ideological differences.

But now, the Double Crab Bun research team's members clearly didn't have this problem. A simple "I think it's not right" suffices. No need to ask why—the answer is 'it feels so.'

Whether you understand this feeling is your business; anyway, those who get it, get it.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.