Abnormal Gourmet Chronicle

Chen Huihong stuffed a bun into her mouth: "Vegetable buns are definitely less popular. Back in Beiping, during those eat-and-drink days, none of the big restaurants ever made ordinary vegetable buns. It was either beef buns, lamb buns, or something like mountain delicacies buns, seafood buns, eight treasures buns, stuffing all sorts of odd things into the buns - deer meat, moose meat, bear meat - stuffing whatever was available, and the flavors were a total mess. Even the regular pork buns were hardly edible."

"Although the flavors were all over the place, Taifeng Building's buns were always the tastiest. Did you ever go to Taifeng Building for a bite?"

Luo Jun took a silent bite of his bun and spat out a single word: "Buzz off."

"Are all of you taking lessons from Cheng Gong in talking like this?"

Chen Huihong chuckled: "Not really, just a bit of casual chatting among us."

"Assistant Chen's way of speaking is always interesting, quite uniquely concise."

Luo Jun took another bite of the bun. Since it tasted quite good, it slightly improved his mood, so he kept silent.

After devouring an entire bun, Luo Jun slowly said: "Can you really finish all 18 buns? Save me three, I'll have them as a midnight snack tonight."

Chen Huihong: ???

.

After dinner, Qin Huai carried a bag containing a selection of snacks—vegetable meat buns, green bean cake, and fragrant seared radish cake—to Zheng Siyuan's house.

Since the agent Zheng Da initially hired was ineffective, Zheng Siyuan couldn't rent a place in Yunzhong District. He only managed to get a one-bedroom apartment in the newly refurbished complex next door.

Later on, Qin Huai learned about this and offered to help Zheng Siyuan find a place in Yunzhong District, but Zheng Siyuan declined. He didn't have high demands for his living space and didn't want to move. He felt it was merely a matter of taking a few more or fewer steps.

When Qin Huai delivered the snacks to Zheng Siyuan's doorstep, Zheng Siyuan was in the midst of making crab yellow sauce.

Seeing Qin Huai, Zheng Siyuan immediately said: "You're just in time. I was planning to tell you tomorrow."

"The Double Crab Bun with crab yellow sauce should ideally use fresh crab yellow sauce, but it's not crab season now. If fresh crab yellow were available, there's no need to make a crab yellow sauce one, just go for the regular version."

"These are new crab yellow sauces I've specially cooked with extra processing, but somehow they don't feel quite right. You're here at the perfect time to help me taste them."

The method for making crab yellow sauce is actually quite simple, just use lard to stew fresh crab yellow, then add scallions, ginger, garlic, and other seasoning as needed. To enhance the flavor and color, using shrimp heads to make oil and adding it to the sauce makes the result even better.

If there are no additional needs, the seasoning only requires simple soy sauce, cooking wine, and salt.

Zheng Siyuan must have started making crab yellow sauce as soon as he got home. The rich aroma of crab yellow permeated the entire room. Since it was originally crab yellow cooked with crab yellow sauce, the fishy smell was relatively mild, mingled with some other aromas not inherent to crab yellow.

"Really?" Qin Huai didn't expect that Zheng Siyuan was even more diligent about the Double Crab Bun than himself. While he hadn't even started practicing it, Zheng Siyuan had already prepared crab yellow sauce.

Qin Huai placed the snacks he brought down at the entrance, changed his shoes, and headed straight to the kitchen to taste the flavors.

Zheng Siyuan had already prepared three types of crab yellow sauce.

The fourth one was simmering in the pan on low heat, re-rendering crab yellow oil.

Qin Huai looked at the jars and containers on the countertop, the ones whose contents obviously weren't pure crab yellow, certainly embellished with various extra ingredients, hastily filled with branded crab yellow sauces, and grabbed a spoon.

First, he tasted the crab yellow sauces Zheng Siyuan had cooked, one by one. However, since he had never made or tasted the Double Crab Bun and didn't know the requirements for its crab yellow sauce, he couldn't make sense of it, could only critique the flavors alone.

Qin Huai pointed to the first one: "This one has the most normal taste."

"It feels like the usual crab yellow sauce taste, albeit a little heavy on the cooking wine. The other two have too many additional ingredients. The third one's starch content seems higher than the crab yellow, I understand the final thickening can enhance the texture, but not to this extent, right?"

"It's the sauce's issue," Zheng Siyuan explained, "The first sauce I got from a supplier; it's the priciest and best quality. But possibly because it's already made into crab yellow sauce, after secondary processing, I find it's not really suitable for Double Crab Bun."

"If you want to use crab yellow sauce for Double Crab Bun, it shouldn't be too genuine."

Qin Huai: ?

Is there really such a theory?

It was the first time Qin Huai had heard that making a snack couldn't be too genuine.

Zheng Siyuan understood what shocked Qin Huai and explained: "My master originally created the recipe for the Double Crab Bun using crab yellow sauce so that diners could enjoy it when crab yellow wasn't in season, offering a similar taste."

"The focus on flavor was secondary; the key was whether the crab yellow sauce could be preserved over long periods. Lots of spicy seasonings had to be added for preservation, given the different conditions back then compared to now, preserving the maximum flavor wasn't feasible."

"So before you arrived, I indeed pondered whether my master's recipe was still applicable today."

"There's now more and better crab yellow sauce available, even if it's not so genuine. It doesn't differ much in taste. To me, these crab yellow sauces far better suit the Double Crab Bun's making, rendering my master's recipe somewhat outdated."

Qin Huai was surprised to hear such words from Zheng Siyuan.

It wasn't that Zheng Siyuan was a conservative, rigid old-timer. In truth, he'd always highly respected, even admired his master. It was his first time hearing from Zheng Siyuan that his master's recipe might be outdated.

"Zheng... did you discuss this matter with Master Zheng?" Qin Huai asked.

"I spoke with my dad over the phone. I initially thought he'd scold me, but he didn't. Quite opposite, he was delighted, laughing heartily for at least three minutes; I worried he'd laugh himself into a hiccup."

"My dad said earlier I was learning how to make snacks; now I've finally learned how to become a chef."

"The start of surpassing your mentor is questioning whether what your mentor did was always right. My dad questioned since childhood, often got punished by my master, but my master liked his character, thinking my dad would be an outstanding pastry chef later."

"My dad is great at everything, just a bit lazy."

"Once he made money, he didn't want to push himself anymore."

Qin Huai: ...

Look at that sentiment, who wants to strive after making money?

Go ask An Youyou; once she made money, she'd probably prefer lying on the beach basking in the sun.

"So..." Qin Huai seemed to realize the first issue he'd need to overcome for Double Crab Bun, "Before we start researching the Double Crab Bun, the real task is figuring out how to make a more suitable crab yellow sauce for the present."

After saying that, Qin Huai tasted the three crab yellow sauces again, one by one, still unable to decipher them clearly.

His palate wasn't bad, but he had no reference model; he hadn't eaten the Double Crab Bun, didn't know what kind of crab yellow sauce suited it.

Zheng Siyuan shook his head: "No, that's my task."

"Before you research the Double Crab Bun, what you need most is to taste what the Double Crab Bun is like first."

After speaking, Zheng Siyuan took out a container from the fridge containing homemade crab yellow sauce: "This crab yellow sauce was made by my dad last year using my master's recipe, albeit not for making Double Crab Buns, but for serving with noodles."

"Tomorrow I'll make you a Double Crab Bun; you'll roughly taste what it's like, then we can start researching the crab yellow sauce."

"Considering that a lot of unsuitable crab yellow sauce will be made during this process, I think starting tomorrow, Yunzhong Restaurant can introduce noodles with crab yellow sauce."

"Your handmade noodles are quite delicious."

Qin Huai nodded, understanding Zheng Siyuan's hint.

"Got it, the broth you simmered this afternoon is still on the stove."

"I'll make sure you get to try Chicken Soup Noodles tomorrow morning."