Chapter 969: Chapter 406: It’s So Delicious, I Could Eat a Whole Pot of These Goose Feet! Taking Dundun to the Auto Show!

"Where’s the cold storage?"

Cheng JianShe asked as he held the tray of goose feet Lin Xu had just taken out of the pot.

A senior chef next to them said:

"Inside. You want to send them in to cool down? I’ll take them for you."

"Thanks."

"You’re welcome, you’re welcome."

After that chef carried the goose feet away, Cheng JianShe finally said:

"Last time we braised a bit too many goose feet, left them in the fridge and forgot about them. Later when we took them out and reheated them slowly in abalone sauce until they were fully warmed through, the texture actually went up another level, so we kept that method."

Dai Jianli cut off a piece of soy-braised beef from the braised-meat section not far away, took it in his hand and bit into it:

"Old Xie never mentioned this... This braised beef is good, nice and chewy."

Cheng JianShe said:

"Building No.10 has been doing it like this for ages, you just never paid attention."

"Damn, and Guo Weidong never told me. If I’d known earlier I should’ve grabbed a few more of his Big Red Tangerines last time."

Old Dai sounded every bit the bandit he was at heart.

Before long, the goose feet had cooled completely.

When they were brought back, the goose feet that had been braised until soft and tender had tightened up again, and that stock-braised aroma had also faded quite a bit.

"Right now the fragrance has pulled back into the meat, and the skin’s tightened up. In this state, when you go in again with abalone sauce, the flavor and texture of the sauce can really penetrate all the way into the goose feet."

Cheng JianShe explained the cooking principles carefully.

Then he poured the abalone sauce Lin Xu had brought into the wok, brought it to a boil over high heat, leaned over the wok to sniff the aroma, and couldn’t help praising:

"This abalone sauce is spot-on. Even if we let Head Chef Xie or Head Chef Guo make it, they’d be about on this level... Who made this? Old Qi?"

Lin Xu said:

"I did."

"No wonder. With Chef Lin making abalone sauce this well, is Lin Ji about to start putting abalone-sauce dishes on the menu?"

"We’ll put some on, but not too fast. We’ve rolled out too many new dishes lately, so we need to be selective."

The more dishes a restaurant serves, the heavier the prep workload is in the back kitchen, and the easier it becomes to waste and lose ingredients. So rolling out new dishes has to be planned; you can’t rush it.

Cheng JianShe scooped up half a ladle of the red-tinged abalone sauce, then lifted a spoonful from the ladle and put just a little into his mouth:

"Whoa, this seasoning is nice. The base flavor’s solid, and both the aroma and umami are pushed up."

Different chefs all have their own ways of making abalone sauce.

Some like to season it completely as they make it. Some prefer to half-season it and adjust when they use it. Some don’t add any seasoning at all when making it and only worry about flavoring when it’s used.

So when you’re using someone else’s abalone sauce, you have to taste it first; only then can you adjust it accurately to the flavor you want.

Based on Cantonese-style habits, Cheng JianShe added two pieces of crystal sugar into the wok, drizzled in a little Dark Soy Sauce, then added a few drops of brandy.

Brandy adds a touch of mellow liquor aroma, giving the abalone sauce a heavier, deeper flavor and a richer fragrance.

After simmering for a few minutes until the crystal sugar dissolved, Cheng JianShe finally poured in the prepared goose feet and reheated them gently in the sauce.

At this point the heat under the stove couldn’t be too high; it needed to bubble away over a low flame, while he continuously ladled the abalone sauce from the wok and poured it over the goose feet.

Old Dai finished the piece of beef in his hand, then went to slice off a section of freshly braised pork intestine that had just come out of the pot. He walked over, took one look at the abalone sauce in the wok, and couldn’t stop himself from saying:

"Old Cheng, you’re really not shy about the cost. If you gave this abalone sauce to Guo Weidong, how many portions of ’abalone sauce braised goose feet’ and ’abalone sauce braised fish maw’ do you think he’d crank out of it?" 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Cheng JianShe smiled:

"If it were just for us to eat, I’d definitely cut it with some stock. But in a place like this, adding stock is considered lowering the grade—we just braise straight in the pure abalone sauce."

Five minutes later, the goose feet had gone all wobbly again, which meant they were heated through.

Cheng JianShe took them out of the wok and arranged the goose feet evenly in the middle of a small bowl that had been scalded with hot water, palms facing inward, leg bones facing out, and the presentation instantly jumped up a level.

The reason for using a bowl was that bowls retain heat better.

As for scalding the bowl, that’s a common habit when serving hot dishes in high-end restaurants.

There’s a saying: "Hot equals three times as tasty." Heating the serving vessel before plating lets the dish’s aroma develop even further.

If you put food directly into a cold vessel, the plate will soak up the heat from the dish first.

Before it even hits the table, the temperature of the dish has already dropped, and the aroma, texture, and everything else will take a serious hit.

Some people who know their stuff, when they eat in high-end restaurants, will touch the rim of the plate when a hot dish arrives.

If it’s cool, that means the back-kitchen chef isn’t up to snuff.

The reason dishes are so expensive in high-end restaurants lies entirely in details like these.

After plating, Cheng JianShe turned up the heat under the stove, bringing the abalone sauce in the wok to a boil.

Then he drizzled in half a spoon of water starch to further thicken the abalone sauce.

Ideally the abalone sauce should be thick enough to form threads when it lifts; ladled over goose feet that have been braised until soft and flavorful, it gives a fuller, heavier mouthfeel and tastes even better.

Soon the abalone sauce in the wok turned thick and glossy.

Cheng JianShe didn’t plate it out right away. Instead, he spooned some peanut oil into the wok.

In Cantonese cuisine, the use of peanut oil is quite high.

This may have come from Northern Shandong chefs fleeing south during wartime, or from Northern officials bringing their household chefs when they took up posts in the south.

Either way, the Shandong chefs’ habit of using peanut oil somehow took root and flourished in the tradition of Cantonese chefs.

Whether it’s stir-frying, pan-frying, deep-frying, or drizzling oil over and marinating, a single spoonful of peanut oil is enough to give the fragrance of a dish a further boost.