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Published at 12th of September 2017 06:44:30 AM


Chapter 8

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Chapter 8 – Four Part Ingredient, Four Part Culinary Skill

After pouring the last few drops of honey onto the sorghum rice, Gu Zheng let out a heavy sigh.

The sorghum rice was already cooked. Sorghum rice was classified as a coarse grain, eating it plain just after it was steamed left it with a so-so texture. However, adding the honey could improve the texture, as well as it’s fragrance, making this rice even more delicious.

“What are you guys doing?”

He had just opened the kitchen’s sliding door when Gu Zheng saw the three other standing behind it. They all had a suspicious appearance.

“Is it done? Gu Zheng, if it isn’t ready yet, if we don’t die from hunger, we’ll die from anger!”

Du Yang eagerly spoke. The other two nodded their heads in agreement. They weren’t willing to go outside. If they remained they would be forced to continue to smell the fragrance of Gu Zheng’s cooking. It was an unbearable torture for them.

“It’s already done, you guys should go seat yourself at the dining table. I’ll serve you!”

Gu Zheng gently nodded his head. When the three heard that they immediately rushed to the table. They rushed so quickly Gu Zheng couldn’t believe his eyes, they had never before acted like this.

“Wash your hands, then we’ll eat!”

While carrying out the silkie soup, Gu Zheng spoke another sentence. The three simultaneously raised their hands. Impatiently, Wang Tao spoke: “While you were cooking we already washed our hands three times. We already knew about your rules, we were just waiting to eat!”

Gu Zheng indeed have a lot of rules. When he was cooking, others couldn’t enter the kitchen, he didn’t let them help. Before eating, they had to wash their hands thoroughly, and while eating, they couldn’t talk too loudly.

There were a lot of rules, however since the food was delicious, they were still extremely eager to eat his foods.

“Wait, give me a moment!”

After confirming the three of them’s hands were clean, he no longer bothered with the matter. He brought each dish out one by one. Gu Zheng’s tableware was Jingdezhen prefecture porcelain. It was specially requested tableware, how it was made, Gu Zheng didn’t know. However, most of these utensils were exported from foreign countries that were used in numerous foreign famous hotels.

Gu Zheng’s set was ordered by his father.

Three dishes, one soup. Each person had one small bowl. Each bowl contained some of the slightly golden sorghum rice. It exuded a slight sweet scent and ignited their appetites.

“How fragrant!”

The silkie soup’s cover was opened first. The three all breathed in with their nose. The soup was the one completed the earliest. After stewing for two hours, both the silkie and the wild ginseng’s nutrition had been thoroughly integrated into the soup. Prior to this, the lid was covered. Since it was now open, the accumulation of its fragrance instantly spilled out, and attracted the three’s admiration.

“So beautiful!”

Next, he opened the stir-fried wild lotus. After he finished frying the wild lotus, he arranged them in a shape of a heart and placed two green leaves within it. It was as if the green heart was being held. Around the wild lotus, several mushrooms were sparsely placed. There were many rich colors, however they didn’t conflict with each other.

Ten large prawns were arranged in a circle. The prawns had all been treated with the prawns intestines removed. Some wild lotus was stuffed into the prawns, it looked as if there were small dots of black within it’s body. After the prawn was cooked, Gu Zheng poured the special soy sauce on it, so that the prawn could fully absorb the smell of the soy sauce, without actually affecting the flavor.

The last dish opened, was the juicy honey chicken. It consisted of the silkie’s wings, the chicken’s legs, and a part of the chicken breast.

The golden colored chicken wings and legs were arranged in a crescent shape. After opening the lid, the rich flavour that had been building up beneath it rushed out. Even Gu Zheng couldn’t help but breath in through his nose. If there weren’t any others, even he would’ve wanted to first take one to try himself.

“Can we eat it?”

Wang Tao swallowed his saliva and whispered. Not waiting for Gu Zheng’s reply, Du Yang and Zhao Yongkui simultaneously extended their jade chopsticks, each picking up a chicken wing.

“Delicious, truly delicious!”

The two issued incomprehensible noises as they bit into the chicken wings. Wang Tao notice that the chicken wings were gone, and quickly searched for the small chicken feet. Gu Zheng who saw the sight couldn’t help but smile and shake his head, and he gently picked up a chicken leg, and placed it within his mouth.

Gu Zheng’s eyes couldn’t help but open wide. The chicken’s fat wasn’t greasy in the mouth and disintegrated like a liquid within. The sweet chicken made Gu Zheng quickly eat it. His mouth was full of it’s scent which further stimulated his saliva. Soon the whole piece of the chicken was swallowed into his stomach.

“Delicious!”

Gu Zheng couldn’t stop himself from exclaiming. After he finished cooking it, he knew how fragrant it was. However, he hadn’t tried it at all. He couldn’t think of anything that he could compare its taste to. He had eaten plenty of high quality things before, however he had never tasted something like this.

“It’s alright. However for you, it’s quite impressive!”

The sound of the spirit device suddenly ranged oup. Gu Zheng quickly took another piece of chicken and asked himself: “I’ve eaten a lot of delicious things, however I’ve also made a lot of dishes. I’ve never made something so delicious before, why?”

“For any dish, the ingredients are the most important. Even if one used clever cooking techniques, if the ingredients were bad, one wouldn’t be able to make something that is truly delicious. According to your customs, if a dish were to be rated, it would be four-part ingredient and four-part the cooking itself!”

“What you’ve said isn’t wrong. I believe that the portion for ingredients should be higher. How come you only said that it was our part ingredients and four-part cooking skill? What are the remaining two parts?””

On one side Gu Zheng was eating, on the other he was asking questions. The chicken was truly delicious, the sorghum rice was decent as well. When he gave the sorghum a touch of honey in the pot, it not only changed the taste of the sorghum rice, but also it’s texture. It could be eaten easily, and it was also delicious.

Of course, Gu Zheng understood himself that the raw sorghum rice’s quality was extremely important by itself. If he had used any other sorghum rice that had not reached second-class quality, the taste would definitely not be like this.

“These dishes of yours are of too poor quality. In the Great Desolate, there were many excellent natural ingredients. Even without using any special cooking skill, they would all be much better then anything here. The two other parts you brought up earlier are, cultivation. Cultivation can enhance one’s cooking skills as well as the quality of the ingredients. The higher the cultivations, the resulting dishes will also become better. The dishes that Master God of Gluttony made were well known as the best!”

Gu Zheng had yet to speak before the spirit device continued: “For example, if you didn’t have that common quality honey, you wouldn’t of had as good as an effect. You chose this chicken, although it is pure, it isn’t considered anything overly special. However when eating it, even with other second-class ingredients, if you didn’t have that common quality honey, if you tried to make more it wouldn’t have reached this level. It would have no redeeming qualities otherwise!”

“I understand, what you’ve said is true. If I didn’t have the honey, this juicy honey chicken would’ve never had such a taste, even if all the other ingredients were of second-class quality!”

This time, Gu Zheng did not refute the spirit device’s words. He was a chef, he was very clear how important of a role the honey played this time. No wonder the God of Gluttony had a grading system for ingredients. Each level had a huge difference. With just the common quality honey, the taste had become so delicious. For the first time, Gu Zheng looked forward towards the ingredients stored within the God of Gluttony’s storage space.

According to the spirit device’s words. Within the god of Gluttony’s storage there were several high quality ingredients. There were also several of the good grade. He had never cooked dishes that were so good before. He had no idea what kind of dish would be made from high quality ingredients, he had to try it.

“We finished eating, is there anything else?”

Gu Zheng was thinking when he suddenly saw three pairs of eyes watching him. During his spiritual exchange with the spirit device about martial arts, the three dishes and one soup on the table had all been picked clean. There wasn’t a single bit left, even the bowl’s of the others didn’t have a single grain remaining.





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