Chapter 138: Chapter 137 Sun Guanyun
Translator: 549690339
“Ten judges? That’s too many, five will suffice, and what about this guy, his reputation has long been tarnished in the industry, paid for writing positive reviews, have you contacted him?” Xu Cheng frowned, clearly dissatisfied with the judges Han Guishan had picked.
“Not yet, for now, I’ve only invited Tong Deyan. Oh, and Grandpa Sun also came by recently, should we invite him?” Han Guishan said.
“With his grandson in the competition, inviting him to be a judge is bound to invite criticism. Tong Deyan… Never mind, let’s not talk about that, lest you accuse me of favoritism. I’ll look it over slowly after dinner at the hotel and give you an answer tomorrow.” Xu Cheng said, turning off the car’s interior light as the vehicle started.
“Okay, this is the competition format, I’m not as knowledgeable as you in this area, so have a look when you can.” Han Guishan handed the document bag to
Xu Cheng.
Xu Cheng took the document bag.
The next day, Jiang Weiguo enlisted outside help for Jiang Feng.
Jiang Jiankang had gone to the storeroom to look for something, and Jiang Feng was in the kitchen cutting vegetables. The three old masters stealthily moved in like guerrilla fighters, with Jiang Feng so focused on cutting vegetables that he didn’t notice at all.
“Your grandson’s knifework is quite impressive!”
An unfamiliar voice came from behind, causing Jiang Feng to nearly jump, almost cutting his own left hand with the knife.
A severed four fingers was a matter of mere fractions of a second.
Jiang Feng turned his head and saw a very unfamiliar elderly man, with grizzled hair, a lean physique, but looking spry, probably around seventy years old.
Jiang Feng was certain he had never seen this old man before. “Grandpa, this…” Jiang Feng looked to Jiang Weiguo for help.
“He is my junior brother, Sun Guanyun,” the old man said.
“Bullshit, Jiang Weiguo you old bastard, stop taking advantage of me. My father only taught you two dishes and never took you as an apprentice!” Sun Guanyun had a fiery temper, and he launched into mockery, “You also don’t look at what you’ve become over these years, always talking about going back to Beiping to buy back your family’s tavern, and now you’re holed up in this college town running a small stir-fry shop, still having the nerve to claim as my senior brother. Aren’t you ashamed, given your age?”
Jiang Weiguo wore a proud expression: “Taifeng Building is still in the Jiang family’s name, it belongs to my grandson now!”
Sun Guanyun was taken aback: “You really bought it back?
Jiang Weiguo did not exaggerate: “My aunt bought it in the thirty-seventh year of the Republic, her son is Feng’s college professor. They recognized each other as family and transferred Taifeng Building to Feng.”
Faced with such an incredible story, Sun Guanyun could only click his tongue in wonder: “You old man, you kept it quite tight, not saying a word for so many days. You really did stumble upon a stroke of good fortune, it’s like red rain from the sky.”
“There’s nothing to brag about, it wasn’t like I earned it by my own abilities,
Jiang Weiguo said.
“Pedantic.” Sun Guanyun snorted coldly.
Jiang Feng was completely dumbfounded.
According to normal analysis, Sun Guanyun was the old friend the old man had mentioned a few days ago. With such a complicated relationship, it was a bit convoluted!
“Alright, let’s not waste time. You asked me to come to give pointers to your grandson on seasoning, right? Let’s get started now.” Sun Guanyun wasn’t just quick-tempered; he was also very eager to begin.
“Feng, pay close attention. Although Sir Sun has a bit of a temper, he can begrudgingly be considered a master of Guangdong cuisine,” Jiang Weiguo said.
Jiang Feng nodded but was also a bit confused. Wasn’t Sun Jikai, from Jubao Building, Sun Guanyun’s grandson?
Otherwise, why would he come to Alan City instead of staying in Guangdong Province to guide Sun Jikai’s culinary skills, especially with the competition coming up?
Jiang Weiguo used the word “reluctantly,” but Sun Guanyun didn’t argue back and began to select vegetables and spices.
Cantonese cuisine is different from Shandong cuisine, which tends to be stronger in flavor and in the use of high heat, often involving stir-frying, with salty and umami as the main tastes. Cantonese cuisine emphasizes quality and taste, using a variety of ingeniously matched ingredients and comparatively lighter flavors, striving for freshness in delicacy and beauty in lightness. Moreover, the most crucial aspect is that Sun Guanyun is better at teaching than Jiang Weiguo.
Having spent decades as a chef at Jubao Building, Sun Guanyun might not have fulfilled his father’s wish to expand Jubao Building’s fame nationwide, but during his years as head chef, he didn’t tarnish the restaurant’s reputation and even trained a large number of apprentices.
“Sun Guanyun, not to criticize you, but you’ve taken on more than a dozen apprentices, how come you haven’t managed to train your two sons?” Jiang Weiguo said.
“Neither have you brought up your five sons,” Sun Guanyun retorted on the spot. “If kids are unwilling, can you force them with a knife to their necks? Becoming a chef depends on talent. My father had six sons, yet only I took over Jubao Building. Do you think everyone has talent like all seven brothers in your family?”
While Sun Guanyun spoke, his hands didn’t stop moving. He crushed the spices and mixed them with various seasonings, turning them into a small pile of variegated granules, and had Jiang Feng take a whiff.
“Tell me what you smell…”
Jiang Feng: …
This kind of deja vu after an entrance exam.
Jiang Feng closed his eyes, concentrated, and began to smell attentively, “Nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, bay leaves, um… um…”
“Taste it.”
Jiang Feng dabbed a bit with his finger to taste. The mixture of various spices and seasonings was incredibly tart and refreshing. After another taste, he said, “Salt, Sichuan peppercorns, MSG.”
Sun Guanyun nodded, “Not bad, but not as good as my eldest grandson. You didn’t taste the angelica or the anise and licorice.”
Sun Guanyun’s teaching method was also very simple. Thinking about secret techniques was out of the question-those were family heirlooms not taught even to apprentices. The first thing he taught was the dipping sauce for whitecut chicken.
The cooking method of white-cut chicken is quite straightforward, with the essence lying in the dipping sauce. Without the sauce, it’s just plain boiled chicken, tasteless. The types of sauces vary greatly. In Guangdong Province, a hundred shops selling white-cut chicken could have a hundred different sauce recipes. There’s no such thing as the only authentic one; as long as it s delicious, it’s authentic.
From the original four major cuisines to the current eight, society has been developing, and dishes have been evolving day by day. Which famous dish hasn’t improved through modifications? With the richness of ingredients and seasonings, many dishes’ methods have long changed, and even the same dish can have different methods and flavors in different places. There is no debate over what’s authentic, only whether it’s delicious or not. What’s not tasty will be eliminated by time, and what remains, a hundred years later, will be the most authentic method.
If one were to categorize the dipping sauces for white-cut chicken, they’d include: ginger-scallion-garlic seasoning, sand-ginger-garlic seasoning, scallion oil seasoning, mashed garlic-cilantro seasoning, and mashed garlic sauce seasoning. So many kinds of seasonings can meet different people’s taste preferences.
“I’ll mix one for you first, then you follow my recipe, and make a seasoning sauce with a similar taste,” Sun Guanyun said.
Jiang Feng nodded.
The five flavors of seasonings were all just simple sauce mixes, requiring no additional processing, and the demonstration was finished in just one minute. Not very challenging; after tasting each one, Jiang Feng successfully mixed sauces with similar flavors.
“Good job,” Sun Guanyun commended, nodding. “Now, imagine a customer who doesn’t eat cilantro or ginger, prefers strong tastes and doesn’t like sourness, how would you mix a sauce for him?
Jiang Feng:…
What the hell is this picky eater doing with white-cut chicken!
*Because the plot requires it later in this text, it is temporarily decided that the Michelin rating system has not entered mainland China. (Though it actually did a few years ago)
Alternate world (•’ L“ ‘•)