Married the Tough Guy After Transmigrating-Chapter 239 - 240 Learning to Cook
Chapter 239: Chapter 240: Learning to Cook
Chapter 239: Chapter 240: Learning to Cook
Huo Chen was indeed a hunting expert. Within half an hour, he had managed to bring back three wild pheasants and two hares.
As soon as Xu Ying saw him, her eyes bent into smiles. She put her hands on her hips and started giving orders, “Huo Chen, you and Wu Qingsong clean up the pheasants and hares first.
Fuying, come with me.”
Xu Ying squeezed herself into an apron and started acting as the head chef.
“Watch closely. If you want to learn how to cook, you can also start a fire here and try it yourself,” Xu Ying said before calling Shitou over to help her make the fire.
Shitou, hearing this, ran over gleefully as starting fires was something he excelled in.
Xu Ying chose a slightly larger fish, which was already cleaned. She cut the fish in half and then chopped off the head and set it aside.
To better facilitate the learning process, Xu Ying deliberately slowed down her pace.
First, she laid the fish flat, used a sharp knife to cut horizontally from the tail towards the head, forcefully slicing the fish into two halves.
Then, she separated the fillets from the ribs by cutting the two large slabs of fish meat with the knife horizontally, slicing them at an angle into appropriately sized pieces, which could be slightly larger.
Lu Daya often cooked, so this task was nothing difficult for her, and she let others handle the fish cutting.
Gu Fuying was the most eager to learn how to cook. She volunteered to start cutting the fish meat, but having never cooked before, even holding the knife was a challenge, let alone slicing; it took her a great deal of effort just to cut the fish in half.
Wu Qingsong watched with great interest from the side and didn’t miss the chance to mock Gu Fuying, “You’re such a spoiled young lady; you can’t even cut fish.”
Gu Fuying, stung by his comment, immediately snapped back with a furious face, “If you’re so capable, why don’t you cut it?”
“I will then,” Wu Qingsong stepped forward, took over the knife, and with swift movements, evenly sized and uniform slices of fish were quickly prepared.
Gu Fuying’s eyes widened as she looked at Wu Qingsong, incredulous, “You can actually cook?”
Wu Qingsong smiled and said, “What’s the big deal? I’ve been an orphan since I was young, relying only on my younger sister. She was too young to cook, so if I didn’t, we both would have starved.”
Gu Fuying hadn’t expected him to have such a tragic background. Her eyes reddened slightly as she murmured an apology, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up your parents.”
Wu Qingsong didn’t mind, “It’s okay. It’s the truth, and I’m used to it by now.”
From initially being mocked by his fellow villagers as an orphaned wild child, he had eventually grown accustomed to it.
The best shield is not to let these things anger you; once people find it boring, they won’t tease you about it anymore.
When Xu Ying saw that the fish was finely cut, she moved to wash the fillets several times (to remove some of the fishy smell), squeezed out the water, placed them on a plate, and then sequentially added salt, Baijiu, and squeezed the juice out of spring onions and ginger with her hands before mixing it all together with her hands to marinate for about 10 minutes.
Then, she added starch and an egg and mixed it thoroughly.
These steps were relatively simple, and several people had learned them.
Next, she prepared some side dishes, all of which had been brought from home—bamboo shoots peeled and cut into strips, shiitake mushrooms sliced, and ginger julienned; spring onions also cut into thin strips, garlic crushed, and scallions minced for later use.
“The fish fillets have marinated well. We’ll pick out the ginger and spring onions, then add an egg white and a spoonful of starch, mix thoroughly with hands, and marinate it again for 10 minutes so that the fish absorbs the egg white and starch, making it smoother and more tender,” Xu Ying directed.
She then prepared a clean iron wok, heated it up, added oil, and when the oil was hot, added their secret soybean sauce along with Sichuan peppercorns to stir-fry. Added an appropriate amount of water, then added the ginger and spring onions, in sequence added soy sauce, Baijiu, vinegar, sugar, MSG, and brought it to a boil over high heat, then simmered it on low heat for 5 minutes to release the flavors of the Sichuan peppercorns and ginger into the soup.
After about 5 minutes of cooking, we used a slotted spoon to scoop out the seasonings from the soup; of course, we could have left them, but Xu Ying didn’t like eating those bits, so we scooped them out.
After removing the seasoning residues, we added the lettuce strips and mushroom slices into the pot and cooked them for 2 minutes until they were just losing their rawness, then scooped them out and placed them into a large bowl prepared beforehand.
We then added the marinated fish slices into the pot, first heating them gently with chopsticks to separate them, then turned up the heat and cooked them for a few minutes.
Once the fish slices were cooked, we turned off the heat and scooped them into a soup bowl prepared for serving the dish, poured in the soup, and then sprinkled 5 grams of Sichuan peppercorn powder and 5 grams of chili powder, also scattering some minced garlic on top as a reserve.
Next, we heated some oil in a clean pot until it was hot, then poured it over the chili powder, and with a sizzle, the boiled fish was ready.
Accompanied by bursts of aroma, everyone began salivating.
Gu Fuying’s fish was ready as well, though it paled slightly in comparison to Xu Ying’s. Looking at her own finished dish, her eyes brimmed with excitement.
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Gu Fuying, unable to resist, picked up some fish with her chopsticks and put it in her mouth. It was fragrant and spicy, and she thought it tasted pretty good.
“Let me try!” Wu Qingsong came over, full of curiosity.
He picked up a piece and took a bite. Although it wasn’t as delicious as he had imagined, it wasn’t bad either, and he rarely praised, “Not bad, tasty!”
Gu Fuying scoffed, as if it was a given, then passed some fish to her cousin Fuzhu with her chopsticks, “Cousin, try this and see if it’s good.”
Under Gu Fuying’s hopeful gaze, Fuzhu took a bite, the spiciness and fragrance bursting in her mouth instantly, and she nodded her head with a surprised expression, “Tasty.”
Gu Fuying thought she had succeeded and gave Xu Ying a sly smile, quickly running over and picked up a piece of Xu Ying’s fish, tasting it with one bite.
Gu Fuying’s eyes reddened, looking pitifully at Xu Ying, “Why, when I followed the same steps as you, is yours so delicious, and mine so bland?”
Xu Ying was amused by her pitiful look, explaining, “Well, I’m professional in this field.
Whatever you do for a living, you’re bound to be good at, and besides, you’ve never cooked before. It’s normal to be slow at first.
If you made something better than me after just one try, wouldn’t all my years of learning to cook be wasted?”
Gu Fuying sulked a bit, “But didn’t you just learn how to cook too?”
Xu Ying shook her head, “I started cooking last year, but before that, I’d been watching my mom cook every day for over a decade.
Watching for over a decade is the same as learning for that long, right?”
Gu Fuying was instantly comforted by Xu Ying’s words. True, not bad for a first attempt at cooking.
Looking at her dish of boiled fish, Gu Fuying thought about going to let her parents try it, her first time cooking after all.
Compared to the fish made by Xu Ying and Gu Fuying, everyone preferred Xu Ying’s. Gu Fuying watched as everyone went for Xu Ying’s, feeling somewhat disheartened.
However, Wu Qingsong stood in front of Gu Fuying, took a piece, and while eating praised, “Though your knife skills are not great, this fish tastes good.”
“And how about compared to yours, who did better?” Gu Fuying looked at him expectantly.
Wu Qingsong thought for a moment, “I think it’s me.”
