I'm the Culinary God

Because in farm-raised ducks, they generally don’t keep drakes; they don’t lay eggs and only waste feed.

But it’s not that there are no drakes at all. Among roughly seventy or eighty laying ducks, there’ll be one drake, responsible for mating with the hens. That drake is usually eaten by the people at the farm. If you want to buy one, you have to go through a connected guy like Old Huang.

As for wild ducks and pigeons, Lin Xu wasn’t too sure.

Walking into the kitchen, Lin Xu saw today’s ducks, wild ducks, and pigeons laid out neatly on the workbench.

All three kinds of birds had already been plucked clean, smooth and bare, and among them the wild ducks had red bills and red webbed feet, looking very tempting.

Qiu Yaozu lifted up a wild duck and said:

"For domestic ducks you just pick drakes, but wild ducks are more particular. Lin, do you know how wild ducks are graded?"

Lin Xu shook his head. Right now he felt like a total novice just getting into cooking; he’d never imagined that making dishes could be like writing a thesis, needing such rigorous theoretical knowledge.

Qiu Yaozu said three words:

"Look at color!"

Wild ducks aren’t like domestic ducks; as soon as they break out of the shell they have to start finding food.

The ducks that eat well and grow plump when they’re young will have bills and webbed feet that turn red. These are the top students among wild ducks; orange is second-best, and worse ones include yellow, black, and other colors.

For wild ducks you want those with red bills and red webbed feet. Ducks like these are the ones that are really plump and sturdy, and only then will they be flavorful enough in a dish.

Luckily nowadays wild ducks are already farmed by hand, so red-billed, red-footed wild ducks are fairly common.

Lastly, there are pigeons. This is also a fairly particular ingredient; what’s particular isn’t the breed, but the age of the pigeon.

Young pigeons don’t have a strong flavor, while old pigeons, even compared to domestic and wild ducks, might not stew tender no matter how long you cook them. So you want to choose middle-aged pigeons between three and six months old.

"Old pigeons and young pigeons are easy to tell apart—just look at that pad of soft flesh on the bottom of the foot. Old pigeons are relatively more padded there. But middle-aged pigeons are hard to pick; in the past it was always the chefs picking them one by one by hand."

Pick them by hand?

Lin Xu didn’t really understand what that meant.

He asked curiously:

"The people who raise pigeons don’t know?"

"Back then pigeon-raising was pretty rough, and once pigeons started to fly, they all looked the same. How could the pigeon farmers tell them apart? They could only twist necks to pick."

Old pigeons have a longer growth period and a bigger temper. When you twist their neck they struggle violently.

Young pigeons haven’t seen the world; twist their necks however you like and they’re fine with it. Only middle-aged pigeons will struggle a bit right when you first twist their neck, then give up and let you do it.

"But now we don’t have to do that. With scientifically raised pigeons, they all have tags on their legs recording their hatch date. You just pick suitable pigeons based on the number on the tag."

Besides the three kinds of poultry, Three-in-One Duck also needs three ingredients: winter bamboo shoots, shiitake mushrooms, and Jinhua Ham. These three are ready now too, so we can start cooking.

Qiu Yaozu said with a smile:

"I’ve walked you through the theory and the ingredient selection. Next you handle the actual cooking, Lin. Let me see your basic skills while you’re at it."

Lin Xu’s fundamentals were solid. Without another word he picked up the chef’s knife and first did Bone Removal on the drake, getting a feel for it, then moved on to the wild ducks and pigeons.

Same as when making Eight Treasure Gourd Duck, whole-duck Bone Removal starts with an incision below the neck. First you strip out the entire duck neck, then follow along the cervical vertebrae to remove all the bones from the ribs, spine, wings, legs, and so on.

All three types of birds had been slaughtered and bled but their innards hadn’t been cleaned. Lin Xu hurried to deal with them, otherwise if the offal stayed in the belly too long it would develop a rotten smell.

Originally, Qiu Yaozu figured that at Lin Xu’s age, even if his talent was high, his Bone Removal couldn’t be that smooth.

But as soon as Lin Xu started, he realized this kid was actually as deft as some old hand who’d been circling a stove for half a lifetime.

He had an exceptional grasp of duck skeletal structure. During Bone Removal, he rarely needed to use the knife; he basically relied on his thumbs to push the duck meat away from the bones.

This pushing method is the highest level of Bone Removal—blunt removal.

So-called blunt removal means that when you’re taking the bones out, you keep the meat in contact with the blunt side. Only that way can you effectively avoid cutting or tearing the skin and flesh.

Some people who aren’t good at Bone Removal on whole chickens or whole ducks will work with the knife constantly in hand.

But those who truly know what they’re doing only use the knife briefly to cut through joint membranes; most of the time they just use both hands, no other tools at all.

This performance made Qiu Yaozu itch with excitement.

"Old Gao really hit the jackpot—managing to pick up such a good apprentice. If I’d known, I’d have bought a place and settled down on Yingchun Street back then too."

His willingness to guide Lin Xu came from the thrill of spotting talent; when you run into a good seedling, you just can’t help wanting to offer some pointers.

On top of that, with people like He Jiajun joining in, the Qiu Family had become one of the most prominent families in Fishing Platform and even in the entire Chinese-restaurant circle, finally giving them hope of fulfilling the elders’ wish to "bring honor to the ancestors."

So in his happiness, naturally he wanted to teach Lin Xu some higher-end dishes and form a good bond.

If someday Old Gao ends up not staying in Beijing long-term, then they can slowly poach his apprentice. As long as this kid’s willing to work hard, there’ll come a day when he calls him "Master" too.

Yeah, Old Qiu didn’t dare directly turn Lin Xu into his own apprentice, but he did have the nerve—quite a lot of it, actually—to share an apprentice with Gao Peisheng.

By then you’re a master, I’m a master, and nobody gets to question the other.

In the culinary world, it’s very common for a chef to apprentice under several masters, because no master can cover everything.

Pastry and hot dishes, steaming and quick-frying, braising and soups—every chef has his own specialties. So you apprentice yourself to a bunch of masters to "combine the strengths of many schools."