Starting from a Bankrupt Sichuan Cuisine Restaurant

"Huang Silang?" Zhou Yan shook his head. "The current owner of Feiyan Restaurant is named Huang He."

"Huang He?" The old woman frowned in thought for a moment, then her eyes lit up. "Oh, you mean Huang Xiaoji!"

"Huh?" Zhou Yan’s eyes went wide. "What Huang Xiaoji?"

The old woman chuckled. "Huang Silang’s third son. His name, He, means ’crane,’ so his nickname is Xiaoji—Little Chicken. He has three brothers, but he was the only one interested in running a restaurant. The others became teachers or government officials. The ’least promising’ one, he was, so he stayed behind to inherit the restaurant.

"His old man said that himself. He used to come to Suji all the time to get my braised meat. In fact, he came to see me a couple of years ago, wanted to buy my recipe. I turned him down."

"Then that’s got to be him," Zhou Yan said with a laugh. "Grandma, you’re brilliant! It’s a good thing you didn’t sell him the recipe. Otherwise, how could I sell him my braised meat now?"

He never expected that, by a complete fluke, he’d found one of his grandmother’s old customers.

Feiyan Restaurant was perfect. A big establishment, and they already had a history of cooperation from back in the day.

He just wondered if, in the past two years, Feiyan Restaurant had hired a new master of braised dishes.

"Are you planning to work with the restaurants in Jiazhou?" his grandmother asked, looking at him.

"That’s the idea," Zhou Yan admitted with a nod. "Right now, I can sell over fifty jin of braised meat a day at the factory gate. It’ll be hard to increase that number significantly anytime soon, so I want to see if I can sell to the restaurants in Jiazhou and earn some extra money."

"That’s not a bad idea. It’s what I did back when I was selling braised meat," his grandmother said with a warm smile. "Back then, I made a name for myself in Suji within a year. Suji Town was a major center for the silk trade, full of silk shops, piece-goods stores, and dyehouses. There was no shortage of wealthy people.

"The courtyard houses over by Yang Pier belonged to those wealthy merchant families. The most famous was the Wang Family Mansion. Their silk business was enormous. A real shame, though. The family was ruined, and they all perished.

"Pretty much all the wealthy households in Suji bought my braised meat, so I hit a ceiling pretty quickly. That’s when I started thinking about selling to Jiazhou City. Jiazhou was a big city, after all. It was bound to have more rich people and countless restaurants, big and small.

"I used the simplest method I could think of. After closing the stall at noon, your grandfather and I would take a box of sliced braised pig ears, pig head meat, and beef and go door-to-door to every restaurant in Jiazhou City. I got a lot of disdainful looks, but I did manage to land orders from a few of them.

"Later, as my reputation grew, more and more restaurants started coming to me to buy my braised meat. In the two years when business was best, the restaurants alone ordered more than two hundred jin a day. Suji didn’t have that many pig heads, so we had to go to Jiazhou City early every morning to haul them back..."

As she spoke of the past, the old woman talked with eloquence and fervor, a nostalgic look in her eyes as she reminisced about those glorious bygone days.

Zhou Yan listened with great interest. Although some details were fuzzy, he could vaguely picture the bustling Suji Town of yesteryear through his grandmother’s words, and he could see the image of her younger self: a bold and tenacious powerhouse of a woman.

In later years, Suji became commercialized, filled with modern, imitation-antique buildings. It had lost some of its ancient charm.

"There were more than ten of them, restaurants big and small. I’ll write you a list later, and you can go look for them yourself. But it’s been over twenty years. I don’t know how many of my old friends are still running their restaurants, or if their children even carried on the business," the old woman said.

Zhou Yan nodded. "Got it. I’ll take some braised meat over to Jiazhou for a visit. I’ll give it a shot, whether they’re still around or not."

’My grandma really is the best!

Time to inherit the family connections!’

"Come on. Time to caramelize the sugar. Four jin of white sugar. I’ll do two jin first as a demonstration, then you’ll do the other two while I guide you. Next time, you’ll be on your own," the old woman said.

Zhou Yan nodded obediently and stood to the side, watching intently.

"You use lard to caramelize the sugar. The braising liquid itself already has a lot of fat, so you don’t need to worry about the oil content. While you’re cooking it, the flame has to be low, and you need to make sure the heat is concentrated in the center of the wok, otherwise it’ll burn easily..."

The old woman explained as she worked.

She ladled a spoonful of lard into the wok. Before it had completely melted, she added two jin of pre-crushed rock sugar and began to stir-fry it constantly.

The granular rock sugar slowly melted in the fat, gradually transforming into a thick, caramel-colored syrup as she stirred.

"When it turns this color, it’s about done. Take it off the heat right away and pour it out before it burns." The old woman scooped up a spoonful of the syrup and tilted the ladle slowly. The liquid streamed down, a glossy, reddish-brown.

Two jin of rock sugar yielded just under half an enamel basin of caramel.

"Your turn. I’ll watch," the old woman said.

Zhou Yan washed the wok, lit the fire again, and began to caramelize sugar for the first time.

This was no simple task. A moment’s inattention and it would burn. Two jin of rock sugar would be ruined—a significant loss.

But if the Fire Control was insufficient and the color wasn’t deep enough, it was also a waste.

The color of an entire pot of braised meat depended on this caramel. It had to be perfect.

Fortunately, Zhou Yan’s grasp of Fire Control had become much more skilled. He copied his grandmother’s movements, using the ladle to constantly stir and turn the rock sugar, ensuring it heated evenly and didn’t burn.

The white rock sugar gradually turned reddish-brown. Bubbles began bubbling up in the wok.

Zhou Yan scooped up some syrup with the ladle and let it pour down to check the color. Once he was sure it was right, he immediately removed the fire from under the stove. Before pouring it out, he glanced at his grandmother.

"Just about right. The color is perfect," the old woman said, nodding with a smile.

Only then did Zhou Yan relax and pour all the caramel from the wok into the basin with the first batch.

The color was practically identical. They melted together, indistinguishable from each other.