The Gourmet Customizer

The moment a company-paid trip was mentioned, the employees were buzzing with energy.

Less than three hours after leaving the company, they all returned, each carrying a suitcase. Of course, Bai Xiaobo was an exception.

He was only carrying a backpack containing a charger, a bottle of water, a change of underwear, and toiletries.

In his hand, he carried a book. Su Chen glanced at it curiously, "Love in the Time of Cholera?"

Xiaobai nodded with an air of seriousness, "The point of a journey is to read."

Su Chen thought for a moment, feeling something wasn’t quite right. "Speak plainly."

"Hehe." Xiaobai scratched his head. "Reading a book on the train makes it easy to attract girls, you know? There are a lot of college students on the train from Jingzhou to the Capital City."

Amidst the disdainful glares of the female employees, Su Chen clapped Xiaobai on the shoulder. "Your wound healed fast."

Su Chen himself didn’t have much to pack. He just grabbed a few changes of clothes and was ready to go.

The high-speed train was at two in the afternoon. Before they left, Su Chen boiled a pot of tea eggs, about twenty or so.

"I remember when I was a kid and took the train with my parents, they always loved to bring boiled eggs to eat, hehe."

"Boss, when I was little, my mom always used to bring steamed buns and pickled mustard greens!" Liu Shengnan had a similar memory.

He Shuting, however, said, "I never even rode a train when I was little."

The trip wasn’t that long, only three hours in total.

If they brought too much, they wouldn’t be able to finish it all anyway.

The group packed up the eggs, called for a van, and headed for the high-speed train station.

When he got on the train, Su Chen felt a bit awkward. Why did Liu Shengnan book him a business class seat all by himself while everyone else was in second class? It made him seem so unapproachable!

However, the employees didn’t seem to mind. Su Chen estimated the time.

’A three-hour journey is enough time to go to the Gourmet Practice Room and study for eight hours, then come out and get some sleep. That would be perfect.’

He arrived in the Gourmet Practice Room.

Su Chen chose a dish from the famous recipe book. It was from an old, time-honored restaurant he absolutely had to visit on this trip—in fact, the only one he planned to visit—the Cuihua Building.

The flavors of Lu Cuisine are quite similar to Jingzhou Cuisine. In the future, Delicious’s development would definitely focus on cooking methods like stir-frying, steaming, deep-frying, and braising, so Lu Cuisine was an essential component to master.

The famous recipe book also contained a brief introduction to the Cuihua Building.

It was said that when it opened in 1940, it primarily catered various banquets, known for its exquisite, beautiful presentation and its fresh, mellow flavors. The Cuihua Building’s chef at the time, Qu Yougong, had even visited the Soviet Union in 1953 to oversee the cooking for the Xia Country restaurant at the Xia Country Agricultural Exhibition.

So, when it came to heritage, this restaurant definitely had it.

But more than eighty years had passed, and it was unclear how the restaurant was doing now.

The cookbook only recorded the ten most famous dishes from the Cuihua Building in the 1950s.

After a quick look, Su Chen chose a relatively simple dish from the ten options—Kung Pao Chicken.

This was a dish that absolutely tested a chef’s fundamentals. The fact that it was later adapted into Gong Bao Ji Ding and became part of the Capital City’s Imperial Cuisine was proof enough of just how delicious it could be if made well.

Without further ado.

Su Chen directly summoned half a pound of chicken breast and two eggs in the practice room.

Only these two main ingredients were needed to make the dish; the rest were all seasonings.

Following the recipe’s instructions, Su Chen’s movements were a bit slow, as it was his first time making it.

’There’s really something to this.’ Su Chen first patted the chicken breast with the back of his knife before starting to remove the tendons and membrane.

This patting motion was something the recipe specifically emphasized.

He cut the chicken breast into roughly centimeter-sized cubes, mixed them evenly with egg white and a cornstarch slurry, and then set the mixture aside.

He added lard to a wok and heated it on high. The moment small white bubbles began to form, he immediately slid in the chicken. After letting it set for a moment, he used chopsticks to stir and separate the cubes.

’This is a very common technique.’

Su Chen was constantly thinking as he cooked.

’This is just a first attempt, so it doesn’t really matter how it turns out.’

’After Blasting the ingredients until they’re about sixty percent cooked, you season them with the prepared sauce. As long as you use the ’burst’ technique correctly, a dish like this generally can’t turn out too bad.’

He scooped out the Blasted chicken cubes to drain the oil, then added a suitable amount of lard to the wok.

’So many home cooks fail at this step: frying the sauce...’

Before the lard could heat up, he added the yellow soybean paste. His Max Level ’Sauté’ skill made this step feel effortless.

’Many people mess up this dish because they burn the sauce...’

He sautéed the yellow soybean paste until the moisture evaporated, then added a spoonful of white sugar. Once it melted, he added cooking wine, ginger juice, and caramel coloring, continuing to stir-fry until it formed a thick paste.

Only then did he immediately return the chicken cubes to the wok, stir-frying and mixing them evenly. This step was supposed to take only five seconds!

Su Chen’s movements were a beat too slow; by the time everything was evenly mixed, at least six or seven seconds had passed. He drizzled a spoonful of lard over it and began to plate the dish.

"Whoa!"

Su Chen licked his lips, looking at the plate of chicken, which was glossy with oil and had a deep, ruddy color.

’The recipes from these old, time-honored restaurants have a down-to-earth feel. Both the main ingredients and the seasonings are simple and unpretentious.’

’No wonder... they didn’t have stuff like MSG or chicken bouillon seventy or eighty years ago... Heh.’

’But I wonder how it tastes.’

Su Chen habitually took his hands off the plate. Glowing words appeared above him in the practice room.

[Kung Pao Chicken: Evaluation A Level]

Whoa!

Seeing that evaluation truly surprised Su Chen. ’An A Level dish just from casually throwing it together?’

’Is... is that even possible?’

’If I practice a bit more, or maybe make some slight improvements to the process, wouldn’t I be able to make a dish so good it leaves people speechless in minutes?’