The Gourmet Customizer

"Well, that’s just great. The boss must have calculated the exact time. I don’t know if it’s okay that I opened it early. I should call and tell him."

Huh?

Zhang Li was dumbfounded. "Brother Ah Bao, the boss isn’t going to blame me, is he? Did I screw this whole thing up?"

Ah Bao shook his head. "It’s fine. A few minutes early or late won’t make much of a difference."

When Su Chen got the call, he was first alarmed, then stunned.

His first words were: "Is Zhang Li okay?"

He ran downstairs as he asked, only relaxing when he saw Shorty skipping around the cafeteria, alive and well.

"You’re a real piece of work."

Zhang Li rubbed the back of her head. "I didn’t know it would be so stinky..."

"What’s done is done." Su Chen walked into the kitchen and looked at the wooden barrel. ’Opening it twenty-some minutes early shouldn’t be a big problem.’

He had overlooked one thing. Placing it next to the stove meant the surrounding temperature wouldn’t remain constant; instead, it would gradually rise. The traditional method for curing fish required the temperature to not exceed 30 degrees.

’Zhang Li opening it early might actually be a good thing. If the temperature got too high, it could have backfired.’

Su Chen squatted down to check the color of the ten cured fish. Seeing him place his hand on the barrel lid, Zhang Li hurriedly stopped her boss. "Don’t! It’s really stinky!"

"What a chicken," Su Chen chuckled.

He then lifted the lid right off. Perhaps because Zhang Li had already released some of the gas, the smell didn’t seem as intense as he’d imagined.

But it was still intense as hell!

Su Chen took short, shallow breaths, taking in the aroma.

"Actually, you can’t really call it stinky. Don’t you guys think it smells kind of pleasant?"

Ah Bao and Zhang Li took three steps back and shook their heads in unison.

"To put it simply, this is just the smell produced by microorganisms in the mandarin fish breaking down in a high-salt, high-temperature environment, while the proteins also break down into amino acids. Look at you chickens. Don’t even think about eating any when it’s done."

"I won’t! I won’t!" Shorty waved her hands. "How could something like this possibly be delicious!"

Liu Ahbao, however, turned his head to look at her. "I suggest you take that back."

"Why?"

"Because there’s no way you won’t eat it."

Su Chen lifted a fish from the barrel to inspect its color. "Mandarin fish cured like this loses some of its moisture. The texture isn’t tender and succulent, but more like cloves of garlic."

Plus, because of the moisture loss, the flesh and bones separate automatically, making it completely effortless to eat!

"Want to try some now?"

The fish’s color was good, and Su Chen was getting eager to try it.

"If you’re willing to cook it, then let’s try it."

Su Chen thought for a moment.

In the Chinese Cuisine Collection, the cuisines of Huishi, Gan, and Min Provinces were featured in a collaborative special edition. It only included some of their famous dishes and snacks, but stinky mandarin fish wasn’t one of them.

However, in the Huishi Province special edition of the Chinese Cuisine Collection that Su Chen was aware of, this dish did indeed exist.

It just wasn’t called "stinky mandarin fish" there, but "Cured-and-Fresh Mandarin Fish."

The method for curing the mandarin fish in that recipe wasn’t the ancient one, but a more common modern technique.

He placed the entry for "Cured-and-Fresh Mandarin Fish" into the synthesizer. A green recipe box appeared, and Su Chen confirmed it without a second thought.

After a quick scan, he fired up a wok and heated the oil.

The key to this dish was the curing process; the actual cooking method was quite simple.

"Some restaurants use fermented bean curd to make this fish these days. I have no idea what they’re thinking."

Ah Bao stood beside Su Chen, ready to assist at a moment’s notice. He replied, "Fermented bean curd is a different method. It has a stinky smell, but it’s not as rich and mellow. The Huizhou Cuisine method is still better."

Seeing the two of them so enthusiastically discussing something so stinky, Shorty was utterly baffled.

’There’s no way I’m eating this dish!’

’Unless the boss forces me to!’

Su Chen and Ah Bao were happily bustling about in the kitchen. Soon, it was past seven o’clock.

As usual, the first regular customers to arrive at the company were Zhan Yang, who was on his way to work, and Brother Fang Chang, who visited punctually every day.

But recently, knowing Boss Su was helping him prepare banquet dishes, Brother Fang Chang would just come, eat a quiet breakfast, coordinate with Ling Shuyu about the meat needed for the next day’s "little dining table," and then leave.

"Do you smell something?"

The moment they stepped into the elevator, Zhan Yang’s nostrils flared in confusion.

"No, what smell?" Brother Fang Chang sniffed the air but couldn’t smell anything.

"No, there’s definitely a smell." Zhan Yang looked around, but the elevator was only so big. The smell was faint and elusive. That is, until the elevator doors opened. Zhan Yang took a deep breath and exclaimed, "Holy shit! Someone didn’t flush the toilet!"

"No!" Brother Fang Chang immediately disagreed. "It’s not that smell. It’s more like... HISS! It’s like something’s rotting. Did some food go bad?"

The two of them stepped out of the elevator and looked around, but even after a while, they couldn’t find the source of the stink.

It was the kind of smell that seemed to disappear the moment you tried to pinpoint it.

But when you weren’t trying, it would WHOOSH right up your nose, and it was awful!

"Let’s check inside!" Brother Fang Chang pointed ahead.

’Could some kid not have been able to hold it and secretly took a dump in the corner?’

He’d done that kind of thing as a kid.

When he lived in the village, he had carved a triangular hole in his next-door neighbor Second Uncle’s pumpkin, took a dump inside, and then put the piece back.

The pumpkin grew bigger and bigger, and the triangular piece actually grew back into place. It grew so large that it caught the attention of Second Uncle’s family, who decided to cut it up and eat it.

Brother Fang Chang would never forget it for as long as he lived.

When the kitchen knife cut into it, the BANG that echoed through the house, and the splattering, flying...

That day, he gained a whole new understanding of the brand Seven Wolves.

"What are you thinking about?" Zhan Yang gave him a shove.

Brother Fang Chang snapped out of it. "Nothing. Just remembered something happy."

"Let’s go, let’s go! Let’s hurry and check. I hope some son of a bitch didn’t drop a bomb in the kitchen. This stinks to high heaven!"

The two of them strode quickly toward the kitchen. The farther they went...

...the stronger the smell became!