From selling box lunches to becoming a famous Chinese chef

Chapter 65 Stewed Pork
  When Feng Zhengming returned to the canteen, the noon business of the canteen had not yet ended, and there were still people from the factory eating in the canteen.

Seeing Feng Zhengming come back so early, Zhang Lei and Yang Peng were a little strange?
  Senior brother Li Huidong naturally understood why Feng Zhengming came back early.

"Zhengming, everything is ready for you. It's all in the small kitchen. Go ahead."

When Feng Zhengming heard this, he looked at a small kitchen in the backyard of the canteen. He didn't rush there. He still took the things off the tricycle first, put them next to the backyard pool, and soaked them in clean water.

Li Huidong looked at it and said, "Leave it there, the canteen isn't closed yet, go back and let Leizi and Xiaopeng wash together."

Feng Zhengming responded with a smile: "Then I'll bother Leizi and Xiaopeng."

Zhang Lei and Yang Peng naturally responded immediately, saying it was no trouble.

Then Feng Zhengming opened the new big pot he bought next to the sink.

In the big pot is pork soaked in water.

After almost half a morning of soaking, even though the pork was rinsed before soaking, the water in the pot still has a light red color.

According to the warnings of Master and Mr. Feng, the meat should not be blanched first when making the meat.

So we can only use soaking to remove as much blood as possible from the meat.

According to Mr. Feng's instructions, Feng Zhengming took the meat out of the pot and poured out all the water in the big pot.

After that, they brought hot water from the kitchen in the cafeteria, mixed the warm water in the big pot, put the meat into the warm water in the big pot, and finally washed it.

After cleaning, Feng Zhengming poured out the water and carried the pork in a big pot into the small kitchen.

Seeing Feng Zhengming enter the small kitchen room, Zhang Lei and Yang Peng looked at each other. Neither of them understood what the junior uncle was going to do?
  "You want stew, right?"

"It looks like it's going to be stew."

"Why do you want to stew meat in the small kitchen?"

"Maybe to avoid us?"

Li Huidong heard the two apprentices whispering to each other and scolded: "Don't ask questions that shouldn't be asked, and don't think about it. Do your job well."

Feng Zhengming went into the small kitchen room and prepared various ingredients according to the recipe.

What touched him a little was that his senior brother actually prepared the small scales for him.

Feng Zhengming can compare the ingredients according to the proportion of ingredients on the recipe.

Before preparing to stew the meat, Feng Zhengming still needs to process the pork.

First wipe off the water on the surface of the pork, then cut the pork into large thick slices with a knife.

Cut the meat slices and tie them in the middle with soaked cattail grass.

It is impossible to cut the whole piece of meat neatly, especially because there will be some leftovers.

Feng Zhengming also followed the instructions of Mr. Feng, and combined the fat and thin pieces of irregular scraps into a whole piece of about the same size, which was also tied with cattails.

The meat slices are ready, and then the formal operation begins.

When we officially started making it, the recipe given by Master was slightly different from Mr. Feng’s tradition.

According to the recipe given by the master, the master asked Feng Zhengming to stir-fry the sugar color first.

Apply the fried sugar color to the surface of the meat slices to make the meat slices more evenly colored.

Mr. Feng’s traditional method is to use soy sauce for coloring.

Feng Zhengming thought about it and thought that maybe Mr. Feng's family's traditional method was that frying the sugar color was difficult, so instead of frying the sugar color, he chose to use soy sauce to color it, which was simpler.

But Feng Zhengming still followed the master's recipe.

He first fried the sugar color. According to the master's instructions, the sugar color should not be fried too much.

Feng Zhengming used rock sugar to fry the sugar color in the wok.

The rock sugar will gradually turn yellow in the pot from melting, and finally appear reddish brown, and there may be signs of hanging on the spoon.    At this time, add onion, ginger and boiling water to the pot.

This will give you a bowl of candy color.

Take it out and set aside to cool.

At this time, Feng Zhengming began to stir-fry the prepared onions and ginger in the pot.

Master and Mr. Feng both told Feng Zhengming that there must be a little more onion and ginger, and it must be stir-fried to bring out the fragrance, and even stir-fry until it is a little brown, and then add soy sauce to the stir-fried onion and ginger. .

Mr. Feng gave Feng Zhengming very serious instructions.

"You must remember that soy sauce does not require very good soy sauce. The cheapest and ordinary soybean soy sauce will do. However, soy sauce cannot be added directly to the stew soup. It must be cooked first and cooked thoroughly with onions and ginger. Only when the soy sauce aroma comes out can it be used to stew meat."

Pour the soy sauce into the pot and let the soy sauce, onion and ginger simmer for a while.

During this time, Feng Zhengming spread the cooled sugar color evenly on the surface of the meat slices.

When the aroma of the soy sauce comes out, Feng Zhengming directly pours the cooked soy sauce into the large pot together with onions and ginger.

Then according to the recipe ratio given by the master, add about one-third of the bone broth, then add two-thirds of the water, and then put the meat slices into the pot.

Then throw the spices wrapped in gauze into the pot and cook them together.

Start cooking over high heat and skim off some foam.

Next comes the seasoning. Both Master and Mr. Feng said that you must taste the seasoning yourself. It tastes salty, and the saltiness should be stronger. Some rock sugar should also be added, but it should not taste sweet.

Adjust the flavor of the soup and wait until the meat slices in the pot are cooked through over high heat, then turn down the heat.

Cook for a while, put the soaked dried lotus leaves on top of the meat slices in the pot, and cover the pot.

The next step is to slowly simmer over low heat.

Feng Zhengming moved the big pot to the briquette stove in the small kitchen room.

Seal part of the stove door so that the briquette stove can keep a low firepower and use low heat to slowly stew the meat in the pot.

Both Master and Mr. Feng told Feng Zhengming.

Stew the meat first, do not add other vegetables and stew it together.

It is necessary to ensure that the stew has the aroma of meat. Adding other ingredients will affect the taste, and may even affect the taste of the entire pot of stew.

Be sure to wait until the first pot of meat is stewed, scoop out the stewed meat soup separately, and stew other ingredients at the same time.

And Mr. Feng also told Feng Zhengming that when he goes to the street to sell, he must not touch the stew in the big pot. He can scoop out the stew and mix it with water, then add spices and seasonings, and put the meat and other things in it. Pull and sell.

So while stewing the meat, Feng Zhengming took care of some other things.

The eggs are boiled whole, the tofu is cut into pieces about the same size as the meat, and then fried in a pan.

The gluten and green peppers are also cleaned and set aside.

When everything was ready, Feng Zhengming saw that nothing happened for the time being. He checked the pot one last time and let the meat stew on the briquette stove over low heat. He went out of the small kitchen first.

Feng Zhengming walked out of the small kitchen room and happened to see Li Huidong's wife, Hu Yan, walking in with a middle-aged woman.

Hu Yan walked in and saw Feng Zhengming, smiled and said hello: "Zhengming came back very early today?"

Feng Zhengming nodded: "Yes, sister-in-law."

Then, before Hu Yan could speak, Feng Zhengming shouted to the chef in the cafeteria: "Brother, sister-in-law is here."

After hearing this, Li Huidong responded in the kitchen of the cafeteria and came out after a while.

Seeing the woman brought by Hu Yan, Li Huidong immediately greeted her with a smile: "My cousin is here, welcome."

(End of this chapter)