Stop pretending, I am the God of Cooking and I am showing off my cards!

In the Lingnan area, salt-baked chicken is a very common dish, and the preparation is not complicated.

Clean the whole chicken you bought, wipe it dry, then marinate it with salt-baked chicken powder, then add it to brine and boil it or steam it in water.

The chicken that is soaked and boiled is called water-baked, and the chicken that is steamed in water is called air-baked.

Both methods can make delicious salt-baked chicken, eliminating the step and trouble of frying salt.

But in terms of authentic and delicious food, you have to follow the ancient method of heating the salt and burying it in the chicken. This is the true salt-baked chicken.

When Lingnan people eat chicken, whether it is boiled or baked with salt, it is inseparable from the ginger.

Shajiang, also called kaempferol, is a spice and medicinal material with a special aroma.

Adding it when cooking can not only increase the fragrant aroma of the dishes, but also have the effect of digestion and pain relief.

Wash the chicken and hang it up to control the water.

Taking advantage of this time, Lin Xu began to use sand ginger powder to prepare the sauce for salt-baked chicken.

In the traditional way of making salt-baked chicken, the whole piece of ginger is chopped into pieces and then rubbed with salt all over the chicken.

However, after the minced salt ginger is applied to the chicken, it is easy to burn off during the baking process, causing the surface of the salt-baked chicken to be covered with black spots, which affects the appearance of the dish.

In order to make the dishes more beautiful, chefs choose to dry the ginger and grind it into powder.

This will not only give the chicken the aroma of sand ginger, but also prevent the appearance of mushy spots.

According to the amount of chicken, Lin Xu put a large spoonful of sand ginger powder into the small basin, and then added a large spoonful of salt.

Normally, if you put peanut oil in it and stir it evenly, you can make super delicious salt-baked chicken.

But today is for the college entrance banquet after all. In addition to the taste, appearance is also very important, so Lin Xu put a little more yellow gardenia powder in it.

Yellow gardenia has no taste. It is simply added to add a bright yellow color to the chicken skin.

The reason why chicken dishes such as white-cut chicken and salt-baked chicken in restaurants have bright yellow skin is due to the role of yellow gardenia.

After adding the yellow gardenia powder, if you add some chicken powder ground from chicken essence or flavored powder ground from monosodium glutamate, it will become the common salt-baked chicken powder on the market.

Stir these powders evenly, pour in a tablespoon of peanut oil, and mix into a thick paste. The marinade for salt-baked chicken is officially made.

Among the eight major cuisines, not only Shandong cuisine prefers peanut oil, but Cantonese cuisine also loves this ingredient.

No matter what dish you are cooking, peanut oil is basically the first choice of Cantonese chefs if you need to apply grease to pickled ingredients.

Take the chicken hanging to control the water, and use kitchen paper to dry the water on the surface and abdominal cavity one by one.

This step is related to whether the chicken is delicious, so dry it as much as possible and don't be careless.

There are two ingredients for making salt-baked chicken, namely young hen and old hen.

The young hen's meat is tender and juicy, while the old hen's skin is crispy and the meat is fragrant and has a strong taste.

The two types of chicken have their own characteristics, and there is no distinction between them. You can choose which ingredients you like.

Today, Lin Xu used a pullet that had been raised for two hundred days. The meat was firm and juicy, making it an excellent ingredient for making salt-baked chicken.

After drying the surface water, pour a few spoons of the prepared marinade paste into the abdominal cavity.

Put your hand into the abdominal cavity and rub and press it three times so that the marinade full of peanut oil can be evenly applied to the corners of the abdominal cavity.

Complete the application inside the abdominal cavity, and then apply the chicken skin outside.

During the application process, you also need to press and rub to allow the marinade to completely penetrate into the pores of the chicken.

Spread evenly and set aside to marinate, then start spreading the next one.

After all the chickens are painted, use fishing hooks to hang the chickens at the base of their wings and hang them in the ventilation room.

This step is called hanging chicken.

Hanging the chicken can allow the excess water in the chicken to drip out. This water is actually the source of the odor and fishy smell of the chicken.

When making salt-baked chicken, the reason why cooking wine or high-strength liquor is not used to remove the odor is because the step of hanging the chicken is at work.

If there is no such step, then we will just keep cleaning the bar.

Otherwise, the salt-baked chicken will definitely have a peculiar smell.

In addition, hanging the chicken and then baking it will make the chicken more dry, fragrant and delicious, and it will be more delicious.

And when the water seeps out, the excess juice will be washed away to prevent the chicken from being too salty and overpowering.

The process of hanging the chicken should not be too short, it takes about two hours.

If it is too short, the water in the meat will not seep out thoroughly, and there will be no drying effect. If it is hung for too long, the chicken will lose its tender texture.

An hour later, Lin Xu put the large iron pot on the stove, passed the large grains of sea salt used before through a sieve and poured it in.

Although the used sea salt can be used repeatedly, it is best to sieve out the blackened powder inside and leave only the large particles. This can avoid a mushy smell during the baking process.

After putting the table salt in, add about ten packets of new sea salt.

When making salt-baked chicken, the more salt you use, the better the taste will be, and the salt can be used repeatedly, so you don’t have to worry about wasting it.

Pour in the sea salt and start stir-frying.

If you want to make other salt-baked dishes, you can put some star anise, pepper and other spices in it.

But it’s not necessary to make salt-baked chicken. What this dish wants is the salty and fresh taste of sea salt. If it is replaced by the aroma of spices, it will be a waste of time.

Frying salt is time-consuming and physically demanding.

You need to fry the water in the salt until the large grains of sea salt crackle in the pot.

At this time, the temperature of the sea salt is already more than 200 degrees, and the chicken is almost ready, but it cannot be taken off yet because the paper wrapping the chicken must be prepared first.

The paper used for salt-baked chicken is called gauze paper or jade-button paper, which is a translucent thin paper made of bamboo.

Because it won't foam or leave residue after repeated rubbing, and has good air permeability, it is used in the cooking of meals.

Use this kind of paper to make salt-baked chicken. The umami flavor of the sea salt can penetrate into the chicken, and the excess moisture in the chicken can also be absorbed by the sea salt.

If you use baking paper or silicone paper, you won't have this effect.

As for the completely airtight tin foil, the resulting chicken is exactly the same as the one baked in the oven, completely losing the meaning of salt baking.

After spending so much time buying salt and frying it, I ended up making an oven version of roasted chicken.

It's better to bake it directly in the oven.

Take three pieces of jade paper and put them on the workbench. Use a brush to apply a thin layer of lard on them to prevent the glue in the chicken skin from sticking to the paper.

Many people are very careful when making salt-baked chicken, but the chicken skin is still broken after peeling it off. This is caused by the glue sticking to the paper.

A little grease on the paper can prevent this from happening.

The reason why I chose lard is because it is fragrant enough and also makes the chicken skin more delicious.

Brush the chicken with lard, put a hanging chicken on the chopping board, and stuff it with a few pieces of chopped dried onion and ginger.

Dried scallions have a rich, sweet flavor that makes the chicken more flavorful.

Ginger can effectively remove the odor from chicken.

In order to prevent the fascia of the chicken legs from twitching during the maturation process and causing the chicken body to twist and deform, this step requires breaking the joints at the base of the chicken legs.

It is said that it is broken. In fact, it is just pressing the drumstick to both sides and pushing it hard. If you hear a slight click, it is ready.

Then fold the chicken feet into the abdominal cavity of the chicken, and tuck the chicken head under the base of the wings to make the chicken form a beautiful whole. Then place it on the jade paper with lard and start wrapping.

When wrapping, place the chicken in a corner of the jade-button paper with its back facing down. Wrap it in paper and roll it toward the center of the paper so that the belly of the chicken faces down. At the same time, fold the chicken's back and the jade-button paper upward together.

Then fold the paper on both sides toward the middle, so that the paper on both sides presses against the back of the chicken.

The back meat of the chicken is relatively thin, so the paper must be folded thicker so that the chicken skin will not be burned.

After folding all the paper on both sides, roll the chicken forward.

Finally, stuff the remaining corner into the gap in the paper to form a small square package, and the chicken is ready.

After all the chicken is wrapped, start placing it in the pot.

Scoop out most of the heated sea salt, spread out the rest, and put the wrapped chickens in one by one, leaving enough space between the chickens.

Cover with scooped out sea salt and start baking.

The steps to make salt-baked chicken are not complicated. Just apply marinade on the washed chicken, hang it for two small spoons, wrap it in paper greased with lard, and bury it in hot sea salt. That's it.

The stir-frying of sea salt does not require any seasoning, and the marinade has no particularly outstanding ingredients.

After baking for half an hour, use a spatula to carefully remove the chicken.

At this time, the salt around the chicken has agglomerated due to evaporation of water. You need to break it up and stir-fry the salt again until fragrant. Then scoop out more than half of the chicken, turn the chicken over and put it back into the pot.

If it’s just a chicken, you don’t have to worry so much.

But today we are doing a lot, and we need to consider the adsorption limit of the salt, so there is a step in the middle to stir-fry the salt.

This will allow the chicken to be thoroughly cooked and at the same time give it a more dry and fragrant taste.

After turning over, bake over low heat for another 30 minutes, and the chicken will be completely cooked.

There was still a while before the entrance banquet. In order to verify the excellence-level method and to satisfy his own craving, Lin Xu deliberately pulled out a chicken.

The jade-buttoned paper wrapping the chicken was completely soaked with oil.

Tear it open carefully, and a rich and fresh fragrance will waft out.

This tastes super delicious, with the unique aroma of chicken and a light seafood flavor. It is obvious that the umami flavor of sea salt has penetrated into it.

After peeling off the paper wrapping, he tore the chicken open with his hands, and after placing it on the plate, Lin Xuchong said to Wei Qian and others who had been peeking around for a long time:

"Come on, let's have a taste."

After saying that, he picked up a piece of chicken leg meat with chopsticks and tasted it.

Well, the chicken skin exudes a rich aroma and has a slightly crispy texture in the mouth, while the chicken is tender and chewy, and you can clearly feel the umami flavor of sea salt in the meat when you chew it.

tasty!

This is how you have to eat salt-baked chicken.

Lin Xu feels that the step of hanging the chicken before cooking is very necessary. This step completely allows the excess water in the chicken to seep out, making it taste dry and delicious.

If this type of chicken is okay, then other chickens should be okay too.

The next time you cook other chicken, if there is a marinating process, hang it up and try it.

Maybe it will also make the taste even better.

"Wow! This tastes so fresh!"

"As expected of using such a large pot of salt, the umami flavor is strong."

“It’s the first time I taste the taste of seafood from chicken.”

"Oh my god, this chicken is really amazing, it tastes great and is very chewy."

“It’s so well marinated that even the chicken breasts are flavorful, which is really rare.”

"..."

Wei Qian and others came over. Except for Qin Wei, everyone else sighed while eating, feeling like they were re-recognizing the ingredient chicken.

They didn't taste the steam pot chicken before, and watery soup was not their cup of tea.

But today’s salt-baked chicken really satisfied everyone.

The salty taste and strong texture made everyone unable to stop eating.

"Lin Xu, what do you think it will be like if we serve new salt-baked chicken in the store?"

Wei Gan's words were exactly what Lin Xu was thinking about just now.

The chicken is delicious, but it would be a bit of a waste to just feed it to your own people.

For a chef, the most fulfilling thing is not to keep family and friends fat and strong, but to monetize their skills.

Being able to earn customers' money and be sought after by them is the real skill.

Only fattening family and friends is suitable for farming, not opening a restaurant.

But I’m not sure how interested people in the Yanjing area are in salt-baked chicken.

Open apps such as Meituan and check the chicken rankings. The most popular ones are always large plate chicken, Shandong fried chicken, spicy chicken, various fried chickens and...roast chicken.

Yes, the northern region loves roast chicken very much. There is a time-honored roast chicken restaurant in almost every city or county. The taste is basically salty, fresh and crispy.

If you serve salt-baked chicken rashly, will customers buy it?

Others were also a little uneasy.

From a professional point of view, this salt-baked chicken is very delicious. Even if you go to a Hakka residence in Meizhou, you will never taste anything like this.

But being delicious doesn’t mean being popular.

Roast goose and roast duck are cold in the north, which shows that the food has strong soil and water factors.

Serving a dish hastily may not only lead to the embarrassing situation of not being sold, but may even affect the reputation of the entire store.

After thinking for a while, Lin Xu said:

"The cost of this salt-baked chicken is not high, and the salt can be used repeatedly. How about we try it out to see how old customers react, and if it works, we can sell it in limited quantities."

I have to admire my senior brother for this.

The surprise menu he created at Diaoyutai is indeed quite interesting.

If it doesn't sell, withdraw it; if it sells well, continue to surprise. The initiative is completely in your own hands.

Zhu Yong held a piece of chicken wing and gnawed on it and said:

"Anyway, no matter what we serve, it's time to serve a whole chicken dish in our store. Summer is over, and more and more people are eating autumn fat. It's time for customers to experience the feeling of eating chicken."

Whole chicken dishes are definitely on the menu.

But you can’t pin your hopes on salt-baked chicken.

Since roast chicken is so popular in this part of the capital, we might as well serve roast chicken too.

Thinking of this, the "uncomfortable without spending money" gene in Lin Xu's bones started to stir up again.

He was so excited that he redeemed the perfect roast chicken recipe from the points mall at a high price of 3 million points.

"The host consumes 3,000,000 points to obtain the perfect braised meat technique - five-spice roasted chicken, and triggers the trial task: the host is required to successfully sell two thousand roasted chickens within a week of making the roasted chicken. After completion, the host will permanently obtain If you don’t complete the cooking technique of perfect five-spice roast chicken, your skill will be downgraded to the excellent level.”

Tsk tsk tsk, two thousand roast chickens were sold in one week.

It would be great to redeem this before the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Many areas in the north have the tradition of eating roasted chicken during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Before the Mid-Autumn Festival, those roasted chicken restaurants would sell thousands of roasted chickens every day. If I had to use this technique at that time, I could eat two thousand roasted chickens with my eyes closed. Finish.

But now the Mid-Autumn Festival has just passed.

The sales volume of roast chicken will not be too high.

He read the contents of the trial mission carefully again.

I noticed a sentence in it, "Within a week of making the roast chicken..."

In other words, as long as you don't cook roast chicken in the near future, the time for this task will not start counting. In this case, you can wait.

When the heat of the Mid-Autumn Festival is completely over and everyone has finished the leftovers from the festival at home, it won’t be too late to serve roast chicken.

At 5:30 in the afternoon, people attending the college entrance banquet arrived one after another.

As Geng Lele's future teacher, Cui Qingyuan, who specially changed into a new suit, arrived early.

After giving away his red envelope on the banquet hall's gift table, the professor, who loves food, went to the kitchen door to taste two bites of salt-baked chicken, and spoke highly of Lin Xu's craftsmanship.

Not long after, other people arrived one after another.

Basically, everyone gives away red envelopes, which is simple and straightforward.

Some people also got other gifts. For example, Zeng Xiaoqi gave an inkstone from the Ming Dynasty, which also came with appraisal certificates from several antique experts.

Chen Yan held a pure gold pen, which brought her rich woman attributes to the extreme.

Shen Guofu, on the other hand, presented a sailboat made of pure gold.

As the old saying goes, nephews are like uncles. Judging from the types of gifts given by uncles and nephews Shen Guofu and Chen Yan, the attitudes towards gift-giving are quite similar.

What Lin Xu and Shen Baobao presented was a gold medal given by the emperor. To be more precise, it should be called the gold medal given by the cat.

The gold medal looks very similar to the imperial gold medal sold in the Forbidden City, but on the front it does not have the big word "朜", but "meow", and on the back there is a line of official script:

"From now on, Geng Lele will be officially appointed as the high priest of Miao Miao Cult."

Underneath the words is a large cat paw print, which was made from an inverted mold of Dundun's right paw, a genuine hand stamp from the Holy Master of Meow Meow Cult.

For other gifts, Geng Lele smiled politely and said a few words of thanks.

But when he saw this gold medal, the little mushroom head was immediately overjoyed:

"Hahahahaha, I finally got the approval of the Holy Lord. The cat paw prints at the back are actually real. I have to keep this and pass it on as a family heirloom!"

When delivering gifts, Lin Xu finally met Geng Lele's parents.

A couple who looked like they were always swimming in the ocean of knowledge. Wearing thick-soled glasses, they smiled when they saw everyone and greeted everyone with just a few words of greeting.

It seems that these things are not interesting to study.

When everyone was gathered, Geng Lishan stood on the stage and expressed his gratitude to all the guests, the faculty leaders of Haidian Middle School, Professor Cui and others.

After the speech, Geng Lele's parents also expressed their gratitude.

As a representative of Haidian Middle School, the head teacher who had always signed fake notes under Geng Lele's name expressed his blessings to Geng Lele. He also implicitly said that Tsinghua University does not require fake notes when entering and exiting, and there is no need to imitate the teacher's handwriting.

After these sessions are over, the food is served.

The appetizers were all cold dishes. After a few dishes were served, the salt-baked chicken was brought to the table.

"Oh, this chicken is so delicious."

"It's just that the texture and taste are absolutely amazing."

"Brother Lin, is this the new dish you are talking about? When will the new dish be available in the store?"

"Xiao Xu, the calories of salt-baked chicken are not high, right? Can your mother-in-law and I eat it often?"

"Brother-in-law, I want to learn this. Please take the time to teach me."

"I'm learning and I'm learning. It's time for me, the executive chef, to master a signature dish that I can master."

"Brother Xu really cooked this chicken perfectly. I love eating it!"

"..."

Everyone was very interested in the salt-baked chicken, which strengthened Lin Xu’s idea of ​​trying it in the store.

If customers respond well, then try a new product.

While thinking about it, Zeng Xiaoqi said to Lin Xu:

"Boss Lin, the station is going to change the program from twice a week to daily broadcast. The time will still be 6 p.m., and the video we have saved will be bottomed out all of a sudden. Do you have that much time to record the program?"

Daily broadcast?

I've been very busy recently, and I really can't spare so much time for recording.

But just because you don’t have time doesn’t mean others don’t have time.

The figure of his senior brother flashed in Lin Xu's mind.

Well, it’s time for the audience to meet the villain of Diaoyutai!

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This chapter has 5,400 words. Please vote for me, brothers!