Far away in Moscow

Chapter 59

"It's a good thing. It doesn't matter if you look older when you're young. In the future, it's not easy to see the change when you're really old." The head chef changed the subject: "Where did you work before?"

"I was studying at Friendship University. I used to work in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant owned by a Russian. I just resigned last month."

"Oh, student." The head chef lowered his head and fiddled with the tall chimney-like chef's hat in his hand: "What are you mainly doing over there?"

"I've worked on chopping boards, and I've also cooked vegetables, and the end stove." Li Baoqing stammered, and his smile was a little distorted by the lie: "The experience may not be particularly rich, but the craftsmanship...I think...it's okay."

"It's like this." The head chef pondered for a moment, nodded and said, "Let me tell you, summer is coming. Our restaurant has an agreement with the travel agency, and the number of tourists coming here will increase. But We don’t have enough chefs now, so we need to find someone, mainly for group meals. Group meals, you know, don’t necessarily require high skills, but you must have a minimum level and experience, at least you must be able to guarantee The quality and speed of the food, right?"

"Yes, yes." Li Baoqing nodded repeatedly.Seeing his stiff expression, the head chef smiled and said, "That's right, I remember you said you had work experience in China before? Tell me about it."

"Yes, but it's not a job." Li Baoqing hurriedly said, "I have attended a chef training class."

"Well, where is it?"

"Shandong." Li Baoqing lay on the bed last night and made up nonsense all night, but now he faltered when he said it: "There is a Lan... Lanxiang technical school in Shandong. I went to their, um... chef training class."

"Well, Lan Xiang, I've heard of it in China. It's quite famous, and the advertisements are fierce." The chef thought for a while, and seemed to be a little hesitant: "Then... it should be fine to have some ordinary group meals?"

"Okay..." Li Baoqing replied with a guilty conscience. Although he can fry a few home-cooked dishes, he is only an amateur second-hand knife. Last night, he felt that applying for a chef was a matter of hand. Now When things came to an end, he lost his confidence.

The head chef also saw that he didn't have much confidence, so he tried to ask: "Then you can draw up a list first and have a look at it, just... ten dishes and one soup, the standard should not be high."

"Ten dishes and one soup... good." Li Baoqing took a deep breath: "Scrambled eggs with tomatoes, stewed chicken nuggets with potatoes, fried meat with green peppers, hot and sour potato shreds, stir-fried cabbage, braised pork ribs, um... mapo tofu, carrots... Scrambled eggs, onions...scrambled eggs, fried cauliflower. Add... seaweed egg drop soup or hot and sour soup."

"En." The head chef smacked his lips noncommittally: "You can cook all these dishes?"

"Most...should be fine... right." Li Baoqing didn't dare to talk too much: "I've never made mapo tofu, but I can learn it!"

"I see." The head chef nodded, his expression seemed a little colder than before.Li Baoqing was worried that he would lose interest in him, and in a hurry, thin beads of sweat suddenly oozed from his forehead: "That... that, chef, I may not know much, but my cooking is delicious, really, If you don’t believe me, you can let me try frying one!”

"Really?" The head chef kept a polite smile: "Then tell me first, how do you cook tomato scrambled eggs?"

The three words "how to fry" are definitely not asking for specific steps, but referring to unique tips and methods.Li Baoqing immediately remembered what Old Wei had said, and hurriedly said: "Scrambled eggs with tomatoes is a... a... well, a very representative home-cooked dish in our country. It pays attention to sweet and sour taste, red and yellow, delicious and beautiful. "

These few sentences are out-and-out nonsense, the head chef looked at him calmly, Li Baoqing panicked slightly, and said incoherently: "If you want to fry deliciously, you'd better use garlic to enhance the flavor. Then that... scramble the eggs first , and then put tomatoes. Well... put more eggs, because Russians don't like to eat too sour, more eggs... yellow and bright... like hills, it looks better. Tomatoes... decorate... put less, um."

After rambling a few words, Li Baoqing was already sweating profusely.The head chef casually raised his eyelids: "What else?"

"And...?" Li Baoqing's mind was frozen, and he quickly flipped through the cooking experience that Lao Wei said in his heart, and murmured indiscriminately: "And... don't put soy sauce..."

"Jiangjiang... soy sauce?" The head chef's eyes were messed up, and the muscles on his face trembled a few times.

A few chuckles came from around, Li Baoqing grinned in embarrassment, blushed and explained: "No, no, I mean, mean, cough..."

"Okay, I understand." The head chef interrupted him: "Someone will come for an interview later, you should go back and wait for the news."

"Wait!" Li Baoqing said anxiously: "I was a little nervous just now, but I'm really good at cooking, just let me try!"

The head chef pursed his lips impatiently, and Li Baoqing begged sincerely: "Give me a chance to try, just the few dishes on the list just now—except Mapo Tofu—as long as there is one dish that you don't like Delicious, I'll leave immediately!"

The head chef raised his wrist and looked at his watch. He hesitated for a moment, probably because he felt that it was really difficult to recruit a satisfactory Chinese chef here. Although the guy in front of him was not very reliable, the corresponding salary would not be too high, so he reluctantly ordered Nodded: "Alright, just come and try."

Li Baoqing was overjoyed and quickly got up to thank him.The head chef took him to the back kitchen, pointed to the outermost stove and said, "It's right there. The dishes have been washed, but they haven't been cut yet. There is a spice rack next to it, so you can use it as you like."

Cooking by master chefs is different from cooking at home. Usually, they don’t pour seasonings from bottles and cans directly into the pot. Convenient and quick and easy to grasp the weight.

Li Baoqing tidied up by the stove excitedly, and casually pulled a spice rack to his side.Turning around and going to cut vegetables, I found four or five people standing sparsely not far behind. It turned out that the staff who had just rested in the restaurant followed to watch the fun.When I looked at the head chef again, I saw him staring indifferently at the spice rack next to him, as if quite disapproving.

"Chef, do you have any questions?" Li Baoqing asked sincerely, "I don't have much experience. If there is something wrong, please point it out."

"Brother, your seasoning shelf is not properly placed." A skinny young man replied on behalf of the chef, "The powder should be placed outside, and the sauce should be placed inside. You put it upside down."

Contrary to most people’s intuitive habits, the seasoning racks of professional chefs generally place sauces such as soy sauce and vinegar on the side close to them; dry powder seasonings such as salt and monosodium glutamate are placed on the far side.

The reason for this arrangement is that the commonly used powder will not affect its original taste when it is spilled into the juice, but once the juice drips into the powder, it is difficult to handle, especially the colorless seasoning such as white vinegar , It is difficult to detect in time after dripping. It is a trivial matter to waste a whole can of seasoning. If it changes the taste of the dishes, it will make the guests feel dissatisfied at the slightest, and damage the reputation of the restaurant at the worst.

Li Baoqing had seen a master chef use a seasoning rack in Huanghai before, but he had never noticed this detail. Hearing what the young man said, he didn’t understand what was so important, so he had to adjust the seasoning position as he said, and then seemed to have made a mistake. Standing on the spot like a primary school student, he peeked at the head chef.

The head chef raised his chin expressionlessly: "Continue." Li Baoqing breathed a sigh of relief, picked up a few tomatoes and walked to the cutting board, and decided to make a tomato scrambled eggs first to redeem the words "don't put soy sauce" just now. Bad influence.

He finished cutting the tomatoes here, and someone helped beat the egg liquid over there.Li Baoqing calmed down by the stove, turned on the fire, heated up oil, scrambled eggs, and finally poured all the tomatoes into the pot.

Tomatoes and eggs are red and yellow, bright in color, Li Baoqing breathed a sigh of relief, feeling that the heat is well controlled.The skinny guy just now seemed to be trying to test him on purpose, and suddenly shouted: "Come on!"

"Hey! Good!" Li Baoqing agreed casually, his mind went blank. The word "big turning spoon" sounded familiar to him, but he didn't understand what it meant.

But now is a critical moment, and you must not show your timidity.Li Baoqing hesitated for a while, raised the vegetable spoon and shook it vigorously, with a light flick of his wrist, he threw it into the air forcefully like a juggler.The large vegetable spoon turned somersaults in the sky a few times, threw a few bits of soup back and forth, and then fell back steadily into Li Baoqing's hands.

This toss was purely impromptu, Li Baoqing had never tried it before, and he never expected to succeed once, so he couldn't help but feel very proud.As everyone knows, "big turning spoon" is a culinary term. Chefs are used to calling the round-bottomed iron pan for cooking as a frying spoon, so "spoon" here does not refer to the spoon used for stirring, but the wok.

And "turning the spoon" is what ordinary people call the pot, and it is a basic skill that professional chefs must learn. The "big flipping spoon" is the most difficult one, which means that the chef throws the dish into the air with one hand, turns it over 180 degrees, and then firmly inserts it into the pot. It is sticky, needs to keep the raw material intact, and should not be over-stirred during the cooking process such as grilling or roasting.

A burst of laughter erupted behind him, and the skinny guy was so happy that he couldn't straighten his back, he leaned on the table and panted, "What are you playing, brother? I asked you to stir fry the spoon, not the vegetable spoon! You can really invent and create, this is also Lanxiang Technical School taught?"

Li Baoqing immediately understood the meaning of the big flip, but it was too late. He was ashamed for a while, and quickly turned his head and said, "Oh! Oh! Big flip, I know! It was just a warm-up, hehe, get ready for action."

As he spoke, he turned his head and closed his eyes tightly, and quickly ran through the action of flipping spoons he had seen in his mind, quickly deduced the essentials of the action, and then turned his heart, and gently moved the wok in his hand forward Push it, then pick it up hard, and let out a low voice: "Hey!"

Cooking is a job that attaches great importance to experience and practice. Chefs rely on practice to make perfect, and the action of turning spoons requires long-term practice to master.Li Baoqing had never even tried it before, and now he was flipping through it casually, his strength was too strong, the result can be imagined.

With a few exclamations, most of the pot of yellow eggs and bright red tomatoes shot into the air like a salute, and then mixed with the soup like a goddess scattered flowers and fell down.Even if Li Baoqing hid in time, a lot of red and yellow things fell on his shoulders. He was so hot that he was jumping around, screaming, and quickly threw down the frying pan and took off his shirt.

(End of this chapter)