The Northern Stories of Chef Lao Tan

Chapter 432 Cooking Competition

The chefs participating in the culinary competition came to Suzhou one after another before the 25th, along with the regional manager and chief chef.

The competition venue is located at the Central Kitchen Store in Suzhou, and the competition will last for two days.In the past two days, the store is closed at noon, and it is normal at night, so as to ensure sufficient time for the game.

The first day is a competition of dumpling making and cold dishes, and the second day is hot dishes.

The general manager of the competition, Zhong Qing, is assisted by the five chefs, and Li Shuang, the host.

The judges are divided into invited judges and professional judges.The specially invited judges are ten loyal and regular customers recommended by ten stores in Suzhou District, as well as Qiao Gang and Qiao Gang's friend Liu Guoqing.The professional judges are the president and vice president of the Catering Association invited by Gu Yi and Sister Wang, as well as five senior Huaiyang cuisine masters.

The specially-invited judges belong to the public jury, and they are really professional teams.

Lao Tan has nothing to do, he has the right to be an audience.

Don't look at him as if nothing has happened. To be honest, Zhou Xiaomei and Zhongqing have the bottom line with him, so they dare to do it boldly.

On the morning of the 25th, after two months of careful preparation, the cooking competition of Aqiao Dumpling House Catering Company officially kicked off. The first one was the dumpling making competition.

Five dumpling workers, each with a panel. On the panel are a catty of noodles, a large glass of water, a rolling pin with two pointed ends, a plate of dumpling stuffing, a stuffing spoon, and a dumpling holder.

The rules of the competition are to reconcile, knead and wake up the noodles within the specified time, and then prepare the dough, roll out the skin and make dumplings.Finish the best to get the championship.

There are several key points:

First, it must be completed within the stipulated time;

Second, there is only one catty of noodles and one measuring cup of water;
Third, the standard for dumplings is 28 grams of skin, [-] grams of filling, [-] grams per dumpling;
Fourth, the shape must be uniform, without folds or wrinkles, round and full.

The first step is to knead the dough, mainly because there is no basin, so it must be operated on the panel.The ratio of noodles to water is a test for dumpling workers, and at the same time, remember to reserve noodles for filling.

Normally, one catty of noodles and half a catty of water, but now you have to use nine and a half flour and four and a half water.

The second is the dose.The reconciled noodles are calculated on the basis of thirteen grams of doses, and exactly 57 doses are produced. If the half tael for making noodles is removed, there should be 51 doses.

So if you go to a restaurant and say you want a pound of dumplings, you usually get fifty.There are also sixty, the dumplings are guaranteed to be small.

After the preparation is finished, it is easy to wait until the skin is rolled and wrapped. These are the basic skills of dumpling workers, and they are practiced the most, and there are almost no mistakes.

The technical highlights of the whole competition are the dough kneading in the first step and the rolling out in the fourth step.

Li Shuang announced the start of the competition. The five contestants first poured the plastic-encapsulated dough on the panel, and took out half a tael to make up the dough. They didn't weigh it.

Then put the noodles in a circle and add water. There is a scale on the measuring cup, and you will not add more or less, unless your hands are shaking due to nervousness.

Then mix the water surface in a circle like a Tai Chi painting.

Seen from a distance, the five dumpling workers look like five martial arts masters, doing Tai Chi Push Hands in a uniform manner, with graceful postures and ecstasy.

In the hall, the melodious guzheng music of mountains and rivers is played.The sound of the zither, crisp and melodious, combined with the performances of the five beauties, exaggerated the long taste of the food.

"Dumplings pay attention to three points of noodles, five points of filling, and two points of heat. Heat refers to boiling, steaming, and frying. As the saying goes, the taste of boiled dumplings, steamed dumplings, and fried dumplings can linger. It is the heat.

The stuffing is the soul of dumplings, no dumplings can’t be made without stuffing, and noodles can’t be boiled without soup.If you want to make a good bowl of noodles, you must first have good soup. Good soup refers to old soup, chicken soup, and high soup, including sauce, marinade, juice, and ingredients.

The deliciousness of dumplings is mainly reflected in the stuffing, or how to say that the stuffing is the soul.And the dumplings are also named after the fillings, such as dumplings stuffed with three delicacies, dumplings stuffed with sauerkraut, dumplings stuffed with celery, dumplings stuffed with green peppers and so on.

Dumplings also pay attention to the three-point skin.The skin is the dough. If the dough is soft or hard, the rolled skin will not work, and the dumplings will not taste good. They will either stick to the teeth or be raw.

Therefore, if a plate of dumplings is to be delicious, the skin, filling, and heat must all be mastered.

Now the five contestants are operating the first step of dumplings - kneading noodles.When kneading noodles, pay attention to moderate water surface, moderate hardness and softness, and when kneading, wake up to a certain degree.Hand light, pot light, and face light are required after finishing the face, which are often referred to as three lights. "

Li Shuang's timely explanation made the judges very satisfied, especially the ten regular customers who listened attentively and carefully.

The five contestants went from kneading the dough to kneading the dough to waking up in one go, regardless of the front or back.

The next step is to knead the strips.The operation steps and movement postures of the five people are exactly the same. They all first make a hole in the middle of the wake-up dough, then hold it with both hands to form a big ring, then break it from one place, put it on the panel and knead it into a long and even thick dough. strip.

Next, pinch one end of the noodles with the left hand, and quickly grab the jelly with the right hand, two at a time.The five people came together, and the jiaozi fell like big raindrops. The scene was quite spectacular, and the judges and employees watching the game applauded.

The scene is a bit less like a game, more like a performance.

After the dosage is finished, the skin is rolled, which is the most ornamental.

I saw that the five contestants pressed the pills with both hands first, and piled up the pressed pills four by one.Then use the palms of both hands to press the pointed forehead sticks at both ends, pinch four stacked doses with each hand and start rolling.

One, two, three, four, five.

out--

Four in one hand and eight in two hands, the round pills flew out like large flakes of snowflakes.

Another round of applause.

In Aqiao, those who roll two skins at once with a two-pointed rolling pin are beginners, those who roll four are bronze, those who roll six are equal to gold, and those who roll eight are kings.People like Wang Hong, Meng Meng, Yaru, and Wu Min who roll ten to twelve at a time belong to the ceiling.

At this stage, the five of them separated a little, with a gap of [-] seconds.

In the end, after a tense level of package system, the final winner was the player from the host Suzhou team.

The happiest person in the audience was Yaru, who was an employee trained by her. Although she was not accepted as an apprentice like Zhao Min, she was called "Master Master", so why not be happy.

Next is the cold dish competition.

During the dumpling competition, the cold dish master had already started making the cold dish in the kitchen. As soon as the dumpling competition was over, the cold dish master had finished making the first dish, which was brought to the booth by Chuan Caisheng.

The prescribed dish is Aqiao's traditional cold dish "dried tofu in soy sauce".This dish is a well-known and refreshing dish in the Northeast, and housewives can cook it.Just because it is well-known, everyone can do it, and there are restaurants of all sizes, so there are really few who have done it well and are amazing.

This is the same as the famous Northeast dish "Pot Baorou". It's difficult to make, but any chef can cook it. It tastes sour and sweet, too.To put it simply, there are really not many people who do it well, and there are only a handful of people who can be amazing.

"Mixed dry tofu" is not the first creation of Aqiao, but it is definitely carried forward by Aqiao.

This dish is more popular in Hohhot than in the provincial capital, followed by Beijing. After Lao Tan’s improvement in Suzhou, the dried tofu was replaced with dried shredded noodles that locals love to eat, and it is also very popular.It is also very popular in Changsha, showing a gradual upward trend.

The key point of making this dish is the processing of the dried tofu and the combination with shredded green onion. After blanching the dried tofu, don’t rush to cool it, it’s best to keep it hot.The shredded green onion should not be too little, it must be placed on the surface of the dried tofu and hot oil with the shredded dried red pepper.

The seasoning used is also very simple. Use fresh dew and Yipinxian to reconcile in a one-to-one ratio, add a little sesame oil and mix well. Do not add monosodium glutamate, monosodium glutamate or the like, so as not to leak.

The five contestants in this dish are almost evenly matched, and there is no winner.In the end, the public jury gave their opinions, and the players from the provincial city team temporarily took the lead by one point.

(End of this chapter)