The Northern Stories of Chef Lao Tan

Chapter 9

After a day, Lao Tan didn't say much, just watched.

It was [-]:[-] when he entered the kitchen, and the chefs had finished preparing the chopping board and stove.This time is when the bosses of each stall conduct pre-meal inspections to see if there is anything unprepared and prepare it immediately to prevent confusion when serving the food.

But when he entered the kitchen, there were only four people on the cutting board, five chefs on the stove, and eight chefs on the table, and no one else was in the kitchen.Ask the sous chef Li Xu about the others, and Li Xu groaned and said that they might all be smoking in the backyard.

When Lao Tan came to the backyard, he saw more than twenty people lined up, talking, laughing, smoking and chatting.No one approached him when he saw him, as if he didn't look at him, he just ignored him.

Old Tan glanced at everyone, but he didn't see Wang Gang.

Li Xu also followed and shouted loudly: "It's almost there, come back, the food is here."

These people stubbed out their cigarettes slowly and walked towards the kitchen while muttering.Lao Tan shook his head speechlessly, and was about to follow in, when he heard someone talking among the green vegetables, so he took two steps and opened the door to go in.

Zhou Hongyou, the leader of cold dishes, and Yuan Hua, the leader of chopping boards, were sitting on stools chatting and smoking. When they saw Lao Tan, they just raised their eyelids and continued chatting, not taking Lao Tan seriously.

Old Tan got angry, pulled the bandit's face down and said sullenly: "The food is here, you two go back to your post."

Maybe it was because of Lao Tan's face that was a little creepy, the two stood up reluctantly, and walked out while smoking a cigarette.

"Put out the cigarette and put on the hat." Old Tan's voice was a bit cold.

The two threw their cigarettes on the ground, put the folded paper hats on their heads from their pockets, and went back to the kitchen one after the other.Seeing the state of these two people, Old Tan shook his head.

There were more than a dozen dishes, and the people who had just entered the kitchen hadn't entered the working state yet.

Niu Hongtai and the chef next to him were each holding a chopstick with freshly cooked meatballs stuck in it, talking and laughing while eating naturally, as if the restaurant was opened by itself, eating a meatball is nothing thing.

Lao Tan came to them.

Seeing Lao Tan coming, the two brothers swallowed the balls in their mouths as if nothing had happened, and didn't care.

Old Tan took out a pen and notepad from his pocket, and asked, "What are your two names?"

"What's the matter? You still need to be fined?" Niu Hongtai's face was full of twitches.

Old Tan said: "No fine, let's get to know each other."

"My name is Niu Hongtai, and his name is Lao Wu." Niu Hongtai said nonchalantly.

"My name." Old Tan pulled his face down and said sharply.

The fifth child was a little nervous and said, "Zhang Qiang."

Old Tan memorized the names, then cast a cold glance at the two of them, and asked, "Are the meatballs delicious?"

"The fifth one made it, tell me to taste the saltiness." Niu Hongtai began to find reasons for himself.

"I asked if it was delicious?" Old Tan emphasized his tone.

"It's okay, just—just—taste the saltiness." Niu Hongtai squeaked a little.

"Now it's over, let's work!"

The stove master blatantly steals food, and the younger brother below naturally follows suit. Although not blatantly, sneaking is always okay.

The shelves are full of delicious food, including cooked pork ribs, cooked beef brisket, braised pork, lamb chops, and meatballs. Lao Tan found out that someone stole them, so he didn't take it seriously.Even a little chubby girl from the pastry would sneak out and secretly take a piece of ribs back to eat.

This gave Lao Tan an illusion, as if this was not a private restaurant, but a state-run canteen.

This phenomenon must be put an end to.

During the meal, Lao Tan first watched for a while at the position of Shangza claypot.There are quite a lot of guests ordering steamed pig's blood, stewed eggs, fish head with chopped peppers and gaba pot.The pig blood and egg stew are well steamed, and the effect is like a chicken cake, which is already very good.

Stewed fish Master Xu has already stewed five pots of fish, and there are two carp waiting to be stewed behind him. His brow was sweating, he nodded and smiled at Lao Tan who was standing behind him, and continued cooking.

What he cooks is stewed fish in an iron pot, which is similar to Kung Fu fish and is a popular stove fish recipe.The whole fish is stewed directly, with pork belly, tofu, fungus, wide noodles, red soup, salty and fresh mouth, the stewed fish is fragrant and tender, the soup is delicious, and it is attractive to the appetite.

Cui Kai and Cui Xuan, who are next to Xu Jun, are frying snowy bean paste and making pimple soup.

Lao Tan wondered why the pimple soup was made here with hot dishes?Hula remembered that there was no fire source for the pasta, so I could only get hot dishes to cook.Looking at Cui Xuan's pimple soup, the clear soup lacks water, and I know that I don't like to make it, so I'm fooling around there.

Pimple soup is a home-cooked staple food that people in the Northeast like, whether it is a small restaurant or a big restaurant, every family has it.There are pure homemade pimple soups that are directly pulled with noodles, and there are also pearl pimple soups that use eggs and noodles to leak out with a colander.No matter what kind of pimples it is, add diced tomatoes and minced cabbage, and add an egg liquid when it is cooked. It is sticky and delicious.

Lao Tan studied the pimple soup carefully, and after making it, everyone who tasted it said it was good, and it became popular in Binhai.After seeing Cui Xuan finished making it, I wanted to improve it. The farmyard can't even make pimple soup.

Come behind the six chefs.

The chefs who are good at cooking are the same as what Wang Gang said, Li Zhongqing, Li Huaqing, Li Xu, and Gaipeng's Sichuan dishes are quite satisfactory.Niu Hongtai and Ma Shunren are so-so and need to improve urgently.The fifth chef is okay, he can fry things well, but the other one is not good, he should not have been here for a long time, he is new to cooking, and has no cooking experience.

The six chefs are all cooking very quickly, and the slow one is the chef. From time to time, the chefs and other chefs overcook the oil and water.

Li Zhongqing and Gai Peng almost didn't need to cook the oil and water from the kitchen, and they did everything by themselves. Their dishes were also the fastest and the quality was good.

Li Huaqing is in charge of Xiaoliuxiaochao, and sometimes the cooks for him can't keep up, so they operate by themselves when they are busy.

Niu Hongtai and Ma Shunren were in charge of the production of pork tenderloin, pot-wrapped meat, and shredded vegetables. They were slow in posting the dishes.

If the four post chefs are four master chefs, and each of them is responsible for their own dishes, there will be no rushing dishes.Or divide the work of the four chefs in detail, and each dish will be implemented on the head of the person, and there will be no phenomenon of rushing dishes.

Lao Tan finally came to the stew here.

There are four people in total, two masters and two older brothers in their forties.After the little stupid chicken arrived, the elder brother who was in charge of the slaughter moved swiftly, killing and receiving blood for 1 minute, and then threw the chicken into the hair removal machine.The other big brother took out the chicken in 2 minutes, checked if there was any lost hair, and pulled it out by hand.Then disembowel the belly and disassemble eight pieces, and send it to the stove together with the chicken heart, chicken liver, and chicken gizzard.

The cooker cooks the pot directly, stir-fries the chicken until it boils, pours it into a pressure cooker and presses it for 7 minutes, pours the chicken into a large spoon, adds mushrooms and potatoes and simmers for 10 minutes on low heat, pours it into a small iron pot, sprinkles with chopped green onion and coriander serve.

The whole process lasted 25 minutes, and the four people cooperated tacitly, which was very smooth.

Iron pot pancakes are also made here.

Iron pot pancake is an authentic farm dish, also called northeast one pot, which is stewed directly in a small black iron pot.Generally, small cornmeal pancakes are pasted in a pot, and ribs, potatoes, and kidney beans are stewed at the bottom of the pot. The dishes are good and the pancakes are cooked.

People in the Kanto region call it 烀bing. It’s a large pancake with pork ribs, potatoes, and kidney beans. It’s good when the vegetables are cooked. Because the pancakes are placed on top of the vegetables, the pancakes are salty and taste delicious.

The flatbread uses the method of Yangmazi flatbread, but there is no filling inside.

Yangmazi pancake is made by rolling the dough into long and thin strips, then spread the meat stuffing on it, knead it into strips as thick as a little finger, and then bake it into a cake. When you eat it, you can stretch it out quite long, like eating sandwiches. Twist-like, very fragrant, very popular with guests.

This is the method of making iron pan cakes. It has to be said that it is innovative, very distinctive, and a bright spot.

Lao Tan walked around the hot dish kitchen, and finally came to the food delivery port, carefully watching the production of each dish.

Generally speaking, the quality of the products is average, which belongs to the middle level and needs to be improved.

The best sellers of cold dishes are the multicolored peeling and smoked flavor platter, followed by dipping pickles.The best-selling noodles are corn flour cakes and steamed dumplings stuffed with sauerkraut, followed by small corn flour pancakes.

At [-]:[-], the front desk began to urge the dishes.The ones that are recommended are the pot-packed meat, candied sweet potatoes and sanded taro.Lao Tan entered the kitchen and came behind Niu Hongtai and Ma Shunmin. The cook was stepping up frying while Niu Hongtai and Ma Shunren stood and waited.

After 4 minutes, it was fried and the customer returned the dish.Lao Tan picked up the receipt and took a look. It took four 10 minutes from ordering the food to reminding the food.That is to say, if the food is not served within four 10 minutes, it is a serious overtime.

Lao Tan asked Niu Hongtai and Ma Shunren to sign the receipt, they were a little confused, you look at me and I look at you, I don't know what's going on.

Niu Hongtai said: "Don't blame me if the food doesn't go up, it's because the chef can't fry it."

Old Tan said seriously: "I didn't ask whether the explosion would come out, but I asked you to sign it."

"I can't get food every day. It's normal if I can't get food. I never sign." Niu Hongtai said.

"From today onwards, whoever can't serve the food will sign the contract," Lao Tan said.

Niu Hongtai was a little dissatisfied, and Ma Shunren was good at tugging him, which means don't argue with Lao Tan, and sign it.He first signed the candied sweet potato and the taro, and Niu Hongtai signed the pot-wrapped meat without complaint.

Lao Tan put away the signed receipt and put it in his pocket, turned around and walked out of the kitchen without looking at Niu Hongtai and Ma Shunmin.All the masters on the stove and the younger brothers at the bottom saw this scene, and felt that the sky was about to change—this bald-headed bandit seemed to be playing for real.

The two brothers Li Zhongqing, Xu Jun and Li Xu were thinking the same thing now, and they said that this was such a big deal, even Wang Gang's apprentice dared to touch him, but he didn't know if he could get rid of Wang Gang.

Waiting for Wang Gang's apprentices and relatives in the kitchen to think that Lao Tan is a bit of a pretentious person, not knowing who is the big and small king, first give him some face, and see what he can do.In fact, they were also drawing foxes in their hearts - I haven't seen Wang Gang all afternoon, does it mean that he really doesn't care about the kitchen?
At this time, Wang Gang was sleeping in the security room.

Yesterday, I drank with some head chefs first, then went to the karaoke hall to sing after drinking, drank a lot of wine in the karaoke hall, and it was already two o'clock in the middle of the night when I got home.Woke up in the morning with a headache and feeling uncomfortable, and wanted to go to work. After thinking about Lao Tan's first day at work, it seemed that he didn't come to cooperate with the work, so he ate a meal and came to the restaurant.

After accompanying Lao Tan to familiarize himself with the kitchen, he saw Lao Tan and Mr. Xu went upstairs. He wanted to go to the security room to lie down for a while, and then come back when he was eating, but he didn't want to fall asleep.

After finishing the meal, Lao Tan was sitting in the serving room, and Zhang Li came over.I complained to Lao Tan that it was not busy at noon, and I sold it for 10,000 yuan at most, and I returned three dishes, which was unreasonable.

"It's okay if you're busy, and the dishes are too much to fry. We explain to the guests, and the guests can understand. If you're not busy, you can return the dishes. There's no way to explain to the guests. It can only be an apology and a discount. Old Tan, what? Can time solve the slow serving time?" Zhang Li asked.

"Don't worry, I just came here, you have to give me time." Old Tan said with a smile.

"This is a big deal, you have to hurry up, because the waiters are always scolded by customers for slow serving." Zhang Li pinned her hopes on Lao Tan.

"To be honest, after spending the whole morning in the kitchen, I don't want to do it anymore." Old Tan said sincerely.

"Don't quit, do it, it's not in your character to say no." Zhang Li stimulated Lao Tan.

"There are too many problems, and it won't be fixed in a while. I'll take a look."

"Look again. I believe you are capable. If you don't do it, I won't do it. I'll go with you."

"threaten me?"

"It's not a threat, it's a husband's singing and a wife's following."

this woman.

Old Tan said something in his heart.

(End of this chapter)