The Days of Opening a Restaurant on an Abnormal Earth

Niu Xiaoli followed Niu Ben suspiciously and found a seat to sit down. Traditional western food always has an appetizer, and soy sauce western food is no exception. Generally, the appetizer of Western food is vegetable salad, while the appetizer of Shanghai style soy sauce Western food is potato salad.

Speaking of the birth of potato salad, it is wonderful. Although Huaihai people ate Western food at the beginning of the last century, they generally could not accept eating bloody steak and raw vegetables. Many people think that this is no different from drinking blood like a hair.

Chef Huaihai made a potato salad ingeniously. Peel fresh potatoes, steam/boil them and cut into small pieces. After the diced peas and carrots are boiled and cooked, mix them together. Add the red sausage cut into small cubes, and finally mix well with mayonnaise.

This is a dish where there is hardly any skill and difficulty in cooking. But it was surprisingly delicious!

The potatoes are sandy, the peas are sweet and soft, the carrots are crisp, and the red sausage is springy and full of meaty flavor. Plus the mayonnaise that is rich in fat but has a refreshing taste. It is obviously a very simple combination of ingredients, but it forms a wonderful combination.

This kind of salad is very popular in Huaihai City and spread widely. It was even dubbed the name of Huaihai Salad.

And this kind of salad has now become a unique feeling of Huaihai City. Traveling all over the world, I'm afraid I can't find a certain kind of salad sold in lo mei shops.

In Huaihai, this kind of potato salad is usually sold by the catty in the deli shop of the lo mei shop. Therefore, many Huaihai people don’t think potato salad is a Western food at all, but they already think it is a Huaihai dish.

So when Zhang Tong brought two Huaihai salads to Niu Xiaoli and Niu Ben, Niu Xiaoli was a little confused. She said, "Xiao Zhang, is this considered Western food? Why does it look like it's sold by a lo-mei shop in the vegetable market?"

Zhang Tong smiled: "It's guaranteed to be Western food. Chinese food uses salad dressing and mayonnaise. And I made it myself, not from the lo-mei shop in the vegetable market. Potatoes are steamed, which is better than boiled ones." The taste is better. The mayonnaise is also homemade, try it.”

Before Niu Xiaoli was ready to eat, Niu Ben started to eat with chopsticks. This is another feature of Western food with soy sauce. It not only provides customers with knives and forks, but also provides customers with chopsticks.

"Delicious!" Niu Ben couldn't help giving Zhang Tong a thumbs up after eating several mouthfuls. He always likes to eat potato salad, but generally the potato salad sold in the market has a [fake] feeling.

This feeling mainly comes from the salad dressing and mayonnaise that accompany the potatoes. General merchants are reluctant to buy expensive salad dressing and mayonnaise as seasonings. And Zhang Tong made his own mayonnaise.

Without any additives, beat six egg yolks, and add a small amount of olive oil, salt, sugar, white vinegar, and pepper. There are no ostentatious techniques to write home about, nor are there any special ingredients that stand out.

Only pay attention to the degree of beating the egg yolk when preparing, pay attention to the freshness of the egg when choosing eggs, everything is nothing more than that. No gimmicks, just authenticity.

So when Niuben eats this kind of potato salad, he has a sense of authenticity that other potato salads on the market don't have.

Niu Xiaoli also took a bite, but the taste was the same as what Zhang Tong said. It is completely different from the potato salad sold in the market. The ingredients are very fresh, and the mayonnaise is very refreshing. And you can still feel the faint aroma of egg yolk.

After the appetizers, the soup and main course are served in the soy sauce western food.

In Shanghai-style western food, the soup is usually Huaihai borscht, and the main dish is usually deep-fried pork ribs. Just like the potato salad modified for the taste of Huaihai people, Huaihai borscht is also very different from the original borscht.

There is no beet in Huaihai borscht, and red sausage is added to reduce the beef, and there is no cream, and the amount of cheese used is also small. At the same time, parsley was also discarded because some people could not accept its taste.

The Huaihai borscht made by Zhang Tong is an old-fashioned way. The onions and potatoes are fried until soft, then mixed with beef and peeled tomatoes and stewed. Add shredded red sausage and grated cheese just before serving. Finally, use the Western thickening method of butter and flour to thicken it.

Huaihai borscht is not as sour as the original borscht, nor is it as heavy and greasy as the original borscht. It can be said to be a sweet and sour dish with a refreshing taste.

The main course that matches this refreshing taste is Huaihai Fried Pork.

Zhang Tong is a bit more puzzled, he has been back to modern times for a while. Having been to some places and eaten in some restaurants, what he can't understand is why tonkatsu has become an oriental cuisine?

Isn't this a representative of Huaihai Western food? How did it become a representative of Oriental food? If you want to say, Dongyang's tonkatsu should also be learned from Huaihai.

Fried pork cutlets are considered a hard dish, and four or two heavy pork chops are loosened on the chopping board with a meat hammer. Prepare egg liquid, dry starch, and bread crumbs to pass three levels. That is to say, the large row is first dipped in egg liquid and then dipped in starch, then dipped in egg liquid again and finally to stick to bread crumbs.

This style of tonkatsu is influenced by Western food. Before Westerners came to Huaihai, not many people in Huaihai had seen bread crumbs.

However, deep-fried pork chops have a long history in Huaihai. The first fried pork chops were noodles. Later, when he came into contact with the method of watercress, the chef improved the method of tonkatsu.

Modern techniques such as pork cutlet and chicken cutlet are almost all born out of this method.

The oil temperature is 60% hot, put the pork chops into the pan, and deep-fry over medium heat until golden. Take it out of the pot and cut it into small pieces on the chopping board, click, click, and each knife will make a crisp sound.

Because of the outer coating of the big row, the whole big row has no direct contact with the hot oil, which maintains the juicy quality of the meat.

Deep-fried golden pork chops are served on a white shallow porcelain plate. Drizzle with Worcestershire sauce, and a Huaihai traditional deep-fried steak is completed.

Zhang Tong finished the meal with a Huaihai-style dessert: chestnut cake.

It is not a chestnut-flavored cake, but chestnuts are used as a cake. In the early days white flour was expensive, as were eggs and milk. The cost of making a cake is too high, and many commoners cannot afford it.

In order to allow more people to enjoy the sweet happiness brought by cakes, a Huaihai chef thought of using chestnuts instead of cake embryos in an ingenious way.

Fresh chestnuts are boiled, mixed with some sugar and whipped into chestnut paste, and then put into the prototype mold to shape the chestnut paste. Finally, spread cream on top, and a chestnut cake is complete.

Chestnut cake reduces the cost of making cakes, and made many people taste the sweetness of cakes in the era when everyone was not rich. Today, only a few time-honored Huaihai pastry shops are making chestnut cakes.

Times have changed, and the last time Niu Xiaoli ate chestnut cake was more than ten years ago, before Niu Ben was born.

The first date she and Niu Ben's father went was the chestnut cake and cream filling that Ruby ate. Later, there were fewer and fewer shops making chestnut cakes. Because the taste of chestnuts is rough, many people are not very accepting of the better living conditions now.

Niu Xiaoli was a little surprised today, because she thought Niu Ben would take her to a serious western restaurant to eat western food or something. Because I am usually not willing to take him to expensive restaurants to eat those things.

But now he brought himself to eat the "pidgin" Western food cooked by Zhang Tong. But Niu Xiaoli did have to admit that the dishes made by Zhang Tong were more in line with her own taste. Niu Xiaoli still finds it unacceptable to eat bloody steaks in authentic western food.

And Niu Ben also ate very happily today, and seemed to be in a much better mood. Niu Xiaoli cleared her throat, and planned to take this time to talk to Niu Ben about the time to go to the United States. But at this time, Niu Ben asked her one step ahead: "Mom, do you think today's western food is delicious?"

Niu Ben's eyes flickered. Zhang Tong stood behind the semi-open kitchen and looked at the mother and son with a smile on his lips. Niu Xiaopangding is about to start developing his skills.

PS pidgin: refers to not authentic.