The Cheat Emperor of the Culinary World

”The amount of leftover food from customers can tell us a lot of clues; it’s all about experience. Nowadays, the kitchen doesn’t personally taste the dishes anymore, and they don’t care about the specific dining preferences of customers at all. How can this still be considered the behavior of a qualified chef?”

After speaking, she clapped her hands, ”Alright, let’s get busy first. We’ll discuss this matter later.”

Everyone responded and continued with their tasks.

But they couldn’t help starting to reflect inwardly.

Indeed.

When did they stop paying attention to the dining conditions of their customers?

In fact, in the beginning, they used to deliberately observe how much food was left by customers, using this to determine whether their cooking was favored by customers.

If customers finished the dish cleanly, they would know that the dish was very much in line with the customer’s taste preferences.

And if there was a lot of leftover, sometimes they would personally taste it to determine whether there was a problem with the flavor, or perhaps customers preferred other flavors.

This would then be used to select the next set of ten dishes on the menu.

Not to mention others, even Liu Yunong herself inadvertently became somewhat negligent.

Because the business at the restaurant had always been good, she no longer paid attention to customers’ dining preferences and instead selected daily dish combinations based on the season and her mood.

Thinking carefully, it seemed that the few restaurants under her had not introduced any innovative revision versions of dishes for quite a while, nor made any other improvements, just repeating the same work every day.

And such routine is completely contrary to her plan to promote the restaurant’s concept.

She couldn’t go on muddling through like this anymore.

She felt that she had indeed not been very conscientious lately. Seeing the restaurant’s income being quite substantial, she began to feel at ease and slack off.

It couldn’t go on like this.

Liu Yunong made up her mind to contact the main branch’s person in charge for a discussion in the evening.

To see whether to develop a set of corresponding employee training activities, using the post-New Year off-season to refresh all the staff, or to research if there are better reward systems to enhance everyone’s work enthusiasm.

Especially in the kitchen, they couldn’t keep clinging to their few ancestral secrets and shut themselves in. They also needed to understand the current demands and development trends of the catering industry.

In fact, Kang Guijie’s dining at the restaurant was just a trigger.

Liu Yunong is a highly ambitious person.

She stayed in Bei’an during this period, accompanied by her sister.

With work going smoothly and a harmonious family life, she unknowingly became a bit overly immersed in it.

To run a catering company well was not an easy thing.

Especially as she planned to gradually open new branches next year, dealing with location selection, personnel training, and the operation and management of other stores.

All these required her to spend time and effort on overall planning and arrangement.

Having truly adapted to the busy and tense work life, the rare leisure now instead made her develop an indescribable sense of crisis.

Worried that her momentary slackness would delay the company’s development and affect her goal of promoting ancestral dishes.

Liu Yunong felt invigorated and prepared to continue expanding her grand plans.

The kitchen staff also perked up.

Liu Yunong’s words indeed had an effect. At least now, every day when the tables were cleared after customers dined, the work chat group would have servers promptly uploading photos of the leftover food.

If there were dishes that were hardly touched, they would be brought to the back kitchen for the chef to personally taste and figure out what went wrong.

Correct if there’s something wrong; carry on if not.

One shouldn’t assume that having worked for a long time, relying on their rich experience, they would have no issues in cooking.

Cooking dishes is quite complex, and many dishes, without repeated practice, the technique might get a bit rusty.

Thus, the chefs’ meticulousness in operational details must be strengthened.

Relying too much on a sense of touch is not truly a cautious approach.

Occasionally, proper tasting is an attitude of true responsibility towards a dish.

After all, chefs are not robots with pre-set programs.

No matter how skilled a chef is, they are human.

And as humans, there is always a chance of mistakes.

...

The work before the New Year was extremely busy.

Fu Yu’s daily routine at Qianlima was originally just between the dormitory and the kitchen.

Since starting to learn cooking every evening at Shangshi Private Kitchen, Fu Yu felt obliged to prepare staff meals for the kitchen crew every morning.

Favor begets obligation, and even those who were disgruntled couldn’t voice complaints while enjoying the delicious meals.

But apart from making breakfast, Fu Yu now had an additional task.

Every morning, he would find time to whip up some snacks.

Today he made a plate of sesame oil marinated tofu, and tomorrow he might use leftover scraps to fry some five-spice fish fillets.

Then, when Liu Yuqing came to deliver takeout orders, he would secretly slip her some as snacks, while trying to gain her favor.

The purchaser had ordered a batch of fresh peanuts yesterday.

This morning, Zhao Meng prepared a jar of raw pickled peanuts.

Fu Yu noticed there were still plenty left, so he set aside a small bowl and found time to make a batch of spicy peanuts while there were no customers yet.

This batch of peanuts was of great quality, with plump, uniformly sized kernels.

Fu Yu picked a few dried chili peppers and a small spoonful of Sichuan peppercorns, put them in a pot with water, and brought it to a boil before turning off the heat.

He immersed the peanuts in the Sichuan peppercorn water for half an hour.

Then he scooped out the peanuts and peeled them.

This was a bit tedious, so Fu Yu called Zhang Jinyu to help him out.

When Zhang Jinyu heard that Fu Yu was making spicy peanuts, his eyes immediately lit up.

Everyone in the kitchen knew that Fu Yu’s skill in frying peanuts was learned hands-on from Zhao Meng.

Anyone who enjoys drinking has a deep understanding of snacks that pair with alcohol.

Especially someone like Zhao Meng, who is originally a chef, making him very experienced in this aspect.

Fu Yu’s spicy peanuts were learned from Zhao Meng.

Previously, when he couldn’t man the stove, Zhao Meng was too busy taking orders to bother with these tasks, so Fu Yu took over and quietly occupied a cooking station to make these drinking snacks whenever he wasn’t busy.

Once they finished, the mentor and apprentice would huddle in Zhao Meng’s dorm room, eating snacks and sipping a bit of liquor, as if the exhaustion from a day’s hard work dissipated into the aroma of the alcohol, slowly fading away.

Delicious food is a source of motivation, and Zhang Jinyu was especially enthusiastic, and together they processed a small bowl of peanuts.

Fu Yu wiped the peeled peanuts dry using kitchen paper, sealed them in a freezer bag, and put them in the freezer.

He removed the seeds from the dried chili peppers and cut them into small pieces, preparing the Sichuan peppercorns.

He heated the oil in the pan to a warm temperature and added the frozen peanuts.

Using a medium-low flame, he fried the peanuts until they floated up in the oil, heard a sizzling sound and strained them out.

After reheating the oil, he fried the peanuts again until they turned golden, immediately took them out, and drained the remaining oil.

In another pan, he added a little oil and heated it before adding the Sichuan peppercorns and chili peppers, slowly frying them until fragrant over low heat.

This step was crucial because improperly controlling the heat would cause the dried chili peppers to become burnt and overcooked.

He added the fried peanuts and stir-fried them evenly.

Fu Yu always tossed the peanuts in the pan without using a spatula.

The peanuts all flew up in unison before gracefully falling back, creating a clean and neat effect.

Just before taking them out of the pan, he sprinkled salt and sugar over them.

Fu Yu scooped out two small bowls of the finished spicy peanuts separately.

One was kept for Zhao Meng, and the other was saved for Liu Yuqing, with the remaining ones being given to Zhang Jinyu.

The group on Zhao Meng’s side secretly divided and ate them.

As for when Liu Yuqing arrived, Fu Yu would take a quick break from work to lean over the pass through window, secretly slipping her some snacks.

Favor begets obligation, and everyone else pretended not to notice.

However, Fu Yu was running his little extra stove quite frequently!

Ensuring once every morning!

If the kitchen happened to have some good ingredients, sometimes he would sneak in another session in the afternoon!

Additionally, he would often rest his arms heavily on the pass through window, refusing to budge.

It seemed as if the pass through window held a massive magnet, attracting him with such intensity that he couldn’t pull away and became addicted.

He had to chat with Liu Yuqing for a few words to feel satisfied before getting back to work properly.