Gourmet: From a Stall in Northern Europe

Chapter 568: Hand-Ground Ginger Juice, Freshly Milled Black Sesame Powder

Luckily, they just have to watch, not actually do the cooking themselves, which is quite a relief for the chefs.

Having been watched like monkeys all day, they finally get the chance to watch others, and oh, what a joy it is.

"Tomorrow for breakfast, we’ll be making some well-known food from the Southeastern Great Xia region, which can also be considered desserts, but we call them sugar water."

"As the name suggests, it’s sweet liquid, distinctly different from Western baked desserts like cakes."

Lucas started his explanation again.

Everyone nodded while keeping a close eye on Zhao Shun’s hands, eager to see how this so-called sugar water is made.

"Why is he gathering a bunch of nuts? Is he going to make soup with them?"

"Nut soup? I can’t even imagine it. Would it taste good?"

"What’s that strangely shaped stone pot, and why is there a big stick?"

While the waiters were chatting away, Zhao Shun finally experienced what it felt like to be watched by a group of beautiful women.

Even with his thick skin, his cheeks turned a bit red, and he had to carefully reconsider every move he made for fear of making a mistake that they would laugh at.

Seeing his cautious demeanor, Lucas was somewhat speechless.

Taking advantage of a pause in his speech, he discreetly turned off the loudspeaker, covered his face with the megaphone, and quietly shouted a couple of words to him.

"Why the heck are you so tense?"

"Haven’t seen women before? Just pretend they’re air, do what you usually do, hurry up, or your image will be ruined!"

"Think about how Lin does it!"

"Does he ever look around at people when he’s cooking? Nope, he focuses on cooking the whole time."

"They say a man who works earnestly is the most attractive, get it?!"

Zhao Shun didn’t expect Lucas to spray him with anger at this moment, but after staring blankly for a few seconds, his demeanor suddenly changed.

He wasn’t new to the kitchen; he simply wasn’t used to being surrounded by so many beautiful women, especially foreign ones.

Recalling the times he used to train in his mentor’s shop, it was always an open kitchen, constantly cooking under the curious gaze of guests, and he never felt nervous or embarrassed about it.

Seeing him quickly adjust and regain his confident smile, Lucas’s tense mood gradually relaxed, sighing in relief.

Opening the loudspeaker again, he continued explaining to everyone.

"Tomorrow, we’ll be making several dishes, all quite famous representatives in the sugar water category."

"Hand-ground black sesame paste, ginger milk pudding, rice ball red bean paste, fruit sago dessert, jasmine iced tofu pudding."

As he spoke, he used his phone to project images of the five types of sugar water onto the TV screen, since they completely lacked any concept.

The appearance of the five pictures completely overturned everyone’s guesses.

"Sugar water looks like this??"

"I thought it was sweet soup, but didn’t expect it to look like this—it seems quite tasty."

"Is it like porridge, or perhaps like thick soup? It should taste like the ingredient itself, right?"

"Those little things, are they pearls? They look a bit like the ones in milk tea, just much smaller."

"I bet everyone’s curious about what sago is, right?"

Lucas already anticipated this scene, smiling as he explained, "Traditionally, sago is made from a palm tree called the sago palm, which during blooming, fills its trunk center with starch to nourish the upcoming fruit."

"At this moment, the trunk is cut open, machines extract the starch inside, then form it into differently sized balls—this is how sago originally was made."

"Simply put, sago is natural plant starch balls, and you could consider them pearls, just made from different material."

"However, since these palm trees grow in Southeast Asia and tropical areas where there are limited sago palms, most of the sago bought now is made from various other starches."

While Lucas was explaining the origins of various ingredients to everyone, Zhao Shun had already started handling the ginger, with milk boiling in a pot and water boiling in another.

"Our chef Zhao is now making ginger milk pudding, although it could also be called milk ginger pudding."

"As the name suggests, it’s a dessert sugar water made by bumping milk into ginger juice."

"This dessert uses only three ingredients: old ginger, high-protein and high-fat milk, and sugar."

"The principle is relatively complex, involving changes in the physical state of nutritional components in ingredients, but I won’t explain it in detail here—I’ll make a popular science video later, and you can check it out yourself."

To promote traditional culture, Zhao Shun didn’t use any mechanical tools to extract ginger juice; instead, he chopped the old ginger into pieces, wrapped them in muslin, and twisted like wringing clothes.

This method certainly extracts ginger juice, but has a relatively low yield and is quite hard on the hands.

If it weren’t for show-off purposes, he wouldn’t bother with it.

With his arms exerting strength again, veins popped out on his arms, revealing muscle shape beneath the seemingly thin arms.

It was a summer night, and although there was outdoor lighting, the overall environment was still slightly dim.

With the shadows enhancing, Zhao Shun’s arm muscles appeared exceptionally clear, looking a whole circle thicker than his usual thin arms.

Just as he expected.

This act of squeezing ginger juice with hands stirred exclamations from the girls, and he could clearly sense their gazes fixed on his arms non-stop.

In terms of physique, he certainly couldn’t compare to the robust foreigners, but being thin didn’t mean weak; none of his muscles were missing.

Every twist of the gauze squeezed out a stream of golden juice from its center and precisely dripped into a small bowl.

No need for much ginger juice, just a shallow bowl bottom would suffice.

He didn’t have the time to make a bowl for everyone present, it was merely a demonstration of the process.

If you really want to taste it, let’s talk about it tomorrow morning.

Old Chen quietly assisted beside him, stirring the buffalo milk. This type of milk, high in protein and fat content, forms a layer of milk skin when heated, which is the precursor of cheese or cream.

If not stirred, the bottom of the pot might end up burnt and stick.

Moreover, stirring helps reincorporate the milk skin back into the milk, restoring the milk ratio to its original state.

Zhao Shun casually tossed the gauze into a basin nearby, washed his hands, carried the bubbling milk, and poured it into the small bowl with an seemingly casual attitude.

The smooth milk cascaded like a tiny waterfall from mid-air, instantly submerging the bowl’s golden ginger juice.

Nine tenths full, and he stopped.

He casually picked up a plate to cover it, and pressed the timer.

"Five minutes."

Lucas’s explanation timely resounded.

"The protease in ginger can coagulate protein; theoretically, it starts coagulating in just a few seconds, but that doesn’t mean the entire bowl will be fully set."

"To ensure the integrity of the final product, waiting for five minutes is the most secure."

As the plate was just placed, Zhao Shun had already picked up a bag of sago and poured it into the boiling water.

While pouring, he explained a few words to Lucas, who then conveyed them.

"The ratio of sago to water cannot be less than 1 to 5; you can have more water but never less, otherwise it’ll result in a pot of porridge."

"Moreover, while cooking sago, the water must be boiling, because sago is a starch bead, and without sufficient temperature, it cannot instantly set."

"There are many tricks to cooking sago; what was just mentioned is one, and another trick is to frequently stir while cooking. When the sago becomes mostly transparent, leaving just a little white core in the center, another technique surfaces."

"Reduce the heat and add an appropriate amount of clear water to lower the temperature, then cover and let it simmer for ten to fifteen minutes, during which the white core in the sago will disappear."

"Remember, this is the most crucial point!"

"Relying solely on boiling won’t fully cook it!"

The explanation seemed directed at the waitstaff, but the true audience was the fourteen chefs.

The waitstaff just needed to listen and get a rough understanding; the actual preparation tomorrow morning would be done by the chefs.

"It’s fortunate I didn’t go back to sleep, or else I’d be completely baffled tomorrow morning."

"It sounds really difficult... transforming milk into a pudding-like state without gelatin? That’s so amazing."

The task of watching the sago was handed to Old Chen, as was cooking the red bean paste—which just required pressing the pre-soaked red beans in a pressure cooker, a task Old Chen was very familiar with.

The dumplings weren’t too difficult either; just make some dumplings with high water content using white glutinous rice, boil them, and make some green rice dumplings as well.

Making iced tofu pudding was also simple: use freshly ground and boiled soy milk with a little dissolved tofu coagulant, keep it warm for thirty minutes, and it’ll turn into a texture resembling tender tofu pudding.

But since it’s an iced dessert, the tofu pudding needed chilling.

After completing all other preparatory work, Zhao Shun took a deep breath, wiped the beads of sweat off his forehead, feeling an inexplicable bit of tension.

The other four types were all relatively easy; the most troublesome definitely had to be hand-ground black sesame powder.

If using a blender, black sesame paste would be the simplest sweet soup.

"For the sake of showing off!"

He shouted silently in his heart, grabbed a frying pan to heat, and scooped in a few spoonfuls of black sesame.

"To save time, our chef Zhao will cook directly over high heat. When you all fry tomorrow morning, be mindful; if you’re confident, you can use high heat, but for safety, medium heat is best."

"At the start of frying sesame, you needn’t stir much, but once the temperature rises, you must start tossing the pan to ensure the sesame seeds are evenly heated. Often, between being cooked and burnt, there’s only a buffer of a few seconds."

"If not tossed timely, the sesame seeds will quickly burn, ruining the whole batch."