Gourmet: From a Stall in Northern Europe

Chapter 569: Chapter 481: The Collision of Spiciness and Sweetness, the Magical Ginger Milk Curd

Zhao Shun’s movements appeared completely easy-going, as if he didn’t care about the blazing orange flames under the pot, leisurely wiping here and touching there, allowing a half-pot of black sesame seeds to lie quietly at the bottom of the pot.

Sesame seeds aren’t widely used in Western cuisine, especially raw ones, mostly just utilized to make sauces or something similar.

No one present had really ever done the task of frying sesame seeds; they had no concept of it in their minds.

Every seven or eight seconds, Zhao Shun would toss the pot, his gaze fixed tightly on the pitch-black sesame seeds, though it was unclear what he was observing.

After maintaining this state for about three or four minutes, suddenly, at a certain instant, the frequency of tossing the pot began to quicken.

As the sesame seeds flew through the air non-stop, a strong aroma began to spread around.

Visible blue smoke rose from above the frying pan, a sign that the temperature had reached a certain level.

The chefs’ eyes lit up, hastily noting down this characteristic.

Zhao Shun’s tossing speed increased, going from once every seven or eight seconds to three or four seconds, and finally reaching a frequency of once a second.

The frying pan showed no signs of being set down, as the large quantity of black sesame seeds kept soaring through the air.

"Eh?"

An observant chef quickly noticed a difference.

"Why does the color of those sesame seeds seem to have gotten even darker?"

"They also look a bit shiny, maybe the oils within the sesame seeds are seeping out?"

Just as they discovered this subtle difference, Zhao Shun turned off the heat and poured out the black sesame seeds to cool, avoiding further heating in the pot, which could cause them to burn.

Taking advantage of the heated pot, he began to fry the glutinous rice and peanuts, a process similar to frying black sesame seeds.

The only slight difference was that the skins of the roasted peanuts would automatically fall off, requiring careful screening, or it would affect the texture of the sesame paste.

Once all the ingredients were fried, he wiped sweat from his forehead, moved a stone mortar aside, scooped a few spoonfuls of black sesame seeds into it, and began grinding.

"So that strange stone is actually used for grinding ingredients?"

"No wonder they said it’s a traditional craft, this was the tool for crushing food before blenders were invented, right?"

"You mean to grip a stone stick and grind so many ingredients into powder bit by bit?"

"My God, just hearing that sounds exhausting, no wonder they need our help; otherwise, the chefs wouldn’t be able to work after doing this by tomorrow."

"But... after grinding this, won’t our hands be too tired to lift tomorrow?"

The female servers looked at the stone mortar with concern, unable to imagine what it would be like to hold that stick and grind for two or three hours continuously.

Under everyone’s gaze, Zhao Shun picked up the stone pestle and gently pounded it several dozen times, initially crushing the sesame seeds roughly, then started drawing circles with a peculiar technique.

It wasn’t the whole arm that moved, but leveraging the wrist and fingers’ finesse along with the stone mortar’s curvature, allowing the stone pestle to keep spinning by inertia.

The stone pestle itself was quite heavy, requiring little additional force to crush the sesame seeds.

With his movements, the sesame granules inside the mortar visibly refined bit by bit, as the pure black skin was crushed, revealing some white cores inside.

The more he ground, the stronger the sesame aroma became, growing to an exaggerated extent, almost rivaling that of perfume.

"So fragrant, so fragrant; this is astonishingly aromatic!"

"So the purpose of frying sesame seeds is to fully release their inherent aroma."

"I understand now! This principle is the same as making almond butter or peanut butter, only we bake them while they use frying pans."

Old Chen was not idle either; he also picked up a stone mortar and ground beside him, but he was grinding glutinous rice.

Lucas lifted a small megaphone again: "If everyone has seen enough, you can start moving around!"

"You don’t have to worry about anything else, tonight your job is to fry sesame seeds, glutinous rice, and peanuts, and then grind them into powder."

"Regarding the specific degree of grinding, the chefs will demonstrate later."

"One point to note is that different ingredients shouldn’t be mixed while grinding; they need to be ground separately."

"To save time, I need everyone to divide into three groups, each responsible for one type of ingredient."

"The amount of peanuts and glutinous rice is less compared to black sesame seeds, after completing the work on hand, everyone must assist in the black sesame grinding task."

"Chefs who want to try can join, but it’s not recommended to try for too long because you need to get up early tomorrow to handle other sugar water preparation."

"Anyone not wanting to try can now return to rest; a soak in hot water helps relieve physical fatigue, so sweet dreams to everyone!"

As everyone began to busy themselves, Lin Chen walked over from the side, picked up the bowl of warm ginger milk on the table, and handed it to Raphael beside him.

"Try it, chef, you’ll definitely like the taste of this stuff."

Raphael was dying of curiosity, so he didn’t stand on ceremony. He brought it over, took a sniff, and could clearly smell a strong, pungent ginger aroma, while the scent of milk was also very rich.

He scooped up a spoonful, and his eyes lit up.

It actually solidified into a jelly!!

And it’s the kind of jelly with an extremely smooth texture, like a large piece of gelatin, as if it would shatter with the slightest shake.

"Slurp"

The warm ginger milk curd was effortlessly sucked into his mouth, and before he could react, the spiciness unique to ginger exploded on the tip of his tongue.

The intensity of this ginger flavor far exceeded the concentration they added to their juice, like chewing raw chili, catching him completely off guard.

As he grimaced, the sweetness of the hot milk gradually covered the spiciness of the ginger as the milk jelly melted, and the fragrance of the milk spread out.

Raphael tilted his head in confusion, clearly not expecting sweet milk to pair so well with ginger. Logically speaking, it was two entirely different foods, and there should be no intersection between them.

But the fact was a loud slap in the face. This bowl of dessert, which looked like milk jelly, indeed offered a unique surprise.

"Amazing, is the structure of your Great Xia people’s brains different from ours?"

Raphael took another sip or two, exhaling a breath full of rich ginger spiciness, his face full of admiration.

"How did you come up with combining milk and ginger so that they react with each other, and most importantly, it tastes good. It’s incredible."

Lin Chen shrugged, slightly helplessly, "Actually, it’s very simple. Most strange dishes are not ’invented’ but are the result of various accidents."

"Chef, you know our Great Xia held the world’s largest population title for quite a long time."

"When there are a lot of people, anything can happen."

"In ancient times, poor people had nothing much to eat; ginger was a good medicine."

"It’s said there was an old mother who needed ginger juice to treat her illness, but the ginger juice was too strong to drink. Her daughter-in-law was trying to find a way and accidentally spilled hot milk into it."

"Then they were surprised to find the milk had solidified, and after tasting it, they found it pretty good, and it slowly spread."

"So that’s how it is."

Raphael suddenly understood, "No wonder we can’t develop such strange dishes. It’s because we have too few people."

"You could say that, but another reason is that your development speed was too fast. You didn’t go through a gradual transition period but jumped to the developed country stage by grabbing resources, skipping the intermediate stages, so people didn’t have the opportunity to open their minds or encounter accidents."

Speaking of grabbing resources, Raphael scratched his cheek somewhat awkwardly and looked at Lin Chen.

Lin Chen laughed out loud, patted him on the shoulder, and comforted, "Why are you worried? It wasn’t you who did it. I’m just stating a historical fact."

"We Great Xia people have a clear sense of love and hate. Hatred is directed at specific individuals and won’t affect innocent people, even if they’re Sakura People or Kimchi People, as long as they don’t show hostility or slander us, behave normally, and respect others, they can still be friends."

"Hmm."

Raphael nodded vigorously. Lin Chen’s calm attitude was something he really should learn from, handling things without haste, calm and composed.

Come to think of it, during his days here, he hadn’t seen Lin Chen lose his temper at his subordinates.

If it were him, every time during service, he would definitely shout and curse at those who were slow or made mistakes.

It’s not that he wanted to curse, but in those high-pressure service moments, everyone’s emotions easily got ignited.

Especially when for things that seemed simple to him, subordinates would make mistakes, making him feel quite frustrated, and he couldn’t help but scold them.

He didn’t want to curse, but some people were just asking for it.

Like that guy Anderson, if he made a mistake at a critical moment of service, should he not scold him but smile and say ’It’s okay, make another one quickly’?

That would only make that guy even more indifferent, thinking that mistakes are no big deal, just make another one.

Thinking of this, Raphael shook his head in resignation and secretly made up his mind that in future hiring, he would learn Lin Chen’s approach, prioritizing character, mindset, and social skills, then culinary skills.

"Grind the sesame seeds and the other two ingredients to this level. It doesn’t need to be as fine as powder."

Lucas’s voice rang out again.

"Grinding it too finely will not only extend the working time greatly but also have a very limited improvement on the taste."

"To ensure the sesame paste is smooth to drink, just add a small step, which is sieving."

"Of course, that doesn’t mean not grinding finely is an excuse to skimp. We do have standards."

"After grinding a kilogram of sesame seeds, the amount left after sieving should not exceed 100 grams. Only below this ratio will it feel smooth to drink, and you can clearly taste the existence of sesame granules."

"Diners won’t find it strange; instead, they can taste the charm of the hand-ground black sesame paste."