Gourmet: From a Stall in Northern Europe

Chapter 295 - 207: John’s Headache, Overflowing Crayfish and Snakehead Fish

Lin listed more than twenty types of skewers, and after some careful thought, felt there were too many, so he crossed out a few of the more repetitive and less appealing ones.

Fruit stir-fry ice is relatively simpler; it’s just mixing various fruits with yogurt or milk, four or five types are enough. If too many are prepared and a certain flavor doesn’t sell well, the fruit could spoil, wasting money.

Unlike the iron-skewered skewers, stir-frying ice allows for a bit of a distraction, as one needs to wait for the liquid to solidify, giving Chef Marchello enough time to handle the snowflake ice.

If there’s a rush of orders, Jonathan and Lucas are on standby, Lucas is skilled at this, so there’s no need to worry.

As for himself, two types of crayfish, spicy and garlic, are enough. Oh, wait, pure spicy might not be friendly to foreigners, so just like last time, he’ll mix them into spicy garlic, making the flavor milder.

Crayfish doesn’t need constant monitoring; just stir-fry the base and let it stew for at least ten minutes, during which he can safely make knife-cut noodles.

He scribbled a simple plan for tomorrow on the paper, glanced over it several times, and felt something was missing.

He handed it to the two head chefs to take a look, and they seemed to immediately understand his point. This menu appears varied, covering main courses, meats, snacks, and desserts, but it does feel somewhat lacking.

"Drinks? It doesn’t seem to have any drinks. This ice jelly should be the one offered in the restaurant, right? Can it be made in a milk tea style?"

Nagishiro Sho was the first to notice the oversight, pointing at the ice jelly on the menu.

"Milk tea? Good idea, it’s a hit in Paris, queues are as long as today’s, and I’ve been wanting to learn how to make milk tea."

"Alright, let’s set it then, just add a few types of milk tea and that’ll be enough; adding more might overwhelm us."

Lin Chen felt a bit helpless at their blatant intent to learn his recipe secretly, but fortunately, milk tea is simple. Even if he doesn’t teach them, they could figure it out after a few attempts themselves.

And if worse comes to worst, they could go to a milk tea shop, order a few cups, watch others make it a few times and learn most of the process; it’s basic chef skills.

"Alright, let’s do a basic milk tea, and a trendy brown sugar one, and just a few fruit varieties will do."

Mentioning milk tea, he inevitably took out his stash of summer essentials—watermelon and coconut water.

A one-time exchange benefits for life, this Recipe Exchange Voucher is quite effective.

With the menu set, they immediately finalized the ingredient list and sent it off. If fast, they might get it in two or three hours; otherwise, they’d need to prep ingredients in the middle of the night.

While they were discussing the next day’s menu, a few scattered customers came by for food, but Jonathan, Lucas, and several girls handled them all, not interrupting their discussion at all.

After a while, John reappeared in front of them wearing a straw hat, pulling a foam box behind him.

"Chef, I brought some goods for you to check, just in case they’re not right, there’s time to make amends."

He bent down, opened the foam box lid, revealing the fresh green-black crayfish soaking in water inside.

These crayfish were of moderate size, not too small nor too large, indicating they probably weren’t fully grown, and some exceeded six centimeters.

According to the farm’s operational timeline, there should be a lot of mature crayfish unless they were introduced recently.

Grabbing a few randomly to inspect, Lin Chen nodded: "Yes, that’s them. I need bigger ones, but at least not smaller than four centimeters. Too small and there’s no meat. Six centimeters or more is considered mature."

"You can really make dishes with these?"

John took off his straw hat to fan himself, his forehead hair completely wet from sweat.

"I’ve only heard of restaurants using these for hand-held seafood, but never tasted it. Is it good?"

"Delicious, of course, delicious. You can treat it like mini lobsters. That’s what we call them in Great Xia, crayfish; the taste is similar, perfect as a snack with drinks."

"Snack with drinks?!"

John’s eyes suddenly brightened, swallowing his saliva, "Can I try them? Or I can buy a portion separately."

"No need, no need," Lin Chen waved his hand. "Here, leave this box first, catch larger ones, clean them thoroughly with a high-pressure water gun, then send them over."

"Once we finish business here, around six or seven, I’ll trial cook at the restaurant, you can just eat when you deliver then."

"Free? Isn’t that not right?"

John rubbed his hands, chuckled twice, "In that case, I won’t charge for this box. It’s stuff nobody wants anyway, so I can eat with peace of mind."

"Oh right, I also brought a fish over. See if you can make a dish out of it. That guy is just like these crayfish, a menace, can’t sell it, breeds quickly, eats anything, it’s giving me a headache."

Saying this, he lifted a small box from behind the foam box and opened it.

With just one look, Lin Chen instantly recognized the fish inside.

"Snakehead fish??"

"Great, it seems like you know the chef! This makes things much easier."

John exhaled deeply, indeed the chefs from Great Xia have talent. The two big culprits that plagued his farmland and pond, things he couldn’t sell even at low prices, can actually be turned into delicious dishes.

The two head chefs clearly knew these two ingredients, but weren’t familiar with them because they are barely seen in the market. They are more known for their notoriety as farm killers.

The Sakura People are skilled at handling sea fish. After all, coming from an Island Country, there’s a limited variety of river fish, and they tend to have a strong earthy taste, making them unsuitable for sushi.

Blackfish is even less suitable, with its meat being thick and chewy, and it’s omnivorous nature, coupled with its reputation for leaving no grass behind wherever it goes, long before dishes using it were developed, it was eradicated completely.

However, in the West, due to sparse population and expensive labor, coupled with the people’s laziness, now everyone uses high-tech farming with no effort to manage so much, resulting in these things becoming overabundant, with the government spending a fortune every year to clear them up, causing headaches.

Lin Chen nodded repeatedly: "Blackfish is a good thing, in Great Xia, it’s one of the most popular fish types, its meat is delicious and chewy, whether made into soup, stir-fried violently, or simply steamed, it’s top-notch."

"?????"

Marchello looked puzzled.

He had bought blackfish back to try, making it like salmon or cod steak, afterward, the texture of the fish was too thick, like eating pork, and it had many bones, making it troublesome to handle, not suitable for Western dishes.

Crayfish even more so, small in size, little meat, with cleaning trouble, though the taste’s similar to lobster, why not just eat lobster?

The most important is crayfish’s living environment is too filthy, just seeing it once makes one nauseous, generally, no one is willing to eat it.

He really wants to see how this guy turns these two ingredients into delicious dishes.

Similarly, Nagishiro Sho also appeared quite interested.

Perhaps because of being abroad for too long, he felt like his thinking gradually westernized, a bit unable to keep up with domestic developments, many new dishes for a long time he was unaware of, inspired by online sources.

However, no matter how the culinary world domestically develops, the range of ingredients is still those, just constantly innovating methods.

If he can learn blackfish and crayfish processing skills, and pass them back to the family, it would surely stir up a new trend domestically!

"I want this blackfish too, but I may not have time to sell it tomorrow, let’s see on Monday then. You can catch it first and find a pond to keep it, make sure it doesn’t die, the bigger the better."

"Alright, alright, if these things can also sell money, that would be fantastic!"

No wonder the leadership above specifically instructed him to breed these two creatures on the farm, turns out they knew they could sell money all along?

How else are they called businessmen, their vision is unmatched.

"Since there’s no place to store these two boxes of ingredients here, can we trouble Mr. John to help put them in the restaurant’s refrigerated storage when he returns?"

"Sure, sure, no problem, I’ll be back later, let’s start fishing now!"

John left happily, not only successfully dealing with two major troubles, but he could also add two more revenue streams, his affection for Lin Chen is skyrocketing.

Meanwhile, he also considered if there are any other not easily sellable species on the farm to have Chef Lin take a look.

Whether salaries go up this year solely depends on him!

The glaring sun slowly descended in the west. As time passed, visitors who attended the kite event gradually returned.

Maybe it’s due to the activities, many people’s faces are flushed, a look of vitality and vigor.

These visitors almost all ran into the food zone, and then rushed over to their side, not even glancing at the others.

The other vendors have mostly gotten used to it, looking over here with faces full of envy, only able to wait until the three are mostly sold out to get leftover customer traffic.

"Chef, Chef, are there still things to eat? Please give me four servings of Chicken Fillet, two Soka slices, two Octopus Balls! Chicken Fillets need two spicy and two cheese kinds."

"I want six servings of Chicken Fillet! Two of each of the others too, thank you!"

The diners who came are obviously afternoon return customers, immediately placing orders without hesitation.

Over ten guests came in a row, all heading straight to Lin Chen’s stall, while the two adjacent seemed extraordinarily quiet.

After another ten minutes, as the line grew, Chef Marchello’s side finally opened, with his Meat Sauce Cheese Fries still very popular among these foreign tourists.

Once Lin Chen’s stock sold out, the remaining diners had to reluctantly disperse to the two adjacent stalls.

"Chef Lin, are you setting up again tomorrow?"

"What delicious dishes are you selling tomorrow, selling fried Chicken Fillet again? It’s the best fried Chicken Fillet I’ve ever had in my life!"