Gourmet: From a Stall in Northern Europe

Chapter 297 - 209: Hidden Top-tier Ingredients, Endless Crawfish

"Is this really that delicious??"

Marchello had no doubt about the truth of his words, and instantly developed a keen interest in this thing.

In Romantic Country’s cuisine, offal is used quite a bit, but clearly, this cow stomach isn’t one of them—they use another stomach more often.

Stuff like cow heart, cow blood, and calf pancreas are more popular dishes.

If he could learn more offal cooking techniques from Lin here, he could completely occupy this untapped market!

He wasn’t at all worried about the diners here not buying it. As long as the food is delicious, most people don’t care about what the ingredients are, let alone he has the Michelin three-star title, which is inherently persuasive.

"The scientific name of this is something you should all know, it’s called the omasum, in Great Xia we call it tripe."

Since they were talking about it, he decided to do an impromptu lesson, casually picking up a kitchen knife and slicing it open down the middle, revealing the layers of black, rag-like leaves inside.

"These leaves are what we call tripe. I wonder if you two have ever heard of hot pot?"

"Ah! It’s that cooking style that’s gotten really popular online recently, where you put a pot on the table and cook your own food, right?"

"Yes, I’ve tried it a few times, the taste is pretty good, but it’s a bit spicy."

"?"

Marchello turned his head and stared at Nagishiro Sho, realizing that he was the only one there who hadn’t tried it?

"I...haven’t tried it either."

"Me neither."

Luckily, four female waitresses raised their hands consecutively.

As the head chef’s gaze landed on him, Jonathan quickly shook his head: "Haven’t tried it, haven’t tried it."

"Phew..."

If even Jonathan had tried it, then he’d really have to do some self-reflection.

Lin Chen continued, "If you two are interested, we can have hot pot tomorrow night. It’s been a long time since we’ve had hot pot, and we’re really craving it."

"There are many varieties of hot pot in Great Xia: the clear broth copper pot in Beijing, the Chaoshan beef hot pot, congee-based hot pot, Sichuan and Chongqing’s butter hot pot, and so on. Among them, the butter hot pot from the Sichuan and Chongqing region, which Mr. Nagishiro said is a bit spicy, is the most famous."

"I won’t go into detail today. We’ll talk more while eating tomorrow. Just know that tripe is one of the most distinctive ingredients in hot pot."

As he said this, he directly tore off a piece of tripe to show them.

"A whole piece of tripe is quite large, typically cut into bite-sized pieces. It doesn’t require long cooking time; seven or eight seconds in boiling water is enough. Any longer and it will shrink and become tough."

"Perfectly cooked tripe should melt in your mouth, with a crisp, tender, and bouncy texture."

"There are small, short pieces of tripe around the edges that aren’t suitable for selling as a dish, so they can be sliced into strips along with the edge, creating another dish known as ’thousand-layer tripe,’ because it looks like it has thousands of layers."

"Cleaning tripe is quite troublesome because this is the cow’s storage and grinding area for grass, often leaving behind grass bits. It requires thorough and repeated washing."

"In our domestic slaughterhouses, it’s usually cleaned before delivery. Here, because there’s no habit of eating this, it might not be cleaned. It would be more work; rinse it several times in clean water, then scrub gently with flour or starch and rinse clean."

"The tripe needs further processing; soak it in edible alkali or baking soda mixed with water for fifteen minutes, then ice it. This will enhance the crisp texture of the tripe."

He didn’t demonstrate this step, just explained it verbally, and then left it to Lucas to wash on the side.

"The amount of tripe is quite large; even with so many of us, it might take us two days to finish it. Tonight we’ll make a dish, and use the rest for hot pot tomorrow. Tonight’s main attraction is still these two."

He casually picked up a small lobster and turned its belly upwards, using a small brush to scrub back and forth along its curved belly.

"The environment where small lobsters live is quite dirty, so they must be thoroughly cleaned before cooking. There are some tricks, similar to processing tripe. Add edible alkali, baking soda, and flour to water, soak for half an hour, and most of the dirt will fall off by itself."

"Besides the belly, the mouth area should also be scrubbed clean, and then comes the handling procedure."

As he explained, all seven people listened attentively, and some even picked them up from the tank for a closer look.

The amount of these things looks large, and the cleaning process will be lengthy and time-consuming. Unexpectedly, everyone would have to participate in the preparatory work, so they had to listen carefully.

Lin Chen put down the brush, picked up a kitchen pair of scissors, and aimed at the sharpest point of the lobster’s head.

"Don’t cut too much; although it looks small, it has everything a lobster has. The head contains the tomalley, which is the main source of flavor."

"Just cut a shallow triangle, and you’ll be able to see the gills, which need to be removed. After removing them, you’ll see the tomalley."

His actions were swift, with a snip and a lift, completing the head handling in the blink of an eye, making it look incredibly simple.

"Then the tail, use scissors to grip the middle fin and gently pull it out, this will bring out the shrimp vein, then cut along the back all the way to the head."

"Lastly, these small feet on the belly are usually not eaten because there’s no meat, but during cooking, these small legs absorb a lot of oil, making the taste overly greasy, so just cut them off, retaining only the two upper pincers."

"This is the completion of the processing. It looks simple, right? You’ll get better with practice, and soon you’ll be able to handle one in two or three seconds."

The crayfish in the pool had been pre-soaked by him with baking soda and food-grade alkaline, about ten minutes by now, which is why he introduced tripe first to stall for time.

"If all goes well, Mr. John will soon deliver a large volume of crayfish. Consider this a warm-up; let’s handle this pool first~"

Lin Chen squinted and smiled, grabbing the black fish and moving to the neighboring sink to begin processing.

Performing basic tasks like fish handling clearly didn’t interest the two Head Chefs. He also didn’t plan to let the helpers do it; compared to crayfish, fish is more difficult to handle, so it’s better managed by professional chefs.

After all, they won’t be selling black fish dishes tomorrow, so future problems can be dealt with in the future.

Seven people gathered around the pool to process crayfish, and within a few minutes, differences became apparent.

The three chefs moved fluidly; having watched Lin Chen handle it once, they quickly grasped the technique. After trying two or three, their speed increased remarkably.

Conversely, the four female waitstaff appeared awkward, working slower, and since the crayfish were alive, just stunned by low temperatures temporarily, they began to flutter their tiny claws when they came to, causing some annoyance.

Fortunately, these creatures don’t bleed, otherwise Helena and Lucinda might not cope mentally.

For Dais and Elsa, who’ve already experienced handling blood, this task posed no difficulty, just required more practice to master the skills.

Lin Chen expressionlessly raised the back of his chef’s knife to the fish head and smacked it twice, the black fish barely had time to recover from the chill before dying on the spot, blood pouring from its mouth.

Segment the fish head, remove the gills, gut the belly, fillet the fish, pull out the bones, and slice thinly.

The entire process was as fluid as running water; in just five minutes, the large black fish turned into a basin of fish heads and bones, and a basin of gossamer-thin fillets.

The paste treatment for fish fillets wasn’t special; the technique was identical to marinating meat slices.

Having just processed the black fish and set it to marinate, he began to cut and prepare ingredients for cooking later.

Meanwhile, Mr. John arrived punctually, delivering a pickup truck full of crayfish, weighing over a hundred pounds.

"Is this enough? If not, there’s more, plenty more; I didn’t bring more in case you couldn’t handle them all."

"Uh..."

Seeing the numerous foam boxes, those helping unload showed expressions of concern.

They expected a heavy workload but hadn’t anticipated this magnitude.

Today, Lin Chen’s stand sold nearly a hundred kilograms of chicken fillets, so for shell-on ingredients like crayfish, you’d expect double, wouldn’t you?

In other words, this truck’s load is just half the amount.

Is sleep even possible tonight?

"Haha, don’t worry, it’s not necessary to finish processing tonight. You can manage as you vend tomorrow; just reserve enough for one hour of operations initially."

"Oh, that’s a relief. Almost thought we’d be working overtime all night."

Working with Lin for so long, Dais felt she had unwittingly become a workaholic.

Though always a hard worker, she was not to the point where one minute of deserved rest would be wasted.

Ever since coming to Dieppe, overtime seemed routine.

"No need to trouble Mr. John tonight, perhaps deliver another batch in the morning? If business is good, we might need more in the afternoon; we’ll see then."

Mr. John, being the farm operator, theoretically only needed to answer to Wang Ziqin, forming merely a cooperative relationship with the restaurant, both parties being equals.

Such menial task of deliveries would usually fall to subordinates, yet he personally delivered and made two trips, genuinely giving Lin face.

"No problem, nothing’s impossible~"

Mr. John smiled, using his straw hat as a fan to cool the surface heat, "The number of visitors in recent days has been overwhelming; they lack basic knowledge of picking, which has been irritating me to death. This gives me a chance to slack off, hehe."

Everyone helped move the crayfish into the back kitchen, dumping box after box into pools for soaking with food-grade alkaline, baking soda, and flour.

This action caught Mr. John’s attention instantly, and he curiously leaned over.

"What’s the meaning, why soak them in these powders?"