Gourmet: Midnight Vending

Chapter 446 - 382: Pinnacle of Vegetarian Cuisine, Landscape Scroll (Part 3)

"Stir-fry mushrooms?"

"These aren’t just any mushrooms; they’re definitely the best mushrooms from the mountains! My goodness, where do you get mushrooms this time of year?"

"No, wait, it seems like it’s not just mushrooms..."

Indeed, someone said it right, this is definitely the aroma of mushrooms, and it’s the scent of many different kinds of mushrooms.

The fragrance of this thing when stir-fried is something probably only Yunnan people truly understand, it’s something you’d risk your life just to take a bite of!

After several seconds of repeated tossing and stir-frying, the oil in the pan was almost gone. Chen Mo continued the tossing action, his right hand skillfully ladling Clear Soup from a bucket, pouring it in just before the pan’s heat disappeared, then immediately covering it with a lid!

The intense heat quickly turned to medium, and in the blink of an eye, the bubbling sound could be heard from the pan, indicating that the Clear Soup just added had already started boiling.

Chen Mo took a breath.

With such a big iron pan and so many ingredients, achieving a perfect toss was impossible, it was just dragging the iron pan repeatedly along the stove, and even this was quite exhausting.

"Impressive."

Chen Mo turned to look at Hou Yao, "What are you talking about?"

"I’m saying you’re truly impressive! How did you come up with this, how does your brain work, how do you think of everything?"

Curious about Hou Yao, Chen Mo originally wanted to tell him that this experience was gained from making large pot dishes in Yangzhou, but seeing Hou Yao’s curious and shocked look made Chen Mo mischievous.

"Perhaps, isn’t there a possibility, that the less someone knows about cooking, the more ideas they can come up with?"

Hou Yao widened his eyes and said nothing.

He pondered that it might actually be true, people like him have their thinking solidified by what they learned when young.

But no matter what, Chen Mo’s operation was indeed stunning, and after a minute of bubbling, Chen Mo lifted the lid.

Guests eagerly waiting to eat the tempting dish noticed that Chen Mo didn’t serve them the dish from the pan onto their plates.

Instead, he poured all the dish into a large colander to drain.

"What the heck’s going on? It smells so good, why drain all the soup? Let me check it out."

Wang Heng, holding a bowl, ran over expectantly, thinking to himself that the aroma was distinctly that of mushrooms, wasting such a fragrant thing was truly a shame; even a bowl of mushroom soup would be nice!

When he came over, he only saw the drained broth mixed with other greases and stocks from previous cooking in another big basin, clearly unfit to drink, which was somewhat regrettable.

However, Wang Heng had no intention of returning.

The dishes on the table were all gone, going back was pointless, he might as well stay here to watch Chen Mo cook.

At this moment, Chen Mo gave Hou Yao a look, "Are you still daydreaming? It’s time to lend a hand!"

"Huh? Oh, right." Hou Yao snapped out of his daze, "Everyone, hurry up, each responsible for two plates."

Everyone was a Cantonese chef, they knew exactly what to do at this stage.

The reason why Dinghu Shangsu is top-notch is not only because of its complex choice of ingredients but also the meticulous plating.

After all, with so many ingredients of different colors, making it look good requires some finesse, but fortunately, the ancestors already provided guidance, and the descendants just follow suit.

"The first batch, three pieces of each dish, arranged in a circle," Chen Mo casually instructed.

Including him, Hou Yao, and the helpers, a total of ten people gathered around the large colander, picking the dishes from it.

Wang Heng, standing outside the operation platform, was getting anxious, "What are you doing, what are you surrounding it for?"

The people inside didn’t acknowledge him, only hearing Chen Mo speak from time to time.

"Got the white mushrooms, flower mushrooms! Now three pieces of bamboo fungus, fresh mushrooms, and yellow fungus, right, lotus seeds, mushroom shoots, elm ears. Everyone got it right?"

"I’ve got two portions ready."

"Stacked properly."

"Just filled the circle, OK!"

Just listening to this made Wang Heng feel a bit astonished, what kind of dish is this with so many ingredients, and apart from mushrooms and lotus seeds, he seemed not to have heard of most of them?

"For the remaining ingredients, three pieces each, pile them up."

This was simpler, not needing intentional placement, just picking other remaining types of ingredients to stack in the center, forming a small hill.

When everyone dispersed, Wang Heng looked at the place they had surrounded, seeing twenty white plates neatly arranged.

He rubbed his eyes, hardly believing it.

That was...

The deep brown of the winter mushrooms in the plate, the moon-white of the bamboo fungus, the pale yellow of the fresh bamboo shoots, and so on...

From a distance, the colors were distinctly layered, various ingredients orderly placed, vaguely presenting an indescribable structural aesthetic like a three-dimensional landscape painting!

Without touching it, one already felt a sense of awe.

Wang Heng gulped a few times.

With such a dish, who would bear to start eating!