Gourmet: Midnight Vending

Chapter 470 - 393: Lethal Level of Mala Spice

Once the street food category was decided, the next step was to prepare the ingredients.

Being in Jiangsu and Zhejiang has its perks; you can buy anything you want online, with fast shipping and high-quality brands ensuring reliability.

Chen Mo immediately placed an order online for ten boxes of rabbit heads, along with a large amount of ghost peppers. As for Er Jing Tiao and Bullet Head peppers, they were already in the condiment box on the food truck.

Each box contains 50 rabbit heads, so ten boxes make 500. Chen Mo felt he was being quite restrained, considering this quantity isn’t that much—just testing the waters.

Tofu Brain was easier since the necessary ingredients were mostly on the truck, and even if something was missing, it could be easily purchased from nearby supermarkets—all common ingredients.

"Rabbit head, rabbit head..."

Chen Mo looked at the recipe he got from the vending machine, "The seasoning here is quite fierce... I wonder how good Dongyang City’s hospital proctology department is. Let’s just make it first!"

Chen Mo was about to start when he was interrupted by a voice.

"Boss Xiao Chen!"

Cheng Xiuli was slightly out of breath, her chest heaving, seemingly from jogging over, and she was followed by three men.

"Boss Xiao Chen, these three are the chefs responsible for technical aspects in our company. Can they stay by your side today?"

"So soon?" Chen Mo thought they would at least arrive by tonight or tomorrow.

"These are the chefs who travel with me in case I find suitable street food somewhere and can’t immediately learn the techniques."

Chen Mo scrutinized the three men in front of him, increasingly impressed with Cheng Xiuli.

She really leaves no stone unturned, bringing along technical staff even for business trips.

"Alright, but I haven’t taught anyone before. I’ll do it while they watch, and if they have any questions, they can ask me."

Cheng Xiuli glanced at the three, "Any problems?"

"No problem," they answered in unison.

"We’ll start the stall at seven tonight and close at nine. We need to prepare now, so I’ll get busy. You guys feel free to do as you like," said Chen Mo, and he got down to work.

But with the understanding that he would answer any questions they had.

The three technical staff saw that the door of the food truck was closed, and from the outside, it was obvious that inside could only accommodate two people standing side by side, which would be a bit cramped during operation.

The three stayed outside but found that the food truck’s counter window was too high.

"Boss Xiao Chen, do you have stools?"

"Yes," Chen Mo handed out three stools.

The three men each took one and stood on them, allowing them to take a good look inside the food truck, particularly Chen Mo’s bustling work on the operation counter.

"Boss Xiao Chen, in Sichuan Cuisine seasoning, Er Jing Tiao pepper is spicy enough. Why do you use Ghost Pepper alongside Er Jing Tiao?"

Seeing Chen Mo look up, the man speaking nodded with a smile, "I’m Bao Shuai. I used to work in the back kitchen of Chuanbei Dining Hall in the Shu Region. After the company’s restructuring, I quit and now follow President Cheng to make street food."

Seeing that Chen Mo was making two Sichuan-style street foods today, Bao Shuai felt a bit proud and said to his two colleagues, "I’ll handle these two street foods."

In terms of cooking, Bao Shuai could complete it independently. After all, spicy rabbit heads and Emei Tofu Brain aren’t particularly mysterious snacks.

But since Cheng Xiuli brought them here to learn, it seemed this young boss must have had something extraordinary about him. Just looking at the choice of three different peppers was unlike anything Bao Shuai had seen before.

Chen Mo added the three peppers to a large pot of hot water in a one-to-one ratio. "Ghost Pepper to increase spiciness, Er Jing Tiao for color, and Bullet Head for fragrance."

For those who understood, just a brief explanation was enough.

Bao Shuai nodded slightly, jotting down what Chen Mo said in a notebook, while also noting down other details, like the process and techniques.

The three types of peppers boiled together, but Bao Shuai didn’t record how long they boiled.

Having worked in kitchens for many years, he knew that the length of boiling time wasn’t important. What mattered was the degree to which the ingredients were cooked. Sometimes dried peppers needed longer cooking, while moist peppers required less time.

After the water boiled, Chen Mo turned down the fire and added a deadly amount of red and green Sichuan peppercorns to the pot.

Besides Bao Shuai, the other two men couldn’t help but clench their buttocks.

"Zhang Peng, can this stuff even be eaten?"

"I doubt it. If you took a sip of this water now, you’d definitely end up in the hospital."

Zhang Peng, a Hu Jianren, specializes in various seafood snacks like fish balls, oyster cakes, and fish cakes.

The other man, Liu Rong, came from the Northeast but started working odd jobs when he was young and has been a chef all over the country, covering a wide range of cuisines.

The two of them were a bit intimidated by the deadly amount of peppers in the big iron pot, thinking this stuff couldn’t be eaten no matter how it was made. If you dared to eat it, you’d have a sore rear end!

Even Bao Shuai from Sichuan was a bit puzzled.

The numbness from red Sichuan peppercorns was fleeting and intense in flavor. The green Sichuan peppercorns were different; if added too much, the numbness on the tongue lingered, which was not tolerable for most people.